The writer, Dr. H. R. Krasnow, tells of a chance visit to his office by a friend, a New York journalist, who wrote up the slums for the newspapers.

This friend thought that the doctor would do well to give to the press the material, which comes to him through his profession. This suggestion appealed to the doctor; he started a diary on Jan. 1, but had to give up the idea a few days later.

In two or three days so much material accumulated, with so many thorny problems, "that it would take at least five wise solomons to solve them, and as many Maxim Gorky's to state them."

Giving up this herculean task, the doctor, nevertheless, decided to occasionally share with his readers certain incidents.

Here is a mother of four children, ages eleven to three. The husband, a common laborer, can barely eke out an existence for the six. The nationality may be determined as Slavic by the national feed of herring and potatoes on which the doctor invariably2finds the group feeding. His frequent visits to this home are necessitated by the woman's frequent attacks from gallstones. The doctor's repeated and definite advice to submit to an operation cannot be accepted by the mother because it involves some four weeks of inability to tend the children and the home.

It is beyond the doctor's comprehension how the peace, serenity, cosiness, and tidiness is at no time raffled by the vultures of arrogant disease and brutal poverty, which besiege this dwelling. The doctor is searching for the secret of strength in this women's stoic determination to stand watch to the last over her four helpless children. She will not abandon the little ship, not even for four weeks, however gruesome the gallstones attacks may be as they succeed one another.

"How can you, doctor, advise me to stay in bed two to three weeks! I haven't worked regularly in a long time but three weeks in bed! Easy to say. It is all right when my wife and I don't have necessary things, but the three children, winter, shoes wear out;--you can't do it. Please, doctor, give me some medicine for the cough so I can stick it out." The doctor marks the cardiac symptoms, aggravated by bronchial complications. He knows that rest and rest alone, is what the patient greatly needs, but the iron heel of economics dictates pills and medicine from bottles for the ailing workingman.

3

The doctor is now engaged in listening to an account in the charming Ukrainian dialect by a woman very shabbily dressed with a wailing child in her arms. At a first glance it is hard to determine which of the two is the patient. Both look haggard, both are raving. The child, whose eyes are swollen from previous tears, is now crying even harder, affected as it is by the new environment, and the mother is excitedly telling the doctor the circumstances which brought her to his office. Her rooms are on the second floor. On the floor above some men were drinking and started a fight,-- an ordinary holiday procedure--the police came with the patrol wagon. "As the police were dragging the sots from the third floor to dump them into the patrol wagon, they had to pass by her door and her husband was tempted to take a peek at the procession. Just as soon as he peeked out of his partly opened door 'the policeman grabbed my men-Komman to the station!" I was by the crib with my tot, but heard and ran to take my man from the policeman, but he holds my man, and me with my baby he knocks down on the floor so hard I can't get up. Now my man is in the station house, for nothing at all I I and my mite we could not sleep all night. Thank God the other two kids slept. But what shall I do now, sir? How is it possible for nothing at all in the station house?"

"Four chopped off fingers----The man is young, strong, brave. It was his right hand." The doctor listens to the man consoling himself that he will know better now, will be more careful....But the circumstances of this "carelessness" as known to the doctor stir up doubts in his mind as to the true cause of the misfortune: The man was 4long without work, friends helped and sustained his courage, assuring him that he would find a job later and could pay them off. A job finally came his way, in a foundry. There was a special order, overtime was requested, and he, on the other hand, was anxious to earn more, to pay off his debts. "It was after a heavy day's work, during the two hours overtime that he felt faint, yet his hands continued to work, the next moment he woke up, and saw four fingers hanging down from a bleeding hand."

The doctor overwhelmed by the richness of his material is forced and is forced to discontinue his stories.

(Ed. Note:--These are samples of life among the Russian workingmen in Chicago).