This prevalent custom of taking boarders brings numerous evils in its train. Foremost among these is the absolute sacrifice of family life in the households. It is difficult at best to maintain a decent degree of privacy when the family is left to itself; the intrusion of outsiders makes it wholly impossible. Secondly, the taking of boarders tends to increase a congestion which is likely already to be extreme. Thirdly, it lays additional burdens upon the already overworked housewife. Its great advantage is, of course, the increase of the family income, sometimes to an amount almost double that which could be obtained without the boarders. Among the Slavs, for example, women are rare, and are regarded as very valuable, first as wives, and second as a means whereby a man may take boarders.[211] The arrangements between the boarders and the housewife differ in different localities, and under different conditions. In a Colorado mining camp $10 a month is the customary price for a regular boarder. A very common arrangement is for the men to buy each his own food, and pay the woman to cook it. The sums paid range from $2 to $4 a month for lodging, washing, and cooking. The life of such a housewife in a coal mining community has been described in the following words: “The status of the immigrant housewife from the south and east of Europe is deplorable. The boarding system followed is one whereby a fixed sum is paid for lodging, cooking, washing, and mending; an individual food account being kept with each lodger. The housewife has the beds to make each day for a dozen men, their clothing to wash and mend, their meals to prepare. In many cases she has also to buy the food, which necessitates many visits to the store and separate purchases for each boarder. She has also to carry all the water used from the hydrant or well, which may be ten or one hundred yards distant. When the men return from work it is a part of her duties to help them in their ablutions by scrubbing their backs. There are also numerous children to care for and scores of other tasks demanding her attention. Under these conditions the marked untidiness of the immigrant households is not to be wondered at.”[212] The second typical method of providing for the single male immigrant, mentioned above, is coöperative housekeeping on the part of a group of men, either with or without a female housekeeper. This practice is very common among many of the newer races of immigrants, as has been suggested. It is a makeshift to which the foreigner is driven by the absence of a normal number of women of his own race. In households of this sort are developed some of the very worst conditions to be found among our foreign residents.