Stephen Smith
speaker
1,482 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 23 Jul
Stephen Smith’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
The noxious effluvia always present in these basements are of a sickening character.
Many of the cellars are occupied by two or three families, a number are also occupied as lodging houses accommodating friends and
from twenty to thirty lodgers.
One near the corner of Elm and Worth Street is now fifteen or sixteen feet below the level of the street, the street having been raised ten feet.
The lodging housekeeper complained to the inspector that her business had fallen off some since the street was raised.
As might be expected, the sickness rate is very high rheumatic disease, fever, thromus diseases, cholera, infantom, etc., etc., running riot among the population.
Indeed, in nearly every basement, disease of some kind
Kind has been found peculiarly prevalent and fatal.
Another inspector says, at number blank, West 16th Street, two families in which are thirteen persons occupy the basement.
It is so dark that ordinary type can be seen with difficulty.
In the other case, the people were healthy before entering the basement, since, however, they have been ill.
The
Mother has thisses.
Of twenty four cellars, note of which has been made, four only were in good sanitary condition.
The rest were more or less filthy, some indescribably so.
One contained urine, bones, and soakage from the privy.
The inspector of the eighteenth ward writes there are a few cellars so dark that one cannot see to read in them unless by artificial light, except for a few hours in the day by sitting close to the window, and there are many basement rooms into whose gloomy recesses not a single direct ray from the sun ever shone.
The latter are, as a rule, by half their depth below the level of the street.
Dark and damp, with very little chance for circulation of air, it would be difficult to imagine a human being more completely beyond reach of sanitary provisions, and when we discover that four large families often crowd this subterranean floor, no words are needed to show their condition deplorable.
That a generally impaired vitality is promoted by living in this unnatural way, a nameless ever new disease, there can be no question.
Showing 521–540 of 1,482 · page 27 of 75
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