A  study  of  this  map  makes  possible  several  conclusions  with
regard  to  "delinquent  neighborhoods."  It  becomes  clear,  in  the
first  place,  that  the  region  from  which  the  children  of  the  court
chiefly  come  is  the  densely  populated  West  Side,  and  that  the
most  conspicuous  centers  of  delinquency  in  this  section  have
been  the  congested  wards  which  lie  along  the  river  and  the
canals.  It  should  be  explained  that  the  West  Side  is  the  most
densely  populated  section  of  the  city — a  large  tenement  and

150


THE   CHILD   WITHOUT   PLAY


lodging-house  district  lying  between  the  two  branches  of  the  river
and  between  wide  and  unsightly  stretches  of  railroad  tracks,  and
enclosed  by  a  dense,  semicircular  belt-line  of  manufacturing  and
commercial  plants.
The  condition  of  these  West  Side  wards  will,  however,  be
better  understood  after  a  study  of  the  "congestion"  map  on  the
following  page,  which  shows  the  relative  density  of  population  in
the  different  wards  as  indicated  by  the  population  statistics  from  the
Thirteenth  Census.*  These  statistics  show  that  for  the  entire  city
the  average  population  per  acre  was  19.7.  Six  of  the  West  Side
wards,  however,  had  more  than  70  people  per  acre,f  and,  as  one  would
expect,  the  largest  numbers  of  delinquent  children  are  found  in  the
areas  of  greatest  crowding.  The  Seventeenth  Ward,  a  crowded
Italian  and  Polish  district,  has  a  density  of  97.36  per  acre;  the
Nineteenth  Ward,  the  crowded  immigrant  section  in  which  Hull-

*  Thirteenth  Census  of  the  United  States,  1910.  Bulletin,  Population:
Illinois,  p.  1 1.
