is altogether a question of the
sacrifices we are willing to make in our fight with the slum. As yet, we
are told by the officials having to do with the enforcement of the
health ordinances, which come closer to the life of the individual than
any other kind, that the poor in the tenements are "more amenable to the
law than the better class." It is of the first importance, then, that we
should have laws deserving of their respect, and that these laws should
be enforced, lest they conclude that the whole thing is a sham. Respect
for law is a very powerful bar against the slum. But what, for instance,
must the poor Jew understand, who is permitted to buy a live hen at
the market, but neither to kill nor keep it in his tenement, and who on
his feast day finds a whole squad of policemen detailed to follow him
around and see that he does not do any of the things with his fowl for
which he must have bought it? Or the day laborer, who drinks his beer in
a "Raines law hotel," where brick sandwiches, consisting of two pieces
of bread with a brick between, are set out on the counter, in derision
of the state law which forbids the serving of drinks without
"meals"?[30] The Stanton Street saloon keeper who did that was solemnly
acquitted by a jury. Or the boy, who may buy fireworks on the Fourth of
July, but not set them off? These are only ridiculous instances of an
abuse that pervades our community life to an extent which constitutes
one of its gravest perils. Insincerity of that kind is not lost on our
fellow-citizen by adoption, who is only anxious to fall in with the
ways of the country; and especially is it not lost on his boy.

[Footnote 30: The following is from the New York _Herald_ of April
8, 1902: One of the strangest sandwich complications so far recorded
occurred in a saloon in Columbia Street, Brooklyn, on Sunday. A boy
rushed into the Amity Street police station at noon, declaring that
two men in the saloon were killing each other. Two policemen ran to
the place, and found the bartender and a customer pummelling each
other on the floor. When the men had been separated the police
learned that the trouble had arisen from the attempt of the customer
to eat the sandwich which had been served with his drink. The
barkeeper objected, and, finding remonstrance in vain, resorted to
physical force to rescue the sandwich from the clutches of the
hungry stranger. The police restore