This cartoon portrays the squalor of many working-class homes in Montreal. A delegation from Boston had come to visit the city and to observe the living conditions of the working poor. The city had the worst reputation in North America for poverty and disease. As late as 1926, the infant mortality rate was almost twice as high as the figures for New York City or Toronto. Moreover, infant mortality rates were much higher in the filthy, working-class areas of the city than in the cleaner, wealthier districts. It is significant, however, that such conditions did not go entirely unnoticed. Papers such as Le Canard, which ran this cartoon on its front page in 1908, were adept at pointing Out the inequalities which existed in the city.
