e tricked or bullied into putting up with them by their smarter
countrymen who turn their helplessness and ignorance to good account.
Wherever the invasion of some old home section by the tide of business has
left ramshackle tenements falling into hopeless decay, as in the old
"Africa," in the Bend, and in many other places in the down-town wards,
the Italian sweater landlord is ready with his offer of a lease to bridge
over the interregnum, a lease that takes no account of repairs or of the
improvements the owner sought to avoid. The crowds to make it profitable
to him are never wanting. The bait he holds out is a job at the ash-dump
with which he connects at the other end of the line. The house, the job,
and the man as he comes to them fit in well together, and the
copartnership has given the Italian a character which, I am satisfied from
close observation of him, he does not wholly deserve. At all events, his
wife does not. Dirty as _he_ seems and is in the old rags that harmonize
so well with his surroundings, there is that about her which suggests not
only the capacity for better things, but a willingness to be clean and to
look decent, if cause can be shown. It may be a bright kerchief, a bit of
old-fashioned jewelry, or the neatly smoothed and braided hair of the
wrinkled old hag who presides over the stale bread counter. Even in the
worst dens occupied by these people, provided that they had not occupied
them too long, I have found this trait crop out in the careful scrubbing
of some piece of oil-cloth rescued from the dump and laid as a mat in
front of the family bed; or in a bit of fringe on the sheet or quilt,
ragged and black with age though it was, that showed what a fruitful soil
proper training and decent housing would have found there.

I have in mind one Italian "flat" among many, a half underground hole in a
South Fifth Avenue yard, reached by odd passage-ways through a tumbledown
tenement that was always full of bad smells and scooting rats. Across the
foul and slippery yard, down three steps made of charred timbers from some
worse wreck, was this "flat," where five children slept with their elders.
How many of those there were I never knew. There were three big family
beds, and they nearly filled the room, leaving only patches of the mud
floor visible. The walls were absolutely black with age and smoke. The
plaster had fallen off in patches and there was green mould on the
ceiling. And yet, with it all