It has been well said, that “Plutarch’s Lives is the book for those who can nobly think and dare and do.”

The Lost and Found; or Life among the Poor. By SAMUEL B. HALLIDAY.  New York:  Blakeman & Mason. 1859.

It has been asserted—­most emphatically by those who have most fairly tried it—­that no house was ever built large enough for two families to live in decently and comfortably.  Yet in this present year of grace, 1859, half a million of men and women—­two-thirds of the population of New York—­are compelled, by reason of their own poverty and the avarice of certain capitalists, to live in what are technically known as “tenement-houses,” or, more pertinently, “barracks,”—­hulks of brick, put up by Shylocks anxious for twenty per cent., and lived in—­God knows how—­by from four to ninety-four families each.  Of 115,986 families residing in the city of New York, only 15,990 are able to enjoy the luxury of an independent home; 14,362 other families live in comparative comfort, two in a house; 4,416 buildings contain three families each, and yet do not come under the head of tenements; and the 11,965 dwelling-houses which remain are the homes of 72,386 families, being an average of seven families, or thirty-five souls to each house!

But this is only an average.  In the eleventh ward, 113 rear houses (houses built on the backs of deep lots, and separated only by a narrow and necessarily dark and filthy court from the front houses, which are also “barracks,”) contain 1,653 families, or nearly 15 families or 70 souls each; 24 others contain 407 families, being an average of 80 souls to each; and in another ward, 72 such houses contain no less than 19 families or 95 souls each!

This seems shocking.  But this is by no means the worst!  There are 580 tenement-houses in New York which contain, by actual count, 10,933 families, or about 85 persons each; 193 others, which accommodate 111 persons each; 71 others, which cover 140 each; and, finally, 29—­these must be the most profitable!—­which have a total population of no less than 5,449 souls, or 187 to each house!

That part of Fifth Avenue which holds the chief part of the wealth and fashion of New York has an extent of about two miles, or, counting both sides of the street, four miles.  These four miles of stately palaces are occupied by four hundred families; while a single block of tenement-houses, not two hundred yards out of Fifth Avenue, contains no less than seven hundred families, or 3,500 souls!  Seven such blocks, Mr. Halliday pertinently remarks, would contain more people than the city of Hartford, which covers an area of several miles square.

Such astounding facts as these the industrious Buckle of the year 3000, intent upon a history of our American civilization, will quote to the croakers of that day as samples of our nineteenth-century barbarism.

“But,” some one may object, “if the houses were comfortably arranged, and land was really scarce, after all, these people were not so badly off.”