ities of life can be
bought without leaving the square that is your home. After a little it
occasioned no surprise to meet grandparents whose own children were born
in New York, who had never crossed to the east side of the Bowery, never
seen Broadway, nor ever been south of Houston Street. There was no
reason why they should go. Every interest in their life centered within
four blocks. I went with a neighbor to Saint Vincent's Hospital, where
her husband had been taken. I had to hold her hand in the cars, she was
so terrified. She had lived sixteen years in this ward and never been on
a street-car before. Of a family of five sons and two daughters, besides
the parents, in this country fifteen years, none spoke English but the
youngest, born here, and she indifferently. Little Italy was all of
America they knew, and of curiosity they had none.

[Sidenote: Children American in Spirit]

"The house in which we lived was built for twenty-eight families and
occupied by fifty-six. One man who had been in the country twenty-eight
years could not speak or understand a word of English. Nothing but
compulsion made his children use Italian, and the result was pathetic.
The eldest child was an enthusiastic American, and the two civilizations
were always at war. This boy knew more of American history, its heroes
and poetry, than anyone of his age I ever met. This boy had never been
five blocks from the house in which we lived. He removed his hat and
shoes when he went to bed in winter; in summer he took off his coat. A
brother and two sisters shared the folding bed with him. His father
hired the three rooms and sublet to a man with a wife and three
children. The women quarreled all the time, but worked in the same room,
finishing trousers and earning about forty-five cents a day each.

[Sidenote: Evils of Overcrowding]

"How do they live? One widow, with three in her own family, took nine
men boarders in her three rooms. A nephew and his wife also kept house
there, the rent being $18 a month. Another neighbor, whose family
consisted of four adults and two children, had seven lodgers or boarders
at one time. These men owned mattresses, rolled up by day, spread on the
floor at night. One of them had a bride coming from Italy. Two men with
their mattresses were ejected and space made for the ornate brass and
green bedstead. The wedding was the occasion of great rejoicing. Next
day the bride was put to work sewing 'pants.' At the end