It is good to know that the day is coming when he will have a rival. Model saloons may never be more than a dream in New York, but even now the first of a number of "social halls" is being planned by Miss Lillian Wald of the Nurses' Settlement and her co-workers that shall give the East Side the chance to eat and dance and make merry without the stigma of the bar upon it all. The first of the buildings will be opened within a year.

As to this boss, of whom we hear so much, what manner of man is he? That depends on how you look at him. I have one in mind, a district boss, whom you would accept instantly as a type if I were to mention his name, which I shall not do for a reason which I fear will shock you: he and I are friends. In his private capacity I have real regard for him. As a politician and a boss I have none at all. I am aware that this is taking low ground in a discussion of this kind, but perhaps the reader will better understand the relations of his "district" to him, if I let him into mine. There is no political bond between us, of either district or party, just the reverse. It is purely personal. He was once a police justice,—at that time he kept a saloon,—and I have known few with more common sense, which happens to be the one quality especially needed in that office. Up to the point where politics came in I could depend upon him entirely. At that point he let me know bluntly that he was in the habit of running his district to suit himself. The way he did it brought him under the just accusation of being guilty of every kind of rascality known to politics. When next our paths would cross each other, it would very likely be on some errand of mercy, to which his feet were always swift. I recall the distress of a dear and gentle lady at whose table I once took his part. She could not believe that there was any good in him; what he did must be done for effect. Some time after that she wrote, asking me to look after an East Side family that was in great trouble. It was during the severe cold spell of the winter of 1898, and there was need of haste. I went over at once; but although I had lost no time, I found my friend the boss ahead of me. It was a real pleasure to me to be able to report to my correspondent that he had seen to their comfort, and to add that it was unpolitical charity altogether. The family was that of a Jewish widow with a lot of little children. He is a Roman Catholic. There was not even a potential vote in the house, the children being all girls. They were not in his district, to boot; and as for effect, he was rather shamefaced at my catching him at it. I do not believe that a soul has ever heard of the case from him to this day.

My friend is a Tammany boss, and I shall not be accused of partiality for him on that account. During that same cold spell a politician of the other camp came into my office and gave me a hundred dollars to spend as I saw fit among the poor. His district was miles up-town, and he was most unwilling to disclose his identity, stipulating in the end that no one but I should know where the money came from. He was not seeking notoriety. The plight of the suffering had appealed to him, and he wanted to help where he could, that was all.

Now, I have not the least desire to glorify the boss in this. He is not glorious to me. He is simply human. Often enough he is a coarse and brutal fellow, in his morals as in his politics. Again, he may have some very engaging personal traits that bind his friends to him with the closest of ties. The poor man sees the friend, the charity, the power that is able and ready to help him in need; is it any wonder that he overlooks the source of this power, this plenty,—that he forgets the robbery in the robber who is "good to the poor"? Anyhow, if anybody got robbed, it was "the rich." With the present ethical standards of the slum, it is easy to construct a scheme of social justice out of it that is very comforting all round, even to the boss himself, though he is in need of no sympathy or excuse. "Politics," he will tell me in his philosophic moods, "is a game for profit. The city foots the bills." Patriotism means to him working for the ticket that shall bring more profit.

"I regard," he says, lighting his cigar, "a repeater as a shade off a murderer, but you are obliged to admit that in my trade he is a necessary evil." I am not obliged to do anything of the kind, but I can understand his way of looking at it. He simply has no political conscience. He has gratitude, loyalty to a friend,—that is part of his stock in trade,—fighting blood, plenty of it, all the good qualities of the savage; nothing more. And a savage he is, politically, with no soul above the dross. He would not rob a neighbor for the world; but he will steal from the city—though he does not call it by that name—without a tremor, and count it a good mark. When I tell him that, he waves his hand toward Wall Street as representative of the business community, and toward the office of his neighbor, the padrone, as representative of the railroads, and says with a laugh, "Don't they all do it?"

The boss believes in himself. It is one of his strong points. And he has experience to back him. In the fall of 1894 we shook off boss rule in New York, and set up housekeeping for ourselves. We kept it up three years, and then went back to the old style. I should judge that we did it because we were tired of too much virtue. Perhaps we were not built to hold such a lot at once. Besides, it is much easier to be ruled than to rule. That fall, after the election, when I was concerned about what would become of my small parks, of the Health Department in which I took such just pride, and of a dozen other things, I received one unvarying reply to my anxious question, or rather two. If it was the Health Department, I was told: "Go to Platt. He is the only man who can do it. He is a sensible man, and will see that it is protected." If small parks, it was: "Go to Croker. He will not allow the work to be stopped." A playgrounds bill was to be presented in the legislature, and everybody advised: "Go to Platt. He won't object, it is popular." And so on. My advisers were not politicians. They were business men, but recently honestly interested in reform. I was talking one day, with a gentleman of very wide reputation as a philanthropist, about the unhappy lot of the old fire-engine horses,—which, after lives of toil that deserve a better fate, are sold for a song to drag out a weary existence hauling some huckster's cart around,—and wishing that they might be pensioned off to live out their years on a farm, with enough to eat and a chance to roll in the grass. He was much interested, and promptly gave me this advice: "I tell you what you do. You go and see Croker. He likes horses." No wonder the boss believes in himself. He would be less than human if he did not. And he is very human.

I had voted on the day of the Greater New York election,—the Tammany election, as we learned to call it afterward,—in my home out in the Borough of Queens, and went over to the depot to catch the train for the city. On the platform were half a dozen of my neighbors, all business men, all "friends of reform." Some of them were just down from breakfast. One I remember as introducing a resolution, in a meeting we had held, about the discourtesy of local politicians. He looked surprised when reminded that it was election day. "Why, is it to-day?" he said. "They didn't send any carriage," said another regretfully. "I don't see what's the use," said the third; "the roads are just as bad as when we began talking about it." (We had been trying to mend them.) The fourth yawned and said: "I don't care. I have my business to attend to." And they took the train, which meant that they lost their votes. The Tammany captain was busy hauling his voters by the cart-load to the polling place. Over there stood a reform candidate who had been defeated in the primary, and puffed out his chest. "The politicians are afraid of me," he said. They slapped him on the back, as they went by, and told him that he was a devil of a fellow.

So Tammany came back. And four long years we swore at it. But I am afraid we swore at the wrong fellow. The real Tammany is not the conscienceless rascal that plunders our treasury and fattens on our substance. That one is a mere counterfeit. It is the voter who waits for a carriage to take him to the polls; the man who "doesn't see what's the use"; the business man who says "business is business," and has no time to waste on voting; the citizen who "will wait to see how the cat jumps, because he doesn't want to throw his vote away"; the cowardly American who "doesn't want to antagonize" anybody; the fool who "washes his hands of politics." These are the real Tammany, the men after the boss's own heart. For every one whose vote he buys, there are two of these who give him theirs for nothing. We shall get rid of him when these withdraw their support, when they become citizens of the Patrick Mullen stamp, as faithful at the polling place as he was at the forge; not before.

There is as much work for reform at the top as at the bottom. The man in the slum votes according to his light, and the boss holds the candle. But the boss is in no real sense a leader. He follows instead, always as far behind the moral sentiment of the community as he thinks is safe. He has heard it said that a community will not be any better than its citizens, and that it will be just as good as they are, and he applies the saying to himself. He is no worse a boss than the town deserves. I can conceive of his taking credit to himself as some kind of a moral instrument by which the virtue of the community may be graded, though that is most unlikely. He does not bother himself with the morals of anything. But right here is his Achilles heel. The man has no conscience. He cannot tell the signs of it in others. It always comes upon him unawares. Reform to him simply means the "outs" fighting to get in. The real thing he will always underestimate. Witness Richard Croker in the last election offering Bishop Potter, after his crushing letter to the mayor, to join him in purifying the city, and, when politely refused, setting up an "inquiry" of his own. The conclusion is irresistible that he thought the bishop either a fool or a politician playing for points. Such a man is not the power he seems. He is formidable only in proportion to the amount of shaking it takes to rouse the community's conscience.

The boss is like the measles, a distemper of a self-governing people's infancy. When we shall have come of age politically, he will have no terrors for us. Meanwhile, being charged with the business of governing, which we left to him because we were too busy making money, he follows the track laid out for him, and makes the business pan out all that is in it. He fights when we want to discharge him. Of course he does; no man likes to give up a good job. He will fight or bargain, as he sees his way clear. He will give us small parks, play piers, new schools, anything we ask, to keep his place, while trying to find out "the price" of this conscience which he does not understand. Even to the half of his kingdom he will give, to be "in" on the new deal. He has done it before, and there is no reason that he can see why it should not be done again. And he will appeal to the people whom he is plundering to trust him because they know him.

Odd as it sounds, this is where he has his real hold. I have shown why this is so. To the poor people of his district the boss is a friend in need. He is one of them. He does not want to reform them; far from it. No doubt it is very ungrateful of them, but the poor people have no desire to be reformed. They do not think they need to be. They consider their moral standards quite as high as those of the rich, and resent being told that they are mistaken. The reformer comes to them from another world to tell them these things, and goes his way. The boss lives among them. He helped John to a job on the pipes in their hard winter, and got Mike on the force. They know him as a good neighbor, and trust him to their harm. He drags their standard ever farther down. The question for those who are trying to help them is how to make them transfer their allegiance, and trust their real friends instead.

It ought not be a difficult question to answer. Any teacher could do it. He knows, if he knows anything, that the way to get and keep the children's confidence is to trust them, and let them know that they are trusted. They will almost always come up to the demand thus made upon them. Preaching to them does little good; preaching at them still less. Men, whether rich or poor, are much like children. The good in them is just as good, and the bad, in view of their enlarged opportunities for mischief, not so much worse, all considered. A vigorous optimism, a stout belief in one's fellow-man, is better equipment in a campaign for civic virtue than stacks of tracts and arguments, economic and moral. There is good bottom, even in the slum, for that kind of an anchor to get a grip on. Some years ago I went to see a boxing match there had been much talk about. The hall was jammed with a rough and noisy crowd, hotly intent upon its favorite. His opponent, who hailed, I think, from somewhere in Delaware, was greeted with hostile demonstrations as a "foreigner." But as the battle wore on, and he was seen to be fair and manly, while the New Yorker struck one foul blow after another, the attitude of the crowd changed rapidly from enthusiastic approval of the favorite to scorn and contempt; and in the last round, when he knocked the Delawarean over with a foul blow, the audience rose in a body and yelled to have the fight given to the "foreigner," until my blood tingled with pride. For the decision would leave it practically without a cent. It had staked all it had on the New Yorker. "He is a good man," I heard on all sides, while the once favorite sneaked away without a friend. "Good" meant fair and manly to that crowd. I thought, as I went to the office the next morning, that it ought to be easy to appeal to such a people with measures that were fair and just, if we could only get on common ground. But the only hint I got from my reform paper was an editorial denunciation of the brutality of boxing, on the same page that had an enthusiastic review of the college football season. I do not suppose it did any harm, for the paper was probably not read by one of the men it had set out to reform. But suppose it had been, how much would it have appealed to them? Exactly the qualities of robust manliness which football is supposed to encourage in college students had been evoked by the trial of strength and skill which they had witnessed. As to the brutality, they knew that fifty young men are maimed or killed at football to one who fares ill in a boxing match. Would it seem to them common sense, or cant and humbug?

That is what it comes down to in the end: common sense and common honesty. Common sense to steer us clear of the "sociology" reef that would make our cause ridiculous, on Fifth Avenue and in East Broadway. I have no quarrel with the man who would do things by system and in order; but the man who would reduce men and women and children to mere items in his infallible system and classify and sub-classify them until they are as dried up as his theories, that man I will fight till I die. One throb of a human heart is worth a whole book of his stuff. Common honesty to keep us afloat at all. If we worship as success mere money-getting, closing our eyes to the means, let us at least say it like the man who told me to-day that "after all, one has to admire Bill Devery; he's got the dough," Devery was Tammany's police chief. The man is entitled to his opinion, but if it gets hitched to the reform cart by mistake, the load is going to be spilled. It has been, more than once.

A saving sense of humor might have avoided some of those pitfalls. I am seriously of the opinion that a professional humorist ought to be attached to every reform movement, to keep it from making itself ridiculous by either too great solemnity or too much conceit. As it is, the enemy sometimes employs him with effect. Failing the adoption of that plan, I would recommend a decree of banishment against photographers, press-clippings men, and the rest of the congratulatory staff. Why should the fact that a citizen has done a citizen's duty deserve to be celebrated in print and picture, as if something extraordinary had happened? The smoke of battle had not cleared away after the victory of reform in the fall of 1894, before the citizens' committee and all the little sub-committees rushed pell-mell to the photographer's to get themselves on record as the men who did it. The spectacle might have inspired in the humorist the advice to get two sets made, while they were about it, one to serve by and by as an exhibit of the men who didn't; and, as the event proved, he would have been right.

But it is easy to find fault, and on that tack we get no farther. Those men did a great work, and they did it well. They built from the bottom and they built the foundation broad and strong. Good schools, better homes, and a chance for the boy are good bricks to build with in such a structure as we are rearing. They last. Just now we are laying another course; more than one, I hope. But even if it were different, we need not despair. Let the enemy come back once more, it will not be to stay. It may be that, like Moses and his followers, we of the present day shall see the promised land only from afar and with the eye of faith, because of our sins; that to a younger and sturdier to-morrow it shall be given to blaze the path of civic righteousness that was our dream. I like to think that it is so, and that that is the meaning of the coming of men like Roosevelt and Waring at this time with their simple appeal to the reason of honest men. Unless I greatly err in reading the signs of the times, it is indeed so, and the day of the boss and of the slum is drawing to an end. Our faith has felt the new impulse; rather, I should say, it has given it. The social movements, and that which we call politics, are but a reflection of what the people honestly believe, a chart of their aims and aspirations. Charity in our day no longer means alms, but justice. The social settlements are substituting vital touch for the machine charity that reaped a crop of hate and beggary. Charity organization—"conscience born of love" some one has well called it—is substituting its methods in high and low places for the senseless old ways. Its champions are oftener found standing with organized labor for legislation to correct the people's wrongs, and when the two stand together nothing can resist them. Through its teaching we are learning that our responsibility as citizens for a law does not cease with its enactment, but rather begins there. We are growing, in other words, to the stature of real citizenship. We are emerging from the kind of barbarism that dragged children to the jail and thrust them in among hardened criminals there, and that sat by helpless and saw the foundlings die in the infant hospital at the rate—really there was no rate; they practically all died, every one that was not immediately removed to a home and a mother. For four years now a joint committee of the State Charities' Aid Association and the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor has taken them off the city's hands and adopted them out, and in every hundred now eighty-nine live and grow up! After all, not even a Jersey cow can take the place of a mother with a baby. And we are building a children's court that shall put an end to the other outrage, for boys taken there are let off on probation, to give them the chance under a different teaching from the slum's, which it denied them till now.



We have learned that we cannot pass off checks for human sympathy in settlement of our brotherhood arrears. The Church, which once stood by indifferent, or uncomprehending, is hastening to enter the life of the people. I have told of how, in the memory of men yet living, one church, moving up-town away from the crowd, left its old Mulberry Street home to be converted into tenements that justly earned the name of "dens of death" in the Health Department's records, while another became the foulest lodging house in an unclean city, and of how it was a church corporation that owned the worst underground dive down-town in those bad old days, and turned a deaf ear to all remonstrances. The Church was "angling for souls." But souls in this world live in bodies endowed with reason. The results of that kind of fishing were empty pews and cold hearts, and the conscience-stricken cry that went up, "What shall we do to lay hold of this great multitude that has slipped from us?"

The years have passed and brought the answer. To-day we see churches of every denomination uniting in a systematic canvass of the city to get at the facts of the people's life of which they had ceased to be a part, pleading for parks, playgrounds, kindergartens, libraries, clubs, and better homes. There is a new and hearty sound to the word "brother" that is full of hope. The cry has been answered. The gap in the social body, between rich and poor, is no longer widening. We are certainly coming closer together. A dozen years ago, when the King's Daughters lighted a Christmas tree in Gotham Court, the children ran screaming from Santa Claus as from a "bogey man." Here lately the boys in the Hebrew Institute's schools nearly broke the bank laying in supplies to do him honor. I do not mean that the Jews are deserting to join the Christian Church. They are doing that which is better,—they are embracing its spirit; and they and we are the better for it.

"The more I know of the Other Half," writes a friend to me, "the more I feel the great gulf that is fixed between us, and the more profoundly I grieve that this is the best that Christian civilization has as yet been able to do toward a true social system." Let my friend take heart. She herself has been busy in my sight all these years binding up the wounds. If that be the most a Christian civilization has been able to do for the neighbor till now, who shall say that it is not also the greatest? "This do and thou shalt live," said the Lord of him who showed mercy. That was the mark of the brotherhood. No, the gulf is not widening. It is only that we have taken soundings and know it, and in the doing of it we have come to know one another. The rest we may confidently leave with Him who knows it all.

God knows we waited long enough; and how close we were to one another all the while without knowing it! Two or three years ago at Christmas a clergyman, who lives out of town and has a houseful of children, asked me if I could not find for them a poor family in the city with children of about the same ages, whom they might visit and befriend. He worked every day in the office of a foreign mission in Fifth Avenue, and knew little of the life that moved about him in the city. I picked out a Hungarian widow in an East Side tenement, whose brave struggle to keep her little flock together had enlisted my sympathy and strong admiration. She was a cleaner in an office building; not until all the arrangements had been made did it occur to me to ask where. Then it turned out that she was scrubbing floors in the missionary society's house, right at my friend's door. They had passed one another every day, each in need of the other, and each as far from the other as if oceans separated them instead of a doorstep four inches wide.

Looking back over the years that lie behind with their work, and forward to those that are coming, I see only cause for hope. As I write these last lines in a far-distant land, in the city of my birth, the children are playing under my window, and calling to one another with glad cries in my sweet mother-tongue, even as we did in the long ago. Life and the world are before them, bright with the promise of morning. So to me seem the skies at home. Not lightly do I say it, for I have known the toil of rough-hewing it on the pioneer line that turns men's hair gray; but I have seen also the reward of the toil. New York is the youngest of the world's great cities, barely yet out of knickerbockers. It may be that our century will yet see it as the greatest of them all. The task that is set it, the problem it has to solve and which it may not shirk, is the problem of civilization, of human progress, of a people's fitness for self-government, that is on trial among us. We shall solve it by the world-old formula of human sympathy, of humane touch. Somewhere in these pages I have told of the woman in Chicago who accounted herself the happiest woman alive because she had at last obtained a playground for her poor neighbors' children. "I have lived here for years," she said to me, "and struggled with principalities and powers, and have made up my mind that the most and the best I can do is to live right here with my people and smile with them,—keep smiling; weep when I must, but smile as long as I possibly can." And the tears shone in her gentle old eyes as she said it. When we have learned to smile and weep with the poor, we shall have mastered our problem. Then the slum will have lost its grip and the boss his job.

Until then, while they are in possession, our business is to hold taut and take in slack right along, never letting go for a moment.

* * * * *

And now, having shown you the dark side of the city, which, after all, I love, with its great memories, its high courage, and its bright skies, as I love the little Danish town where my cradle stood, let me, before I close this account of the struggle with evil, show you also its good heart by telling you "the unnecessary story of Mrs. Ben Wah and her parrot." Perchance it may help you to grasp better the meaning of the Battle with the Slum. It is for such as she and for such as "Jim," whose story I told before, that we are fighting.



CHAPTER XVII

THE UNNECESSARY STORY OF MRS. BEN WAH AND HER PARROT

Mrs. Ben Wah was dying. Word came up from the district office of the Charity Organization Society to tell me of it. Would I come and see her before I went away? Mrs. Ben Wah was an old charge of mine, the French Canadian widow of an Iroquois Indian, whom, years before, I had unearthed in a Hudson Street tenement. I was just then making ready for a voyage across the ocean to the old home to see my own mother, and the thought of the aged woman who laid away her children long ago by the cold camp-fires of her tribe in Canadian forests was a call not to be resisted. I went at once.

The signs of illness were there in a notice tacked up on the wall, warning everybody to keep away when her attic should be still, until her friends could come from the charity office. It was a notion she had, Mrs. McCutcheon, the district visitor, explained, that would not let her rest till her "paper" was made out. For her, born in the wilderness, death had no such terror as prying eyes.

"Them police fellows," she said, with the least touch of resentment in her gentle voice, "they might take my things and sell them to buy cigars to smoke." I suspect it was the cigar that grated harshly. It was ever to her a vulgar slur on her beloved pipe. In truth, the mere idea of Mrs. Ben Wah smoking a cigar rouses in me impatient resentment. Without her pipe she was not herself. I see her yet, stuffing it with approving forefinger, on the Christmas day when I had found her with tobacco pouch empty, and pocket to boot, and nodding the quaint comment from her corner, "It's no disgrace to be poor, but it's sometimes very inconvenient."



There was something in the little attic room that spoke of the coming change louder than the warning paper. A half-finished mat, with its bundle of rags put carefully aside; the thirsty potato-vine on the fire-escape, which reached appealingly from its soap-box toward the window, as if in wondering search for the hands that had tended it so faithfully,—bore silent testimony that Mrs. Ben Wah's work-day was over at last. It had been a long day—how long no one may ever know. "The winter of the big snow," or "the year when deer was scarce" on the Gatineau, is not as good a guide to time-reckoning in the towns as in the woods, and Mrs. Ben Wah knew no other. Her thoughts dwelt among the memories of the past as she sat slowly nodding her turbaned head, idle for once. The very head-dress, arranged and smoothed with unusual care, was "notice," proceeding from a primitive human impulse. Before the great mystery she "was ashamed and covered her head."

The charity visitor told me what I had half guessed. Beyond the fact that she was tired and had made up her mind to die, nothing ailed Mrs. Ben Wah. But at her age, the doctor had said, it was enough; she would have her way. In faith, she was failing day by day. All that could be done was to make her last days as easy as might be. I talked to her of my travels, of the great salt water upon which I should journey many days; but her thoughts were in the lonely woods, and she did not understand. I told her of beautiful France, the language of which she spoke with a singularly sweet accent, and asked her if there was not something I might bring back to her to make her happy. As I talked on, a reminiscent smile came into her eyes and lingered there. It was evidently something that pleased her. By slow degrees we dragged the bashful confession out of her that there was yet one wish she had in this life.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, when, as a young woman, she had gone about peddling beads, she had seen a bird, such a splendid bird, big and green and beautiful, with a red turban, and that could talk. Talk! As she recalled the glorious apparition, she became quite her old self again, and reached for her neglected pipe with trembling hands. If she could ever see that bird again—but she guessed it was long since gone. She was a young woman then, and now she was old, so old. She settled back in her chair, and let the half-lighted pipe go out.

"Poor old soul!" said Mrs. McCutcheon, patting the wrinkled hand in her lap. Her lips framed the word "parrot" across the room to me, and I nodded back. When we went out together it was settled between us that Mrs. Ben Wah was to be doctored according to her own prescription, if it broke the rules of every school of medicine.

I went straight back to the office and wrote in my newspaper that Mrs. Ben Wah was sick and needed a parrot, a green one with a red tuft, and that she must have it right away. I told of her lonely life, and of how, on a Christmas Eve, years ago, I had first met her at the door of the Charity Organization Society, laboring up the stairs with a big bundle done up in blue cheese-cloth, which she left in the office with the message that it was for those who were poorer than she. They were opening it when I came in. It contained a lot of little garments of blanket stuff, as they used to make them for the pappooses among her people in the far North. It was the very next day that I found her in her attic, penniless and without even the comfort of her pipe. Like the widow of old, she had cast her mite into the treasury, even all she had.

All this I told in my paper, and how she whose whole life had been kindness to others was now in need—in need of a companion to share her lonely life, of something with a voice, which would not come in and go away again, and leave her. And I begged that any one who had a green parrot with a red tuft would send it in at once.

New York is a good town to live in. It has a heart. It no sooner knew that Mrs. Ben Wah wanted a parrot than it hustled about to supply one at once. The morning mail brought stacks of letters, with offers of money to buy a parrot. They came from lawyers, business men, and bank presidents, men who pore over dry ledgers and drive sharp bargains on 'Change, and are never supposed to give a thought to lonely widows pining away in poor attics. While they were being sorted, a poor little tramp song-bird flew in through the open window of the Charities Building in great haste, apparently in search of Mrs. McCutcheon's room. Its feathers were ruffled and its bangs awry, as if it had not had time to make its morning toilet, it had come in such haste to see if it would do. Though it could not talk, it might at least sing to the sick old woman—sing of the silent forests with the silver lakes deep in their bosom, where the young bucks trailed the moose and the panther, and where she listened at the lodge door for their coming; and the song might bring back the smile to her wan lips. But though it was nearly green and had tousled top, it was not a parrot, and it would not do. The young women who write in the big books in the office caught it and put it in a cage to sing to them instead. In the midst of the commotion came the parrot itself, big and green, in a "stunning" cage. It was an amiable bird, despite its splendid get-up, and cocked its crimson head one side to have it scratched through the bars, and held up one claw, as if to shake hands.

How to get it to Mrs. Ben Wah's without the shock killing her was the problem that next presented itself. Mrs. McCutcheon solved it by doing the cage up carefully in newspaper and taking it along herself. All the way down the bird passed muffled comments on the Metropolitan Railway service and on its captivity, to the considerable embarrassment of its keeper; but they reached the Beach Street tenement and Mrs. Ben Wah's attic at last. There Mrs. McCutcheon stowed it carefully away in a corner, while she busied herself about her aged friend.

She was working slowly down through an address which she had designed to break the thing gently and by degrees, when the parrot, extending a feeler on its own hook, said "K-r-r-a-a!" behind its paper screen.

Mrs. Ben Wah sat up straight and looked fixedly at the corner. Seeing the big bundle there, she went over and peered into it. She caught a quick breath and stared, wide-eyed.

"Where you get that bird?" she demanded of Mrs. McCutcheon, faintly.

"Oh, that is Mr. Riis's bird," said that lady, sparring for time; "a friend gave it to him—"

"Where you take him?" Mrs. Ben Wah gasped, her hand pressed against her feeble old heart.

Her friend saw, and gave right up.

"I am not going to take it anywhere," she said. "I brought it for you. This is to be its home, and you are to be its mother, grandma, and its friend. You are to be always together from now on—always, and have a good time." With that she tore the paper from the cage.

The parrot, after all, made the speech of the occasion. He considered the garret; the potato-field on the fire-escape, through which the sunlight came in, making a cheerful streak on the floor; Mrs. Ben Wah and her turban; and his late carrier: then he climbed upon his stick, turned a somersault, and said, "Here we are," or words to that effect. Thereupon he held his head over to be scratched by Mrs. Ben Wah in token of a compact of friendship then and there made.

Joy, after all, does not kill. Mrs. Ben Wah wept long and silently, big, happy tears of gratitude. Then she wiped them away, and went about her household cares as of old. The prescription had worked. The next day the "notice" vanished from the wall of the room, where there were now two voices for one.

I came back from Europe to find my old friend with a lighter step and a lighter heart than in many a day. The parrot had learned to speak Canadian French to the extent of demanding his crackers and water in the lingo of the habitant. Whether he will yet stretch his linguistic acquirements to the learning of Iroquois I shall not say. It is at least possible. The two are inseparable. The last time I went to see them, no one answered my knock on the door-jamb. I raised the curtain that serves for a door, and looked in. Mrs. Ben Wah was asleep upon the bed. Perched upon her shoulder was the parrot, no longer constrained by the bars of a cage, with his head tucked snugly in her neck, asleep too. So I left them, and so I like to remember them always, comrades true.

It happened that when I was in Chicago last spring I told their story to a friend, a woman. "Oh, write it!" she said. "You must!" And when I asked why, she replied, with feminine logic: "Because it is so unnecessary. The barrel of flour doesn't stick out all over it."

Now I have done as she bade me. Perhaps she was right. Women know these things best. Like my own city, they have hearts, and will understand the unnecessary story of Mrs. Ben Wah and her parrot.



INDEX

Addams, Miss J., Chicago work, 365, 395.

Adler, Professor F., reform work, 71-72, 371, 402.

Air-shaft in tenements, tenants' uses and peril of, 93.

Alfred Corning Clark buildings, 129, 130.

Allen Street— Children seeking "the commissioner" for justice, 59-60. One-room houses, beginnings of, 97. School building, 354, 357.

Anderson, Mrs. A. A., bath gift to city, 282.

Armenian Christmas tree, contribution of poor children, 218.

Association for improving condition of the poor— Baths, public, 282. Housing reform movement, 128. Work of, 285.

Athletic meets, Crotona Park, 366.

Bacillus of the slum, 62.

Balkan peninsula, immigration from, 202.

Bands, roof playgrounds, 389-395.

Barney of Cat Alley, 333-339.

Baron Hirsch Fund, see Hirsch Fund.

Baths, public— Anderson, Mrs. A. A., gift, 282. Association for improving condition of poor, work of, 282. Free river baths, 282. Hamilton Fish Park, Tammany use of, 149-152. Lack of public baths scandal, 281. Mott Street bath, 282. Plans for system of municipal baths, 282-283. Rivington Street, 281. Shower-baths for public schools, 283.

Battle Row— Gang, Easter service, 251-252. Improvement, 135.

Baxter Street "dens of death," 14, 20.

Beds, Mills Houses, 159.

Beginning of the battle, 1-4.

Bellevue, scandal during Tammany government, 66.

Bend, see Mulberry Bend.

Ben Wah, Mrs., and her parrot, story of, 441-449.

Beresheim, Jacob— Arrest for murder, 227. Birth in tenement, 228. Law-breaking, 234. Life and environment, 227-236. Schooling neglected, 231.

Berlin death-rate, 124.

Big Flat, Mott Street— Carriage factory in place of, 32. Instance of reform still-born, 27. Blacksmith, Patrick Mullen, 413-414.

Bleeker Street house, see Mills Houses.

B'nai B'rith "removal plan," 215.

Bone Alley, destruction, 279-281, 285.

Boss, character of, 420-429.

Bottle Alley, Whyo gang headquarters, 272, 308.

Bowery lodging houses, see Lodging houses.

Boxing match, 430.

Boys— Clubs, see that title. Crime, see that title. Farm colony for young vagrants, 127, 172, 350. Fathers' authority lost, 237-238. Future of—effect of political influences, 225-226. Gangs, see that title. Increase of child crime, 225, 240-242. Military spirit, 247, 255. Play, necessity of, 233. Summer excursions, Mr. Schwab's proposition, 405-406. Type of East Side boy, see Beresheim, Jacob. "Weakness not wickedness" reformatory verdict, 244.

Brass bands, school roof playgrounds, 389-395.

Brick sandwiches, 224.

British Museum, stone arm exhibit, message of warning, 111-112.

Bronx— Crotona Park athletic meets, 366. Primary school 1895, condition, 348.

Brooklyn— Riverside tenements, 135, 140. Weeks, L. S., murder, 156.

Bruin, Madame, school punishments, 341-342.

Buck, Miss W., management of boys' clubs, 373, 383.

Buddensiek, tenement builder, imprisonment, 20-21.

Building Department, supervision of tenement lighting, etc., 104.

Byrnes, Inspector—lodging houses as nurseries of crime, 54, 156.

"Cadets," Tammany organization, 74.

Capmaker, Polish, home in Stanton Street tenement, 76-80.

Cat Alley— Barney, 333-339. Charity of the Alley, 322-325. Children of the Alley, 330-331. Cosmopolitan population, 314-316. Dago eviction, 314. Deaths and funerals, 325-330. Demolition, 337-340. Description and occupation, 312-313. "Fat One," 326, 329. French couple, 315-316. Irish population, 314, 316-320. Marriages, early, and second marriages, 325. Mott Street scrap, 320-322. Name, mystery as to origin, 312. Tragedy averted, 323. Trilby, 331-333. Walsh, Mrs., funeral, 329-330. Widows, 325-326.

Catherine Street, condition before destruction, 119.

Cellars, Park Street, 20.

Census— Death-rate, see that title. School census, 349.

Charity of the poor, instances of, 216-222, 322-225, 445.

Charity Organization Society, tenement reform movement, 143, 147.

Chicago— Church, basement dwellers in neighborhood of, 181. Hull House kindergarten, harvest picture incident, 365. Parks, 410. Playground, 304-305, 439. School excursions, 362. Slums, outlook, 17. Child labor, East Side, 43-44, 185, 186.

Children— Boys, see that title. Cat Alley, 330-331.

Clubs, see that title. Increase of child crime, 225, 240-242. Landlords of tenements, Greenwood story, 96. Neglect of, 225-226, 233. Schools, see that title. Tagging lost children proposed, 92. Tenements as "infant slaughter houses," 37.

Children's Aid Society— Report as to condition and neglect of children, 225. Rescue of boys, 245. Cholera panic, 1866, 4, 29.

Christmas trees— Armenian, contribution of poor children, 218. Gotham Court, 311. Santa Claus in the slums, 94, 310-311.

Church Federation, Fifteenth Assembly District— Baths, investigation, 281. Educational agencies and saloons, 129-130, 292.

Churches— Movement up-town, 232. Neglect of the young, 232. Reform movement attitude, 399, 435-437.

Citizens' council of hygiene, report 1866, 19.

City and Suburban Homes Company— Erection of model tenements, 129-137. Homewood plan, 137-138. Management, 136.

City History Club, work of, 379.

Cleaning the streets, Colonel Waring's work, 45-46, 268-272, 415.

Clubs— Buck, Miss W., work of, 373, 383. East Side boys' demand for club room, 372. Gangs, see that title. Good Government Clubs, see that title. Jackson Pleasure Club, School No. 160, 374-377. Meeting, management of Miss W. Buck, 373. People's Club, work of, 381. Saloon room, 372. School classroom plan, 372-374. Willard, D., work of, 378-379.

College settlement, see University settlement.

Colored people, see Negroes.

Committee of Fifteen, evidence of Tammany corruption, 74.

Consumers' League, work of, 196-201.

Convalescents' home, gift for, 396.

Cooking classes, advantages of, 367-368.

Cooper Institute, educational work, 380.

Cottages, Homewood plan, 137-138.

Crime— Boys, see that title. Child crime, increase of, 225, 240-242. Gangs, see that title. Italian criminals discovered in Mulberry Street, 204-205. Lodging houses as "nurseries of crime," 54, 156. "Weakness not wickedness," reformatory verdict, 244. [See also Murders and Robberies.]

Croker, R.— Abdication, 75. Election of 1900, 73. [See also Tammany.]

Crotona Park athletic meets, 366.

Crowding, see Overcrowding.

"Cruller fire," tenement house, 88.

Cutting, R. F., erection of homes for working people, 129.

Dalmatia, immigration from, 202.

Dancing, school roof playgrounds, 392-793.

Death-rates— Berlin, 124. Double-deckers, lowest mortality, 114-115. First Ward, 116. Five Points "dens of death," 16. Heat of summer 1896, power of resistance, 125-126. Mott Street barracks, 123. Rear tenants scandal, 115. Reduction, council of hygiene's judgment, 19. Reform effects on, 125-126.

Deaths in Cat Alley, 325-330.

Death's Thoroughfare, Old Church tenements, 16.

Democratic government imperilled by existence of slum, 6.

Demolition of dangerous property, 114, 116-125, 140, 272-280, 310-311, 337-340.

"Dens of Death," 14, 16, 20.

Destitution encouraged by free lunch, lodging, etc., 170, 172.

Destruction of property, see Demolition.

Devil's money—campaign against Tammany, 1901, 63-75.

"Discretion" clause, tenement building, 88, 105, 107, 148.

Disease—disclosures of Tenement House Exhibition, 1900, 143-147.

Dispossessed tenants, rehousing, 286-287.

Doctor, woman doctor, Dr. J. E. Robbins, 205-206.

Dog, Trilby of Cat Alley, 331-333.

Double-deckers— Cause of overcrowding, 102. Description and condemnation by Tenement House Commission, 102-103. Doom of, 82-85, 148, 149. Elizabeth Street, midnight inspection, 99-102. Mortality rate, lowest, 114-115. Solid block, 105.

Drunkards and slum homes, 23.

"Druv into decency," 113-114.

Dwellings of the poor, see Tenements.

Eagle, Ellis Island, 202-204.

East River barge, winter lodgings, 1896, 170-172.

East River Park, sacred grass, 301.

Education, see Schools.

Education Board, work of, 365-366.

Educational Alliance— Roof garden, 388. Work among Jews, 382.

Eldridge Street tenement, unlighted halls, 91-92.

Eleventh Ward, overcrowding statistics, 82.

Elizabeth Street— Giant, 331. Midnight inspection of tenements, 99-102. Sewing "pants" at thirty cents a day, 183.

Elliot, Dr., subscriptions for guild house, 402.

Ellis Island eagle, 202-204.

Elsing, Mr., children of Sunday-school, contribution to Armenian Christmas tree, 218.

Emigration, see Immigration.

Enforcement of the law, necessity of, 47, 223, 235, 415, 418.

Essex Street, attempt to establish park, 294.

Excursions, Mr. Schwab's proposition, 405-406.

Exhibition, tenement house, 1900, effect of, 143-147.

Experimenting with the school, 403-410.

Eyes inspection, public school children, 358-359.

Factory tenements, disapproval of, 134.

Farming— Farm colony for young vagrants, 127, 172, 350. Jewish farming abilities, 215. Truck farming on site of Stryker's Hill, 366.

Fat boiling in tenements, cause of fires, 88.

"Fat One" of Cat Alley, 326, 329.

Federal Government slum inquiry, 61, 97, 175.

Fifteenth Assembly District, see Church Federation.

Fire-engine horses, fate of, 425.

Fires in tenement houses— Air-shaft, danger of, 93. "Cruller fire," 88. Non-enforcement of law as to fireproof material, 87-89.

First Ward death-rate, 116.

Five Points— Mortality rate, 16. Wiping out in 1850, Wisconsin farmer's work, 14.

Flag, flying, value of, 209-211.

Foreign population— Child labor and education, 185-186. Italians, see that title. Jews, see that title. Proportion, 175-176.

Forest, R. W. de, chairman of Tenement House Commission of 1900, 147.

Forsyth Street tragedies, 86.

Foster, R., fight with tenement landlords, 124.

Fourth Ward, examination of girls' school, 355-357.

Fourth Ward slum, 16.

Fraunces' Tavern, historical association, 380.

Free lunch, lodging, etc., vagrancy encouraged by, 170, 172.

French couple, Cat Alley, 315-316.

"Frills," Hester Street roof playground, 342, 359, 360, 403.

Funerals— Cat Alley, 329-330. Slum interest and excitement, 109.

Gambling, characteristic of Italian immigrant, 186.

Gangs— Battle Row, Easter service, 251-252. College settlement work, success of, 248-249. Genesis of, environment of boy's career, 235-247. Hook gang, 288. Long Island story, 250. Whyo gang headquarters, 272, 308. Women's work and success, 251. [See also Boys.]

Gehegan, Mrs., of Cat Alley, 319.

Genesis of the gang, environments of boy's career, 236-247.

German destitution and charity, story of, 217-218.

Giant, Elizabeth Street. 331.

Gibbon, quotation from Vitruvius as to height of dwellings, 11.

Giddings, Professor F. H., child labor investigation, 185.

Gilder Tenement House Commission, work of, 88, 105, 108, 116, 228, 276, 279, 281.

Golden Gate Association, kindergarten record, 245.

Good Government Clubs— Tammany condemnation of, 126. Work of, 1896-97, 127, 128, 279, 371, 372.

Gotham Court— Beginnings of reformation, 23-27. Christmas tree, 311. Destruction of dangerous property, 118, 119.

Gould, Dr. E. R. L., president of company for erection of homes for poor, 129, 133, 138, 139.

Government by the people imperilled by existence of slum, 6.

Government slum inquiry, 61, 97, 175.

Grand Street, soap factories prohibited below, 107.

Grant, Mayor, reform work, 45-46.

Graveyard as playground, 302.

Great Robbery, city treasury, 4-5, 285.

Green Dragon yard, London, 26-27.

Gun-maker Patrick Mullen, 413-414.

Hamilton Fish Park— Restoration, 296. Uselessness of, 149-152, 295.

Health Board— Tammany negligence, 64, 67. Tenement landlords, fights with, 30, 37.

Heat of summer 1896, power of resistance, 125-126.

Hebrew Institute— Educational Alliance work, 382. Roof garden, 305-307.

Hebrews, see Jews.

Hell's Kitchen— Improvement, 51-52. Negro possession, desolate appearance, 110.

Helvetia House demolition, 285.

Hester Street— School— Club room, 373. Nature studies, 363-364. Roof playground, 342, 359-360. Wheat lesson, 363. Street-cleaning, 45.

Hewitt, A. S.— Chairman of Advisory Committee on Small Parks, 287. Neglect of the children, 233. Ten years reform theory, 287.

Hirsch Fund— Educational work in Hebrew Institute, 382. New Jersey, aid to Jewish colonies, 213.

Holy Terror Park, 302.

Home libraries in the tenements, 382-383.

Homes— Homewood cottage scheme, failure of, 137-138. Lack of home-life— Need of neighborliness, 398-403. Warning, 111-112. New Jersey, Jewish colonies, 212-215. New Orange, scheme abandoned, 214. Rallying points of civilization, 80. Slum an enemy of, 7.

Homewood cottages, failure of scheme, 137-138.

Hook gang, 288.

Horses, fire-engine, fate of, 425.

Hotels— Mills Houses, see that title. Stewart, A. T., failure of hotel, 29, 165-166. Woman's Hotel for working women, need of, 166-168.

Housing of the poor, see Tenements.

"Hudson-bank" park— Success of, 292. Truck farming on site of Stryker's Lane, 366.

Hudson Guild, subscriptions for guild house, 402.

Hull House Kindergarten, Chicago, harvest picture incident, 365.

Immigration— City destination, mistake of, 207-208. Distribution necessary, 208, 212. Ellis Island eagle, 202-204. Inspection before embarkation at foreign port, 206, 207. Italian statistics and incidents, 176-181. Jewish, 191-192. Naturalization papers, fraudulent, 186, 190, 207. Restriction, enforcement of law, 206. School as means of enrolment, 211, 212. Shutting the door problem, 204-206. Tammany slum politics, 186-191, 211.

Irish people— Cat Alley tenants, 314, 316-320. Eviction in tenements, 110-111.

Italians— Cat Alley, Dago eviction, 314. Charges of dirtiness and ignorance, 181-183. Child labor, 185. Criminals discovered in Mulberry Street, 204-205. Elizabeth Street tenements inspection, 100-101. Gambling, 186. Home scene—sewing "pants," 184. Immigration statistics and incidents, 176-181. Naturalization papers, fraudulent, and illegal registration, 186-191. Politics of the slum, 186-191. Underbidding the Jew, 183.

Jackson Pleasure Club, School No. 160, 374-377.

Jerome, W. T., campaign of 1901, 74.

Jersey Street, clearance and factory erections, 32-34.

Jews— Charges against, at citizens, 192. Educational work among, 382. Farming abilities, 215. Glazier, story of, 384. Hebrew Institute, see that title. Immigrants, 191-192. Material for good citizens, 192-193. New Jersey colonies, 212-215. Orchard Street, dwelling under stairs, 95. "Removal plan" started by B'nai B'rith, 215. Roof garden, Hebrew Institute, 305-307. Sweating, 194. Tailors' quarrel, 183.

Jim and his mother, story of, 256-263.

Juvenile Asylum for burglars and truants, 349.

Kelly, Mrs., and Jim, story of, 256-263.

Kerosene Row demolition, 285.

Kerosene stoves, odor of tenements, 92.

"Kid"—Battle Row gang, Easter service, 251-252.

Kindergarten record, San Francisco, 245.

Kindergarten system, benefit of, 365-367.

Klotz, Madame, of Cat Alley, 316.

Laundries of model tenement houses, 136.

Law, enforcement, 47, 223, 235, 415, 418.

League for Political Education, reform work, 247.

Leipziger, Dr., evening classes, 403.

Lexow disclosures, 5, 41, 66.

Libraries— Free library system, erection of buildings, 397. Home libraries in the tenements, 382-383.

Licensing of tenements, 153.

Lights in halls of tenements, non-enforcement of law, 90-92.

Lodging houses— Competition of Mills Houses, 161. East River barge, winter lodgings, 1896, 170-172. Mills Houses, see that title. "Nurseries of Crime," 54, 156. Police station lodging rooms, 48-50, 169-170. Problem of, 159.

London— British Museum exhibit, warning message, 111-112. Green Dragon yard, 26-27. Ragged school, factory nuisance incident, 117. Seven Dials, reformation, "druv into decency," 113-114.

Long Island— Homewood plan, 137-138. Stewart house, failure of, 165-166.

Lost children, tagging proposed, 92.

Low, Mayor— Election, 75. Reform government, school erections, 44. Roof playgrounds, 389.

M'Carthy, Mrs., of Cat Alley, 316.

Mahoney, Miss, of Cat Alley, 319.

Market, Colonel Waring's scheme, 273.

Marriages in Cat Alley, 325.

Massachusetts— Demolition of dangerous houses, 123. Tenement labor, registry system, 200.

Massachusetts, U.S.S., cost of, 346.

Medical inspection of schools, fight for, 357.

Menu, Mills House, 160.

Meyer, D., thief, 238.

Meyer, F., murderer, 98.

Mike of Poverty Gap, 239-240.

Mills, D. O., see Mills Houses.

Mills Houses— Beds, 159. Business management, 158. Erection of hotels, 128. Fame and success of, 162, 165. Housing capacity, 161. Menu, 160. Privileges of, 159. Thieves, safety from, 162.

Mississippi River town, reservation of vacant land, 17.

Model tenements, erection and success of, 128-137.

Mooney, William, founder of Tammany, character of, 64.

Mortality rates, see Death-rates.

Mott Street— Barracks— Death-rate, 123. Destruction, 118, 120-124. Legal proceedings, 120, 123. Bath, public, 282. Big Flat, see that title. Cat Alley scrap, 320-322. Trilby, gang in pursuit, 332.

Mulberry Bend— Bottle Alley, see that title. Description, 39-40. Destruction, 39-41, 51. Campaign difficulties, 272-276. Cost of, 275. Wrecked square— Accident to children, 270. Nuisance, 276. Effect of reform, 307-309. Italian criminals, nest of, 204-205. Night scenes, 173. Old Church tenements, 16. Park— Appropriation lost, 40. Completion and opening, 266. Cost, 18. Dedication, 267-268. "Keep off the grass," 267. School building reform, 355. Whyo gang headquarters, 272, 308.

Mullen, Patrick, story of, 413-414.

Mullen's Court, purchase for destruction, 119.

Murders— Beresheim, J., 227. Forsythe Street tragedy, 86. Lodging houses, murders traced to, 156. Meyer, F., 98. Mike of Poverty Gap, 239-240. Weeks, L. S., 156.

National Consumers' League, work of, 196-201.

Naturalization papers, fraudulent, 186, 190, 207.

Neckties, Poverty Gap, 51.

Negroes— Character as tenants, 110. Model tenements for, 134.

Neighborliness, need of, 398-403.

Nero, enactment as to height of buildings, 11.

New Jersey, Jewish colonies, 212-215.

New Orange, home-building attempt abandoned, 214.

"Nurseries of crime," lodging houses as, 54, 156.

Old Church tenements, 16.

One-room houses, beginnings of, 97.

Open spaces, see Parks and playgrounds.

Orchard Street— Jews dwelling under stairs, 95. One-room houses, beginnings of, 97.

Outdoor Recreation League— "Hudson-bank" park, 292. Organization and object, 300. Seward Park gymnastic apparatus, 302.

Overcrowding— Battle against, 83-86. Double-deckers as cause of, 102. Elizabeth Street, midnight inspection, 99-102. Increase statistics, 81-83. Promoters of, high rents and low wages, 96.

Paddock, Rev. R., evidence against Tammany evil-doers, 72.

Palmerston, Lord, advice as to checking an epidemic, 34.

Park Avenue hotel for working girls, failure of, 29, 165-166.

Parkhurst disclosures, 41, 66.

Park Street, cellars, 20.

Parks and playgrounds— Advisory committee, action, 287-291. Chicago, 304-305, 410, 439. Crotona Park, athletic meets, 366. East River Park, sacred grass, 301. Effect of, 288-289, 307-309. Essex Street, attempt to establish park, 294. Gilder law, 276, 279. Graveyard as playground, 302. Hamilton Fish Park, see that title. Hebrew Institute, roof garden, 305-307. Holy Terror Park, 302. "Hudson-bank," see that title. Mulberry Bend, see that title. Naming of, 374-375. Outdoor Recreation League, see that title. Poverty Gap playground, 302. Proportion of park area down-town, 279. Recreation piers, 292, 296, 299. Rivington Street, attempt to establish park, 293. Roof playgrounds, see that title. School playgrounds, see Schools. Seward Park, see that title. Small Parks law, see that title. Tammany neglect, 67, 309. Tenement plots, 107, 108. Thieves' Alley site, 286.

Parrot of Mrs. Ben Wah, story of, 441-449.

People's Club, work of, 381.

People's Institute, educational work, 380.

People's University Extension Society, work of, 381.

Piers, recreation piers, 292, 296, 299.

Playgrounds, see Parks and playgrounds.

Play piers, 292, 296, 299.

Police Board conspiracy, 417.

Policemen, candidates' examination papers, 220-221.

Police station lodging rooms, 48-50, 169-170.

Policy swindle, 418.

Polish capmaker, home in Stanton Street tenement, 76-80.

Political Education League, reform work, 247.

Political meetings in school buildings proposed, 407-408.

Political tenements, 149, 152.

Poor, improvement, see Association for improving condition of the poor.

Population— Cat Alley, 314-316. Census, see that title. Charity of the poor, instances of, 216-222, 322-325, 445. Death-rate, see that title. Foreign population, see that title. Increase statistics, 81-83. Inquiry by United States government, disclosures, 175. Italians, see that title. Jews, see that title. Movement, 133. Overcrowding, see that title. Sweating, see that title.

Potter, Bishop— Arraignment of Tammany corruption, 70-73. Pro-Cathedral, Stanton Street, 72, 182. Religious organizations, 182.

Poverty Gap— Improvement, 51-52. Mike, of Poverty Gap, 239-240. Neckties, 51. Playground, 302.

Prague, picture of city, incident, 204.

Prison, see Tombs.

Prostitution, Tammany organization, 69-74.

Public baths, see Baths.

Public Education Association, reform work, 371, 372, 378.

Public schools, see Schools.

Push-cart men, Colonel Waring's market scheme, 273.

Quaker, builder of Gotham Court, 25.

Rear tenements, see Tenements.

Recreation piers, 292, 296, 299.

Recruiting thief, 156, 164.

Reformatory report on weak character of boys, 244.

Reform by humane touch, 411-440.

Reform effects in thirteen years, 42-54.

Reform programme, 283-285.

River baths, free, 282.

Riverside tenements built by A. T. White, 135, 140.

Rivington Street— Bath-house, 281. Mills Houses, see that title. Park, attempt to establish, 293.

Robberies— Great Robbery, city treasury, 4-5, 285. Meyer, D., thief, 238. Recruiting thief, 156, 164. Tweed, thief, 4-5, 285.

Robbins, Dr. Jane E., woman doctor in the slums, 205-206.

Rome, slums of, 9-11.

Roof gardens— Educational Alliance building, 388. Hebrew Institute, 305-307.

Roof playgrounds, public schools, 291, 342. Brass bands, 389-395. Fight for, 385-389. Hester Street school, 342, 359-360. Success of, 389-439.

Roosevelt, Theodore— Election as Governor, 56. Law enforcement, 47, 235, 415, 418. Reform administration, 50, 414-418. Tenement House Commission appointed, 1900, 147.

Roosevelt Street tenement, demolition of, 124.

Roses, Hester Street school, 364.

St. Andrew's Brotherhood, school children excursion schemes, 362.

Saloons— Cheer and social life of tenements, 419-420. Club room for boys provided, 372. Fight with Roosevelt, record of week of crime, 418.

Sandwiches—brick sandwiches, 224.

San Francisco, kindergarten record, 245.

Santa Claus in the slums, 310-311. [See also Christmas trees.]

Scarlet fever epidemic traced to public school, 358.

Schools, public— Allen Street building, 354, 357. Appropriation for new schools, 44, 346. Barrel and hog punishments, 341-342. Board of Education, work of, 365-366. Bronx primary school, 1895, condition of, 348. Building, perfection of Snyder schools, 353. Census, 349. Charges and facts, 342-345. Clubs, classroom opened for, 372-374. Compulsory education law, non-enforcement, 231. Control, abolition of ward trustee, etc., 347, 348. Cooking classes, 367-368. Excursion schemes, 362. Experimenting, 403-410. Eyes inspection, 358-359. Fourth Ward, examination of girls, 355-357. Hester Street, see that title. Immigrants, school as means of enrolment, 211, 212. Kindergartens, benefit of, 365-367. Lack of schools, 43, 186. Medical inspection fight, 357. Mental befogment results, 230. Nature lessons, 361-364. Neighborhood purposes, 387, 398-410. Number and naming of schools, 374, 375. Playgrounds— Advisory committee report, 290-291. Roof playgrounds, see that title. Political meetings in, suggested, 407-408. Public Education Association, reform work, 371, 372, 378. Punishments in Madame Bruin's school, 341-342. Recreative purposes, 361. Reform fight, 44-45, 283, 345-371. Scarlet fever epidemic traced to public school, 358. Seats, "dead-line," 408-409. Shower-baths, 283. Social movement, use of the public school, 398-410. Sunday opening proposed, 399-403. Teachers' attitude to reform, 369-371. "Three H's" and "Three R's," 368, 387. Tombs, school for boys awaiting trial, 378, 379. Tompkins Square lodging house evening classes, 226. Truant school, 241, 242, 349, 350. Woman's work in reform, 371, 377, 379.

Schwab, Mr., summer excursions for boys, 405-406.

Settlement, see University Settlement.

Seven Dials reformation, "druv into decency," 113-114.

Seward Park— Crowds at play, 302-304. Delay in promised park, 295. Gymnastics, 302-303. Work started on, 296.

Sheds, tenants in, 98.

Shower-baths for public schools, 283.

Silver campaign, Irish laborer story, 217.

Slaughter houses, rear tenements condemned as, 37, 105, 116.

Slovak immigration, 202.

Slums— Bacillus of the slum, 62. Beginning of the battle, 1-4. Chicago outlook, 17. Clubs, see that title. Crime, see that title. Democratic government imperilled by, 6. "Druv into decency," 113-114. Funeral show, 109. Inquiry by United States government, 61, 97, 175. Italians, see that title. Jews, see that title. Making of the slum, 1. Military band, 252, 255. Parks, see that title. Population, see that title. Rome, 9-11. Schools, see that title. Sensations and shows, 109. Stroll through tenement-house neighborhood, 86-108. Sweating, see that title. Tammany, see that title. Tenements, see that title. Tuberculosis, 194-196, 300.

Small parks law, 287. Advisory committee action, 287-291. Lost appropriation, 40. Origin of, 274.

Smallpox epidemics, 29, 34, 64, 67.

Snyder, builder of schools, 353.

Soap factories prohibited below Grand Street, 107.

Social halls scheme, 420.

Social movement, use of the public school, 398-410.

Soup—end of free soup, 47.

Stanton Street— Polish capmaker, home of, 76-80. Pro-Cathedral, 72, 182. Stroll through neighborhood, 86.

Staten Island, summer excursions for boys, Mr. Schwab's proposal, 405-406.

Stewart, A. T., hotel, failure of, 29, 165-166.

Street cleaning, Colonel Waring's work, 45-46, 268-272, 415.

Stryker's Lane, truck farming, 366.

Sullivan Street, condition before demolition, 119-120.

Sunlight in tenements, assessment on, 94.

Summer, 1896, power of resistance of heat, 125-126.

Sunday opening of schools proposal, 399-403.

Sweating— Consumers' League, work of, 196-201. Fight against, 196. Growth of, 31. Home work in tenements, 183-184, 194-196. Italian underbidding Jews, 183. Jews, complaint against, 194. United Garment Workers of America, compact, 1892, 198.

Swine and the cholera panic, 1866, 4, 29.

Tagging lost children proposed, 92.

Tailors— Jewish quarrel, 183. Sweating, see that title.

Tammany— Boss, character of, 420-429. Campaign of 1901 against, 63-75. Croker, R., see that title. Election, 1897, 425-426. Election night, slum scenes, 58. Good Government Clubs condemned by, 126. Hamilton Fish Park, use of people's baths, 149-152. History of corruption and peculation, 5, 60, 64-74. Immigrants claimed by slum politics, 186-191, 211. Italian immigrant vote, 187-191. Mooney, William, character of, 64. Parkhurst and Lexow disclosures, 5, 41, 66. Playgrounds policy, 309. Prostitution organization, 69-74. Reform failures, 65. Smallpox epidemics during government, 64, 67. Tramp vote, 48.

Teachers, school reform attitude, 369-371.

Tenants of the slums, see Population.

Tenement House Commission— Appointment, 1900, 147. Gilder, see that title. "Infant slaughter houses," 37.

Tenement House Committee, volunteer, formation and work of, 143.

Tenement House Department, creation of, 147-148.

Tenement House Exhibition, 1900, effect of, 143-147.

Tenements— Air-shaft, tenants' uses and peril of, 93. Alfred Corning Clark buildings, 129, 130. Buddensiek, tenement builder, imprisonment, 20-21. Building Department supervision, 104. Children, see that title. Christmas trees, see that title. Citizens' council of hygiene, report, 1866, 19. City and Suburban Homes Company, see that title. City control of building proposed, 152. Death-rate, see that title. "Dens of death," 14, 20. Destruction, see Demolition. "Discretion" clause in building laws, 88, 105, 107, 148. Disease—disclosures of Tenement House Exhibition, 1900, 143-147. Double-deckers, see that title. Factory tenements, disapproval of, 134. Filthy condition, landlord's excuse, 13. Fires, see that title. First chapter in story of, 11. Gilder Commission, work of, 88, 105, 108, 116, 228, 276, 279, 281. Halls, unlighted, 90-92. Health board fights, 30, 37. Height and jerry-building, 11-13. Home libraries, 382-383. Increase in population and overcrowding, 81-83. "Infant slaughter houses," 37. Irish people, see that title. Italians, see that title. Jews, see that title. Kerosene stove, odor of, 92. Landlord's profits, 90. Licensing, 153. Model tenements, erection and success of, 128-137. Negroes, see that title. One-room house, beginnings of, 97. Open spaces, see Parks. Opposition to improvement, 30-31. Overcrowding, see that title. Parks, see that title. Plans for improvements, 37. Political tenements, 149, 152. Population, see that title. Rear tenements— Condemned as "slaughter houses," 37, 105, 116. Death-rate scandal, 115-116. Demolition, 114. Report of select committee of assembly, 1857, 12-13. Rome, 11. Standard of space for adults and children, 97. Sunlight, assessment of value, 94. Sweating, see that title. Tenants, see Population. Twenty-five-foot lot, doom of, 142, 148, 149. Up-town and down-town, 109-111. Water supply, lack of, 181. [See also Slums.]

Thieves, see Robberies.

Thieves' Alley demolition, 285, 286.

Tombs— Demolition, proposed preservation of gates, 5. School for boys awaiting trial, 378, 379. Tweed, thief in, 4.

Tompkins Square— Beresheim, Jacob, see that title. Evening classes failure, 226.

Tracy, Dr. R. S., mortality records, 116.

Tramp vote, Tammany's use of, 48.

Trilby of Cat Alley, 331-333.

Trinity Church, opposition as tenement-house landlord, 30.

Truant school, fight for, 241, 242, 349, 350.

Truck farming on site of Stryker's Lane, 366.

Trucks, street obstructions, disappearance, 45-46, 269-270.

Tuberculosis in the slums, 194-196, 300.

Tweed, thief, 4-5, 285.

Twenty-five-foot lot, doom of, 142, 148, 149.

United Garment Workers of America, compact, 1892, 198.

United States government slum inquiry, 61, 97, 175.

University Extension Society, work of, 381.

University settlement— Social development and school movement, 397-410. Work with East Side gang, 248.

Vagrancy— Crime, see that title. Encouragement by free lunches, lodging, etc., 170, 172. Farm colony for young vagrants proposed, 127, 172, 350.

Vitruvius, quotation as to height of dwellings, 11.

Walsh, Mrs., funeral in Cat Alley, 329-330.

Waring, Colonel— Death, 268. Market scheme, 271. Mulberry Street Park dedication, 268. Street-cleaning, 45-46, 126, 268-272, 414, 415. Trucks, disappearance, 45-46, 269-270.

Water supply in tenements, lack of, 181.

Weeks, L. S., murder in Brooklyn, 156.

Wheat lesson, Hester Street school, 363.

White, A. T., Riverside tenements, 135, 140.

Whitechapel, London, Green Dragon yard, 25-27.

Whyo gang headquarters, 272, 308.

Widows in Cat Alley, 325-326.

Willard, D., reform work among children, 378-379.

Wisconsin farmer—battle with Five Points, 13-14.

Woman doctor in the slums, Dr. J. E. Robbins, 205-206.

Woman's Hotel for working women, need of, 166-168.

Woodbine, Hirsch colony in New Jersey, 213.

Wooster Street barracks, 16.

Working people's dwellings, see Tenements.

THE END