AUTHOR'S  NOTE

The articles and stories collected in this volume are
intended to give sidelights on the true conditions of
slum and tenement life in New York City. The
pivot of the world described in the following pages,
is the Bowery Mission, the clearing house for the
foolish and miserable of the slums. So much has
been written about the poor that it is to be hoped
the distinctions and differences between tenement
and slum people are understood. If some wrong
conceptions still exist, I hope these stories will make
it clear that even in the tenement and slum districts
castes and classes are jealous of their distinctions.
Poverty does not always level. The victim of con¬
ditions, which he cannot control, and the victim of
his own viciousness, although both equally poor,
find a wide gulf between them.

The material offered is not all new, some of it
having been selected from former writings, to which
has been added other stories now for the first time
printed. " The Feelings of the City Father," " A
Limb of the Law," "The Burden of the Many,"
"The Level of the Sodden," and "The Talmud
Man from Wilna," were published in Pearson's;