roadway rushing trolley cars noisily clanged their warning gongs, while
on either sidewalk stretching as far south as the City Hall cheap
clothing shops, tough saloons, low dance halls, pawnbrokers, penny
arcades, vaudeville shows, displayed their gaudy signs. Up and down
pushed and jostled a perspiring and motley crowd--bearded Jew peddlers,
pallid sweat-shop workers, Chinese, flashily dressed "toughs,"
furtive-eyed pickpockets, sailors on shore leave, factory girls,
painted street walkers, slouching longshoremen, tattered tramps,
derelicts of both sexes--an appalling host of unkempt, unwashed,
evil-smelling humanity.

In the side streets, just off the main thoroughfare, conditions were
even more congested and depressing. On either hand ricketty, grimy
tenements were alive with bearded Russians, fierce-looking Italians,
vociferating Irish, pot-bellied Germans. From broken windows hung
clotheslines bending under the load of newly washed rags; on flimsy,
rusty fire-escapes were jammed filthy mattresses on which slept the
wretched occupants, glad to escape from the foul air and heat within;
dark stairways and stoops were thronged with neglected, consumptive
children. The evil smells were so numerous that it was impossible to
determine which was the most objectionable. The air was full of
discordant, nerve-racking sounds. On one side of the street an Italian
was grinding a wheezy organ, while little girls, some with bare feet,
danced to the music. A few yards farther on, boys with white faces drawn
by hunger, were rummaging eagerly in ash barrels, hunting for scraps of
refuse. Two women were pulling each other's hair in the centre of a
circle of encouraging neighbors, neglected babes were screaming, dogs
were barking, a vendor was shrieking his wares. It was Hell, yet
nothing unusual--only everyday life in the slums.

"Isn't it dreadful?" murmured Paula, as she and Tod hurried along
Rivington Street.

"Gee!" replied her escort. "Look at some of those faces! They seem
hardly human. Animals are better looking."

"They are not to blame," answered Paula sadly. "These poor people are
the victims of circumstances. They have been brutalized--the Jews by
centuries of race persecution, the others by merciless economic
conditions. The black poverty in which they live is well nigh
inconceivable. Their desperate struggle for mere existence is
unbelievable."

"Phew!" exclaimed Tod, as he peeped through the window of a gloomy,
b