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night for a week when he returned home from work, because she had

lost her wedding ring; two of us officiated quite alone at the birth of an

illegitimate child because the doctor was late in arriving, and none of

the honest Irish matrons would "touch the likes of her"; we ministered

at the deathbed of a young man, who during a long illness of tuberculosis had received so many bottles of whisky through the mistaken

kindness of his friends, that the cumulative effect produced wild periods of exultation, in one of which he died.

We were also early impressed with the curious isolation of many of

the immigrants; an Italian woman once expressed her pleasure in the

red roses that she saw at one of our receptions in surprise that they had

been "brought so fresh all the way from Italy." She would not believe

for an instant that they had been grown in America. She said that she

had lived in Chicago for six years and had never seen any roses,

whereas in Italy she had seen them every summer in great profusion.

During all that time, of course, the woman had lived within ten blocks

of a florist's window; she had not been more than a five-cent car ride

away from the public parks; hut she had never dreamed of faring forth

for herself, and no one had taken her. Her conception of America had

been the untidy street in which she lived and had made her long struggle to adapt herself to American ways.

But in spite of some untoward experiences, we were constantly impressed with the uniform kindness and courtesy we received. Perhaps

these first days laid the simple human foundations which are certainly

essential for continuous living among the poor: first, genuine preference for residence in an industrial quarter to any other part of the city,

because it is interesting and makes the human appeal; and second, the

conviction, in the words of Canon Barnett, that the things which

make men alike are finer and better than the things that keep them

apart, and that these basic likenesses, if they are properly accentuated,

easily transcend the less essential differences of race, language, creed,

and tradition.

Perhaps even in those first days we made a beginning toward that

object which was afterwards stated in our charter: "To provide a center

for a higher civic and social life; to institute and maintain educational

and philanthropic enterprises; and to investigate and improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago."