Under this system, a number of men of a certain foreign race club together and hire an apartment, consisting of a few rooms in a regular tenement house, or, very frequently, a large storeroom or warehouse, which thereupon becomes their home. In order to minimize expense, the greatest possible number of beds are provided in each room. If the apartment consists of a storeroom, it is often fitted up with tiers of bunks along the sides. Such a room may be used by two sets of men, one during the day and one during the night. If some of the men are peddlers, the peanut stands or barrows will be kept at night in the unoccupied spaces in the room. The lack of woman’s care in the upkeep of such apartments is very manifest. The meals are either prepared in the apartment or secured at some near-by restaurant, or the two methods are combined. In the absence of all semblance of family life, every possible expedient to reduce expense is adopted, with the unfortunate results that might be expected. The following description of such a household will give a concrete idea of the type: “To-day, in a certain mining town, there are fourteen Slavs, all unmarried, and with only themselves to support, who rent one large, formerly abandoned, storeroom. This is taken care of by a housekeeper, who also prepares the meals for the men. Each man has his own tin plate, tin knife, fork, and cup; he has his own ham and bread, and a place in which to keep them. Some things they buy in common, the distribution being made by the housekeeper. For beds the men sleep on bunks arranged along the walls and resembling shelves in a grocery store. Each has his own blanket; each carries it out-of-doors to air when he gets up in the morning, and back again when he returns from his work at night. The monthly cost of living to each of these men is not over four dollars. They spend but little on clothes the year round, contenting themselves with the cheapest kind of material, and not infrequently wearing cast-off garments purchased of some second-hand dealer. For fuel they burn coal from the culm-banks or wood from along the highway, which costs them nothing but their labor in gathering it.”[213] That housing conditions such as have been portrayed above should prevail so generally all over the country is a serious indictment against the social and industrial organization of the United States. It has been intimated that these conditions are not in all cases due to the choice of the immigrant, or to the lack of desire for better things on his part. Whether they are not, to a large degree, actually due to the presence of the immigrant in this country is quite another matter, upon the decision of which must rest much of the final judgment as to the desirability of immigration under the present system.