Cambridge sketches
Estelle M. H. Merrill, Ed.

[252] make room for fine houses along the river — a river no longer defiled by sewage as now, but pure and clear to its very depths! What, with this change in Mt. Auburn street, will then become of its poor tenants? There will be a pressing, a crying need of good tenement houses. Even now it is a most difficult thing for a working-man to house his family in decent quarters within his means, and not too far from his work. When model tenements are built, let them be placed as near as possible to other tenement-house districts, since the fact that the laboring classes have chosen them shows their adaptability to their wants.

It is a safe thing to do financially, to lease an old tenement house. Shovel out the accumulated dirt and rubbish, cut windows in dark bedrooms, let light upon dark stairways, scrape the layers of dingy papers from the walls. Then whitewash, scour, paint, repair, have windows that will open and doors that will shut. Put good sinks with good faucets, and other conveniences into each entry. Have the cellar clean and wholesome, ventilated and whitewashed, with coal bins and proper receptacles for ashes and garbage. Put railings and posts for clothes lines on the roof, and pulleys, for the tenants of the first floor only, on the fences and walls of the yard. Since it is hard to carry coal and other necessaries of life up more than three flights of stairs, it is not best to have your model tenement more than four stories high.

Have strict rules as to decency, cleanliness and prompt payment of rent-always in advance-and enforce them. Let your tenants know that they will be protected from vice and drunkenness; that no amount of money can keep a vile person within your walls; that this house is one where a sober