dren by the sanitary police, then about to begin a
general census of the tenements. The result was a surprise, and not least
to the health officers. In the entire mass of nearly a million and a
quarter of tenants[8] only two hundred and forty-nine children under
fourteen years of age were found at work in living-rooms. To anyone
acquainted with the ordinary aspect of tenement-house life the statement
seemed preposterous, and there are valid reasons for believing that the
policemen missed rather more than they found even of those that were
confessedly or too evidently under age. They were seeking that which, when
found, would furnish proof of law-breaking against the parent or employer,
a fact of which these were fully aware. Hence their coming uniformed and
in search of children into a house could scarcely fail to give those a
holiday who were not big enough to be palmed off as fourteen at least.
Nevertheless, upon reflection, it seemed probable that the policemen were
nearer the truth than their critics. Their census took no account of the
factory in the back yard, but only of the living rooms, and it was made
during the day. Most of the little slaves, as of those older in years,
were found in the sweater's district on the East Side, where the home work
often only fairly begins after the factory has shut down for the day and
the stores released their army of child-laborers. Had the policemen gone
their rounds after dark they would have found a different state of things.
Between the sweat-shops and the school, which, as I have shown, is made to
reach farther down among the poorest in this Jewish quarter than anywhere
else in this city, the children were fairly accounted for in the daytime.
The record of school attendance in the district shows that forty-seven
attended day-school for every one who went to night-school.

To settle the matter to my own satisfaction I undertook a census of a
number of the most crowded houses, in company with a policeman not in
uniform. The outcome proved that, as regards those houses at least, it was
as I suspected, and I have no doubt they were a fair sample of the rest.
In nine tenements that were filled with home-workers we found five
children at work who owned that they were under fourteen. Two were girls
nine years of age. Two boys said they were thirteen. We found thirteen who
swore that they were of age, proof which the policeman as an uninterested
census-taker would have respected as