FACTS ABOUT THE KALLIKAK FAMILY 87 



In one room was a frowsled young woman in tawdry 

 rags, her hair unkempt, her face streaked with black, 

 while on the floor two dirty, half-naked children were 

 rolling. At the sight of a stranger, they all came for- 

 ward. The field worker made her way as best she 

 could, across heaps of junk that cluttered the room, 

 to a chair by an open window through which a breath 

 of outside air could be obtained. On the bureau by 

 the window a hideous diseased cat was curled in the 

 sunshine. The mother, Jemima's daughter, was not at 

 home, but the woman who had presented herself was 

 her daughter, and these were the grandchildren. The 

 woman's feeble-mindedness made it possible to ask her 

 question after question, such as could not have been 

 put to a normal person. Her answers threw a flood of 

 light upon the general depravity of life under such 

 conditions. When the mother at last arrived, she 

 proved to be of a type somewhat different from any- 

 thing before encountered in this family. She appeared 

 to be criminalistic, or at least capable of developing 

 along that line. Unfortunately, the visit could not 

 either be prolonged or repeated, so that no satisfactory 

 study was made. 



In the city, the individual is lost in the very im- 

 mensity of the crowd that surrounds him, so that his 



