in
tenement houses! Thus with one of the most painful diseases enthroned in
that part of the body which must move incessantly from dawn till
midnight, with two small dependent children and a husband who is utterly
powerless to help her, this poor woman struggles bravely and
uncomplainingly, confronted ever by a nameless dread of impending
misfortune. Eviction, sickness, starvation,--such are the ever-present
spectres, while every year marks the steady encroachment of disease, and
the lowering of the register of vitality. Moreover, from the window of
her soul falls the light of no star athwart the pathway of life.

[2] NOTE ON PICTURE OF INVALID IN CHAIR. The picture given in
this issue of this apartment represents the poor invalid
placed by some friends on a chair while his bed could be
made. Our artist preferred to take it this way, knowing
that it would bring out the strong face better than if
taken on his pallet on the floor, where for two years he
has lain. Through The Arena Relief Fund, we have been
enabled to greatly relieve the hard lot of this as well as
many other families of unfortunates. Now the invalid is
provided with a comfortable bedstead, with a deep, soft
mattress, and furnished with many other things which
contribute to life's comfort. When the bed, mattress, and
other articles were being brought into this apartment, the
tears of gratitude and joy flowed almost in rivers from the
eyes of the patient wife, who felt that even in their
obscure den some one in the great world yet cared for them.

[Illustration: CONSTANCE AND MAGGIE (SEE NOTE).]

The next place we visited was in the attic of a tenement building even
more wretched than the one just described. The general aspects of these
houses, however, are all much the same, the chief difference being in
degrees of filth and squalor present. Here in an attic lives a poor
widow with three children, a little boy and two little girls, Constance
and Maggie.[3] They live by making pants at twelve cents a pair. Since
the youngest child was two and a half years old she has been daily
engaged in overcasting the long seams of the garments made by her
mother. When we first called she had just passed her fourth birthday,
and now overcasts from three to four pairs of pants every day. There
seated on a little stool she sat, her