ung woman came in with a basket. A little silver cross shone
upon her breast. She went to the poor mother, and, putting her hand
soothingly on her head, knelt by her with gentle and loving words. The
half-crazed woman listened with averted face, then suddenly burst into
tears and hid her throbbing head in the other's lap.

The man stopped hammering and stared fixedly upon the two; the
children gathered around with devouring looks as the visitor took from
her basket bread, meat, and tea. Just then, with a parting wistful
look into the bare attic room, the sun-ray slipped away, lingered for
a moment about the coping outside, and fled over the housetops.

As it sped on its winter-day journey, did it shine into any cabin in
an Irish bog more desolate than these Cherry Street "homes"? An army
of thousands, whose one bright and wholesome memory, only tradition of
home, is that poverty-stricken cabin in the desolate bog, are herded
in such barracks to-day in New York. Potatoes they have; yes, and meat
at four cents--even seven. Beer for a relish--never without beer. But
home? The home that was home, even in a bog, with the love of it that
has made Ireland immortal and a tower of strength in the midst of her
suffering--what of that? There are no homes in New York's poor
tenements.

Down the crooked path of the Mulberry Street Bend the sunlight slanted
into the heart of New York's Italy. It shone upon bandannas and yellow
neckerchiefs; upon swarthy faces and corduroy breeches; upon
black-haired girls--mothers at thirteen; upon hosts of bow-legged
children rolling in the dirt; upon pedlers' carts and rag-pickers
staggering under burdens that threatened to crush them at every step.
Shone upon unnumbered Pasquales dwelling, working, idling, and
gambling there. Shone upon the filthiest and foulest of New York's
tenements, upon Bandit's Roost, upon Bottle Alley, upon the hidden
byways that lead to the tramps' burrows. Shone upon the scene of
annual infant slaughter. Shone into the foul core of New York's slums
that was at last to go to the realm of bad memories because civilized
man might not look upon it and live without blushing.

It glanced past the rag-shop in the cellar, whence welled up stenches
to poison the town, into an apartment three flights up that held two
women, one young, the other old and bent. The young one had a baby at
her breast. She was rocking it tenderly in her arms, singing in the
soft Italian tongue a lul