In the colored belt on the South Side of Chicago, there are a number of business houses managed by colored people and patronized exclusively by members of their own race. There is also one bank located in a fine building of which a colored man is president and 80 per cent of the depositors white. According to the evidence confirmed by the figures of the United States census, however, there is little possibility for a colored business man to make a living solely from the patronage of his own people. The census report holds that he succeeds in business only when two-thirds of his customers are white. This affords one explanation of the fact that most of his business is of such a character that a white man is willing to patronize it--barber shops, expressing, restaurants, and other business suggesting personal service. [Sidenote: =The Principal Business Street in the “Black Belt”=] In a mile on State street, from No. 3000 to 3900, the investigators found 108 colored men in business, who employed 270 colored men. Of these business undertakings, twelve were saloons--most of them newly opened; twelve barber shops; seven real estate offices--only three of them ten years old; ten restaurants--five of them having been there for more than five years and two for more than ten years; six pool rooms--all recently opened; four hair dressers, and three tailors, in addition to confectioners, bakers, cleaners, decorators, dressmakers, druggists and the other miscellaneous shops usually found in a self-contained neighborhood. As ministering to the higher life, there were found in the same block three music stores, one “art” store, one piano store, two printers, and--if they may be included in such a list--a photographer and a florist. All of the latter save one have been in existence for more than five years, in sharp contrast to the more ephemeral life of the pool rooms and saloons, only one of which has survived so long, while eleven others have changed proprietors recently. This may be partly owing to the fact that it requires very little money to run either, since both the breweries and the pool room manufacturers readily accommodate their salesmen with their goods and other fittings, and many young colored men, who have been employed in them, are ambitious themselves to become proprietors. While in a measure the decency of such a place depends upon the proprietor, he usually responds to the pressure of the large concern who is his creditor. The total amount of capital invested in the mile by the 108 colored men was found to be $15,750. In addition to the colored men carrying on business in the mile were twenty-six Americans, seventy-nine Jews, eighteen Germans, thirteen Irishmen, ten Greeks, nine Chinamen, and six other white men whose nationality was not ascertained. Several colored women manage independent hair dressing establishments in Chicago. On State street there are two successful