is the duty of the state to stamp it out." That is Mr.
Hunter's conclusion, with which we heartily agree.

_V. The Cry of the Children_

[Sidenote: Peril of Child Neglect]

Another peril of the city, and of the entire country as well, that comes
through the foreigners is child neglect and labor; which means
illiteracy, stunted body and mind, and often wreckage of life. Every
foreign neighborhood is full of children, and sad enough is the average
child of poverty. What makes the tenement district of the great city so
terrible to you as you go into it is the sight of the throngs of
children, who know little of home as you know it, have irregular and
scanty meals, and surroundings of intemperance, dirt, foul atmosphere
and speech, disease and vice. No wonder the police in these districts
say that their worst trouble arises from the boys and the gangs of young
"toughs." There is every reason for this unwholesome product. Mr. Hunter
says there are not less than half a million children in Greater New York
whose only playground is the street. Result, the street gang; and this
gang is the really vital influence in the life of most boys in the large
cities. It is this life, which develops, as Mr. Riis says, "dislike of
regular work, physical incapability of sustained effort, gambling
propensities, absence of energy, and carelessness of the happiness of
others." The great homeless, yardless tenement, where the children of
the immigrants are condemned to live, is the nursery of sickness and
crime. The child is left for good influence to the school, the
settlement, or the mission. For the enormous amount of juvenile crime in
the city, which it requires a special court to deal with, the conditions
are more responsible than the children, or even than the parents, who
are unable to maintain home life, and who, through the pinch of poverty
or the impulse of avarice, give over the education of the children to
school or street. Here is a picture of the life on its darker side:

[Sidenote: Street Life of Children]

"Crowded in the tenements where the bedrooms are small and often dark,
where the living room is also a kitchen, a laundry, and often a
garment-making shop, are the growing children whose bodies cry out for
exercise and play. They are often an irritant to the busy mother, and
likely as not the object of her carping and scolding. The teeming
tenements open their doors, and out into the dark passageways and
courts, through