“Since 1852,” he said, “the society which I represent has been doing its best to rescue the little wanderers of this city from lives of suffering and degradation. The value of its work is too well known for me to enlarge upon it. We are met here this evening to discuss tenement houses, and I will therefore take the time to make only two or three statements in reply to Miss Brewster’s inquiry as to whether the morals of the community have improved, and whether charitable and reformatory work is of much value. Now, in spite of the fact that the overcrowding in the poor quarters is greater than ever, that the lowest of the European population are pouring into our city to an alarming extent, that our municipal government has often been notoriously corrupt, in spite of all this, I say, by means of the efforts which have been put forth, there has been a steady and most satisfactory decrease in crime during all these years. Allow me to give you a few figures. In 1859 there were more than five thousand five hundred commitments for female vagrancy, and in 1886, notwithstanding the general increase in population, there were less than two thousand five hundred commitments for the same cause. In the eleven years preceding 1886, the decrease in arrests for drunkenness among males was just about fifty per cent. I will hand you a table, Miss Brewster, giving you the report of juvenile crimes since 1875, and also the Police record containing the general report for the city, the details of which you can read at your leisure. I will simply say now that the net summing up of these reports shows a remarkable decrease in crime of all sorts of twelve and a half per cent. This, I think, will answer your question as to whether, on the whole, our city is any better.” “There is another thing to be noticed,” said a little lady over in the corner. “People of all classes think more of going into the country and getting fresh air than they used to. Thousands of families who thirty years ago would not have spent two or three weeks in the year out of the city now think they must have two months at least. They have come to consider this a necessity for themselves, and it makes them through sympathy appreciate a little the needs of the very poor during the fierce summer heat. The lovely charities of the Flower Mission, Country Week, and the harbor excursions have grown out of this sympathy for others.