I know a chamber in this section where, at a plain wooden bench or table, sits a middle-aged Hungarian and his wife, with a fifteen-year-old daughter, sewing. The Hungarian is perhaps not honestly Gentile, for he looks as if he might have Hebrew blood in his veins. The mother and the daughter partake of a dark olive tinge, more characteristic of the Italian than of anything else. It must be a coincidence, however, for these races rarely mix. Between them and upon a nearby chair are piled many pairs of trousers, all awaiting their labor. Two buckles and a button must be sewed on every one. The rough edges at the bottom must be turned up and basted, and the inside about the top must be lined with a kind of striped cotton which is already set loosely in place. It is their duty to sew closely with their hands what is already basted. No machine worker can do this work, and so it is sent out to such as these, under the practice of tenement distribution. Their duty is to finish it. [Illustration: Toilers of the Tenements] There would be no need to call attention to these people except that in this instance they have unwittingly violated the law. Tenement workers, under the new dispensation, cannot do exactly as they please. It is not sufficient for them to have an innate and necessitous desire to work. They must work under special conditions. Thus, it is now written that the floors must be clean and the ceilings whitewashed. There must not be any dirt on the walls. No room in which they work must have such a thing as a bed in it, and no three people may ever work together in one room. Law and order prescribe that one is sufficient. These others--father and daughter, or mother and daughter, or mother and father--should go out into the shops, leaving just one here to work. Such is the law. These three people, who have only these two trades, have complied with scarcely any of these provisions. The room is not exactly as clean as it should be. The floor is dirty. Overhead is a smoky ceiling, and in one corner is a bed. The two small windows before which they labor do not give sufficient ventilation, and so the air in the chamber is stale. Worst of all, they are working three in a chamber, and have no license. “How now,” asks an inspector, opening the door--for there is very little civility of manner observed by these agents of the law who constantly regulate these people--“any pants being finished here?”