AMONG THE POOR OF CHICAGO

By JOSEPH  KIEKLAND

AUTHOR OF  " ZURY,"  ETC.

Peculiarity of Chicago's Conditions — Wide Distribution of the Poor
Population—The Greatest Poverty Among Foreign Elements—" The
Dive "—Typical Families—The "Bad Lands "—China-Town—The Clark
Street Mission — The Woman's Christian Tpjmperance Union —The
Pacific Garden Mission — Statistics—The Unity Church, St. James's
Church and Central Church Missions—Volunteer Visitors—A Vet¬
eran—Hull House—Charity Organizations—The Jews' Quarter—The
Liberty Bell and Friendship Buildings—Statistics of a Sweat Shop—
The Anarchists—Socialists.

CHICAGO'S plague-spots are rather red than black ; blotches
marking excess rather than insufficiency. Yice and crime are
more characteristic of a new, young, busy, careless, pros¬
perous city than is any compulsory, inevitable misery. An Eng¬
lish philanthropist who visited Hull House (Rev. Mr. Barnett,
"Warden of Toynbee Hall) remarked, in taking his leave, that the
prevalent dirt and flagrant vice in Chicago exceeded anything in
London ; but that he had seen scarce any evidence of actual want.

The West is the paradise of the poor. " And the purgatory of
the rest of us," adds some fine lady who agonizes over the servant
problem. Well, even if this were true (which it is not), it would be
better than the reverse. The paradise of the rich, based on the
purgatory of the poor, has endured long enough in the older lands.
" How the other half lives," in Chicago, is " pretty much as it
chooses." Americans born, and the better natures among the
foreign  born  (supposing   them  to  have  physical  strength),  can