of such surroundings is, of course, in the direction of vice and immorality. Figure 4 illustrates another type of which there are numerous examples. Frame houses originally on the outskirts of the city, dilapidated by age and, sometimes, as in Figure 4, left far above the street level, often furnish shelter for several families and swarm with children. Again we have rows of cheap brick or frame dwellings, built on speculation prior to the enactment of suitable building regulations. These have a narrow frontage (12 to 14 feet); they usually have no ventilation under the ground floor, which is not infrequently below the street level; the rooms are small; a narrow, dark stairway leads to the upstairs bedrooms; the roofs are often leaky and the plastering falling; a lean-to kitchen in the rear, eight or nine feet square, often counts as a room, and in some cases there are cellar-like basement rooms, which may be occupied as bedrooms. For the better class of wage-earners, who are able to pay from $15.00 to $20.00 monthly rent, there are, of course, better houses and, as is shown in Section VI, their needs are being met to some extent by new buildings, constructed with due regard to sanitary requirements. For the man who can pay from $20.00 to $30.00 a month for a house or apartment there is a reasonable supply, and the demand is likely to be met by private enterprise. But for those who cannot afford to pay as much as $12.00 to $15.00 the only resource is to occupy an alley house, or one of the old frame houses, such as are shown in Figure 7, or one of the cheap brick houses built prior to the enactment of proper building regulations. And, even then, he will usually be compelled to sublet one or more rooms in order to meet his rent. It is no uncommon thing to find that the rent is paid by an industrious colored woman, who spends her days at the wash tub (see Figure 8), and also manages in some way to provide food and clothing for several children. Sometimes she is the sole support of her family, because she is a widow or deserted wife, and sometimes because she has an idle and worthless husband. A new type of houses was introduced in the City of Washington in 1897 by the Washington Sanitary Improvement Company, an organization having for its object the construction of sanitary homes for working men, at reasonable rentals. This is the two-flat type. Each house is of two stories, and each floor consists of an independent flat of three, four, or five rooms. Each flat has a separate entrance from the street, a back yard, a small cellar, and an exit to the alley in the rear. That is, there are two independent homes under one roof, which |