There is something picturesque in the appearance of the streets in the southem aeetion of the city, though it may not be necessarily attractive to the native who sees but the squalor and the dirt that are part of the picture which forms itself in the localities where the several nationalities and races are congregated. The lower portion of the city contains fairly well-defined groups,--Russian Jews, Italians, negroes, besides native Americans, Irish, Germans, and people from Slavic countries, such as Russian, Poles, Lithuanians, and Hungarians, which add to the variegated charaeter of the assembly of nations in the city.

The district to which I shall confine myself chiefly includes the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Seventh Wards of the city of Philadelphia. The area of these six wards is 2.322 square miles, and, as the total area of the city is 129.583 square miles, the district is about one­fiftieth of the entire surface of the city. The population of these six wards is 165,385, aeeording to the census of 1900. The population of the city is 1,293,697. We have, then, one-eighth of the people of the city in an area which is but one-fiftieth of the city. The Third Ward is the most densely populated in the city, the number of persons inhabiting it being 24,693, and as its area is but .191 square mile, this is an average of 129.282 persons to the square mile.

 An inquiry into the Russian-Jewish population enables me to assume 55,000¹ as the number. This is deduced from the figures as to the number of Jewish children attending the public schools. The number in schools of the section bounded by Spruce Street on the north, Moore Street on the south, the Delaware River on the east, and Nineteenth Street on the west, is 11,686 out of a total of 21,515 pupils.

When the Russian Jewish People first came here, as a consequence of the persecutions, they settled in dwellings in the lower section, beeause rents were as cheap there as anywhere. With relatives and friends coming year after year, and with natural accretions, the population grew and grew until now it has become a fair proportion of the southeastem section of the city. It has supplanted not only the German Jewish and Polish Jewish population, which was originally in this section, but it has swarmed into Pine and Spruce Streets, formerly oooupied by old Philadelphia families. It has, in some cases, made the streets more respectable and less dangerous morally. It has even, in some instances, displaced Italians, just as Italians have displaced some native-born and others of foreign nationalities in sections immediately west of the Jewish portions. Some of the well-to-do Jews are in the northem portion of the section on Spruce and Pine Streets. Lombard is lower­grade, especially because of its mixture with the lower-class negroes. South Street is a bee-hive of business activity among the Jewish people. Parts of Bainbridge Street are similarly active. From Fitzwater down, for several blocks, we find a dividing line at Fifth and Sixth Streets, west of which are Italians and east of which are Russian Jews. Below Christian the groupings are less distinct. The Jewish population has, however, gradually moved down so that some may be found as far south as Moore Street. Some well-to-do families have moved to Wharton Street and streets running north and south in the neighborhood. Of the north and south streets, Fourth contains the most thickly settled Jewish population. Large numbers may be found all the way from Spruce to Reed. Second and Third also contain a large Jewish population, especially between Pine and Wharton. On Fifth Street, too, it is similarly predominant as far as Washington Avenue, and on Sixth Street as far as Fitzwater. Immediately west of the northern portion of the Jewish section are numerous negroes, and southwest is the section predominantly Italian.

The Jewish population has spread north as well as south. Along Second Street particularly has there been a movement north. For a distance of two miles there have been streams formed in a narrow line along the eastern side of the city. This is indicated, for example, by the population around Second and New Market Streets, details of whose housing and sanitary conditions are given in the study devoted to this subject.¹  So, too, there are clusters around Second and Poplar Streets. There is also a settlement in Richmond in the northeastern portion of the city.

Jewish children attend the public schools in large numbers; no nationality down-town is more appreciative of the public school system. The result is most gratifying to our educational system, and to the adaptability and intellectual ability of the Jewish population. The public night schools are supplemented by private schools in the teaching of the immigrant populations. Meetings, lectures, and discussions held under the auspices of literary societies, beneficial organizations and charitable institutions of one sort or another, help fill out the intellectual life of the Jewish people.

From the religious to the social life is not so far a cry as may be thought, for with the older people the synagogue is the social centre, and many social celebrations still occur in connection with holidays and ceremonies. Social functions of a public character are balls, Russian tea parties, small dances, and musical entertainments given by one or another of the societies.  

Whatever cases of charity among the Jewish people are not taken care of by any organization, are referred to the United Hebrew Charities. When the immigrant first arrives here, if he needs immediate aid or advice, the agent of the Association of Jewish Immigrants directs him. The Sheltering Home, a Russian Jewish institution, may keep him for a few days. Then the employment bureau of the Hebrew Charities, or the Baron de Hirsch Fund is brought into play, and he is found work. Later, he, or his family, may require the services of the hospital, the orphan asylum, or the burial society. All are provided for. It is still true that Jews do not become public charges as the result of dependency.

The Russian Jewish population is, then, a very important element of the southern section of the city in point of numbers. Its social and economic relations need not be further considered in this place. There can be little question of its activity and progress along various lines, not only as compared with other nationalities, in the lower section of the city, but with the population generally.
 

¹ The method of the English Educational Department to ascertain the number of children of school age is to divide the population b six. This is applied by H. Llewellyn Smith, in Booth's "Life and Labor of the People," Vol. III, p. 106. Notwithstanding the efforts of truant officers and others interested in the education of children, the actual school attendance for various reasons, never reaches the total of children of school age, but though it may approximate it more closely with Jewish children than with most other classes, in all but the higher grades, we cannot absolutely accept the multiple of six to obtain the population as other elements vary in the public school conditions between this country and Great Britain. Factors which must be considered are the greater size of the Russian Jewish families on the one hand and, on the other, the greater number of adults in the immigrant population, some of whom would not be accounted for in a calculation based merely on school attendance. However, these two factors in a measure neutralize each other. In our statement of more than 11,000 Jewish school children, we unquestionably have a large majority of the children between the age of three and thirteen. We must, in addition, account for all under the first and over the second, apart from those not attending school. Let us arbitrarily assume that the school children are, in a proportion, approximately one-fifth of the Jewish population of the district. This will make the total about 55,000. There are probably 15,000 Russian Jews in other sections of the city, making 70,000 out of a total of approximately 100,000 Jews.