ttle aid
from education. Of the five children three are now in semi-penal
institutions, supported by the state. It would not therefore have been
so un-economical to have boarded them with their own mother, requiring a
standard of nutrition and school attendance at least up to that national
standard of nurture which the more advanced European governments are
establishing.

The recent Illinois law, providing that the children of widows may be
supported by public funds paid to the mother upon order of the juvenile
court, will eventually restore a mother's care to these poor children;
but in the meantime, even the poor mother who is receiving such aid, in
her forced search for cheap rent may be continually led nearer to the
notoriously evil districts. Many appeals made to landlords of
disreputable houses in Chicago on behalf of the children living adjacent
to such property have never secured a favorable response. It is
apparently difficult for the average property owner to resist the high
rents which houses in certain districts of the city can command if
rented for purposes of vice. I recall two small frame houses identical
in type and value standing side by side. One which belonged to a citizen
without scruples was rented for $30.00 a month, the other belonging to a
conscientious man was rented for $9.00 a month. The supposedly
respectable landlords defend themselves behind the old sophistry: "If I
did not rent my house for such a purpose, someone else would," and the
more hardened ones say that "It is all in the line of business." Both of
them are enormously helped by the secrecy surrounding the ownership of
such houses, although it is hoped that the laws requiring the name of
the owner and the agent of every multiple house to be posted in the
public hallway will at length break through this protection, and the
discovered landlords will then be obliged to pay the fine to which the
law specifically states they have made themselves liable. In the
meantime, women forced to find cheap rents are subjected to one more
handicap in addition to the many others poverty places upon them. Such
experiences may explain the fact that English figures show a very large
proportion of widows and deserted women among the prostitutes in those
large towns which maintain segregated districts.

The deprivation of a mother's care is most frequently experienced by the
children of the poorest colored families who are often forced to live in
disre