MOODY: THE CONDITION OF PACKING HOUSE EMPLOYEES. 5^ 



although it would be hard work for some years, it would eventually 

 meatn a great improvement in the condition of the people, so many 

 of whom are forced to live here. 



Kansas City compared with New York — especially this district — 

 is not so congested. There are no tenement houses here, only one 

 or two story houses or shanties. But there exists in Kansas City 

 more coarse crime than in all that part of our country east of the 

 Hudson river line. 



The work in the packing houses is comparatively free from 

 accident, although some jobs bring a man in contact with machin- 

 ery and increase liability to accident. Generally speaking the 

 work is healthy, although men who have to work in the steam," 

 such as hog-scrapers and others, find the work hard on their lungs, 

 being compelled to stoop over and come very closely in contact 

 with the steam. 



For the young life here in the Bottoms the future is anything 

 but hopeful. Brought up in an atmosphere of poverty, of squalor, 

 of sin, in a district where dirt leads to disease, disease to death, 

 and where the devil himself seems to reign, what can be in store 

 for them? We have it on very good authority that in one section 

 of these Bottoms, by careful estimate, ninety per cent, of the girls 

 between the ages of twelve and fourteen are unchaste. 



