Go into any one of these areas and you will encounter a civilization that is as strange and un-American as if it were not included in this land at all. Pushcarts and market-stalls are among the most distinctive features. Little stores and grimy windows are also characteristic of these sections. There is an atmosphere of crowdedness and poverty which goes with both. Any one can see that these people are living energetically. There is something about the hurry and enthusiasm of their life that reminds you of ants. If you stay and turn your attention from the traffic proper, the houses begin to attract your attention. They are nearly all four-story or five-story buildings, with here and there one of six, and still another of seven stories; all without elevators, and all, with the exception of the last, exceedingly old. There are narrow entrance-ways, dingy and unlighted, which lead up dark and often rickety stairs. There are other alley-ways, which lead, like narrow tunnels, to rear tenements and back shops. Iron fire escapes descend from the roof to the first floor, in every instance, because the law compels it. Iron stairways sometimes ascend, where no other means of entrance is to be had. There are old pipes which lead upward and carry water. No such thing as sanitary plumbing exists. You will not often see a gas-light in a hall in as many as two blocks of houses. You will not see one flat in ten with hot and cold water arrangements. Other districts have refrigerators and stationary washstands, and bath tubs as a matter of course, but these people do not know what modern conveniences mean. Steam heat and hot and cold water tubs and sinks have never been installed in this area. The houses are nearly all painted a dull red, and nearly all are divided in the most unsanitary manner. Originally they were built five rooms deep, with two flats on a floor, but now the single flats have been subdivided and two or three, occasionally four or five, families live and toil in the space which was originally intended for one. There are families so poor, or so saving and unclean, that they huddle with other families, seven or eight persons in two rooms. Iron stands covered by plain boards make a bed which can be enlarged or reduced at will. When night comes, four, five, six, sometimes seven such people stretch out on these beds. When morning comes the bedclothes, if such they may be called, are cleared away and the board basis is used as a table. One room holds the stove, the cooking utensils, the chairs, and the sewing machine. The other contains the bed, the bed-clothing, and various kinds of stored material. Eating, sleeping, and usually some washing are done there.