And, again, the nature of the rooms here offered (one of which I was compelled to accept), the air or illusion of cells in an institution or prison that characterized them! They were really not rooms at all, as I found, but cells partitioned or arranged in such a way as to provide the largest amount of renting space and personal supervision and espionage to the founder and manager but only a bare bed to the guest. As I have said, they were all arranged either about an inner court or the exterior walls, so as to have the advantage of interior or exterior lighting, quite as all hotels and prisons are arranged. But the size of them and the amazingly small windows through which one looked, either into one or other of these courts or onto the streets outside! They were not more than five feet in width by eight in length, and contained each a small iron bed, a single chair, and a very small closet or wardrobe where some clothing might be installed, but so little that it could hardly be called a convenience. And, again, the walls were really not walls at all, but marble partitions set upon iron legs or jacks two feet from the floor and reaching to within three feet of the ceiling, which permitted the observation of one’s neighbor’s legs from below, if you wished to observe those conveniences, or of studying his entire chamber if you chose to climb upon your bed and look over the top. These open spaces were of course protected by iron screens, which prevented any one entering save through the door. It is obvious that any such arrangement would preclude any sense of privacy. When you were in your cell there came to you from all parts of the building the sounds of a general activity--the shuffling of feet, the clearing of throats, the rattling of dominoes in the reading-room below, voices in complaint or conversation, walkings to and fro, the slamming of doors here, there and everywhere, and what not. Coupled with this was the fact that the atmosphere of the whole building was permeated with tobacco smoke, and tainted or permeated with breaths in all degrees of strength from that of the drunkard to that of the drug fiend or consumptive. It was as though one were living in a weird dream. You were presumed to be alone, and yet you were not, and yet you were, only there was no sense of privacy, only a sense of being separated and then neglected and irritated. And the way these noises and this atmosphere continued into the small hours of the morning was maddening. There is something, to begin with, about poverty and squalor that is as depressing and destructive as a gas or a chemic ferment. Poverty has color and odor and radiation as strong as any gas or ferment. It speaks. It mourns, and these radiations are destructive. Hence the instinctive impulse to flee not only disease but poverty.