We are told, with some show of truth, that this age shall be noted in history as one given to the study of social problems. The contemporary literature of a country is a good index to what people are thinking about. Magazines are, as a rule, for their time, and deal with the forces upward in men’s minds. The most cursory glance at their contents will show the predominance of the Social Problem treated from some phase or other. The best minds are engaged as partisans. Social science may be said to be the order of the day. It has crushed poetry to the skirts of advertising, romance is its happy basking ground. The drama has made it its own. There are some, fogies of course, so says your sapient scientist, who believe that the social science so spasmodically treated in current literature is but a passing fad, and that poetry shall be restored to her old quarters, romance amuse as of old, and the drama be winnowed of rant, scenic sensation, and bestial morality. These dreams may be vain, but then even fogies have their hopes. A branch of this science—the tree is overshadowing—treats of the literature and the masses. Anything about the masses interests me. When I read the other day, “Literature and the Masses; a Social Study,” among the contents of a _fin de siècle_ magazine, I would have pawned my wearing apparel rather than go home without it. Its reading was painful, as all reading must be where the author knows less about his subject than the ordinary reader. Later, another article fell in my way, dealing with the same subject. Its author had more material, but his use of it was clumsy. It was while reading this article, that I noted the utter stupidity with which things Catholic are treated by the ordinary literary purveyor. These ephemeral pen-wielders seem to hold the most fantastic notions of the Church. What Azarias says of Emerson is true of them: “They seek truth in every religious and philosophical system outside of the teachings of the Catholic Church.” They will not drink from Rome. To correct all this author’s errors is not my plan. In this paper I restrict myself to a part of the same subject, Literature and Our Catholic Poor. I prefer an independent study to patchwork. It is the usual thing in such studies to present credentials. I present mine. Five years’ life in the tenement districts of New York and other great cities of the Union, in full contact, from the peculiarity of my position, with the poor. During these years I was led to make a study of their reading. This study, to be intelligible, must be prefaced by a few hints on their life and environment. It is useless to deny the often-repeated assertion that their lot in the great cities is hard and crushing. It is a continual struggle for nominal existence. The children commence work at a premature age. Their education is meagre and broken. Marriage is entered in early life, without the slightest provision. To these marriages there is little selection. The girls have