In regard to the housing conditions of the foreign-born outside of the larger centers of population it is more difficult to make generalizations. Fortunately, it is also less necessary. Some of the foremost housing evils are essentially city matters. Particularly is it true of immigrants who have established themselves in independent agriculture, that they have made a long step toward Americanization. While every grade of dwelling may be found among foreign-born agriculturists, from the wretched hovel of the Italian market gardener to the home of the Swedish farmer of the Northwest which ranks with the finest in the land, yet the alien who takes up his abode in the country has, in many respects, removed himself from the general problem of the immigrant, and his living conditions can, with a reasonable degree of safety, be left to look after themselves. Yet it has been abundantly proved that slum conditions can exist even in the country, and in small towns. This is especially true in mining camps, and in the smaller manufacturing communities. Some of the worst conditions of the most crowded sections of the cities are reproduced in the shacks of the miners or the dwellings of the factory hands. Overcrowding, bad ventilation, unsanitary toilet facilities, inadequate heating, and filth are not city monopolies. The taking of boarders is especially common in these communities, and, in the mining towns, brings a peculiar evil with it, in addition to all the regular disadvantages. This lies in the necessity which every mine worker is under of bathing every day after work. In the absence of bathrooms, ablutions are customarily performed in a tub set in the kitchen, and in the crowded quarters of the miner’s cabin, the children of the household are accustomed to the sight of nudity from their infancy up, to the serious injury of their moral sense.[216] It is too often true that the worst conditions prevail in the company houses. The extreme monotony of these identical rows of ugly dwellings is in itself sufficiently depressing. But in addition, it appears that many employers are wholly oblivious to the higher needs of their employees, and provide the most meager shelter which will suffice to keep body and soul together, charging therefor exorbitant rates. To say that these men and women are treated like beasts, is putting the case too mildly, for no well-to-do person would house a valuable animal as some of these human workers are housed. The shifting character of the population and the uncertain duration of a mining camp offer a quasi justification for some of these evils. Yet a self-respecting nation should not permit any type of industry to persist which requires its army of workers to live as do hundreds of thousands of these faithful toilers.[217]