Tenement Tragedies and the Johnstown Mine Disaster
WRITING in The Independent about “Tenement Tragedies,” which are a characteristic feature of life in the great cities, the Rev. David M. Steele says that “more than enough people to form the population of the second largest city” in the State of New York live in the “double decker” type of tenement in New York City, “where from twenty to thirty families enter by one doorway from the street, and where sixty odd children fight, scratch, and scramble up and down a single stairway.” Is it any wonder that criminals are on the increase in this country? WHAT appears to be the most appalling calamity in the history of mining disasters in this country, is reported from Johnstown, Pa., the scene of the great flood in May, 1889. An explosion occurring from some unknown cause took place in the mine owned by the Cambria Steel Company, July 10, the result being that over four hundred men, according to present estimates, met death in the mine from the shock or from the deadly gases generated by the explosion. Thus the record of wholesale loss of life from unusual catastrophes goes on, and we have another reminder of the insecurity of human life in these last days.