restaurants conducted by women; also one saloon and one florist shop; two widows of their original owners. There are a large proportion of real estate dealers among colored men, many of whom do business with white people, the negro dealer often becoming the agent for houses which the white dealers refuse to handle. Colored people are very eager to own their own homes and many of them are buying small houses, divided into two flats, living in one and collecting rent from the other. The contract system prevails in Chicago, making it possible for a man with two or three hundred dollars for the first payment to enter into a contract for the purchase of a piece of property, the deed being held by the real estate man until the purchaser pays the amount stipulated in the contract. [Sidenote: =Four Colored Settlements in Chicago=] As a careful study of the housing conditions of colored people made by the students of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy ascertained, there are four well defined districts in which colored people have resided for a number of years--one at Englewood, one at 55th street and Lake avenue, one on the West Side, and the largest, known as the “Black Belt,” which includes the old 22nd street segregated vice district. In this so-called “belt,” the number of children is remarkably small, forming only a little more than one-tenth of the population, while the lodgers constitute 37 per cent of the population. The investigation made by the School of Civics showed that only 26 per cent of the houses on the South Side and 36 per cent of the houses on the West Side colored district were in good repair. Colored tenants reported that they found it impossible to persuade their landlords either to make the necessary repairs or to release them from their contracts, but that it was so hard to find places in which to live that they were forced to endure unsanitary conditions. The investigation by the School of Civics confirmed the general impression that the rent paid by a negro is appreciably higher than that paid by any other nationality. In a flat building formerly occupied by white people, the white families paid a rent of twelve dollars for a six-room apartment for which a negro family are now paying sixteen dollars. A white family paid seventeen dollars for an apartment of seven rooms for which the negroes are now paying twenty dollars. [Sidenote: =Real Estate and the Colored Tenant=]