It is a curiously popular
book even to-day. Perhaps it was that I had had it in me so long
that it burst out at last with a rush that caught on. The title had
a deal to do with it. Mr. Howells asked me once where I got it. I
did not get it. It came of itself. Like Topsy, it growed. It had run
in my mind ever since I thought of the things I tried to describe.
Then there was the piece of real good luck that Booth's "In Darkest
England" was published just then. People naturally asked, "how
about New York?" That winter Ward McAllister wrote his book about
society as he had found it, and the circuit was made. Ministers
preached about the contrast." How the Other Half Lives "ran from
edition to edition. There was speedily a demand for more "copy,"
and I wrote "The Children of the Poor," following the same track.
Critics said there were more "bones" in it, but it was never popular
like the "Other Half."
By "bones" I suppose they meant facts to tie to. They were scarce
enough at that stage of the inquiry. I have in my desk a table
giving the ages at which children get their teeth that bears witness
to that.
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