A STUDY of present conditions in industrial
New England will show that its communi-
ties, with few exceptions, are as much alike as the
pods in a peck of peas. Some of these human
clusters are large enough to be listed among the
world's big cities. Others are tiny hamlets. In
succeeding chapters I shall present facts and
figures regarding these. What I now desire to
impress upon the reader as we prepare for a hasty
survey of contemporary New England, is the fact
that the conditions which we shall find in particu-
lar towns which we are about to examine are not
unusual. They exist in every community, what-
ever its size, which awakes each morning to the
discordant scream of a factory whistle.

In the next few pages we shall push into streets
which are replicas of the densely-thronged streets
of ancient European communities. If we fail to
remember that what we find therein reflects con-
ditions elsewhere in the northeastern states of the
Union, this examination will have been undertaken
to no purpose.

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