Here is an illustration of the resolute spirit which conditions cannot crush. A young Polish girl was brought by her widowed mother to America, in hope of bettering their condition. The mother died soon afterward, leaving the orphan dependent. Then came the disappointments, one after another, and finally, the almost inevitable result in such cases, the fall into the slums and the sweat-shops. By hard work six days in the week, fourteen or more hours a day, this girl of tender age could make $4 a week! She had to get up at half past five every morning and make herself a cup of coffee, which with a bit of bread and sometimes fruit made her breakfast. Listen to her story: [Sidenote: Her Own Story] "The machines go like mad all day, because the faster you work the more money you get. Sometimes in my haste the finger gets caught and the needle goes right through it. We all have accidents like that. Sometimes a finger has to come off.... For the last two winters I have been going to night school. I have learned reading, writing, and arithmetic. I can read quite well in English now, and I look at the newspapers every day. I am going back to night school again this winter. Some of the women in my class are more than forty years of age. Like me, they did not have a chance to learn anything in the old country. It is good to have an education; it makes you feel higher. Ignorant people are all low. People say now that I am clever and fine in conversation. There is a little expense for charity, too. If any worker is injured or sick we all give money to help."[74] [Sidenote: Possibilities] Surely this is good material. A changed and Christian environment would make shining lights out of these poor immigrants, who are kept in the subways of American life, instead of being given a fair chance out in the open air and sunlight of decently paid service. [Sidenote: A Foreign System] Practically all of the work in tenements is carried on by foreign-born men and women, and more than that, by the latest arrivals and the lowest conditioned of the foreign-born. Tenement-house legislation has been practically forced upon New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, whose ports of entry receive the first impact of immigration, by two of the races that have been crowding into the cities--the Italian and Hebrew. The Italian woman, working in her close tenement, has by her cheap labor almost driven out all other nationalities from that class of work still done in the home, the hand sewing on coats and trousers. Of the 20,000 licenses granted by the New York factory inspector for "home finishing" in New York City, ninety-five per cent. are held by Italians. This work has to be done because the husband is not making enough to support the family. These men work mostly as street laborers, hucksters, and peddlers. To make both ends meet not only the wife but children have to work. [Sidenote: A Typical Case]