The tide of immigration set in, and the strangers settled near the docks and wharfs--the source of their wages; in time they crowded into the old residences, beginning the housing problem of New York. These old homes were soon overcrowded. They could not be made sanitary. The demand for room was so great that the large closets--the necessity of the old-time housekeepers--were counted bedrooms, and are to-day in houses of this type in tenement-house regions throughout the city. The property secured by the new company at the time it was leased was a part of a large estate, the owner of which during his lifetime had personally cared for it. He was both strict and just, and these two attributes preserved these houses for years after the property in the neighborhood had begun to yield to the character of later residents. This owner kept the alleys and the houses in repair. The semi-privacy the iron gate gave the tenants was for years the reason that the better-paid mechanics remained in the courts or alleys. When the owner died, the property was put in control of an agent, with the usual result--rapid degeneracy. It was now conducted to secure the largest returns at the least outlay. The evils of the absentee landlord are not confined to Ireland. Absenteeism on the part of owners of tenement-house property is one of the causes of the social and civic problems that retard the growth of the highest civilization in New York. Under the management of an agent, the character of the tenants in the courts changed rapidly, and the people who took possession added to the disreputable character of the Fourth Ward. For years before this the largest per cent. of the immigrants settling in New York settled in this section. They came with distorted notions as to their place in the new land. Liberty meant to the majority the right to follow their own will. When hunger and loneliness and nakedness forced them to reconsider their first conception of what America was, resentment, recklessness, or adaptability developed. The difference was a matter of temperament quite as much as of race.