the number of those who are sacrificed at present is far greater than is necessary, and that reasonable precautions in industry might greatly increase the healthfulness of the occupations and diminish the number of accidents to employees. On the whole, it is probable that these economic causes of poverty figure in from 50 to 80 per cent of all cases, not operating alone, to be sure, but often in connection with faults of character or physical or mental defects in the individual; for it is always to be remembered in discussing the causes of poverty that one never finds a case which can be fairly attributed to a single cause. The complexity of causes operating in the case of a single dependent family frequently makes it impossible for any one to say with certainty what is the chief and what are the contributing causes. Oftentimes what appears to be the chief cause, such as lack of employment, has back of it defects in individual character which are not apparent to the investigator. Researches along this line have shown that the number of cases of distress which may be attributed to lack of employment, for example, may be very greatly reduced when all individual defects are taken into consideration. This, however, is not an argument for regarding the economic causes of poverty as any less important than has been indicated. (2) Unsanitary conditions of living are frequent causes of poverty. Among these unsanitary conditions may be mentioned especially the housing of the poor. The housing of the poor in badly ventilated, poorly lighted, and unsanitary dwellings greatly increases sickness and death and undoubtedly contributes greatly to their economic depression. Thus in New York city in the first ward, where there is only one house on each lot, the death rate is 29 per 1000 of the population, but where rear tenements have been erected it is 62 per 1000 of the population. The importance of public sanitation, and especially of the prevention of overcrowding and the securing of properly lighted and ventilated dwellings for the people, is so great that we need not enlarge upon it. (3) Defects in our educational system are certainly productive of poverty. Ignorant and illiterate persons are much more liable to become dependent. In particular the lack of industrial training in our public schools is a prolific cause of dependence in our complex industrial civilization. (4) Defects in government, permitting corruption on the one hand, or failing to check economic or sanitary evils on the other hand, are manifest causes of poverty. Indeed, inasmuch as government exists to regulate the whole social order, wherever it fails to perform this work properly some economic distress must ensue. (5) Corruption in social institutions and customs is certainly a cause of poverty: such, for example, is the custom of social drinking, and such also the unwise and indiscriminate charity which has so often existed in the past.