ostrich the way that they are
sold.

In one such family dejection seemed to have reached its lowest ebb. The
window looked out on a court,--a court that was never cleaned and where
all manner of rubbish was thrown. Although it was morning and a
brilliant, sunshiny day, the light within was so dim that it was hard to
work by; yet with characteristic shiftlessness the window had not been
washed for months and diminished still further the little light there
was; a mattress in the opposite corner from a shaky cooking gas-burner
showed that this room was the entire home.

[Illustration: TAKING THE CENSUS IN A CITY. Enumerator at a doorway,
entering in his portfolio the details of a household.]

"Where is your husband?" asked the boy, noting on the schedule a man's
name as head of the family.

"In hospital--perhaps dead. See!"

The woman pointed to a telegram which had fallen to the floor. Hamilton
picked it up. It read:

"John Sobieski worse. Come at once," and was signed with the name of one
of the large hospitals.

"Did you go?" asked the boy.

The woman shook her head.

"Two hours lost, if I go. No good. Two hours' work means twenty-four
cents. What's the use?"

"What's the matter with him?"

"Consumption. I die soon, next year, perhaps. All the children sick."

The boy looked around at 'all the children.' There were five of them in
that room, and all--even the youngest, a baby four years old--were
knotting the feathers on the plume. The baby could hardly do it, but he
was learning.

"Many hands make light work," said Hamilton as cheerfully as he could.
"With so many little workers you ought to get along finely."

"Yes," the woman answered listlessly, "we get along. Some days we make
as much as a dollar!"

"Each of you?"

"Do we look so rich? One dollar for everybody. But that is only
sometimes, when I am not too sick. We can get a little more than five
dollar the week, by working all the time."

The boy hastily asked the remaining questions on the schedule, found
everything correctly reported and relieving his conscience by giving a
little help out of his own pocket, he left for the next place.

On the floor below was a family working on fur, every one of them with
hacking coughs caused by tiny particles of fur in the lungs.

"We work or we starve," was again the unanswerable explanation.

In the house next door, embroidering rich cloaks, Hamilton found a
family of which several of the members