FACTORY 'ANDS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10753, 26 April 1913, Page 6

FACTORY 'ANDS.

Hew they Fare in Nov York,

Let me tell you something about how the other half lives at Little Falls (writes Helen Schloss, a tra,ined nurse, in the New York "World").

As thp train rolls into the Little Falls station one is confronted with a liugo mill which foams and bustles all day and night. On the north side of the mill, crossing the railroad track, is a street, with a car lino running: through it, inhabited by foreigners, ana is perhaps a little better than the streets and houses on the extreme south side of the town, where the slums are quite as bad as any in New York City. Social investigation, interest in "the other half,'"'" was unknown prior to the tuberculosis exhibit that stirred the complacent people from their lethargy, and a club of well-meaning, good ladies raised money and HTRKD A VJSXTI.VG TUBERCT'LOSIS NURSE. The people on the south side are mill or factory hands, Italians, Poles, Slars and Hungarians. Each nationality thinks that his particular creed and country is better than any other. They clan together, and one will find twenty-fir© or thirty living in one house. One room accommodates from five to .ten people, and often as many as fifteen. The people working at night occupy the same beds as the people who work in the daytime : consequently the rooms are never aired. The landlord or agent who comes for the rent knows of this congestion, but when approached by the nurse on the subject the only answer is that those foreigners will crowd in and nothing can be done-with them. If "those foreigners " did not crowd in one house as they do it would be impossible for the manufacturers to employ such cheap labour. The price for a sleeping bunk, with use.of the kitchen, is 3dol a month. The tenant gets nothing for his 3dol but just a place to throw his weary body upon. He never gets a bath nor any privacy where he may . wash decently. In my rounds of visits I used to see wearv men lying on the beds with their work clothes, a-s dirty as when they came from the mills. The cost of food is high and there is no board of health to look after its purity. A short time ago there wxre about fifty cases of PTOMAINE rOfSOXLW FROM: CHKESE. Toilets r.re built in cellars, without ventilation and adequate sewerage, and there are many open vaults—which is against the law. One row of houses is on a creek, into which is discharged all the waste of the mills and all the sewerage of the town, in these houses the toilets are built over the creek. "\VKnn qefced why they live in such filthy places their answer is "Xo understand.''

Tuberculosis is very prevalent,, and the second largest death-rate in the State ■ roni that disease is here, the statistics show. It was not until very recently that the health officer took up the matter ol : fumigating houses; but these houses are so old that it would be impossible to kill the genus. There are old houses alongside the Bnrge Canal which are absolutely nninhalvi table, Imt which rent for about ten dollars a month. The ceilings leak, the sharp wind blows through the cracks, vhe floors are broken, and only one or two rooms can be occupied. The landlord owns a. textile mill, arid also makes fleece-lined gloves, the work being done in some of the worst tenements. Not long ago there was scarlet fever in one of these tenements. The gloves were not allowed to leave the house until tho quarantiue was off, but they

SHOULD HAVE BEES JSESTROTKD TXSTKAD. 'Hie woman took care of her husband suffering with scarlet fever, and sewed gicvcs in the room in between. She did not oven know how to wash her hands after attending the patient.

This tenement was formerly a Methodist church. There wore many deaths from tuberculosis in it ; during'the five months of my stay at Little Falls the nurse, discovered three cases of tuberculosis.

The bedrooms in some of these tenements are mere boxes, unventilated and so dark that they have to burn a lamp night and day. There are threostorey and four-storey tenement houses without fire-escapes. Life is cheap in Little Falls. Apparently there is not enough Christianity and humanity in

Little Falls to support o philanthropic movement.