THE CITY THAT WAS

PUBLIC SCHOOL ADJOINING SLAUGHTER-PEN, 1865

THE CITY THAT WAS

By STEPHEN SMITH, A. M., M. D., LL. D.

Commissioner of the Metropolitan Board of Health, 1868–1870;
Commissioner of the Board of Health of New York, 1870–1875

Published by FRANK ALLABEN
Number Three West Forty-Second Street, New York

Copyright, 1911, by Frank Allaben

To the Memory of
Dorman Bridgman Eaton

My thanks are due especially to Mr. FrankAllaben and my son, Mr. Sidney Smith, for theirservice in carrying this book through the press.

Stephen Smith.

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The story of a great life-saving social revolution,the mightiest in the nineteenth century and oneof the most momentous in the history of civilization,is told here for the first time. It is told from thestandpoint of the transformation of the City of NewYork, by a chief actor in the event.

Only by forcing ourselves into a receptive moodcan we of the present credit the half of what is setbefore us concerning The City That Was. Theshocked imagination rebels. It seeks relief in assumingthat even a trained expert, a contemporaneouswitness and investigator of the conditions described,in writing after they have passed away, unconsciouslyyields to the historian’s temptation to throw the pastinto dramatic relief by starting exaggerations.

Dr. Smith, however, leaves us no room for doubt.The appalling chapter in which he lays bare the NewYork of 1864 is a contemporaneous document. It is aphysician’s report of a systematic medical inspectionof New York in that year, as delivered before a LegislativeCommittee a few months later by the very physicianwho had directed the inspection.

Nevertheless, The City That Was is not New Yorkalone. She is but a type. Her condition, with variations,may be multiplied, during the early years ofthe nineteenth century, by the total of the cities,towns, and villages in the world. In the work ofregeneration some of these anticipated her. Others,including all throughout the territory of the UnitedStates, were aroused through her agitation and inspiredby her example.

As a student of local history, the writer thoughthimself familiar with the many phases of the growthof New York; but the condition of the City as lateas the period of our Civil War, as here depicted,8startled him as might a revelation. He believes thatno seriously minded man or woman can afford toignore this volume. We ow