Two hundred and twenty-five persons were lodged in this dark, mysterious labyrinth.

In another house there were five hundred and fifty people lodged in seventy-five rooms.

Possibly the owners of tenement houses in our large cities, who crowd men and women into a narrow space and through unpitying agents reap a rich harvest regardless of the sufferings of their fellow-beings, have been taking lessons from the landlords of Chinatown.

I said to myself, as I went to and fro through these narrow passages, dimly lighted with a lamp, and the lights were few and far between, if a fire should break out, at midnight, when all are wrapt in slumber, what a holocaust would be here! And whose would the sin and the shame be?
There are good and ample fire-appliances for the protection of the city, but the poor Chinamen hemmed in, as in a dark prison-house, would surely be suffocated by smoke or be consumed in the flames.

When the old theatre was burned down, twenty-five men, and probably more, perished, although there were means of escape from this building.