Chapter II: Descriptions of Places and People

This material was gathered entirely from visits to offices as employers, employees, or would-be purchasers, and is made up from these original records and blanks.

Intelligence office is the term applied to those which supply household workers, and are thus distinguished from employment bureaus, which furnish employees for all kinds of positions. About three fifths of all the offices supply household workers, and roughly estimated about the same percentage of employers and employees use them. The first step in this investigation was to observe their location and the conditions under which they did business.

One of the factors which determines the character of offices is nationality. This divides them into immigrant, separate nationalities, negro, and American offices. In New York the immigrant office is most common, and includes Jewish, Bohemian, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, Austrian, etc. Besides these New York has many which may be called separate nationality offices, as German, Swedish, Irish, Danish, etc., which do not deal exclusively with immigrants. Chicago has a number of separate nationality and few immigrant offices, while Boston and Philadelphia have few immigrant and many general offices. New York and Philadelphia have quite a number for negroes, while Boston and Chicago have but few. New York has a few special offices, as one each for Japanese, Chinese, Greeks, and Italians, and New York and Philadelphia are also well provided with those for the French. Separate nationality offices do not, as a rule, import employees and give girls of their own nationality the preference, as in German offices are found mostly Germans, though others are supplied. American offices are run by people born in this country and supply all nationalities. A few exclude negroes, while negro places, as a rule, furnish both white and negro help, though in New York and Philadelphia some confine their work to their own class. Boston and Philadelphia present two extremes. In the former the best negro help is found in white offices, and in the latter reputable white offices prefer whites or separate the negroes and whites in their waiting-rooms.

Nationality has some influence upon the location of offices. In Boston, except the few negro and some of the best American ones, they are concentrated in the crowded downtown districts, the others being widely distant. This is not likely to change, as the policy is to reduce the number, and applicants are forced to buy out existing ones before licenses will be issued.

In New York there are two groups of immigrant offices, one on the lower East side, between Sixth and Canal streets and off the Bowery, and the other near the Battery. Others are scattered about. American offices have no well-defined locality, but are run more to supply neighborhoods. Sixth Avenue at about Twenty-third Street has the great-est number. Separate nationality offices are found in groups, as the Swedish on Third and Fourth avenues above Twenty-fifth Street, with an occasional one on adjoining streets; the German on Third and Sixth avenues and adjoining streets; and the Irish on Sixth Avenue and adjoining streets. Negro offices are in the negro sections about West Thirty-first, Fifty-third, and Fifty-ninth streets. Unlike Boston, few are in the heart of the busy district.

In Philadelphia negro offices are more numerous, and are chiefly in clusters, while the immigrant and American ones are well scattered. Occasionally they may be found on the same street and in the same house.

In Chicago the group system is perfected and but few offices are downtown on such streets as Canal and Washington and Michigan Avenue. These groups are widely scattered, the north, west, and south sides each having its own. The distances are so great that many are found in isolated places and have practically all of the patronage of that neighborhood.

In all cities the tendency is toward groups, and proprietors explain this on the ground that patrons go from place to place, and when offices are near together they attract large numbers, and they find in some one of them what they seek. The concentration in the business district in Boston is partly due to the law, which makes them more business-like and has eliminated many of the home concerns.

There are but few public enterprises in which the kind and condition of the buildings and surroundings are so important. In New York, of 313 offices which supply households, 120 are in tenements, 107 in apartments—39 in residences, and 49 in business houses—a total of 266 which are a part of the family life and 227 which affect more than one family. This means that in 85 per cent. a large number of strangers, about whose character, life, and habits little is known, are brought into the daily life of the family, or are attracted to buildings where members of many families, especially mothers and daughters, must meet them. They go from office to office, and, among other evils, disease has been traced through them to the places where they have waited or lodged.

To a less degree these conditions are true in other cities. Philadelphia, because of its many small houses, has 84 per cent. in private residences, about 10 per cent. in apartments, and about 3 per cent. each in tenements and business buildings. In Chicago about 81 per cent. are in buildings occupied by families. In Boston 73 per cent. are in business, and but 27 per cent. in residence buildings. These figures are not for the entire number, but for those investigated, and while not as accurate as for New York, where all were visited, are fairly representative, for in the selection an attempt was made to cover all districts and grades.

Those in business houses are easily found and usually have signs and other means by which attention is attracted. In many apartment buildings and private houses there are conspicuous, separate entrances for employers and employees, and signs are freely used. More exclusive offices bear no evi-Description of Places and People 21dence of their business. In other large apartment buildings the halls are frequently dark and devious, and we wandered about quite a time before finding the right place. It is a matter of wonder that some offices in tenements ever have any business, when they are located in dilapidated rear tenements, reached only by long, dark, narrow passages, or in one-or two-room apartments in buildings holding twenty or more families. Many proprietors seemed surprised that English-speaking investigators found them and were anxious to get us out again. One office, after much search, was found on the ground floor in the corner of a barber shop. The only entrance was by way of the shop, but when leaving we were asked to go through a narrow, dirty passage leading by a saloon, which opened invitingly off from it. At another place, after climbing several iron steps, we groped our way through two or three circuitous halls, then up a few wooden steps, to reach at last a tiny three-room apartment. The attendant was a small girl of thirteen, who deserted her dish-washing to go out on the balcony and call her mother, who was visiting in the street below. Sometimes we found that a saloon was the most prominent feature, either below or in front of the office. We were detained in the rear of one saloon, on various pretexts, for several minutes before we were shown the office, which was a little house in the rear, reached only by the family entrance to the saloon. Sometimes there was not even a sign, and in answer to our inquiries we were told: "Queer things do go on here, and such lots of people," but no one in the building claimed the license which was issued at that place. Because of the many who loiter in idleness in these offices, they are often surrounded by gambling-dens, fortune-tellers, palmists, midwives, and other undesirable "professions," which depend on them for patronage. These are often so prominently advertised that the office may be easily overlooked.

After the very interior of the office is reached, there is frequently nothing to identify it as such. In business houses there is always some equipment, order, or system, and oftentimes the entire floor is arranged in an orderly, business-like way with desks and office fixtures. But in the tenement or apartment all rooms may be used and filled to overflowing, or it may be only a dirty kitchen or disorderly bedroom.

When so large a percentage are located in residence buildings, it follows that the great majority of them must be in living rooms. A few—less than ten per cent.—are on the ground floor, separated from the families above, or have desk room in other offices, but most of them are home industries. This identification of office and home is very close indeed. The best among them use the parlor for an office, having a desk or table, register, and telephone on one side and perhaps a piano, sewing-table, wardrobe, or other "home comforts" on the other. When they can afford two rooms, the best one is for the employer, and the kitchen, with an extra chair or bench, does for the employee. But all establishments are not so pretentious. Sometimes every one has to wait in one small, crowded room, and not always in peace. On one occasion we were ushered into a dark bedroom with unmade beds; a little later we were moved to the kitchen to make room for the proprietor, who was also the chambermaid, and finally back into the bedroom, and out into the hall to make room for the cook-again the proprietor— who wished to get dinner. Some places would never be taken for offices were there not women waiting and spirited arguments taking place about work and places. Early morning visits are a revelation of the close identity of home and office— proprietors and lodgers are in all stages of dressing for the day, beds are upturned, meals are being prepared, and altogether it is a most unbusiness-like place.

A few descriptions, selected at random, are typical of many tenement and apartment offices. In one dilapidated house a cobbler had a shop in front and in the yard were eight dirty dogs. The front room, which served as an office, looked like a junk shop, and certainly the amount of men's wearing apparel strewn about and the miscellaneous cooking utensils indicated a large family with most irregular hours. While we were making arrangements for a cook, the woman proprietor left several times to address the fighting dogs, in language unfit for publication. This was an American office. A second was found in a basement salesroom, where second-hand clothing was piled around in dirty, disorderly heaps, and the living room was curtained off at the back. This so-called office was used as a bedroom at night. A third was a combination baggage and living room. The proprietor was an expressman and his wife ran the office. Any left-over baggage was piled in the office at night and utilized for beds or chairs, according to its adaptability. A fourth, literally covered with left-over bundles of waiting employees, had a table in one corner, which contained the remains of a meal, a "day-book," and advertising material. Over in another corner, two flashily dressed girls were playing the piano and singing popular songs. In a fifth the proprietor was washing, and we discussed "servants" and "places" to the time of a rhythmic "rub, rub," through clouds of steam and soapy vapor, with an occasional flap of a wet cloth for variation. The sixth was the first floor of a little two-story corner house, in a two-room apartment where the husband worked as a carpenter in one room, while the wife conducted the office in the other. The two rooms were full of children; there was very little furniture, even for living purposes, and no books or system. The seventh was in a two-room apartment, with not a thing more than was required for living purposes. The front room was a bed-and sitting-room, where the husband worked on a machine; the other a kitchen and bedroom, where the wife attended to the employment business. There was no decent place to sit down, so the woman asked us not to wait, but promised to "send a girl." Some of these home offices were so filthy and vermin-infested that we stayed no longer than was necessary.

The number of rooms range from one up to a whole house. If a house, it is usually small; if an apartment, usually a floor of from three to six rooms; if in a tenement, a one-to five-room apartment. The average is about three rooms, and seems high because of the custom of using all rooms, even bedrooms and kitchens, for the office.

There is a wide range and variety of equipment. Some of the best have attractive furnishings in the way of desks, files, rugs, chairs, and decorations. This is especially true in Boston, and of the best American offices in other cities. Unfortunately, this percentage is small. The most common equipment consists of a desk, or table, a few chairs, and a telephone. In many, if these were removed, there would remain a bare, or ordinary living, room. Sometimes the only equipment is a cheap day-book, a bottle of ink upon the kitchen table, and a pile of office cards upon the mantel. A parlor with an extra table for a desk and a dozen or more newspaper bundles of clothing constituted the fixtures of one office; and three bare rooms, with no other furniture than a stove, beds, tables, and bundles, describes another. About sixty per cent. of all have some equipment ranging from a simple registry to a complete office outfit. Those which supply chiefly hotel help are the best equipped and most business-like, and resemble the mercantile agencies which are described later.

The remaining forty per cent. can be said to have neither equipment nor system. The office is held in one room or all over the house, and addresses are written on any available scrap of paper—old envelopes, torn wrapping paper, the corner of a newspaper, or even upon a slate. When these memoranda are kept at all, they are found in various places—on the table or chairs, or even under the bed. Chairs, beds, and tables are used to seat waiting applicants, and often there is not one extra article of furniture beyond that absolutely required by the family. In one there were four chairs, a kitchen table, a telephone, a dressing-case, and a large cook stove— all in one room, and the wife was cooking while the husband wrote the addresses. The second room contained two beds and piled-up bedding, which was evidently used in the kitchen at night. One day, after wandering through a very dirty, disorderly building, we entered a small courtyard. A rough, good-natured Bohemian was washing clothes, and upon the steps sat his admiring wife and three children. When asked where the office was, he tapped himself, and, smiling with pride, said: "Me the office; what you want? You want girl? I go out and find her." In another place it was a steaming kitchen, strung with lines of clothes. We asked for a girl, whereupon a Slavish woman appeared from among the lines, washing in hand, and said: "No girls, me wash day; me open office get girl, when wash done," and we had to try another day for further information. There are many which conduct business in this intermittent way, and occasionally upon the street, the proprietor taking the employer out with him until he can pick up a girl, or she is left to entertain the children while he scours the neighboring tenements for help.

The number and desirability of the waiting-rooms depend upon the size of the office. Some have an entire floor, others use the basements of houses, and others have suites of rooms for employees, but few provide adequate space. The tendency among the best offices is to abolish large waiting-rooms, and whenever the standard is at all high, they have separate waiting-rooms for employers and employees, and this is especially true in Boston. Among the separate nationality offices, the Swedes are most careful about this, and it is customary in some of the German and Irish ones. However, in more than one half of these, and in the majority of immigrant and negro offices, separate waiting-rooms are not provided. One Swedish office occupies two apartments on the second floor. Each has an entrance, and they are connected by an open hall in the rear. The one for the employees is a large, bare room with rows of chairs. An attempt is made to keep the men separate, but the women must pass by them on the way to the employers' room. The one for the employers presents a striking contrast. It is furnished with handsome rugs, pictures, and easy-chairs, and is a delightful place in which to wait. No girl can enter this until she is sent in for interviews. In all offices where there are separate waiting-rooms, this contrast is always found. The employers' room usually bears the sign "Ladies" or "Ladies' Entrance," and occasionally "Employers," while the other is labelled "Girls" or "Servants."

Some of the employees' rooms are both healthful and desirable, but many are dark, badly ventilated, and crowded, are arranged with little regard for comfort, and recognize no differences in rank or education. Overcrowding is found in almost every one at times, stairs, halls, and entrances—even the street, in immigrant offices—receiving the overflow. In one of these, this overflow of girls was lying out on a small iron balcony, faces downward, peering into the fascinating street below. When one was wanted, the proprietor went out, poked the pile with his foot, and one disentangled herself and came in for inspection.

Where both male and female help are supplied, except in Boston, where much more care is taken, less than ten per cent. provide separate waiting-rooms, and they are used as general meeting-places—for making appointments or getting acquainted. This means that men and women, regardless of age, condition, or color, are often crowded together in small, dark rooms. In the winter many use them for lounging-places, and they are frequented by many rounders who are not seeking places but a good social time. In many some order is maintained, but this does not remove the necessity for separate waiting-rooms for men and women.

Notwithstanding the small number of rooms and large families, many give board and lodging. This is especially true in the negro, immigrant, separate nationality, and rarely true of the better-class American, offices. Owing to the business location and careful inspection in Boston, only about eighteen per cent. give lodging. In Philadelphia, among the negroes, ninety-two per cent. lodge, and among the whites about one half. In Chicago about one half give lodging. In New York, if the American offices are omitted, of which only fifteen per cent. give lodging, the per cent. rises to sixty. This does not include the many who find lodging-places for employees with other families in the same building or elsewhere, and so control them to almost the same degree, for the two— boarding-house keeper and agent— work together in "doing," the employee. In a few instances they lodge, but give no meals, except, perhaps, breakfast. In such cases employees are often allowed to bring in their own food and cook it. Some of the German ones advertise as homes rather than employment offices.

At present these lodging-house offices seem to be a necessity, and the question is one of regulation and improvement rather than abolition. They accommodate such numbers of transients, especially women who are temporarily out of work and homeless, that if they were suddenly closed, hundreds, if not thousands, would be turned out nightly with no places to which their small means would admit them, or which their unfamiliarity with the city would enable them to patronize with safety. There are few places to which an employee can go for one or two nights, if she is suddenly turned away by an irate mistress, or leaves in anger.

One of the most perplexing questions asked of settlements is: "I have a young girl for whom I wish to find work. Where can she stay for a day or two?" It is the woman in need of a place to stay for a "day or two," for whom provision is needed. Municipal lodging-houses do not meet the need, for they are open to all women without discrimination, and the working girl temporarily out of employment needs something besides a "hang-out."

In no city are adequate provisions made for such homeless women, and their predicament is peculiarly acute, for their friends are often household workers who cannot extend the hospitality of their rooms. Lodging-places in offices by no means meet the demand, and certainly we could not trace many girls whom they turned away. They ask permission to leave their small belongings at the office and disappear for the night, and only too often their appearance the following day indicates that it had been a saloon, dance hall, or other undesirable place. Whether they go from choice or from necessity is a question which can be answered only when adequate means of housing them are provided.

Office lodging-houses are sometimes inferior to the office with which they are connected. One which has a fairly well-equipped room for employers and a large light waiting-room for employees has a lodging-house on the floor above with a matron in charge. An investigator was sent there to spend the night, but reported at ten o'clock that she had had enough and could not stay. The accommodations were two beds in a room and four in a bed. Six persons, some very sparingly and others decently dressed, were cooking and eating their suppers. Each had brought in what she wanted, and all were cooking and tasting each other's food at the same time. They used their fingers and made many "trades." One would "toss over" a boiled potato for a piece of meat, or a carrot for a cake, and so it went on with constant "jollying." No drinking or male visitors were allowed, as it "invariably leads to fighting." The beds were so dirty and alive with vermin, and the prospective bedfellows so disreputable that it seemed unnecessary to hear more of their disgusting conversation and familiarity. The rates were $1.75 for lodging and breakfast, or $3.50 per week for full board.

Another was one large room on the top floor of a tenement, and men were loafing all over the stairs. The room was filled with all kinds of indescribable baggage, and the window-sills and tables were full of dirty, unwashed beer glasses. Fifteen or twenty girls were kept in this room at one time. In the basement of a tenement fifteen girls were found one night on the floor, lying on old mattresses and clothing. Another, when seen in the daytime, contained a table, desk, and neat folding-beds, some shelves, upon which were Swedish postcards and views, and a large case of jewelry, for sale to the waiting girls. At night it was virtually transformed. The beds were down, and all the unplaced and homeless girls were accommodated if they wished to stay. As the number left over was sometimes small and at other times large, some nights they would be fairly comfortable and on others they were crowded in three or four deep. In apartments of two or three rooms, occupied by from two to eight people, no objections are made to crowding in lodgers. Often it is impossible to learn whether these places keep lodgers except by making night visits. On one day all the girls are given places and on another they have to house from five to ten girls. Girls are always hoping for positions and prefer to stay under bad conditions rather than to go away and pay carfare day after day. The aim is to have them on hand and to give such the preference, and this makes the lodging-place popular.

Few give a separate bed, though if girls wish to pay extra for the remaining two thirds or three fourths of the bed, and the other prospective occupants are willing to sleep on the floor, they can have it. Some of these places, especially German and Swedish, are clean and orderly and are preferable to many of the boarding-houses. A few discriminate, refusing undesirable people, but certainly the negro and immigrant, the less prosperous American, and many of the separate nationality offices crowd together all classes—old and young, sober and drunk, clean and unclean, good and bad, and innocent fresh girls and old hags. These lodgers go from office to office, and no matter where an employer finds a girl, she can never be sure she is not physically or morally contaminated through some such lodging-house. Most of them lodge only women, but husbands, brothers, and sons of proprietors often live in the same apartments, and occasionally the runners stay there, so there is quite enough familiarity and temptation. There are some run by women which are free from this, but curiously enough furnishedroom signs are common in other parts of the building, for there are men who are always eager for chances to meet these girls. Negro offices lodge both men and women, colored and white, and the separation in many cases is but superficial. The best conditions are found in those which lodge but two or three girls at a time in their spare rooms, or who keep lists of good boarding-houses.

Offices which do not lodge attempt to meet the demand by keeping in touch with boarding-places, which they recommend. Sometimes these are run by friends who send girls out of work to the office in exchange for lodgers. Sometimes the proprietors know nothing of the places they recommend. In Chicago particularly they often work in conjunction with what are called "working girls' homes." Some of those visited were of such a doubtful character that they are discussed in the following chapter, and some of the boarding-places recommended but unknown to the proprietor presented conditions of which even he would have been ashamed.

Negro offices are so inferior and present such extremes that an additional note is needed. Since these supply much male help and whites are furnished in large numbers, the problem is most serious. Of all the offices, these are without doubt the least attractive and least business-like. They are nearly all in residences and tenements. In New York there are separate waiting-rooms in but two; ninety per cent. furnish lodging, and all except one or two are in living rooms. Many lodge both colored and whites. So crowded, disorderly, and dirty are they that even the most detailed description would be inadequate. In over one half of them there is no equipment whatever; in others the furniture is so scant that one hesitates even to call them homes. One was over a livery stable and next to a saloon. A short time ago it was running three lodging-houses, but was forced to give them up because of a bad reputation. Another was a laundry, where girls worked out their board; a third was a bachelors' apartment, and was used as a lodging-place, the man doing all the room-work and the cooking. A fourth claimed to make a specialty of lodging girls while under arrest. And so the instances might be multiplied, and still no adequate picture be given of the barren, dirty, tumble-down places, with their broken windows, cluttered halls and yards, and the groups of idle, oftentimes intoxicated, applicants hanging about. There are very few which were neat and clean, and in which we waited in comfort without fear of insolence.

These descriptions apply to about seventy-five per cent. of the offices, and in them will be found some one or two if not all of the conditions which are outlined. There are about twenty-five per cent. where the conditions under which business is conducted are entirely good— where there are no lodging-. places, where there is an adequate equipment and good system, and where some measure of courtesy is shown both employer and employee,— and we have attempted to make this clear throughout the chapter. But we repeat that the offices which compare favorably with any other business of similar magnitude are small in number, and until there is improvement and regulation the seventy-five per cent. will determine the status and affect the whole business of intelligence offices.

The people who run intelligence offices are usually proprietors, consisting of a man, or a woman, or a whole family. In a few an agent or manager has charge. In small offices the proprietor does most of the work, while in others he has numerous assistants. Frequently the business is conducted by the whole family, consisting of father, mother, and children. Occasionally the proprietor simply owns the business and hires others to manage, having another occupation which pays better. The attendants are usually young men, and in the immigrant offices are called runners.

The most significant thing about these offices is that fully two thirds of them are owned or managed by women. About ten per cent. are managed by men and women together, leaving only about twenty-five per cent. to men. About one half of them secure places for both men and women, and the other half are for women.

The ages of the proprietors and managers vary. There are a few young men and women, but they form a decided minority. The business as a whole is not one conducted by hustling young business men and women, with ability and integrity, but it is more of a makeshift. Like domestic service, it is more or less identified with people who fail elsewhere, and this tends to lower the standard of the whole occupation. There is but little business ambition shown beyond the collection of fees, for pride in it as a business is more or less lacking. About twenty-five per cent. of the offices can be credited with men and women of business ability who would win success in any field.

There are so many types of proprietors and each nationality is so characteristic that no one person is typical of the whole. Excluding the best of the American and separate nationality offices, it may be said, granting exceptions, that the women are of the driving sort,—sharp, eager, business-like, and with but little education. Their manner is hard, crude, abrupt, and their conversation to the point. There is another type, the whining, simpering woman, who tells a hard-luck story in order to get a fee, or induce an employer to take an undesirable girl, and who occasionally swears at her when she refuses. Sometimes they swing to the other extreme, and are as suave, cunning, and politic as they think the occasion demands. The men, while of about the same mental and social calibre, are more courteous. Although the attitude is assumed, nothing could exceed the cringing courtesy and attention given the employer who is well dressed or seems to have money. But the real character of the proprietors must be judged by their attitude toward both employers and employees. In some American and the negro offices, they are often insolent, even to the employers. They have a "don't-care" air, seldom rising when a patron enters, staring impertinently, and even leering if the customer asks for a girl at too small a wage or makes unreasonable requests. In one the husband was lying on the couch reading, and paid no attention to the employer, while his wife conducted the business, except to suggest in German that she better try to get a small fee because the applicant was a stranger and might not return. Sums as small as twenty-five cents are begged in this way. This indifference is partly due to the character of the people and the inequality of supply and demand, for they are always sure that if a girl is not accepted there are plenty who will want her and will take any kind of a girl.

Many of the women are fat, lazy, shabbily dressed, and extremely dirty and careless in appearance, while the men are slovenly and dirty, with a dull, listless air. In the better offices one finds good-looking, well-appearing, refined women and men, who are abrupt and business-like, but wholesome to meet, and in the recently established offices there is shown a decided tendency for men and women of business training and education to go into this work, though some of these when asked admitted that "the conditions are hard unless sensibilities are discarded." Too often, however, even here, well-dressed means flashily or noticeably dressed, and the clothing is often out of harmony with both surroundings and work. One German office of fair standing was attended by a woman of about sixty, attired in a black satin gown, trimmed with lace, and decorated with a profusion of jewelry. Another woman had on a long black silk skirt, the train of which was pinned up with three conspicuous pins. Others wore soiled gowns, once appropriate to the drawing-room. Paint, powder, dyed hair, and traces of dissipation are common, and in immigrant offices the scarcity of apparel is noteworthy. Frequently the proprietor's attention is divided between the transaction of business and the care of children, the order being written with one hand, while the other is used to quiet a baby, the conversation in the meantime being interspersed with soothing remarks to the baby.

Where a whole family runs the office, there seems to be no exact division of labor. When an employer attempts to leave without paying a fee, they all begin to talk at once—either entreating or discussing means by which they can secure it, sometimes ending in a quarrel. A mother and son had a most animated discussion in a tongue they thought unintelligible, over the amount they believed they could "get out of her," the son insisting she "'ain't worth as much as she looks." The mother was a small dark Jewess of bad expression, dressed in a dirty cotton wrapper, and had a continuous wink with which she tried to beguile confidence. In negro offices the proprietors who seemed at all attractive were large, pleasant-mannered women, neat in dress; but more often they were dirty, dissipated, loud in manner, and dressed in the gaudiest of colors, with an abundance of cheap jewelry. Instead of cast-off finery, however, the preferred style of dress seemed to be brilliant cotton wrappers.

Except the few who appeared to be of the finer type of business women and men, or to belong to old or well-bred families, certainly the intelligence office does not command the best business ability, or the best trained or even fairly cultured among men and women. There are few enterprises which exert so wide an influence and are so thronged with people where the proprietors, having both means and opportunity, are so indifferent to their own appearance and to the conditions of their offices and homes.

Except in Boston, there were a number of licensed offices which could not be found, just as there were many which were found but not licensed. In New York this number was eighty-one. During the year some had failed and others had moved and could not be traced. Occasionally licenses had been renewed for some reason when the people had been out of business for over a year. Some proprietors had purposely given the wrong addresses, knowing that they could not be traced, and if accidentally found could plead that they had moved since taking out the license. So careless was the issuance of li-censes in New York that one address would have been located in the middle of the East River, since it was several numbers higher than any ever recorded on that street. Others were vacant lots upon which there had been no buildings for years.

At first thought an unfindable office seemed to be a source of but little information, but some significant facts resulted from visits to the deserted places. These were gathered from postmen, neighbors, and others. Some had been located over saloons, and most of them had been in apartments and tenements. The reasons given by the neighbors for their closing were of interest. For example: "Not paying rent," "fighting and keeping disorderly places," "closed up by the police," "dispossessed," "run by a midwife and never did much business, used that sign as a blind," "bad reputation and neighbors got them out," "afraid of arrest," and "money and creditors bothered so they went to a safer place." One janitor asked us if we were after money, and when we hesitated said: "Well, there's lots of them come here for that; guess you'll never get out of an empty house what they did n't out of a full one." One proprietor was watched and "had to move because he got so much mail"; another was "abroad getting help for the fall trade"; a third had "closed up and gone to the country for the summer"; and a fourth "had made a fortune and retired." This was gossip of neighbors and must be accepted as such.

This description is intended to cover the conditions and surroundings of offices, while subsequent chapters deal with their methods and moral significance.