NOTE ON PICTURE OF EXTERIOR OF TENEMENT HOUSE. This picture is from a photograph of one of the many tenements in the North End which front upon blind alleys. The illustration gives the front of the house and the only entrance to it. In this building dwell twenty families. The interior is even more dilapidated and horrible than the entrance. Here children are born, and here characters are moulded; here the fate of future members of the Commonwealth is stamped. Taxes on such a building are relatively low under our present system so the landlord realizes a princely revenue, and while such a condition remains, it is not probable that he will tear down the wretched old and erect a commodious new building, on which he would be compelled to pay double or triple the present taxes, merely for the comfort and moral and physical health of his tenants. [Illustration: UNDER-GROUND TENEMENT WITH TWO BEDS (SEE NOTE).] In another similar cellar or burrow[5] we found a mother and seven boys and girls, some of them quite large, all sleeping in two medium-sized beds in one room; this room is also their kitchen. The other room is a storehouse for kindling wood the children gather and sell, a little store and living room combined. Their rent is two dollars a week. The cellar was damp and cold; the air stifling. Nothing can be imagined more favorable to contagion both physical and moral than such dens as these. Ethical exaltation or spiritual growth is impossible with such environment. It is not strange that the slums breed criminals, which require vast sums yearly to punish after evil has been accomplished; but to me it is an ever-increasing source of wonder that society should be so short-sighted and neglectful of the condition of its exiles, when an outlay of a much smaller sum would ensure a prevention of a large proportion of the crime that emenates from the slums; while at the same time it would mean a new world of life, happiness, and measureless possibilities for the thousands who now exist in hopeless gloom. [5] NOTE ON ILLUSTRATION OF UNDERGROUND TENEMENT WITH TWO BEDS. These miserable quarters are four steps down from the street. There are two small rooms, one a shop in which kindling wood is stowed, which is gathered up by the children, split and tied in bundles. The mother also sells peanuts and candy. The back room contains a range and two beds which take almost the entire area of the room. In these two rooms several people sleep. One can readily see how unfortunate such a life is from an ethical, no less than social point of view. [Illustration: OUT OF WORK (SEE NOTE).]