To those who visit these sections of the city, each one seems worse than the other. The “Ghetto” is the most wretched haunt occupied by human beings in the country. It is easily found. Cross the river at Harrison street, go west to Jefferson street, turn south. Anybody can tell you where it is. There is no mistaking the place. A junkman’s cellar in the front of the house opens widely to the street, and, peering down, one may see a scene of men and women half buried in dirty rags and papers which they are gathering up and putting in bales for the paper mills. This is the general depot to which the rag-picker brings his odds and ends for sale after he has assorted them. Just as we emerge from this cellar, a rag-picker, heavily laden, passes up the stoop, and enters the hall above. Standing here and looking up, one beholds a sight that cannot be imagined. Rags to the right of him, rags to the left of him, on all sides nothing but rags. Lines in the yard draped with them, windows hung with them, every available object dressed in rags—and such rags! of every possible size, shape and color. Some of them have been drawn through the wash-tub to get off the worst dirt, but for the most part they are hung up just as they were taken from the bags, and left to the rain and snow to cleanse them. The exterior of the buildings is wretched enough; the interior equally so. Some of the rooms on a cloudy day are as dark as dungeons, with but little light coming through the dirty window on the front and the smaller one on the back. Every inch of the ceiling and walls is black and dirty. Against this dark background are hung numerous hats, kettles, pans, joints of raw meat, partly consumed Bologna sausages, gowns of women, and so on. The beds are almost invariably covered with old carpets, that still retain some bits of their original color. None of the chairs have backs, and hardly any of them have four legs. Seated upon these uncertain supports, or often an empty soap box or upturned boiler, are the rag-pickers. Every man in the house has his hat on, including the one in bed napping after the hard work of the early morning. Not one bare-headed man is seen anywhere. Some of them are sitting dreamily by the stove, but most of them are sorting rags or cutting up old coats and pantaloons that are too much used to wear, and stuffing the bits into the bags for the junk dealer. In one room is a woman washing bones with her dirty hands, in another place four men are seated on a big chest, with a bit of Bologna sausage in one hand and a chunk of black bread in the other, making their noon-day meal. These same hands have just finished turning over filthy scraps from the garbage boxes and the gutters. On the ground floor a man, who looks for all the world like a brigand, is stirring broth over the fire, and the horrible odor of rottenness that comes from the pot is enough to knock one down.