ut he
insisted on the boy paying over to him, when he would return, at the
rate of eighty cents per day for all the time of his absence, without
any allowance for food, etc.

"The case was really heart-rending, especially as the boy was developing
fine moral and intellectual qualities, and had to be treated with
uncommon prudence. At first I told the boy to call on me for whatever he
was short, and he did so on two occasions; but somehow or other the
transaction was reported to the father, who, rather than desist from his
pretension, as any other man would certainly have done, increased the
_tax_ to one dollar, with the remark that _'it would make no difference
to the teacher, twenty cents, more or less.'_ The very same night this
happened, seeing the impossibility of curing this man in any other way,
I paid him a visit, which seemed to have surprised him to a great
extent. I spoke to him calmly but determinedly, as I never had occasion
to do before, but without eliciting any answer, and I left him with the
assurance that if he did not desist at once from the vile abuse of
parental authority I would have him arrested. After a few days he moved
to Laurens street, and in about six months from this occurrence
returned, with the whole family, to Italy. I never could learn anything
afterward concerning his interesting son.

"The filth prevalent in some of their abodes is really appalling, and in
some cases incredible. In ---- Baxter Street there is a bedroom, nine by
twelve feet, occupied by four children and their parents. The door,
hindered by the bed behind it, opens scarcely enough to give admittance
to a person of ordinary size. At the foot of the bed there is, and was,
and will be as long as they stay therein, a red-hot stove, between which
and the window stands an old chest; opposite the stove a table. The
fetid air inside I would have thought to be beyond human endurance. The
woman, at my request, opened the window, remarking 'that she did not see
the use of burning coal inside, if the freezing air was to be permitted
to come in freely.' The children sleep on the floor; that is to say, one
nearly under the bed, another under the table, a third by the stove, and
the fourth is at liberty to roll over any of her sisters. I could not
help noticing an old greasy piece of print, of no distinguishable color,
hanging around the bed, and performing, as I learned with satisfaction,
the function of a curtain to keep out of vie