That a group of Greeks should be permitted to slaughter sheep in
a basement, that Italian women should be allowed to sort over
rags collected from the city dumps, not only within the city
limits but in a court swarming with little children, that
immigrant bakers should continue unmolested to bake bread for
their neighbors in unspeakably filthy spaces under the pavement,
appeared incredible to visitors accustomed to careful city
regulations. I recall two visits made to the Italian quarter by
John Burns--the second, thirteen years after the first. During
the latter visit it seemed to him unbelievable that a certain
house owned by a rich Italian should have been permitted to
survive. He remembered with the greatest minuteness the
positions of the houses on the court, with the exact space
between the front and rear tenements, and he asked at once
whether we had been able to cut a window into a dark hall as he
had recommended thirteen years before. Although we were obliged
to confess that the landlord would not permit the window to be
cut, we were able to report that a City Homes Association had
existed for ten years; that following a careful study of tenement
conditions in Chicago, the text of which had been written by a
Hull-House resident, the association had obtained the enactment
of a model tenement-house code, and that their secretary had
carefully watched the administration of the law for years so that
its operation might not be minimized by the granting of too many
exceptions in the city council.
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