tenement bakeshops was forbidden. The Chief of the Fire Department, in
his testimony before the commission, said that "tenements are erected
mainly with a view of returning a large income for the amount of capital
invested. It is only after a fire in which great loss of life occurs
that any interest whatever is taken in the safety of the occupants." The
Superintendent of Buildings, after such a fire in March, 1896, said that
there were thousands of tenement firetraps in the city. My reporter's
notebook bears witness to the correctness of his statement, and it has
many blank leaves that are waiting to be put to that use yet. The
reckoning for eleven years showed that, of 35,844 fires in New York,
53.18 per cent were in tenement houses, though they were only a little
more than 31 per cent of all the buildings, and that 177 occupants were
killed, 523 maimed, and 625 rescued by the firemen. Their rescue cost
the lives of three of these brave men, and 453 were injured in the
effort. And when all that is said, not the half is told. A fire in the
night in one of those human beehives, with its terror and woe, is one of
the things that live in the recollection ever after as a terrible
nightmare. The fire-chief thought that every tenement house should be
fireproof, but he warned the commission that such a proposition would
"meet with strong opposition from the different interests, should
legislation be requested." He was right. It is purely a question of the
builder's profits. Up to date we have rescued the first floor from him.
That must be fireproof. We shall get the whole structure yet if we pull
long enough and hard enough, as we will.

Here is a block of tenements inhabited by poor Jews. Most of the Jews
who live over here are poor; and the poorer they are, the higher rent do
they pay, and the more do they crowd to make it up between them. "The
destruction of the poor is their poverty." It is only the old story in a
new setting. The slum landlord's profits were always the highest. He
spends nothing for repairs, and lays the blame on the tenant. The
"district leader" saves him, when Tammany is at the helm, unless he is
on the wrong side of the political fence, in which case the Sanitary
Code comes handy, to chase him into camp. A big "order" on his house is
a very effective way of making a tenement-house landlord discern
political truth on the eve of an important election. Just before the
election which put Theodore Roosevel