What is known as the "Poor Jews Quarter" is near the western end of the Twelfth Street Bridge, and southward to the West Side Italian quarters. Certainly it is not an abode of ease, luxury, and elegance. Its architecture is not marked by either massiveness or ornamentation, its streets and alleys are not grassy. On the other hand, the region is still less suggestive of a "Ghetto," according to any prevailing tradition of these abodes. Many of these children have never seen a tree or a blade of grass. "In our summer country excursions," said a lady of the Hull House, "we have much pleasure in watching them. They kneel down sometimes so as to study the grass and feel it with their hands."

In the midst of this swarming colony, rises the tall, large, handsome, and solid "Jewish Training School," under the management of a strong band of staunch Israelites of the city and the superintendency of Professor Gabriel Bamberger. Twenty-thousand dollars a year is wisely and economically expended here, and eight-hundred children, of both sexes, and all races and religions, are taught and cared for. The classes in drawing and clay-modeling are especially notable.

Not far away is the "Shelter House" of the "Society in Aid of Russian Refugees." There, the members of this unfortunate class find surcease from their woes and persecutions in a blessed harbor of temporary refuge, from where they are transferred to various employments and chances to earn an honest living, free from imperialism, officialism, priestcraft, and military service. They are a sturdy looking set, and will not be long in learning that their greatest ill-treatment is turned to their greatest good luck when they arrive at the "Shelter House." They are coming at the rate of more than ten a day. They are "submerged" no longer. - Joseph Kirkland, in June Scribner's.