That night, as a destitute workingman, at this same place I asked for a bed. I was told I could have one but was expected to do two hours' work for it. "I am perfectly willing to do so," I replied. The office was caged in by a heavy iron wire as though to be protected from thieves. The man at the desk said: "Well, leave me your hat, and when you have done your work in the morning you will get it." I humbly handed him my hat, and numbering it he threw it on a pile of many others. He was obviously holding my hat as a ransom, fearing to trust my honor. I was given a bed check corresponding to the number of my hat, and told to go upstairs. A man sat at a desk on which an old, smoky kerosene lamp was burning. He showed me into a room in which _one hundred and sixteen men_ were sleeping. He did not turn up the light, even for a moment, so that I might see the kind of a bed I was getting into. He explained this by saying he feared to awaken the dead-tired, half-starved individuals on the bunks. As a result I was afraid to get into my bed at all, but laid down on the outside of the covering and stayed there all night. Not a word had been said about supper or a bath. The odor of the hundred unwashed bodies was nauseating. There was the usual consumptive and asthmatic coughing, and the expectoration upon the floor; there were no cuspidors, and the air was stifling. Not far from me I heard a young man moaning, and every few moments he would exclaim, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" I went to him and asked: "What is the matter?" "Oh, I am suffering from inflammatory rheumatism," he groaned. I felt of his arms and hands, and found them burning hot and swollen hard from his elbows to his finger-tips. "Can't I go out and get something for you?" I anxiously asked. "I don't know what to tell you to get. I need a doctor." I called an attendant. The sufferer asked if he could get a doctor from the city hall across the street. "No, not until nine o'clock to-morrow morning," was the answer. The man had two rags about twelve inches long and three inches wide. All night long, at intervals of every twenty or thirty minutes, he went to the water faucet, wet these rags, and bound them upon his arms. I thought by contrast of New York City's wonderful Municipal Emergency Home, and of the kind medical treatment given at any hour of the night to its inmates. On arising in the morning we went down-stairs and waited an hour for our breakfasts. We could see our hats piled up behind the iron bars.