Eaton, Dorman B. (Dorman Bridgman), 1823-1899; Public health -- New York (State) -- New York; Sanitation -- New York (State) -- New York
The Inspector of the Seventeenth Ward reports: “The privies of East
Eleventh Street, rear, are beneath the floored alley-way leading to the
building. Large holes in this floor allow ocular inspection from above,
and admit rain and dirt. These nuisances are almost always overflowing,
and the passage leading to them is full of fæcal matter. It would seem
impossible for human beings to create or endure such vileness. The
cellar is used by children and others as a privy; the foul air there
seems never to change.”
The Inspector of the Sixteenth Ward says: “The privies form one end of
the chief features of insalubrity. Nearly all of them are too small in
size and too few in number, and without ventilation or seat-covers.
About twelve were found locked securely, and on procuring the key
and inspecting the privy, such masses of human excrements were found
on the seats and floors as would justify the locking of the door to
protect unwary persons from injury. Occupants of rear buildings are the
principal sufferers from this insalubrity. The proximity of privies
is in some cases eight feet from the windows of rear houses; the odor
in these is, especially at night, intolerable. Instances of the kind
are to be found at Nos. --, -- and -- West Seventeenth Street, and
others. They are also too few in number; for example, No. -- West
Nineteenth Street, where in the front and rear buildings more than one
hundred persons live who have one common privy, with a single partition
dividing it, and but four seats in all. Twenty-five persons are
expected to use one seat-opening.”
The Inspector of the Twentieth Ward says: “During my inspection I
reported a number which were filled, and at the same time in such
need of repair as to hazard the lives of those who entered them. The
proximity of these places to the houses in many cases is a fact to
which I would call your attention. One instance of this kind I may
state: At a house in Fortieth Street, between Broadway and Seventh
Avenue, the privy is situated about 10 feet from the door, and there is
another on a line 10 feet from the first, and still another within 10
feet of the last mentioned, making three privies within 30 feet, and
two of these belong to houses fronting on Broadway. The offensive odor
arising from these places contaminates the air of the houses in the
vicinity. This house, in Fortieth Street, is actually unfit to live in.
At the time of my inspection the noxious gases from these privies were
strongly perceptible in every part of the house.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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