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among the Americans. In the boarding houses managed by people of native birth it is not customary to find more than 2 men occupying a room, but among the immigrants it is not unusual to find 10 or 12 men sleeping in the same room.

VILLAGE III.

This mining village is situated about half a mile from a town of 800 to 1,000 population. About 250 men are employed in the mines and live in the community. These are chiefly Croatians, Magyars,

and Slovaks.

There is a strong tendency to congregate, in housing, according to race. Housing conditions in the village are unusually bad. The company houses occupied by the Croatians and Slovaks are very small dilapidated shacks, the ten houses occupied by the Croatians being the worst of all. They have but one story and are not over 7 feet in height. Originally each house had three rooms, but an additional room has been added. The rooms are about 8 by 10 feet with two windows each, with walls unplastered and unpapered. The houses are built directly under a hill, and when it rains the rear rooms are flooded and for the time being rendered practically useless. The toilets in several cases are in the rear not more than 3 feet from the kitchen door; in other cases the toilets are just across the road which is immediately in front of the houses. All toilets are of the ground-vault type.

In two of the Croatian boarding houses conditions were bad. In each house were 18 boarders. In one house the boarding boss and his wife and daughter slept in the kitchen; three lodgers in the dining room, two in a bed and one on a cot; seven in another room in two beds; and eight in the fourth room in three beds. The windows were all closed on account of the cold weather, the only ventilation being furnished by a large open fireplace in the dining room. The houses occupied by the Slovaks are as bad as those of the Croatians in every particular, except that they are not located so close to the hill. The houses occupied by the Magyars and other races are a little better than those of the Croatians and Slovaks by reason of their being built on higher ground. They are a little more modern in type, but at best very undesirable. There is but one water pipe for an average of 50 families, and the supply is inadequate. The water is unfit for drinking unless boiled, a precaution which the immigrants usually neglect. The lack of municipal or company sanitary regulations in the settlement probably causes the tenants to be even more careless of housing and living conditions than they otherwise would be.

The immigrant boarding houses are most undesirable. The usual rate is $2.50 a month for lodging, washing, and cooking when the lodger furnishes his own bed, and $3 a month when the boarding boss furnishes the bed. The boarding-boss plan is generally followed, and the lodgers buy their own food at the company store and bring it home to be cooked by the wife of the boarding boss.

RENT IN ITS RELATION TO STANDARD OF LIVING.

Rent payments made are of large interest in connection with the cost of living of immigrant employees and their households, but they are chiefly significant in their bearing upon the existing standards

of living. Many employees of foreign birth seek to decrease their per capita rent payment by increasing the number of persons per household. The following series of tables exhibits this tendency and has an important bearing upon the study of general living conditions. If no boarders or lodgers were kept, the rent paid for each apartment would be indicative in a general way of standard of living, but inasmuch as many races follow the custom of renting larger houses than are needed for their immediate families, and then adding to the family income by keeping boarders or lodgers, the rent per capita is the only fair basis of comparison in studying the standard of living. The fairest comparison possible would be the rent paid per "adult" and such a presentation would be highly desirable; but such a plan involves an arbitrary fixing of age limits and a large amount of work in tabulation, and it has, therefore, not been followed in this report.

The table first presented shows average monthly rent per apartment, per room, and per capita:

TABLE 201.-Average rent per month, by general nativity and race of head of household.

(STUDY OF HOUSEHOLDS.)

[This table includes only races with 10 or more households reporting. The totals, however, are for all races.]

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The highest average rent per apartment, per room, and per capita is paid by the native families. The second highest average under each statement is paid by the English. The Germans are the third highest. The lowest average rent per apartment is paid by the Russians, the lowest per room by the Roumanians, and the lowest per capita by the South Italians. Of the races of recent immigration, the highest average rent per person, $1.31, is paid by the Roumanians; the second highest, $1.29, by the Slovenians; and the third highest, $1.09, by the Lithuanians. The lowest amount is $0.78 paid by the South Italians.

48296°-VOL 6—11- -23

The following table shows the per cent of households paying each specified rent per month per apartment, by general nativity and race of head of household:

TABLE 202.-Per cent of households paying each specified rent per month per apartment, by general nativity and race of head of household.

(STUDY OF HOUSEHOLDS.)

[This table includes only races with 20 or more households reporting. The totals, however, are for all races.]

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The figures given in the table concern the rent paid by 1,195 households connected with the coal and coke industry of Pennsylvania. The heads of 1,177 of these households were foreign-born. It appears from the totals that practically the entire number, that is, 99 per cent, pay under $12.50 rent per month per apartment. A large proportion pay under $10 a month, 75.5 per cent pay under $7.50 a month, and a small proportion pay less then $5. The percentages for the foreign-born correspond very closely to those of the totals. Of the nine races included in the percentage table, the Russians have the highest proportion of those paying under $5 and under $7.50 rent per month. All of the Poles pay under $10 a month.

The table next presented exhibits the percentage of households paying each specified rent per month per room:

TABLE 203.-Per cent of households paying each specified rent per month per room, by general nativity and race of head of household.

(STUDY OF HOUSEHOLDS.)

[This table includes only races with 20 or more households reporting. The totals, however, are for all races.]

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The above table shows that the highest percentage of households paying under $2 a room is 83.1, shown for the Poles, the second highest 82.4 for the Russians, and the third highest 82.3 for the Slovaks. The lowest percentage is 45.9 for the Lithuanians. Similar comparisons for various other rates per room are shown in the table. In the following table is shown the range of rent payments per month per capita:

TABLE 204.-Per cent of households paying each specified rent per month per person, by general nativity and race of head of household.

(STUDY OF HOUSEHOLDS.)

[This table includes only races with 20 or more households reporting. The totals, however, are for all races.]

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The rent per capita is under $1 in 48.6 per cent of the Croatian households, 46.9 per cent of the North Italian, 66.1 per cent of the South Italian, 36.5 per cent of the Lithuanian, etc. The highest percentage paying this low rent per capita is 66.1, shown for the South Italian; the second highest is 52.9 for the Russian. The lowest per cent is 33.6 for the Magyar. Considering the rate "Under $2," the South Italians again have the highest percentage, 92.9; the Poles the second highest, 92.1. The Magyars are again the lowest with 82.9 per cent.

BOARDERS AND LODGERS.

The large proportion of boarders or lodgers found in the households of the foreign-born and the small extent to which an independent family life prevails among the recent immigrants are exemplified in the series of tables next presented. Boarders or lodgers are kept by considerably more than one-half of the households among recent immigrants, as is indicated by the table first submitted, which shows the number and per cent of households keeping boarders or lodgers. TABLE 205.—Number and per cent of households keeping boarders or lodgers, by general nativity and race of head of household.

(STUDY OF HOUSEHOLDS.)

[Information relating to boarders or lodgers covers only immediate time of taking schedule and not the entire year. Boarders are persons who receive both board and lodging.]

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In this table a striking contrast is exhibited between native households and households of the older immigrants on the one hand and households of more recent immigrants on the other. Boarders or lodgers are found in only 6.1 per cent of the native households and 6.7 per cent of the German. On the other hand, they are found in 72.1 per cent of the Croatian households, 58.3 per cent of the North Italian, 71.9 per cent of the South Italian, 72.8 per cent of the Lithuanian, etc. Of the 1,307 foreign households studied, 51.6 per

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