she seated herself to tell in broken English and with many gestures
her story to the deaconess who came to see if she could help about
the oldest boy, who was giving trouble. The woman said she had been
married in Italy when only fourteen years of age and was now thirty-one.
She had come to America when her second child was a baby. Her husband
was a longshoreman and earned twelve dollars a week for the support
of the family of twelve. They were looking forward soon to the help
of the earnings of the oldest child, a boy not quite fourteen. This
boy was the problem! To escape the uproar and confusion of the crowded
rooms he spent his time when he could escape from school, on the
street. A gang adopted him. He was ill-nourished, and his teachers
suspected him of receiving and using cocaine. Poor little scrap of
humanity! with a hungry, craving body and no room for soul, mind or
body to develop but the corrupting street, with its saloons and its
gangs! From such a childhood he is destined soon to join the ranks
of labor. Will he add to the number of America's criminals or can he
possibly enter the ranks of good citizenship? If he were simply an
individual case it would still be inexpressibly sad, but, alas, he
stands for thousands in our land.

The deaconess will do her utmost for his rescue, but we cannot
wonder at her feeling that great fundamental, preventive measures
must be taken by the church and society to wipe out the city slums
and all that they stand for of pestilential evil.

Of great significance are the disintegrating efforts of certain groups
of socialists and anarchists who by means of Sunday-schools gather
children of immigrants largely to inculcate in them the peculiar
principles and doctrines of anarchism and their brand of socialism,
as well as to crush out of their thought all idea of God and love