Photograph of New York by Wm. Penniman

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 13, 1872

Photograph of New York.

By Wm. Penniman

The following photograph of New York, taken this year, is startling, and should cause those who believe in the speedy conversion of the world to pause and think. This is the photograph for 1872; what will it be (if time lasts) in 1882, as crime is increasing in an alarming ratio.

“The world stands aghast at the spectacle of a Nero fiddling as Rome burns; but is the heartlessness of thousands any less in this age? In Chicago, gambling saloons have increased since the fire almost twofold; the whisky saloon and house of degradation in almost like proportion. The prevailing religious apathy stands out in marked contrast with the crowded haunts of fashion and the whirl of licensed vice and indulgence.”

The “religious apathy,” of the so-called Christian world is astonishing. It can look upon this swelling flood of wickedness with calmness, and makes little or no effective effort to stay its progress. Corruption and demoralization, deep and damning, in both church and state, is the “order of the day.” Says a writer in the American Messenger of 1871, “There seems almost no position so sacred, no office so dignified, as to escape the polluting touch of dishonesty.

Wm. Penniman.

This city contains about a thirty-eighth part of the whole population of the Union, and there are thirty-two States of the Union, which have a less number of inhabitants than are living within ten miles of this city. The growth of New York is enormous. In 1800, it had a population of 60,000, in 1871, nearly a million.

DESTITUTION AND DIFFICULTIES.

There are 20,000 more women than men in New York, and consequently 20,000 women who can never be married, unless they emigrate.

There are 70,000 children who attend no school, and of these 30,000 are vagrants. It is from this street-nursery that the criminals are constantly recruited. A great deal is being done for these children, but a great deal more must be done. The Sunday-school is a most important agency, but it meets with great difficulty on account of the mixed character of the population. There are more Irish in New York than in Belfast, and more Jews than in all Palestine.

TENEMENT HOUSES.

In 15,000 houses, there is an average of 7 families to each house. The seventeenth ward has one fortieth of the area of the city, and one tenth of the population—4,000 houses in it contain 95,000 inhabitants, of whom 14,000 are children. It has the great honor of being the banner-ward for children.

In the eleventh ward, the population is at the rate of 290,000 to the square mile, giving sixteen square yards to each. In no other city is the population so closely packed. One house in the sixth ward contains 360 persons; 97 men, 90 women, and 212 children, were found in one house 25x100 feet. Another house had 267 persons. In many rooms of 8x10 or 10x12 there are living from 5 to 7 adults of both sexes. There is a cellar population of 20,000, and of these cellars 400 are wholly below the level of the street, with neither light nor air. He had visited them, and had been almost suffocated and nauseated in a very short time. In one room, 10x14, 25 men and women slept.

THE DEVIL'S AGENCIES.

Other powerful agencies of the devil have to be encountered. There are 7,000 rumsellers, and but 700 ministers and missionaries! The saloons of this city, placed in a row, would extend eleven miles. Growing mainly out of this traffic there were 87,000 arrests in the year, of which ten per cent were for crimes, and 15,000 were women.

LICENTIOUSNESS.

The police return 2,100 abandoned women, which is far below the mark. There are 6,000 bad houses, of which 100 are first class, and several are dance and music saloons, whose business it is to allure to destruction.

AMUSEMENTS.

Man must have amusement and recreation, and he (Mr. M.) enjoyed them as much as anybody, but he did not let the devil take the management of his amusements. There are seventy theaters and theatrical saloons, frequented by fifty thousand respectable supporters, and two hundred thousand of the lower class. Seven millions are expended annually in these amusements, while 40,000 men and women know not where or how to get their next meal.

LICENTIOUS LITERATURE.

There are a dozen papers in the city of New York that are doing more to ruin souls than all the Bibles are saving. They vitiate the whole nature, and leave their readers an easy prey to the most shocking vices and crimes.

CONCLUSION.

There are 380 Protestant churches, with seats for 350,000, but a great number of these are of no use to the masses, and there are not 200,000 people in these churches on any one Sunday.

There is more spent in New York in drink, which only does evil, than all that is spent in moral and religious efforts, not only in the city but in the country; more on actors and actresses than on ministers and missionaries.

The above facts so vividly portrayed by Mr. Mingins, apply with more or less force to all our great cities; and the general tendencies are on the increase in smaller communities. The great problem of the age is “How to grapple with the social and religious condition of the masses that crowd into the great commercial centers?”

The appearance has in the past been that the priest and the Levite were inclined to pass by on the other side; but we hail with increasing satisfaction the fact that some of the most earnest and intelligent of the Christian workers of our land are directing attention to this vital question.