splendor is piled upon splendor. In Mrs. William Astor's
spacious ball-room and picture gallery, balls have been given, each
costing, it is said, $100,000. In cream and gold the picture gallery
spreads; the walls are profuse with costly paintings, and at one end is
a gallery in wrought iron where musicians give out melody on festive
occasions. The dining rooms of these houses are of an immensity.
Embellished in old oak incrusted with gold, their walls are covered with
antique tapestries set in huge oak framework with margins thick with
gold. Upon the diners a luxurious ceiling looks down, a blaze of color
upon black oak set off by masses of gold borders. Directly above the
center of the table are painted garlands of flowers and clusters of
fruit. In the hub of this representation is Mrs. Astor's monogram in
letters of gold. From the massive hall, with its reproductions of
paintings of Marie Antoinette and other old French court characters, its
statuary, costly vases and draperies, a wide marble stairway curves
gracefully upstairs. To dwell upon all of the luxurious aspects of these
residences would compel an extended series of details. In both of the
residences every room is a thing of magnificence.

PROXIMITY OF PALACES AND POVERTY.

From these palaces it is but a step, as it were, to gaunt neighborhoods
where great parts of the population are crowded in the most inhuman way
into wretched tenement houses. It is an undeniable fact that more than
fifty blocks on Manhattan Island--each of which blocks is not much
larger than the space covered by the Astor mansions--have each a teeming
population of from 3,000 to 4,000 persons. In each of several blocks
6,000 persons are congested. In 1855, when conditions were thought bad
enough, 417,476 inhabitants were crowded into the section south of
Fourteenth street; but in 1907 this district contained fully 750,000
population. Forty years ago the lower sections only of Manhattan were
overcrowded, but now the density of congestion has spread to all parts
of Manhattan, and to parts of the Bronx and Brooklyn. On an area of two
hundred acres in certain parts of New York City not less than 200,000
people exist. It is not uncommon to find eighteen men, women, and
children, driven to it by necessity, sleeping in three small,
suffocating rooms.

[Illustration: THE ASTOR MANSIONS IN NEW YORK CITY.
Occupied by the Late Mrs. William Astor and by John Jacob Astor.]

But the New York City