n any apartment into which the broad sun does not shine at least a
portion of the day. Sunlight is the great microbe-killer, and as moss
grows on the north side of a tree, so do minute poison fungi grow in the
dim apartment. As to locality, a clean street, as far as possible from
the business center is to be preferred, and away from the crash of the
elevated railway. People are killed, morally and physically, by noise.
For this reason an apartment several flights up is desirable, though
the top floor is said by physicians to be somewhat less healthy than the
one just below.

It is hard to instruct the novice in these matters. He must learn by
experience. But there is one word that contains so much of the secret of
successful apartment life that I must not omit it here. That word is
Charity. I do not mean by this the giving of money or old clothes to
those who slip in whenever the hall door is left unlocked. I mean that
_larger_ Charity which comes of a wider understanding of the natures and
conditions of men.

You cannot expect, for instance, that a man or a woman, who serves for
rent only, and wretched basement rent at that, or for a few dollars
monthly additional at most, can be a very intelligent, capable person,
of serene temper and with qualities that one would most desire in the
ideal janitor. In the ordinary New York flat house janitors are engaged
on terms that attract only people who can find no other means of
obtaining shelter and support. Those who would fulfill your idea of what
a janitor should do have been engaged for the more expensive apartments,
or they have gone into other professions. The flat-house janitor's work
is laborious, unclean, and never ending. It is not conducive to a neat
appearance or a joyous disposition. If your janitor is only fairly
prompt in the matter of garbage and ashes, and even approximately
liberal as to heat and hot water, be glad to say a kind word to him now
and then without expecting that he will be humble or even obliging. If
you hear him knocking things about and condemning childhood in a
general way, remember that _your_ children are _only_ children, like all
the rest, and that a great many children under one roof can stretch even
a strong, wise person's endurance to the snapping point.

Then there are the neighbors. Because the woman across the hall is
boiling onions and cabbage to-day, do not forget that your cabbage and
onion day will come on Wednesday, and she will