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Jacob A. Riis 1849–1914. The Battle with the Slum. 1902.

Page 205

and sent their names to Naples with a request for information. There came back such a record as none of the detectives had ever seen or heard of before. All of them were notorious criminals, who had been charged with every conceivable crime, from burglary to kidnapping and “maiming,” and some not to be conceived of by the American mind. Five of them together had been sixty-three times in jail, and one no less than twenty-one times. Yet, though they were all “under special surveillance,” they had come here without let or hindrance within a year. When I recall that, I want to shut the door quick. I sent the exhibit to Washington at the time.
 
 
Dr. Jane Elizabeth Robbins, the “Woman Doctor.”
 
  But then, again, when I think of Mrs. Michelangelo, in her poor mourning for one child run over and killed, wiping her tears away and going bravely to work to keep the home together for the other five until the oldest shall be old enough to take her father’s place; and when, as now, there strays into my hand the letter from my good friend, the “woman doctor” in the slum, in which she