As an instance, take the rear tenement on East Twenty-seventh Street, where I found the floor of the street-level flat rotted away, and a pool of slimy, filthy water. The back hall, the floor of which still remained, or at least was not entirely rotted away, had been used as a toilet—possibly by persons passing along the streets. Entering that tenement, while looking for the janitor, I found a baby, less than two years old, playing in that filth. Of course it had smeared it over itself. It was horrible. Unspeakable! A social service worker could have taken that baby to its mother and given her a lecture on hygiene. I did not stop at that—while standing by her to see that she gave the baby a proper scrubbing and clean clothes, I not only got the history of her and her family, but I held over her head the threat of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Once the baby was decently clean, I put the mother on probation under the surveillance of the only dog-owner in the house—there was no janitor. At noon I spent practically the whole of my lunch-hour telephoning the Tenement House Department and the owner of the house. To both I described myself as a writer, and told them that unless they wished to see a photograph of that street-level flat, with a description of that baby as I had found it, in the Sunday papers, that floor must be fixed and the house cleaned up at once. As for that mother—I kept my hold on her for more than a year. Looking back over my records I find that I had, first and last, eighteen mothers in my district on such a probation. One was an Irishwoman living in a filthy tenement across from the morgue. She knocked a child down in my presence—a little emaciated boy of not more than six years. When I remonstrated with her she told me that it was her child, and she would treat it as she chose. When I started for a policeman she changed her mind—began to slobber and shed crocodile tears while protesting her love for the child. As long as I was working within walking distance, I used to go once a week to see that she lived up to her agreement. At first I used to make her strip the boy to make sure there were no bruises on his body. Later I called once a month—never at the same hour nor on the same day of the week. One odd characteristic about those women, they always grew to like me. Among my best friends in the tenements I number several women whom I, at one time or another during my four years in the underbrush, threatened to report to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. That society, like the A. S. P. C. A., is known to every dweller in the slums of the Greater City. There were occasions when I did not stop at a threat. I went to the nearest telephone and, calling up the society, reported the case. In every instance my appeal was attended to immediately, and handled to my satisfaction. The first time I had occasion to call on this organization was in behalf of four young girls, sisters.