Nyc

ating, and a closet called a bed room. But few of the rooms are properly ventilated. The sun never shines in at the windows, and if the sky is overcast the rooms are so dark as to need artificial light. The whole house is dirty, and is filled with the mingled odors from the cooking-stoves and the sinks. In the winter the rooms are kept too close by the stoves, and in the summer the natural heat is made tenfold greater by the fires for cooking and washing. Pass these houses on a hot night, and you will see the streets in front of them filled with the occupants, and every window choked up with human heads, all panting and praying for relief and fresh air. Sometimes the families living in the close rooms we have described, take "boarders," who pay a part of the expenses of the "establishment." Formerly the occupants of these buildings emptied their filth and refuse matter into the public streets, which in these quarters were simply horrible to behold; but of late years, the police, by compelling a rigid observance of the sanitary laws, have greatly improved the condition of the houses and streets, and consequently the health of the people. The reader must not suppose the house we have described is a solitary instance. There are many single blocks of dwellings containing twice the number of families residing on Fifth Avenue, on both sides of that street, from Washington Square to the Park, or than a continuous row of dwellings similar to those on Fifth Avenue, three or four miles in length. There is a multitude of these squares, any of which contains a larger population than the whole city of Hartford, Connecticut which covers an area of seven miles. [Footnote: Annual Encyclopaedia, 1861] There is one single house in the city which contains twelve hundred inhabitants. FALLEN FORTUNES. You will see all classes of people in these tenement houses, and, amongst others, persons who have known wealth and comfort. Alas! that it should be so. You will see them stealing along quickly and noiselessly, avoiding the other inmates with an aversion they cannot conceal, and as if they fear to be recognized by some one who knew them in their better days. They live entirely to themselves, suffering more than those who have been used to poverty. If they can get work, they take it gladly and labor faithfully. If unable to procure it, they suffer, and often starve in silence. Only when driven by the direst necessity do they seek aid from charitable persons or associations. There are many of these men and women, persons of worth and refinement, in the great city, whose poverty and sufferings are known only to the eye that sees all things. A ROMANCE OF A CHIGNON. Many a fine lady, as she pauses in her toilette to admire the effect of the beautiful locks, for which she is indebted to her wealth rather than to nature, would shrink in horror from the glittering coils, could she know their whole story. We will tell it. A poor sewing girl, whose only riches consisted of a "wealth of hair," died in a tenement house in one of the most wretched quarters of the city. Her life had been a fearful struggle against want and temptation, and death was a relief to her. She died alone, in her miserable home, with no one to minister to her last wants. Her death became known to the inmates of the house, who notified the city authorities. Preparations were made to lay the body in the "Potter's field," and until these were completed it was left in the silence and loneliness of the chamber which had witnessed its mortal sufferings. While it lay there, the door was noiselessly opened, and a man, roughly dressed, with his face partly concealed, entered, glancing around carefully to see if he was noticed. Then closing the door quickly, he approached the body, and produced a pair of large shears; lifting the lifeless form roughly with one hand, with the other he severed the long tresses quickly from the cold head, and gathering them up, departed as noiselessly as he had come, taking with him the only source of happiness the dead woman had ever possessed. The braid was sold for a mere trifle to a fashionable hair-dresser, who asked no questions concerning it, and when it was