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THE JUNGLE 



BY 



UPTON SINCLAIR 




PUBUSHED BY 

UPTON SINCLAIR 
1920 



I * 



storage 



Uni i '- > g. I' l l il l * 4c 



i I 



:: 3 5" 



OOPTBIQHT, 1906, 1906, ST 
UPTON 8INCIAIB. 



OOPXBIQHT^ 1920, BT UPTON SINGLAIB. 



Pablislied Febniary, 1906. 



■ i 



AM ri§\U r^terved, 

inelmding that of tra$ulatiou into foreign langmagu, 

including the Boandinavian, 





^-a-^iy 



THE JUNGLE 



I 



THE JUNGLE 



CHAPTER I 

It was four o'clock when the ceremony was oyer and 
tiie carriages began to arriye. There had been a crowd 
following all the way, owing to the exuberance ot Marija 
Berczynskas. The occasion rested heavily npon Marija's 
broad shoulders — it was her task to see that all things 
went in dne form, and after the best home traditions; and, 
flying wildly hither and thither, bowling every one ont of 
the way, and scolding and exhorting all day with her tre- 
mendous voice, Marija was too eager to see that others 
conformed to the proprieties to consider them herself. 
She had left the church last of all, and, desiring to arrive 
first at the hall, had issued orders to the coachman to 
drive faster. When that Dersonage had developed a wiU 
of his own in the matter, Marija had flung up the window 
of the carriage, and( leaning out, proceeded to tell him 
her opinion of him, first in Xithuanian, which he did not 
imderstand, and then in Polish, which he did. Having 
Hie advactage of her in altitude, the driver had stood his 
ground and even ventured to attempt to speak ; and the 
result had been a furious altercation, which, continuiilg 
all the way down Ashland Avenue, had added a new swarm 
of urchins to the cortege at each side street for half a 
mile. 

This was unfortunate, for already there was a throng 
before the door. The music had started up, and half a 
block away you could hear the dull ^'broom, broom" of a 
'cello, witn the sq^ueaking of two fiddles which vied with 
each other in intricate and altitudinous gymnastics. See* 



i 
4 



2 THE JUNGLE 

Ing the throng, Marija abandoned precipitately the debate 
oonoeming the ancestors of her coachman, and springing 
from the moying carriage, plunged in and proceeded to 
dear a way to the halL Once within, she turned and 
began to push the other way, roaring, meantime, ** Eik I 
EM Uxdaryb-duria /" in tones which made the orchestral 
uproar sound like fairy musia 

" Z. Oraiezunas, Pasilinksminimams darzas. Yynas. 
Sznapsas. Wines and Liquors. Union Headquarters' ' — 
that was the way the signs ran. The reader, who per- 
haps has never neld much conyerse in the language of 
far-off Lithuania^ will be glad of the explanation that the 
place was the rear-room of a saloon in that part of Chi- 
cago known as^'* back of the yards.'* This information is 
dennite and suited to the matter of fact ; but how piti- 
fully inadequate it would have seemed to one who under- 
stood that it was also the supreme hour of ecstasy in the 
life of one of Ood's gentlest creatures, the scene of the 
wedding-feast and the joy-transfiguration of little Ona 
LukoszaiteJ 

She stood in the doorway, shepherded by Oousin Marija, 
breathless from pushing through the crowd, and in her 
happiness painful to look upon. There was a light of 
wonder in her eyes and her lids trembled, and her other- 
wise wan little face was flushed. 8he wore a muslin 
Csess, conspicuously white, and a stiff little veil coming to 
her shoulders. There were five pink paper-roses twisted 
in the veil, and eleven bright green rose-leaves. There 
were new white cotton gloves upon her hands, and as she 
stood staring about her she twisted them together fever- 
ishly. It was almost too much for her — ^you could see 
the pain of too great emotion in her face, and all the 
tremor of her form. She was so young — not quite six- 
teen—and small for her age, a mere child ; ana she had 
J'ust been married — and married to Jurgis,^ of all men, to 
Turgis Budkus, he with the white flower in the button- 
hole of his new black suit, he with the mighty shoulders 
and the giant hands. 

'Pronounced ToorghiB. 



THE JUNGLE 3 

Ona was blue-eyed and fair, while^ Jorffis had^ great 
black ejes with beetling brows, and thick black hair that 
curled in wayes about his ears — in short, they were one 
of those incongruous and impossible married couples with 
which Mother xTature so often wills to confound all proph- 
ets, beforehand after. Jurgis could take up a two-hundred- 
and-iifty-pound quarter of beef and carry it into a car 
without a stagger, or eyen a thought ; and now he stood 
in a far comer^rightened as a hunted animal, and obliged 
io moisten his lips with his tongue each time before he 
could answer the congratulations of bis friends. 

Gradually there was effected a separation between the 
spectators and the guests — a separation at least suffi- 
ciently complete for working purposes. There was no 
time during the festiyities which ensued when there were 
not ^oups of onlookers in the doorways and the corners ; 
and if ainr one of these onlookers came sufficiently close, 
or looked sufficiently hungry, a chair was offered him, and 
he was inyited to the feast. It was one of the laws of 
the vesdija that no one ^oes hungry ; and, while a rule 
made in the forests of Lithuania is hard to apply in the 
stock-yards district of Chicago, with its quarter of a mill- 
ion inhabitants, still they did their best, and the children 
who ran in from the street, and eyen the dogs, went out 
again happier. A charming informality was one of the 
characteristics of this celebration. The men wore their 
hats, or, if they wished, they took them off, and their coats 
with them ; they ate when and where they pleased, and 
moyed as often as they pleased. There were to be speeches 
and singing, but no one had to listen who did not care to ; 
if he wished, meantime, to speak or sing himself, he was 
perfectly free. The resulting medley of sound distracted 
no one, saye possibly alone the babies, of which there were 
present a number equal to the total possessed by all the 
guests inyited. There was no other place for the babies to 
Be, and so part of the preparations for the eyening consisted 
of a collection of cribs and carriages in one corner, in 
these the babies slept, three or four together, or wakened 
together, as the case might be. Those who were still 



4 THE JUNGLE 

older, and conid reach iHe tables, xnarcHed about xntmolia 
ing contentedlj at meat-bones and bologna aaosages. 

The room is about thirty feet square, with whitewashed 
walls, bare saye for a calendar, a picture of a race-horse, 
and a family tree in a gilded frame. To the right there 
is a door from the saloon, with a few loafers in the door- 
way, and in the comer beyond it a bar, with a presiding 
genius clad in soiled white, with waxed black mustaches 
and a carefully oiled curl plastered against one side of his 
forehead. In the opposite comer are two tables, filling a 
third of the room ana laden with dishes and cold viands, 
which a few of the hungrier guests are already munching. 
At the head, where sits the bride, is a snow-white cake, 
with an Eiffel tower of constructed decoration, with su^ar 
roses and two angels upon it, and a generous sprinkling 
of pink and green and yellow candies. Beyond!^ opens a 
door into the kitchen, where there is a glimpse to be had 
of a range with much steam ascending from it, and many 
women, old and young, rushing hither and thither. In 
the corner to the left are the three musicians, upon a little 
platform, toilini^heroically to make some impression upon 
the hubbub ; also the babies, similarly occupied, and an 
open window whence the populace imbibes tne sights and 
sounds and odors. 

Suddenly some of the steam begins to advance, and, 
peering through it, you discern Aunt Elizabeth, Ona's 
step-mother — Teta Elzbieta, as they call her — bearing 
aloft a great platter of stewed duck. Behind her is Ko- 
trina, making her way cautiously, staggering beneath a 

Similar burden ; and half a minute later there appears 
Id Grandmother Majauszkiene, with a big vellow Dowl 
of smoking potatoes, nearly as big as herself. So, bit by 
bit, the feast takes form — there is a ham and a dish of 
sauerkraut, boiled rice, macaroni, bologna sausages, great 
piles of penny buns, bowls of milk, and foaming pitchers 
of beer. There is also, not six feet from your oack, the 
bar, where you may order all you please and do not have 
to pay for iC ** Eikaz I Oraicziau / screams Marija Bez>- 



. 'I 



I 



THE JITNGLE 5 

ezynskasyand falls to work herself — for tHere is more upon 
the stoTe inside that will be spoiled if it be not eaten. 

80, with laughter and shonta and endless badinage and 
merriment, the guests take their places. The young men, 
who for the most part haye been huddled near the door, 
summon tiieir resolution and adyance; and the shrinking 
Jurgis is poked and scolded by the old folks until he con- 
sents to seat himself at the ri^ht hand of the bride. The 
two bridesmaidsywhose insignia of office are paper wreaths, 
oome next, and after them the rest of the guests, old and 
oung, boys and girls. The spirit of the occasion takes 
Lold of the stately bartender, who condescends to a plate 
of stewed duck ; eyen the fat policeman — whose duty it 
will be, later in the eyening, to break up the fights — 
draws up a chair to the foot of the table. And the chil- 
dren shout and the babies yell, and eyeryone laughs and 
sings and chatters — while aboye all the aeafening clamor 
Cousin Marija shouts orders to the musicians. 

The musicians — how shall one begin to describe them? 
All this time they haye been there, playing in a mad 
frenzy — all of this scene must be read, or said, or sung, 
to music It is the music which makes it what it is ; it 
is the music which changes the place from the rear-room 
of a saloon in back of the yards to a fairy place, a won- 
derland, a little corner of tne high mansions of the sky. 

The little person who lea'** •this trio is an inspired man. 
His fiddle is out of tune, and there is no rosin on his bow, 
but still he is an inspired man — the hands of the muses 
haye been laid upon nim. He plays like one possessed by 
a demon, by a whole horde of demons.^ xou can feel 
them in the air round about him, capering frenetically; 
with their inyisible feet they set the pace, and the hair 
of the leader of the orchestra rises on end, and his eye- 
balls start from their sockets, as he toils to keep up with 
them 

Tamoszius Euszleika is his name, and he has taught 
himself to play the yiolin by practising all night, after 
working all day on the ''killing oeds." He is in nis shirt- 
sleeyes, with a yest figured with faded gold horseshoes, 






6 THE JVSQLE 

and a pinkHstriped shirt, suggestive of peppermint candy* 
A pair of military trousers, light blue with a yellow stripe, 
serve to give that suggestion of authority proper to the 
leader of a band. He is only about five feet high, but 
even so these trousers are about eight inches short of t^c 
ground. You wonder where he can have gotten them -« 
or rather you would wonder, if the excitement of being in 
hispresence left yon time to think of such tiiinn. 

ilxir he is an mspired man. Every inch of him is in- 
spired— ^ou might almost say inspired senarately. He 
stamps with his feet, he tosses his head, he sways and 
swings to and fro ; he has a wizenedmp little face, irra- 
•istiUy comical ; and, when he executes a turn or a flour* 
ish, his brows knit and his lips work and his eyelids wink 
— the verjr ends of his necktie bristle out. And every 
now and then he turns upon his companions, noddine, sig- 
nalling, beckoning frantically —with every inch of him 
appefmng, implonng, in belialf of the muses and their 

For they are hardly worthyof Tamoszius, the other two 
members of the orchestra. The second violin is a Slovak, 
a tall, gaunt man with black-rimmed spectacles and the 
mute and patient look of an overdriven mule ; he responds 
to the whip but feebly, and then always falls back into his 
old rut. The third man is very fat, with a round, red, 
sentimental nose, and he plays with hia eyes turned up to 
the sky and a look of infinite yearning. He is playing a 
bass part upon his *cello, and so the excitement is nothmg 
to him ; no matter what happens in the treble, it is his 
task to saw oat one long-drawn and lugubrious note after 
another, from four o'clock in the aftc^oon until nearly 
the same hour next morning, for his third of the total 
inoome of one dollar per hour. 

Before the feast has been five minutes under way, 
Tamoszius Kunleika has risen in his excitement ; s mi&» 
ttte or two more and you see that he is be^ning to edM 
over towa^ the tables. His nostrils are dilated and ms 
breath oomes &st— his demons are driving him. He 
•ods and shakes his head at his oompanioDs, jerking «l 



'tHE JUNOLB 7 

ihem with his yiolin, until at last the long form of the 
second violinist also rises up. In the end all three of 
them begin advancing, step by step, upon the banqueters, 
Valentinavyczia, the cellist, bumping along with his in- 
strument between notes. Finally all three are gathered at 
the foot of the tables, and there Tamoszius mounts upon a 
stooL 

Now he is in his glory, dominating the scene. Some of 
the people are eating, some are laughing and talking — but 
you wiU make a great mistake if you think there is one 
of them who does not hear him. His notes are never 
true, and his fiddle buzzes on the low ones and squeaks / 

and scratches on the high ; but these things they heed no ) 
more than they heed the dirt and noise and squ^or about vy 
them — it is out of this material that they have to build 
their Hves, with it that they have to utter their souls. 
And this is their utterance; merry and boisterous, or 
mournful and wailing, or passionate and rebellious, this 
music is their music, music of home. It stretches out 
its arms to them, they have only to give themselves up. 
Chicago and its saloons and its slums fade away — there 
are green meadows and sunlit rivers, mighty forests and 
snow-clad hills. They behold home landscapes and child- 
hood scenes returning ; old loves and friendships begin to 
waken, old joys and griefs to laugh and weep. Some fall* 
back and close their eyes, some beat upon the table. Now 
and then one leaps up with a cry and calls for this song or 
that ; and then the fire leaps brighter in Tamoszius^s eyesi 
and he flings up his fiddle and shouts to his companions, 
and away they go in mad career. The company takes up 
the choruses, and men and women cry out like all pos- 
sessed ; f9ome leap to their feet and stamp upon the floor^ 
lifting their glasses and pledging each other. Before 
long it occurs to some one to demand an old wedding* 
song, which celebrates the beauty of the bride and the 
joys of love. In the excitement of this masterpiece 
Tamoszius Kuszleika begins to edee in between the tables, 
making his way toward the head, where sits the bride. 
There is not a foot of space between the ohain of the 



8 THE JUKGLB 

gnestB, and Tamoszias is so short that he pokes <3iei^^ 
with his bow whenever he reaches over for the low notes ^ 
but still he presses in, and insists relentlessly that hi^ 
companions must follow. During their progress, needless 
to say, the sounds of the *cello are pretty well extin* 
guished; but at last the three are at the head, and 
Tamoszius takes his station at the right hand of the bride 
and begins to pour out his soul in melting strains. 

Little Ona is too excited to eat. Once in a while she 
tastes a little something, when Cousin Marija pinches her 
elbow and reminds her ; but, for the most part, she sits g^« 
ing with the same fearful eyes of wonder* Teta Elzbieta is 
all in a flutter, like a humming-bird; her sisters, too, keep 
running up behind her, whispering, breathless. But Ona 
seems scarcely to hear them — the music keeps callins^, and 
the far-off look comes back, and she sits with her hands 
pressed together over her heart. Then the tears begin to 
come into ner eyes ; and as she is ashamed to wipe them 
away, and ashamed to let them run down her cheeks, she 
turns and shakes her head a little, and then flushes red 
when she sees that Jurgis is watching her* When in the 
end Tamoszius Kuszleika has reached her side, and is 
waving his macpc vrand above her, Ona's cheeks are scar* 
let, and she looks as if she would have to get up and run 
away. 

In this crisis, however, she is saved by Marija Berczvn* 
skas, whom the muses suddenly visit. Marija is fond of 
a song, a song of lovers' parting ; she wishes to hear it, 
and, as the musicians do not kaow it, she has risen, and 
is proceeding to teach them. Marija is short, but power* 
ful in build. She works in a canning factory, and all 
day long she handles cans of beef that weigh fourteen 
pounds. She has a broad Slavic face, with prominent red 
cheeks. When she opens her mouth, it is tragical, but 
you cannot help thinking of a horse. She wears a blue 
flannel shirt-waist, which is now rolled up at the 8leeves» 
disclosing her brawny arms; she has a carving-fork in her 
hand, with which she pounds on the table to mark the 
time* As she roars hit song, in a voice of which it ii 



THE JUNGLE 9 

emmgh to say that it leaves no portion of the room ya« 
cant, the three musicians follow her, laboriously and note 
by note, but averaging one note behind; thus they toil 
through stanza after stanza of a loveHsdck swain^s lament 
tation: — 

^ Sudiev* krietkeli, tn branffSanaias 
Sudiey' ir laime, man biemiam, 
Mataa — paakyre teip AdkBzcziaii8i% 
Jog vargt ant avieto reik vienam ! * 

When the song is over, it is time for the roeech, and 
old Dede Antanas rises to his feet. Grand&ther An- 
thony, Jurgis*s father, is not more than sixty years of age, 
but you would think that he was eighty. He has been 
only six months in America, and the change has not done 
him good. In his manhood he worked in a cotton-mill, 
but l£en a coughing fell upon him, and he had to leave ; 
out in the country the trouble disappeared, but he has 
been working in the pickle-rooms at Durham's, and the 
breathing of the cold, damp air all day has brought it 
back. Now as he rises he is seized with a coughing-fit. 
and holda himself by his chair and turns away his w-n 
and battered face until it passes. 

Generally it is the custom for the speech at a vetelija 
to be taken out of one of the books and learned by 
heart; but in his youthful days Dede Antanas used to 
be a scholar, and really make up all the love-letters of his 
friends. Now it is understood that he has composed an 
original speech of congratulation and benediction, and this 
IS one of the events of the day. Even the boys, who are 
romping about the room, draw near and listen, and some 
of the women sob and wipe their aprons in their eyes. It 
is very solemn, for Antanas Rudkus has become possessed 
of the idea that he has not much longer to stay with his 
children. His speech leaves them all so tearful that one 
of the guests, Jokubas Szedvilas, who keeps a delicates- 
sen store on Halsted* Street, and is fat and hearty, is moved 
to rise and say that things may not be as bad as that, and 
then to go on and make a little speech of his own, in 
which he flhowers congratulations and prophecies of hap* 



10 THE JU^Cflilfi 

{)ine88 upon the bride and groom, proceeding to particih 
ars which greatly delight the young men, but which 
cause Ona to blush more furiously than ever. Jokubas 
possesses what his wife complacently describes as ^^poetis- 
zka yaidintuve ** — a poetical imagination. 

Now a good many of the guests have finished, and, since 
there is no pretence of ceremony, the banquet begins to 
break up. Some of the men gather about the bar ; some 
wander about, laughing and singing; here and there 
will be a little group, chanting merrily, and in sublime 
indifference to the others and to the orchestra as well* 
Everybody is more or less restless — one would guess that 
something is on their minds. And so it proves. The last 
tardy diners are scarcely given time to finish, before the 
tables and the debris are shoved into the comer, and 
the chairs and the babies piled out of the way, and the 
real celebration of the evening begins. Then Tamoszius 
Kuszleika, after replenishing himself with a pot of beer, 
returns to his platform, and, standing up, reviews the 
scene ; he taps authoritatively upon the side of his 
violin, then tucks it carefully under his chin, then waves 
his bow in an elaborate flourish, and finally smites the 
sounding strings and closes his eyes, and floats away in 
spirit upon the wings of a dreamy waltz. His companion 
follows, but with his eyes open, watching where he treads, 
so to speak ; and finally Valentinavyczia, after waiting for 
a little and beating with his foot to get the time, casts 
up his eyes to the ceiling and begins to saw— *^ Broom! 
broom! broom 1** 

The company pairs off quickly, and the whole room ia 
soon in motion. ApparenUy nobody knows how to waltz, 
but that is nothing of any consequence — • there is music, 
and they dance, each as he pleases, just as before they 
sang. Most of them prefer the ^two-step,** especially 
the young, with whom it is the fashion. The older people 
have dances from home, strange and complicated steps 
which they execute with grave solemnity. Some do not 
dance anything at all, but simply hold each other's hands 
and allow tha nndiioiplined joy of miotiaa to exprem 



^ 



THE JUNGLE 11 

itself with their feet. Among i^hese are Jokubas Szedvilas 
and his wife, Lucija, who together keep the delicatessen 
store, and consume nearly as much as tnej sell ; they are 
too fat to dance, but they stand in the middle of the 
floor, holding each other fast in their arms, rocking slowly 
from side to side and grinning seraphically, a picture of 
toothless and perspiring ecstasy. 

Of these older people many wear clothing reminiscent 
in some detail of home — an embroidered waistcoat or 
stomacher, or a gayly colored handkerchief, or a coat with 
large cuffs and fancy buttons. All these things are care* 
fully avoided by the youne, most of whom have learned 
to speak English and to afi^ct the latest style of clothing. 
The girls wear ready-made dresses or shirt-wdsts, and 
some of them look quite pretty. Some of the young men 
you would take to be Ainericans, of the type of clerks, 
but for the fact that they wear their hats m the room. 
Each of these younger couples affects a style of its own 
in dancing. Some hold eacn other tightly, some at a cau-^ 
tious distance. Some hold their arms out stifiBy, some 
drop them loosely at their sides. Some dance sprin^ly, 
some glide softly, some moye with graye dignity. There 
are boisterous couples, who tear wildly about the room, 
knocking eyery one out of their way. There are nenrous 
couples, whom these frighten, and who cry, ^Nustokl 
Eas yra?^ at them as they pass. Each couple is paired 
for the eyening — you will never see them change about. 
There is Alena Jasaityte, for instance, who has danced 
unending hours with Juozas Raczius, to whom she is 
engaged. Alena is the beauty of the evening, and she 
would be really beautiful if she were not so proud. She 
wears a white shirt-waist, which represents, perhaps, half 
a week^s labor painting cans. She holds her skirt with 
her hand as she dances, with stately precision, after the 
manner of the grandeB dames, Juozas is driving one of 
Durham's wagons, and is making big wages. He affects 
a ^ toup^h ** aspect, wearing his hat on one side and keep* 
ing a cigarette in his mouth all the evening. Then there 
ii JTadvyga Maroinkus, who is also beantiralt but humble. 



12 THE JX7NGLE 

Jadvyga likewise paints cans, but then she has an invalScf 
mother and three little sisters to support by it, and so sh^ 
does not en^end her wa^s for shirt-waists. Jadvyga is 
small and delicate, with jet-black eyes and hair, the latter 
twisted into a little knot and tied on the top of her head* 
She wears an old white dress which she has made herself 
and worn to parties for the past five years; it is high* 
waisted — almost under her arms, and not very becoming, 
— but that does not trouble Jadvyga, who is (lancing with 
her Mikolas. She is small, while he is big and powerful ; 
she nestles in his arms as if she would hide herself from 
view, and leans her head upon his shoulder. He in turn 
has clasped his arms tightly around her, as if he would 
carry her away; and so she dances, and will dance the 
entire evening, and would dance forever, in ecstasy of 
bliss. You would smile, perhaps, to see them — but you 
would not smile if you knew idl the story. This is the 
fifth year, now, that Jadvyga has been engaged to Mikolas, 
and her heart is sick. They would have been married in 
the beginning, only Mikolas has a father who is drunk all 
day, and he is the only other man in a large family. Even 
so they might have managed it (for Mikolas is a skilled 
man) but for cruel accidents which have almost taken the 
heart out of them. He is a beef -boner, and that is a dan- 
gerous trade, especiallv when you are on piece-work and 
tryine to earn a bride. Your hands are slippery, and 
your knife is slippery, and you are toiling like mad, when 
somebody happens to speak to you, or you strike a bone. 
Then your hand slips up on the blade, and there is a fear- 
ful gash. And that would not be so bad, only for the 
deadly contagion. The cut may heal, but you never can 
tcdl. Twice now, within the last three years, Mikolas has 
been lying at home with blood-poisoning— once for three 
months and once for nearly seven. The last time, too, he 
lost his job, and that meant six wedks more of standing 
at the doors of the packing-houses, at six o^dock on bitter 
winter mornings, with a foot of snow on the eround and 
more in the air. There are learned people who can tell 
ma out of the atirtirtioa that beef -boiiera make forty cents 



THE JUNGLB 15 

an hour, bat, perhaps, these people have never looked «ach 
a beef -boner's hands. ^«ce 

When Tamoszius and his companions stop for a rest, ^ 
perforoe thev must, now and then, the dancers halt where^ 
they are and wait patiently. They never seem to tire ; 
and there is no place for wem to sit down if they did. 
It is only for a minute, anyway, for the leader starts up 
again, in spite of all the protests of the other two. This 
time it is another sort of a dance, a Lithuanian dance. 
Those who prefer to, go on with the twoHBtep, but the 
majority go through an intricate series of motions, resem- 
bling more fancy skating than a dance. The climax of it 
is a turious preitUnmo^ at which the couples seize hands 
and begin a mad whirling. This is quite irresistible, and 
every one in the room joins in, until the place becomes a 
maze of flying skirts and bodies, quite dazzlinc^ to look 
upon. But the si^t of sights at this moment is Tamos- 
zius Kuszleika. The old fiddle squeaks and shrieks in 
protest, but Tamoszius has no mercy. The sweat starts 
out on his forehead, and he bends over like a cyclist on 
the last lap of a race. His body shakes and throbs like a 
runaway steam-engine, and the ear cannot follow the fly- 
ing showers of notes — there is a pale blue mist where you 
look to see his bowing arm. With a most wonderful 
rush he comes to the end of the tune, and flings up his 
hands and staggers back exhausted; and with a final 
shout of delight the dancers fly apart, reeling here and 
there, bringing up against the walls of the room. 

After this there is beer for every one, the musicians in- 
cluded, and the revellers take a long breath and prepare 
for the great event of the evening, which is the (icziavima$. 
The OGnavimas is a ceremony which, once begun, will con- 
tinue for three or four hours, and it involves one uninter- 
rupted dance. The guests form a g^at ring, locking 
hands, and, when the music starts up, begin to move 
around in a circle. In the centre stands the bride, and» 
one by one, the men step into the enclosure and dance 
with her. Each dances for several minutes — as lone as 
he pleases ; it is a very merry proceeding, with laughter 



/ 



12 / TBS JXTKOLB 

JadT^ging, and when the guest has finished, he findft 
moSiself ffM^ to face with Teta Elzbieta, who holds the 
4it. Into it he drops a sum of money — a dollar, or per- 
naps five dollars, according to his power, and his estimate 
of the value of the privilege. The guests are expected 
to pay for this entertainment ; if they be proper jp^ests* 
they will see that there is a neat sum left over for the 
briae and bridegroom to start life upon. 

Most fearful they are to contemplate, the expenses of 
this entertainment. They will certainly be over two hun* 
dred dollars, and may be three hundred ; and three hun- 
dred dollars is more than the year's income of many a 
person in this room. There are able-bodied men here 
who work from early morning until late at night, in ice* 
cold cellars with a quarter of an inch of water on the 
floor -» men who for six or seven months in the year never 
see the sunlight from Sunday afternoon till the next Sun- 
day morning — and who cannot earn three hundred dol- 
lars in a year. There are little children here, scarce in 
their teens, who can hardly see the top of the work 
benches — whose parents have lied to get them their 

Slaces-^and who do not make the half oi three hundred 
ollars a year, and perhaps not even the third of it. And 
then to spend such a sum, all in a single day of your life, 
at a wedding-feast t (For obviouedy it is the same thing, 
whether you spend it at once for your own wedding, or in 
a lon^ time, at the weddings of all your friends.) 

It IS very imprudent, it is tragic — but, ah, it is so beau- 
tiful t Bit by bit these poor people have eiven up every* 
thing else ; but to this they cling with lul the power of 
their souls — they cannot give up the veselifa t To do that 
\ would mean, not merely to be defeated, but to acknowl- 
edge defeat — and the <Ufference between these two things 
is what keeps the world going. The veselija has come 
down to them from a far-off time ; and the meaning of it 
was that one might dwell within the cave and gaze upon 
shadows, provided only that once in his lifetime he could 
break his chains, and feel his winc^ and behold the sun ; 
wonded that once in his lifetime he might testify to the 



THE JUNGLE 15 

hcb that life, with all its cares and its terrors, is no such 
great thing after all, but merely a bubble upon the surface 
of a river, a thing that one may toss about and play with 
as a juggler tosses his golden balls, a thing that one may 
quaff, like a goblet of rare red wine. Thus having known 
himself for the master of things, a man could go back to 
his toil and live upon the memory all his days. 

Endlessly the dancers swunc^ round and round — when 
they were dizzy they swung tne other way. Hour after 
hour this had continued — > the darkness had fallen and the 
room was dim from the light of two smoky oil lamps. 
The musicians had spent all their fine frenzy by now, and 
played only one tune, wearily, ploddingly. There were 
twenty bars or so of it, and when they came to the end 
they began again. Once every ten minutes or so thev 
would fail to begin again, but instead would sink back 
exhausted ; a circumstance which invariably brought on 
a painful and terrifying scene, that made the fat police- 
man stir uneasily in his sleeping-place behind the door. 

It was all Marija Berczynskas. Marija was one of those 
hungry souls who cling with desperation to the skirts of 
the retreating muse. All day long she had been in a state 
of wonderful exaltation; and now it was leaving — and 
she would not let it go. Her soul cried out in the words 
of Faust, ** Stay, thou art fair I '* Whether it was by beer, 
or by shouting, or by music, or by motion, she meant that 
it should not go. And she would go back to the chase of 
it — and no sooner be fairly started than her chariot would 
be thrown off the track, so to speak, by the stupidity of 
those thrice-accursed musicians. Each time, Marija would 
emit a howl and fly at them, shaking her fists in their 
faces, stamping upon the floor, purple and incoherent witt 
rage. In vain the frightened Tamoszius would attempt 
to Bpeaky to plead the limitations of the flesh ; in vain 
would the pumne and breathless ponas Jokubas insist, i» 
vain would Teta Elzbieta implore. ^^ Szalin I *' Marija woul<( 
scream. ^Palaukl isz keliol What are you paid foi; 
children of hell? ** And so, in sheer terror, the orchestis 



18 THB JXTKGLE 

would strike up again, and Marija woizld retam to her 
place and take up ner task. 

She bore all the burden of tbe festivities now. Ona 
was kept up by her excitement, but all of the women and 
most of the men were tired — the soul of Marija was alone 
unconquered. She drove on the dancers — what had once 
been the rine had now the shape of a pear, with Marija at 
the stem, puUing one way and pushing the other, shouting, 
stamping, singing, a very volcano of energy. Now and 
then some one coming in or out would leave the door open, 
and the night air was chill ; Marija as she passed would 
stretch out her foot and kick the door-knob, and $lam 
would go the door I Once this procedure was the cause of 
a calamity of which Sebastijonas Szedvilas was the hapless 
victim. Little Sebastijonas, aged three, had been wander- 
ing about oblivious to all things, holding turned up over 
his mouth a bottle of liquid known as ^^pop,*' pink* 
colored, ice-cold, and delicious. Passing through the 
doorway the door smote him full, and the shriek which 
followed brought the dancing to a halt. Marija, who 
threatened horrid murder a hundred times a day, and 
would weep over the injury of a fly, seized little Sebasti* 
Jonas in her arms and bid fair to smother him with kisses. 
There was a long rest for the orchestra, and plenty of 
refreshments, whUe Marija was making her peace with 
her victim, seating him upon the bar, and standing beside 
him and holding to his lips a foaming schooner of beer. 

In the meantime there was going on in another comer 
of the room an anxious conference between Teta Elzbieta 
and Dede Antanas, and a few of the more intimate friends 
of the family. A trouble was come upon them. The 
veselija is a compact, a compact not expressed, but there* 
fore only the more binding upon all. Every one's share 
was different — and yet every one knew perfectly well 
what his share was, and strove to give a little more. Now, 
however, since they had come to the new country, all this 
was changing ; it seemed as if there must be some subtle 
poison in the air that one breathed here — it was affecting 
all the young men at once. They would come in crowu 



IHB JUNGLE 17 

and fill themaelTas witb a fine dinner, and then meak off. 
One would throw another's hat out of the window, and 
both wonld go out to get it, and neither would be seen 
again. Or now and then half a dozen of them would get 
together and march out openly, staring at you, and mak- 
ing fun of you to your face. StUl others, worse yet, 
would crowd about tlie bar, and at the expense of the host 
drink themselves sodden, paying not the least attention 
to any one, and leaving it to be thought that either they 
had danced with the bride already, or meant to later on. 
All these things were going on now, and the family 
was helpless with dismay. So long they had toiled, and 
such an outlay they had made! Ona stood by, her eyes 
wide with terror. Those frightful bills — how they had 
haunted her, each item gnawing at her soul all day and 
spoiling her rest at night. How often she had named 
them over one by one and figured on them as she went to 
work — fifteen dollars for the hall, twenty-two dollars 
and a quarter for the ducks, twelve dollars for the musi- 
cians, five dollars at the church, and a blessing of the 
Virgin besides — and so on without an end I W orst of 
all was the frightful bill that was still to come from Graic- 
zunas for the beer and liquor that mi^ht be consumed. 
One could never get in advance more than a guess as to 
this from a saloon-keeper — and then, when the time came 
he always came to you scratching his head and saying 
tJiat he had guessed too low, but that he had done his 
best — your guests had gotten so very drunk. By him 
you were sure to be cheated unmercifully, and that even 
though you thought yourself the dearest of the hundreds 
of friends he ha(L He would begin to serve your guests 
out of a keg that was half full, and finish witib one that 
was half empty, and then you would be charged for two 
kegs of beer. He would agree to serve a certain quality 
at a certain price, and when the time came you and your 
friends would be drinking some horrible poison that could 
not be described. Ton mi^ht complain, but you would 
get nothing for your pains but a ruined evening ; while, 
fls for going to law about it» you might as well go tm 



/ 



18 THE JXJNGLE 

heaven at once. The saloon-keeper stood in with all the 
big politics men in the district ; and when you had once 
found out what it meant to get into trouble with such 
people, you would know enough to pay what you were 
told to pay and shut up. 

What made all this the more painful was that it was so 
hard on the few that had really done their best. There 
was poor old ponas Jokubas, for instance — he had already 
ffiven five dollars, and did not eyenr one know that Jokub&« 
Szedvilas had just mortgaged his delicatessen store for tw# 
hundred dollars to meet several months' overdue rent? 
And then there was withered old poni Aniele — who was 
a widow, and had three children, and the rheumatism be- 
sides, and did washing for the tradespeople on Halsted 
Street at prices it would break your heart to hear named. 
Aniele had given the entire profit of her chickens for sev- 
eral months. Eight of them she owned, and she kept them 
in a little place fenced around on her backstairs. All day 
lon^ the children of Aniele were raking in the dump for 
food for these chickens ; and sometimes, when the compe- 
tition there was too fierce, you might see them on Halsted 
Street, walking close to the gutters, and with their mother 
following to see that no one robbed them of their finds. 
Money could not tell the value of these chickens to old 
Mrs. Jukniene — she valued them differently, for she had 
a feeling that she was getting something for nothing by 
means of them — that with them she was getting the 
better of a world that was getting the better of her in so 
many other ways. So she watched them every hour of the 
day, and had learned to see like an owl at night to watch 
them then. One of them had been stolen long ago, and 
not a month passed that some one did not try to steal 
another. As the frustrating of this one attempt involved 
a score of false alarms, it will be understood what a trib- 
ute old Mrs. Jukniene brought, just because Teta Elzbieta 
had once loaned her some money for a few days and saved 
her from being turned out of her house. 

More and more friends gathered round while the lamen* 



THE JUNGLE 19 

tetkm about these things was going on. Some drew nearer, 
hoping to overhear the conversation, who were themselves 
among the gnilty — and surely that was a thing to try the 
patience of a saint. Finally there came Jorgis, urged by 
seme one, and the story was retold to him. Jurgis listened 
in silence, with his great black eyebrows knitted. Now 
and then there would come a gleam underneath them 
and he would glance about the room. Perhaps he 
would have liked to go at some of those fellows with his 
big clenched fists; but then, doubtless, he realized how 
little good it would do him. No bill would be any less 
for turning out any one at this time ; and then there 
would be the scandal — and Jurgis wanted nothing ex- 
cept to get away with Ona and to let the world go its 
own way. So his hands relaxed and he merely said 
quietly: ^^It is done, and there is no use in weeping, Teta 
EUzbieta.*' Then his look turned toward Ona, who stood 
close to his side, and he saw the wide look of terror in her 
eyes. " Little one,*' he said, in a low voice, " do not worry 
— it will not matter to us. We will pay them all some- 
how. I will work harder.'* That was always what 
Jurgis said. Ona had grown used to it as the solution 
of all difficulties — ^^ I will work harder I ** He had said 
that in Lithuania when one official had taken his passport 
from him, and another had arrested him for being without 
it, and the two had divided a third of his belongings. He 
had said it again in New York, when the smooth-spoken 
agent had talcen them in hand and made them pay such 
mgh prices, and almost prevented their leaving his place, 
in spite of their paying. Now he said it a third time, and 
Ona drew a deep breath; it was so wonderful to have 
a husband, just like a ^own woman — and a husband 
who could solve all problems, and who was so big and 
strong I 

The last sob of little Sebastijonas has been stifled, and 
the orchestra has once more been reminded of its duty. 
The ceremony begins again — but there are few now left 
to dance with, and so very soon the collection is over and 



20 THE JUNGLE 

promiscuons dances once more begin. It is now after midf 
night, however, and things are not as they were before. 
The dancers are dull and heavy — most of tnem have been 
drinking hard, and have long ago passed the stage of ex« 
hilaration. They dance in monotonous measure, round 
after round, hour after hour, with eyes fixed upon vacancy, 
as if they were only half conscious, in a constantly growing 
stupor. The men grasp the women very tightly, but there 
will be half an hour together when neither will see the 
other's face. Some couples do not care to dance, and have 
retired to the comers, where they sit with their arms en- 
laced. Others, who have been drinking still more, wander 
about the room, bumping into everything ; some are in 
groups of two or three, singing, each group its own song. 
As time goes on there is a variety of orunkenness, among 
the younger men especially. Some stagger about in each 
other's arms, whispering maudUn words— others start quar- 
rels upon the slightest pretext, and come to blows and have 
to be pulled apart. Now the fat policeman wakens defi* 
nitely, and feels of his club to see that it is ready for 
business. He has to be prompt — for these two-o'clock- 
in-the-moming fights, if they once get out of hand, are 
like a forest fire, and may mean the whole reserves at 
the station. The thing to do is to crack every fighting 
head that you see, before there are so many fighting 
heads that you cannot crack any of them. There is but 
scant account kept of cracked heads in back of the yards, 
for men who have to crack the heads of animals all day 
seem to get into the habit, and to practise on their friends, 
and even on their families, between times. This makes it 
a cause for congratulation that by modern methods a very 
few men can do the painfully necessary work of head* 
cracking for the whole of the cultured world. 

There is no fight that night — perhaps because Jurgpis, 
too, is watchful — even more so than the policeman. 
Jurgis has dru^ a great deal, as any one naturally would 
on an occasion when it all has to be paid for, whether it is 
drank or not ; but he is a very steady man, and does not 
easily lose his temper. Only once there is a t^^ht shave — 



THE JX7NGLE 21 

and that is the fault of Marija Berczynskas. Maiija has 
apparently concluded '\boat two hours ago that if the altar 
in the comer, with the deity in soiled white, be not the 
true home of the muses, it is, at any rate, the nearest sub* 
stitute on earth attainable. And Marija is just fighting 
drunk when there come to her ears the facts about the 
villains who haye not P&id that night. Marija goes on 
the warpath straight off, without even the preliminary of 
a good cursing, and when she is pulled off it is with the 
coat collars of two villains in her hands. Fortunately, the 
policeman is disposed to be reasonable, and so it is not 
Marija who is flung out of the place. 

All this interrupts the music for not more than a minute 
or two. Then again the merciless tune begins — the tune 
that has been played for the last half-hour without one 
single change. It is an American tune this time, one 
which they have picked up on the streets; all seem to 
know the words of it — or, at any rate, the first line of it, 
which they hum to themselves^ over and over again with- 
out rest: ^In the fi^ood old summer time — in the good 
old summer time I In the good old summer time — in the 
good old summer time I " There seems to be something 
hypnotic about this, with its endlessly-recurring domi- 
nant. It has put a stupor upon every one who hears it, 
as well as upon the men who are playing it. No one can 
get away from it, or even think of getting away from it ; 
it is three o'clock in the morning, and they have danced 
out all their joy, and danced out all their strength, and all 
the strength that unlimited drink can lend tnem — and 
still there is no one among them who has the power to 
think of stopping. Promptly at seven o'clock this same 
Monday morning they will every one of them have to be 
in their places at Durham's or Brown's or Jones's, each in 
his worlone clothes. If one of them be a minute late, he 
will be docked an hour's pay, and if he be many minutes 
late, he will be apt to find nis brass check turned to tiie 
wall, which will send him out to join the hunny mob that 
waits every morning at the gates of the packmg-houses, 
from six o'clock untu nearly half -past ^ht. There is no 



22 THE JUNGLE 

exception to this rule, not even little Ona — whe has asked 
for a holiday the day after her W3dding-day, a holiday 
without pay, and been refused. While there are so many 
who are anxious to work as you wish, there is no occasion 
for incommoding yourself with those who must work 
otherwise. 

Little Ona is nearly ready to faint — and half in a stupor 
herself, because of the heavy scent in the room. She has 
not taken a drop, but every one else there is literally burn- 
ing alcohol, as the lamps are burning oil ; some of the 
men who are sound asleep in their chairs or on the floor 
are reeking of it so that you cannot go near them. Now 
and then Jurg^s gazes at her hungrily — he has long since 
forgotten his shyness ; but then the crowd is there, and 
he still waits and wutches the door, where a carriage is 
supposed to come. It does not, and finally he will wait 
no longer, but comes up to Ona, who turns white and 
trembles. He puts her shawl about her and then his own 
coat. They live only two blocks away, and Jurgis does 
not care about the carriage. 

There is almost no farewell — the dancers do not notice 
them, and all of the children and many of the old folks 
have fallen asleep of sheer exhaustion. Dede Antanas is 
asleep, and so are the Szedvilases, husband and wife, the 
former snoring in octaves. There is Teta Elzbieta, and 
Marija, sobbing loudly ; and then there is only the silent 
^ght, with the stars beginning to pale a little in the east. 
Jurgpis, without a word, lifts Ona in his arms, and strides 
out with her, and she sinks her head upon his shoulder 
with a moan. When he reaches home he is not sure 
whether she has fainted or is asleep, but when he has to 
hold her with one hand while he unlocks the door, he sees 
that she has opened her eyes. 

" You shall not go to Brown's to-day, little one," he 
whispers, as he climbs the stairs ; and she catches his arm 
in terror, gasping: ^^No ! No I I dare not I It will ruin 
nsl'' 

But he answers her again: ^* Leave it to me; leave it 
to me. I wiU earn more money — I will work harder.^ 



CHAPTER n 

JuBGiB talked lightly about work, because lie was young. 
They told him stories about the breakinp^ down of men, 
there in the stockyards of Chicago, and oi what had hap- 
pened to them afterwards — stories to make your flesh 
creep, but Jurgis would only laugh. He had only been 
there four months, and he was young, and a giant besides. 
There was too much health in him. He could not even 
imagine how it would feel to be beaten. ^* That is well 
enough for men like you,'' he would say, ^* Mpnai^ puny 
fellows — but my back is broad." 

Jurgis was like a boy, a boy from the country. He was 
the sort of man the bosses like to get hold of, the sort they 
make it a grievance they cannot get hold of. When he 
was told to go to a certain place, he would go there on the 
run. When he had nothing to do for the moment, he 
would stand round fidgeting, dancing, with the overflo¥P 
of energy that was in mm. If he were working in a line 
of men, tiie line always moved too slowly for him, and you 
could pick him out by his impatience and restlessness. 
That was why he had been picked out on one important 
occasion ; for Jurgis had stood outside of Brown and Com- 
pany's *^ Central Time Station" not more than half an 
hour, the second dav of his arrival in Chicago, before he 
had been beckoned by one of the bosses. Of this he was 
very proud, and it made him more disposed than ever to 
kugh at the pessimists. In vain would they all tell him 
that there were men in that crowd from which he had 
been chosen who had stood there a month — yes, many 
months — and not been chosen yet. ^ Tes,'* he would 
say, ^^but what sort of men? Broken-down tramps 
and good-f or-nothinffs, fellows who have spent all their 
money drinking, and want to get more for it. Do you 

23 



24 THE JUNGLE 

want me to beliovo that with these arms *'— and he would 
clench his fists and hold them up in the air, so that you 
might see the rolling muscles — ^Hhat with these arms 
people will ever let me starve ? '* 

** It is plain," they would answer to this, " that you have 
come from the country, and from very far in the country." 
And this was the fact, for Jurgis had never seen a city, 
and scarcely even a fair-sized town, until he had set out 
to make his fortune in the world and earn his right to 
Ona. His father, and his father's father before him, and 
as many ancestors back as legend could go, had lived in 
that part of Lithuania known as Brelovicz^ the Imperial 
Forest. This is a great tract of a hundred thousand acres, 
which from time immemorial has been a hunting preserve 
of the nobility. There are a very few peasants settled in 
it, holding title from ancient times ; and one of these was 
Ajitanas Kudkus, who had been reared himself, and had 
reared his children in turn, upon half a dozen acres of 
cleared land in the midst of a wilderness. There had been 
one son besides Jurgis, and one sister. The former had 
been drafted into the army ; that had been over ten years 
ago, but since that day nothing had ever been heard of 
him. The sister was married, and her husband had bought 
the place when old Antanas had decided to go with nis 
son. 

It was nearly a year and a half ago that Jurgis had met 
Ona, at a horse-fair a hundred miles from home. Jurgis 
had never expected to get married — he had laughed at it 
as a foolish trap for a man to walk into ; but here, without 
ever having spoken a word to her, with no more than the 
exchange of half a dozen smiles, he found himself, 
purple in the face with embarrassment and terror, asking 
her parents to sell her to him for his wife — and offering 
his father's two horses he had been sent to the fair to selL 
But Ona's father proved as a rock — the girl was yet a 
child, and he was a rich man, and his daughter was not to 
be had in that way. So Jurgis went home with a heavy 
heart, and that spring and summer toiled and tried hard 
to forget. In the faU, after the harvest was over, he saw 



/ 



THE JUNGLE SS 

tiiit it would not do, and tramped the full fortnight's 
jonmey that lay between him and Ona. 

He f onnd an unexpected state of affairs — for the girl's 
father had died, and his estate was tied up with creditors ; 
Jurgis's heart leaped as he realized that now the prize was 
within his reach. There was Elzbieta Lukoszaite, Teta, 
or Aunt, as they called her, Ona's stepmother, and there 
were her six children, of all ages. There was also her 
brother Jonas, a dried-up little man who had worked upon 
the farm. They were people of great consequence, as it * 
seemed to Jur^s, fresh out of the woods ; Ona knew how 
to read, and knew many other things that he did not 
know ; and now the farm had been sold, and the whole 
fiunily was adrift — all they owned in the world being 
about seyen hundred roubles, which is half as many dol- 
lars. They would haye had three times that, but it had 
^ne to court, and the judge had decided against them, and 
it had cost the balance to get him to change his decision. 

Ona might haye married and left them, but she would 
not, for she loyed Teta Elzbieta. It was Jonas who sug- 
gested that they all go to America, where a friend of ms 
had gotten rich. He would work, for his part, and the 
women would work, and some of the children, doubtless 
—they would liye somehow. Jurgis, too, had heard of ^ 
America* That was a country where, they said, a man 
might earn three roubles a day ; and Jurgis figured what J 
tiiree roubles a day would mean, with prices as they were 
where he liyed, and decided forthwith that he would go 
to America and marry, and be a rich man in the bargain. ,^ 
In that country, rich or poor, a m m was free% it was said; ^' 
he did not haye to go into the army, he did not haye to 
pay out his money to rascally officials, — he might do as he 
pleased, and count himself as ^ood as any other man. So 
America was a place of whidi loyers and young people 
dreamed. If one could only manage to get the price of a 
passage, he could count his troubles at an end. 

It was arranged that they should leaye the following 
upring, and meantime Jurgis sold himself to a contractor 
Cor a certain time» and tramped nearly four hundred 



X 



) 



26 THE JXT^aLB 

from home witli a gBug of mon to work upon a railroad ill 
Smolensk. Thin was a fearful experience, with filth and 
bad food and cruelty and overwork ; but Jurgis stood it 
and came out in fine trim, and with eighty roubles sewed 
up in his coat. He did not drink or fight, because he was 
thinking all the time of Ona ; and for the rest, he was a 
quiet, steady man, who did what he was told to, did not 
lose his temper often, and when he did lose it made the 
offender anxious that he should not lose it again. When 
they paid him off he dodged the company gamblers and 
dramshops, and so they tried to kill him ; but he escaped^ 
and tramped it home, working at odd jobs, and sleeping 
always with one eye open. 

So in the summer time they had all set out for America. 
At the last moment there joined them Marija Berczynskas, 
who was a cousin of Ona's. Marija was an orphan, and 
had worked since childhood for a rich farmer of Vilna, 
who beat her regularly. It was only at the age of twenty 
that it had occurred to Marija to try her strength, when 
she had risen up and nearly murdered the man, and then 
come away. 

There were twelve in all in the party, five adults and 
six children — and Ona, who was a little of both. They 
had a hard time on the passage ; there was an agent who 
helped them, but he proved a scoundrel, and got them into 
a trap with some officials, and cost them a good deal of 
their precious money, which they clung to with such hor- 
rible fear. This happened to them again in New York— 
for, of course, they knew nothing about the country, and 
had no one to teU them, and it was easy for a man in a 
blue uniform to lead them away, and to t^e them to a 
hotel and keep them there, and make them pay enormous 
charges to get away. The law says that the rate-card 
shall be on the door of a hotel, but it does not say that it 
shall be in Lithuanian. 

It was in the stockyards that Jonas*s friend had gottea 
rich, and so to Chicago the party was bound. They knew 
that one word« Chicago, — and that was idl they needed 



/ 



THE JUNGLE 27 

to know, at least, until they reached the city. Then, 
tombled out of the cars without ceremony, they were no 
better off than before ; they stood staring down the vista 
of Dearborn Street, with its big black buildings towering 
in the distance, unable to reauze that they £ul arrive^ 
and why, when they said ^^ Chicago,'* people no longer 
pointed in some direction, but instead looked perplexed, 
or laughed, or went on without paying any attention. 
^Hiey were pitiable in their helplessness; above all things 
they stood in deadly terror of any sort of person in official 
uniform, and so whenever they saw a policeman they would 
cross the street and hurry by. For the whole of the first 
day they wandered about in the midst of deafening con* 
fusion, utterly lost ; and it was only at night that, cower* 
ing in the doorway of a house, they were finally discovered 
and taken by a policeman to the station. In the morning 
an interpreter was found, and they were taken and put 
upon a car, and taught a new word — ^^ stockyarc^.** 
Their delight at discovering that they were to get out 
of this adventure without losing another share of their 
possessions, it would not be possible to describe. 

They sat and stared out of the window. They were on 
a street which seemed to run on forever, mile after mile -^ 
thirty-four of them, if they had known it — and each side 
of it one uninterrupted row of wretched little two-story 
frame buildings. Down every side street they could see, 
it was the same,— never a hill and never a hollow, but 
alwavs the same endless vista of ugly and dirty little 
woooen buildings. Here and there would be a bridge 
crossing a filthy creek, with hard-baked mud shores and 
dingy meds and docks along it ; here and there would be 
a railroad crossing, with a tangle of switches, and loco* 
motives puffin?, and rattling freight-cars filing by ; here 
and there womd be a ^eat factory, a dingy building with 
innumerable windows in it, and immense volumes of smoke 
pouring from the chimneys, darkening the air above and 
making filthy the earth beneath. But after each of these 
interruptions, the desolate procession would begin again 
— *the procession of dreary little buildings. 



28 THE JUNOLB 

A full honr before the party reached ihe city tihej had 
kegun to note the perplexing changes in the atmosphere. 
It grew darker all the time, and upon the earth the grass 
seemed to grow less green. Every minute, as the train 
sped on, the colors of things became dingier ; the fields 
were grown parched and yellow, the landscape hideous and 
bare. And along with the thickening smoke they began 
to notice another circumstance, a strange, pungent odor. 
They were not sure that it was unpleasant, this odor; 
some might have called it sickening, but their taste in 
odors was not developed, and they were only sure that it 
was curious. Now, sitting in the trolley car, they real* 
ized that they were on their way to the home of it — 
that they had travelled all the way from Lithuania to it. 
It was now no longer something far-off and faint, that you 
caught in whiffs ; you could literally taste it, as well as 
smell it — you coula take hold of it, almost, and examine 
it at your ^eisure. They were divided in their opinions 
about it. It was an elemental odor, raw and crude ; it 
was rich, almost rancid, sensual, and strong. There were 
some who drank it in as if it were an intoxicant ; there 
were others who put their handkerchiefe to their faces. 
The new emigrants were still tasting it, lost in wonder, 
when suddenly the car came to a halt, and the door was 
flung open, and a voice shouted ^-^^Stockyardsl** 

They were left standing upon the comer, staring ; down 
a side street there were two rows of brick houses, and be* 
tween them a vista: half a dozen chimneys, tall as the 
tallest of buildings, touching the very sky — and leaping 
from them half a dozen columns of smoke, thick, oily, 
and black as night. It might have come from the centre 
of the world, this smoke, where the fires of the ages still 
smoulder. It came as if self -impelled, driving all before 
it, a perpetual explosion. It was inexhaustible ; one 
stared, waiting to see it stop, but still the great streams 
rolled out. Thev spread in vast clouds overhead, writh* 
ing, curling ; tnen, uniting in one giant river, they 
streamed away down the sky, stretching a black pall as 
&r as the eye could reach. 



THE JTTNGLB 29 

Then the party became aware of another strange thing, 
too, like ti^e odor, was a thing elemental; it was a 
sonnd, a sonnd made np of ten thousand little sounds. 
Ton scarcely noticed it at first — it sunk into your con- 
sdonsness, a vague disturbance, a trouble. It was like 
the murmuring of the bees in the spring, the whisperings 
of the forest ; it suggested endless activity, the rumblings 
of a world in motion. It was only by an effort that one 
could realize that it was made by animals, that it was the 
distant lowing of ten thousand cattle, the distant grunting 
of ten thousand swine. 

They would have liked to follow it up, but, alas, they 
had no tune for adventures just then. The policeman on 
the comer was beginning to watch them; and so, as usual« 
they started up the street. Scarcely had they gone a 
Uock, however, before Jonas was heard to give a cry, and 
began pointing excitedly across the street. Before they 
could gather the meaning of his breatiiless ejaculations he 
had bounded away, and they saw him enter a shop, over 
which was a sign : ^ J. Szedvilas, Delicatessen.^ When 
he came out amin it was in company with a very stout 

rdeman in wirt sleeves and an apron, clasping Jonas 
both hands and laughing hilariously. Then Teta 
^bieta recollected suddenly that Szedvilas had been t(ie 
name of the mythical friend who had made his fortune in 
America. To find that he had been making it in the deli« 
catessen business was an extraordinary piece of good for* 
feune at this luncture; though it was well on in the 
morning, they had not breakfasted, and the children were 
beginning to whimper. 

Thus was the happy ending of a woful voyage. The 
two families literally fell upon each other's necks — for it 
had been years since Jokubas Szedvilas had met a man 
from his part of Lithuania. Before half the day they were 
lifelong friends. Jokubas understood all the pitfalls of 
this new world, and could explain all of its mysteries; 
he could tell them the things Uiey ought to have done in 
the different emergencies — and what was still more to the 
point, he could tdl them what to do now. He would 



30 THE JUNGLE 

take them to poni Aniele, who kept a boarding-hoase the 
other side of the yards; old Mrs. Jukniene, he explained, 
had not what one would call choice accommodations, but 
they might do for the moment. To this Teta Elzbieta 
hastened to respond that nothing could be too cheap to 
suit them just then; for they were quite terrified over the 
sums they had had to expend. A very few days of prac* 
tical experience in this land of high wages had been suffi* 
cient to make clear to them the cruel fact that it was also 
a land of high prices, and that in it the poor man was 
almost as poor as in any other comer of the earth ; and so 
there vanished in a night all the wonderful dreams of 
wealth that had been haunting Jurgis. What had made 
the discovery all the more painful was that they were 
spending, at American prices, money which they had 
earned at home rates of wa^es — and so were really being 
cheated by the world I The last two days they had all 
but starved themselves — it made them quite sick to 
pay the prices that the railroad people asked them for 
food. 

Tet, when they saw the home of the Widow Jukniene 
they could not but recoil, even so. In all their journey 
they had seen nothing so bad as this. Poni Aniele had a 
four-room flat in one of that wilderness of two-story frame 
tenements that lie ^^ back of the vards." Thpre were four 
such flats in each building, and each of the four was a 
^ boarding-house " for the occupancy of foreigners — Lith- 
uanians, roles, Slovaks, or Bohemians. Some of these 
places were kept by private persons, some were coopera* 
tive. There would be an average of half a dozen boarders 
to each room — sometimes there were thirteen or fourteen 
to one room, fifty or sixty to a flat. Each one of the oc- 
cupants furnished his own accommodatious — that is, a 
mattress and some bedding. The mattresses would be 
spread upon the floor in rows — and there would be 
nothing else in the place except a stove* It was by no 
means unusual for two men to own the same mattress in 
common, one working by day and using it by nifi^ht, and 
the other working at nig\t and usin^r it in the daytime. 



THE JUNGLE 81 

Very frequently a lod^^g-honse keeper would rent the 
tune beds to double shifts of men. 

Mrs. Jukniene was a wizened up little woman, with a 
wrinkled face. Her home was unthinkably filthy; you 
could not enter by the front door at all, owing to the 
mattresses, and when you tried to go up the backstairs 
you found that she had walled up most of the porch with 
old boards to make a place to keep her chickens. It was 
a standing jest of the boarders that Aniele cleaned house 
by letting the chickens loose in the rooms. Undoubtedly 
this did keep down the yermin, but it seemed probable, in 
yiow of all the circumstances, that the old lady regarded 
it rather as feeding the chickens than as cleaning the 
rooms. The truth was that she had definitely given up 
the idea of cleaning anything, under pressure of an attacK 
of rheumatism, which had kept her doubled up in one 
comer of her room for over a week ; during which time 
rieven of her boarders, heayily in her debt, had concluded 
to try their chances of employment in Kansas City. This 
was July, and the fields were green. One never saw the 
fields, nor any green thing whatever, in Packingtown; but 
one could go out on the road and **hobo it," as the men 
phrased it, and see the country, and have a long rest, and 
an easy time riding on the freight-cars. 

Such was the home to which the new arrivals were wel* 
eomed. There was nothing better to be had — they might 
not do so well by looking further, for Mrs. Jukniene had 
at least kept one room for herself and her three little chil* 
dren, and now offered to share this with the women and 
tiie girls of the party. They could ffet bedding at a 
second-hand store, she explained; and they woidd not 
need any, while the weather was so hot — doubtless they 
would all sleep on the sidewalk such nights as this, as did 
nearly all of her euests. ^ To-morrow, Jurgis said, when 
they were left ^one, ^to-morrow I will get a job, and 
perhaps Jonas wiU get one also; and then we can get 
a place of our own. 

Xater that afternoon he and Ona went out to take m 



tt THE JUNGLE 

walk and look about them^ to see more of thia diatriol 
which was to be their home. In baok of the yards the 
dreary two^tory frame houses were scattered farther 
apart, and there were great spaces bare «— that seeminglr 
had been overlooked by the great sore of a city as i% 
spread itself over the surface of the prairie. These bare 
maces were grown up with dingy, yellow weeds, hidinff 
innumerable tomato-canst innumerable children played 
upon them, chasing one another here and there, scream* 
inft and fighting. The most uncanny thin^ about thia 
neighborhMd was the number of the children; yon 
thought there must be a school just out» and it was only 
after long acquaintance that you were able to realize tLa* 
there was no school, but that these were the children of 
the neighborhood *- that there were so many children to 
the block in Packingtown that nowhere on its streets 
eould a horse and buggy move faster than a walk 1 

It could not move fiiater anyhow, on account of the 
atate of the streets. Those through which Jurffis and 
Ona were walking resembled streets less than they did 
a miniature topographical map. The roadway was com* 
monly several feet lower than the level of the houses, 
whicn were sometimes joined by high board walks ; there 
were no pavements — there were mountains and valleya 
and rivers, gullies and ditches, and great hollows full of 
stinkinfi^ ^reen water. In these pools the children plavedt 
and rolled about in the mud of tne streets ; here and there 
one noticed them digging in it, after trophies which Uiey 
had stumbled on. One wondered about this, as idao 
about the swarms of flies which hung about the scene, 
literally blackenhig the air, and tiie strange, fetid odor 
which assailed one's nostrils, a ghastly odor, of all die 
dead things of the universe. It impelled the visitor 
to questions •—' and then the residents would explun, 
quietly, that all this was ^ made ^ land, and that it had 
Men ^made** bv using it as a dumping-ground for the 
eitj garbage. After a few years the unpleasant effect of 
this would pass away, it was said; but meantime, in hoi 
weather — uid eepecoally when it tained — the fliee weM 



XHS JXrSQUt 33 

•pk to be umoying. Was it not onhealthfol ? the atranger 
vould aak, and the residents would answer, ^Perhaps; 
bat tiiere is no telling." 

A little way f nrther on, and Jorgis and Ona, staring 
•pen-eyed and wondering, came to the place where this 
^made** ground was in process of making. Here was a 
great hole, perhaps two city blocks square, and with long 
files of garbage wagons creeping into it. The place haa 
an odor for iraich there are no polite words ; and it was 
■prinkled oyer with children, who raked in it from dawn 
till dark. Sometimes yisitors from the packing-houses 
would wander out to see this ^dump,** and they would 
stand by and debate as to whether the children were eat* 
toft the food they got, or merely collecting it for the 
ehickens at home. Apparently none of them oyer went 
down to find out. 

Beyond this dump there stood a great brick-yard, with 
smoking chimneys. First they took out the soil to make 
bricks, and then they filled it up again with garbage, 
which seemed to Jurgis and Ona a felicitous arrangement, 
diaracteristio of an enterprising coimtry like America. 
A little way beyond was another great hole, which they 
had emptiea and not yet filled up. This held water, and 
all summer it stood there, with the near-by soil draining 
into it, festering and stewine in the sun ; and then, when 
winter came, somebody cut uie ice on it, and sold it to the 
people of the city. This, too, seemed to the newcomers 
an economical arrangement ; for they did not read the 
newspapers, and their heads were not full of troublesome 
thoughts about ^germs.** 

They stood there while the sun went down upon this 
■oene, and the sky in the west turned blood-red, and the 
tops of the houses shone like fire. Jurgis and Ona were 
not th^i^l"Tig of the sunset, howeyer— their backs were 
turned to it, and all their thoughts were of Packinetown, 
which they could see so plainly in the distance. The line 
id the buildings stood clear-cut and black against the 
Ay ; here and there out of the mass rose the great chink 
neyi, with the liyer of smoke streaming away to the <MI 



34 



THE JUNGLE 



of the world. It was a study in oolors now, this smolce | 
in the sunset light it was black and brown and gray and 
purple* All the sordid suggestions of the place were 
gone — in the twilight it was a vision of power. To the 
two who stood watching while the darkness swallowed it 
up, it seemed a dream of wonder, with its tale of human 
energy, of things being done, of employment for thou- 
sandB upon thousands of men, of opportunity and free* 
dom, of life and love and joy. When they came away, 
arm in arm, Jurgis was saying, ^To-morrow I shall go 
there and get a job I '' 



/ 



CHAPTER III 

Ih his capacity as delicatessen vender, Jokabas Szed« 
Yilas had many acquaintances. Among these was one of 
the special policemen employed by Durham, whose duty 
it frequently was to pick out men for employment. Joku* 
has had never tried it, but he expressed a certainty that 
he could get some of his friends a job through this man. 
It was agreed, after consultation, that he should make the 
effort with old Antanas and with Jonas. Jurgis was con- 
fident of his ability to get work for himself, unassisted by 
any one. 

As we have said before, he was not mistaken in this. 
He had gone to Brown's and stood there not more than 
half an hour before one of the bosses noticed his form 
towering above the rest, and signalled to him. The col« 
loquy which followed was brief and to the point : -* 

" Speak English ? " 

^Jsoi Lit-uanian.'* (Jurgis had studied this word 
carefully.) 

"Job?" 

**Je." (A nod.) 

** Worked here before ? *• 

** No 'stand.'* 

(Signals and gesticulations on the part of the bois, 
Vigorous shakes of the head by Jurgis.) 

•* Shovel guts ? " 

"No 'stand." (More shakes of the head.) 

"Zamos. Pagaiksztis. Szluota!" (Imitative motioiMu) 

"Je." 

" See door. Durys ? ** (Pointing.) 

"Je." 

rt5 



THE JUNGLE 

^o-morrow, seven o'clock. Understand? Rytojt 
jrrieszpietysl Septyni I *' 

^^ Dekui, tamistai I " (Thank you, sir.) And that was 
all. '^nrgis turned away, and then in a sudden rush the 
full realization of his triumph swept over him, and he 
gave a yell and a jump, and started off on a run. He had 
a job I He had a job I And he went all the way home 
as if upon wings, and burst into the house like a cyclone, 
to the rage of the numerous lodgers who had just turned 
in for their daily sleep. 

Meantime Jokubas had been to see his friend the police* 
man, and received encouragement, so it was a happy party. 
There being no more to oe done that day, the shop was 
left under the care of Lucija, and her husband sallied 
forth to show his friends the sights of Packingtown* 
Jokubas did this with the air of a country gentleman 
escorting a party of visitors over his estate ; he was an 
old-time resident, and all these wonders had grown up 
under his eyes, and he had a personal pride in them. 
The packers might own the land, but he claimed the land* 
scape, and there was no one to say nay to this. 

They passed down the busy street that led to the yards. 
It was still early morninfif, and everything was at its high 
tide of activity. A steady stream of employees was pour- 
ing through the gate — employees of the his/her sort, at 
this hour, clerks and stenofifraphers and such. For the 
women there were waiting Dig two-horse wagons, which 
set off at a gallop as fast as they were filled. In the dis* 
tance there was heard again the lowing of the cattle, • 
sound as of a far-off ocean calling. They followed it, 
this time, as eap^er as children in sight of a circus mena- 
gerie — which, indeed, the scene a good deal resembled. 
They crossed the railroad tracks, and then on each side 
of the street were the pens full of cattle ; they would 
have stopped to look, but Jokubas hurried them on, to 
where there was a stairway and a raised gallery, from 
which ever]rthin^ could be seen. Here they stood, star 
ing, breathless with wonder. 



THE JUNGLE 9T 

Tbeie is oyen a square mile of space in the yards, and 
more than half of it is occupied by cattle-pens ; north and 
south as far as the eye can reach there stretches a sea of 

Ens. And they were all filled — so many cattle no one 
d ever dreamed existed in the world. Red cattle, black, 
white, and yellow cattle; old cattle and young cattle ; great 
bellowing bulls and little calves not an hour born ; meek- 
eyed milch cows and fierce, long-horned Texas steers. The 
sound of them here was as of all the barnyards of the uni- 
yerse ; and as for counting them — it would have taken all 
day simply to count the pens. Here and there ran lone 
alleys, blocked at intervals by gates; and Jokubas told 
them that the number of these gates was twenty-five thou- 
sand. Jokubas had recently been reading a newspaper 
article which was full of stpttistics such as that, and he 
was very proud as he repeated them and made his guests 
cry out with wonder. Jurgis too had a little of this sense 
of pride. Had he not just gotten a job, and become a 
sharer in all this activity, a cog in this marvellous machine? 
Here and there about the alleys galloped men upon 
horseback, booted, and carrying lone whips ; they were 
yery busy, calling to each other, and to those who were 
driving the cattle. They were drovers and stock-raisers, 
who had come from far states, and brokers and commission- 
merchants, and buyers for all the big packing-houses. 
Here and there they would stop to inspect a bunch of 
cattle, and there would be a parley, brief and business- 
like. The buyer would nod or drop his whip, and that 
woold mean a bargain ; and he would note it in his little 
book, along with hundreds of others he had made that 
morning. Then Jokubas pointed out the place where the 
cattle were driven to be weighed, upon a ^reat scale that 
would weigh a hundred thousand poundis at once and 
record it automatically. It was near to the east entrance 
that they stood, and all along this east side of the yards 
ran the railroad tracks, into which the cars were run^ 
loaded with cattle. All night long this had been goinff 
on, and now the pens were full ; by to-night they would 
•11 be empty, and the same thing would be done again. 



38 THE JUNGLE 

•* And what will become of all these creatures ? ** cried 
Teta Elzbieta. 

** By to-night," Jokubas answered, " they will all be killed 
and cut up ; and over there on the other side of the pack* 
ing-houses are more railroad tracks, where the cam come 
to take them away." 

There were two hundred and fifty miles of track within 
the yards, their guide went on to tell them. They brought 
about ten thousand head of cattle eyery day, and as many 
hogs, and half as many sheep — which meant some eight 
or ten million liye creatures turned into food eyery year. 
One stood and watched, and little by little caught the drift 
of the tide, as it set in the direction of the packing-houses. 
There were groups of cattle being driyen to the chuteSi 
which were roadways about fifteen feet wide, raised high 
aboye the pens. In these chutes the stream of animaJs 
was continuous; it was quite uncanny to watch them, 
pressing on to their fate, all unsuspicious — a yery riyer 
of death. Our friends were not poetical, and the sight 
suggested to them no metaphors of human destiny ; they 
thought only of the wonderful efficiency of it all. The 
chutes into which the hogs went climbed high up — to 
the yery top of the distant buildings; and Jokubas ex* 

{>lained that the hogs went up by the power of their own 
egs, and then their weight carried them back through all 
the processes necessary to make them into pork. 

^ They don't waste anything here," said the guide, and 
then he laughed and added a witticism, which he was 

E leased that his unsophisticated friends should take to 
e his own : ^^ They use eyerything about the hoe except 
the squeal." In front of Brown's General Office Duilding 
there grows a tiny plot of grass, and this, you may learn, 
is the only bit of green thing in Packingtown ; Ukewise 
this jest about the hog and his squeal, the stock in trade 
of all the guides, is the one gleam of humor that you will 
find there. 

After they had seen enough of the pens, the party went 
up the street, to the mass of buildings which occupy the 
''^ntre of the yards. These buildings, made of brick and 



THE JXJNGtLE 89 

ttuned with innumerable layers of Packing^town smoke, 
were painted all over with advertising signs, from which 
the visitor realized suddenly that he had come to the home 
of manv of the torments of his life. It was here that they 
made those products with the wonders of which they pes- 
tered him so — by placards that defaced the landscape 
when he travelleo, and by staring advertisements in the 
ne¥rspapers and magazines — by silly little jingles that 
he could not get out of his mind, and gaudy pictures 
that lurked for him around every street corner. Here 
was where they made Brown's Imperial Hams and Bacon, 
Brown's Dressed Beef, Brown's Excelsior Sausages ! Here 
was the headquarters of Durham's Pure Leaf Lard, of 
Durham's Breakfast Bacon, Durham's Canned Beef, Potted 
Ham, Devilled Chicken, Peerless Fertilizer I 

Entering one of the Durham buildings, they found a 
number of other visitors waiting ; and before long there 
came a guide, to escort them through the place. They 
make a great feature of showing strangers through the 
packing-plants, for it is a good advertisement. But 
ponas Jokubas whispered maliciously that the visitors did 
not see any more than the packers wanted them to. 

They climbed a lone series of stairways outside of the 
building, to the top of its five or six stories. Here were 
the chute, with its river of hogs, all patiently toiling 
upward ; t^ere was a place for them to rest to cool ofi^ 
and then throu&;h another passageway they went into a 
room from which there is no returning for hogs. 

It was a long, narrow room, with a gallery along it fox ' 
▼isitors. At uie head there was a great iron wheel, about 
twenty feet in circumference, with rings here and there 
•long its edge. Upon both sides of this wheel there was 
a narrow space, into which came the hogs at the end of 
their journey ; in the midst of them stood a great burly 
negro, bare-armed and bare-chested. He was resting for 
the moment, for the wheel had stopped while men were 
cleaning up. In a minute or two, however, it began 
slowly to revolve, and then the men upon each side of it 
sprang to work. They had chains which they fastened 



40 THE JUNGLE 

about the leg of the nearest hog, and the other end of the 
chain they hooked into one of the rings upon the wheeL 
So, as the wheel turned, a hog was suddenly jerked off his 
feet and borne aloft. 

At the same instant the ear was assailed by a most 
terrifying shriek ; the visitors started in alarm, the women 
turned pale and shrank back. The shriek was followed 
by another, louder and yet more agonizing — for once 
started upon that journey, the hog never came back ; at 
the top of the wheel he was shunted off upon a trolley, 
and went sailing down the room. And meantime another 
was swung up, and then another, and another, until 
there was a double line of them, each dangling by a foot 
and kicking in frenzy — and squealing. The uproar was 
appalling, perilous to the ear-drums ; one feared there was 
too much sound for the room to hold — that the walls 
must give way or the ceiling crack. There were high 
squeals and low squeals, grunts, and wails of agony ; 
there would come a momentary lidl, and then a fresh out- 
burst, louder than ever, surging up to a deafening climax. 
It was too much for some of the vistors — the men would 
look at each other, laughing nervously, and the women 
would stand with hands clenched, and the blood rushing 
to their faces, and the tears starting in their eyes. 

Meantime, heedless of all these things, the men upon the 
floor were going about their work. Neither squeals of 
hogs nor tears of visitors made any difference to them ; 
one by one they hooked up the hogs, and one by one with 
a swift stroke they slit their throats. There was a long 
line of hogs, with squeals and life-blood ebbine away to- 
gether ; until at last each started again, ana vanished 
with a splash into a huge vat of boiling water. 

It was all so very businesslike that one watched it 
fascinated. It was pork-making by machinery, pork- 
making by applied mathematics. And yet somehow the 
most matter-of-fact person could not help thinking of the 
hogs ; thev were so innoccmt, they came so very trust- 
ingly ; and they were so vf:ry human in their protests — 
90^ 00 perfectly within their rights I They had done 



THE JTTNGLE 41 

Boihing to deserve it ; and it was adding insult to injorj, 
as the thine was done here, swinging them up in thia 
oold-bloodeo, impersonal way, without a pretence at 
apology, without the homage of a tear. Now and then a 
Tisitor wept, to be sure ; but this slauehtering-machine 
ran on, visitors or no visitors. It was like some horrible 
orime committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, 
buried out of sight and of memory. 

One could not stand and watch very long without be* 
coming jphilosophical, without beginning to deal in symbols 
and similes, and to hear the hog-squ^ of the universe. 
Was it permitted to believe that there was nowhere upon 
the earth, or above the earth, a heaven for hogs, where 
they were requited for all this suffering ? Each one of 
those hogs was a separate creature. Some were white hoffs, 
some were black ; some were brown, some were spotted ; 
some were old, some were young; some were long and 
lean, some were monstrous. And each of them had an 
individuality of his own, a will of his own, a hope and a 
heart's desire ; each was full of self-confidence, of self* 
importance, and a sense of dignity. And trusting and 
strong in faith he had gone about his business, the while 
a black shadow hung over him and a horrid Fate waited 
in his pathway, ^ow suddenly it had swooped upon 
him, and had seized him by the leg. Relentless, remorse- 
less, it was ; all his protests, his screams, were nothing to 
it — it did its cruel will with him, as if his wishes, his 
feeUngs, had simply no existence at all ; it cut his throat 
and watched him gaisp out his life. And now was one 
to believe that there was nowhere a god of hogs, to whom 
this hog-personality was precious, to whom these hog- 
squeals and agonies had a meaning ? Who would take 
tUs hog into his arms and comfort him, reward him 
lor his work well done, and show him the meaning of his 
sacrifice? Perhaps some glimpse of all this was in the 
thoughts of our humble-minded Jurgis, as he turned to go 
on with the rest of the partv, and muttered : ^Dieve— 
but I'm glad I'm not a hog I ^* 

The carcass hog was scooped out of the vat by maohui* 



42 THE JITNOLE 

•ry^ and then it fell to the second floor, passing on the 
way throngh a wonderful machine with numerous scrapersi 
which adjusted themselves to the size and shape of the 
animal, and sent it out at the other end with nearly all of 
its bristles removed. It was then again strung up by 
machinery, and sent upon another troUey ride; this time 
passing between two lines of men, who sat upon a raised 
platform, each doing a certain single thing to the carcase 
as it came to him. One scraped the outside of a leg; 
another scraped the inside of the same leg. One with a 
swift stroke cut the throat ; another with two swift strokes 
severed the head, which fell to the floor and vanished 
through a hole. Another made a slit down the body; a 
secona opened the body wider ; a third with a saw cut the 
breast-bone ; a fourth loosened the entrails ; a fifth pulled 
them out — and they also slid through a hole in the floor. 
There were men to scrape each side and men to scrape the 
back ; there were men to clean the carcass inside, to trim 
it and wash it. Looking down this room, one saw, creep- 
ing slowly, a line of dangling hogs a hundred yards in 
length; and for every yara there was a man, working as 
if a demon were after him. At the end of this hog's prog- 
ress every inch of the carcass had been gone over several 
times ; and then it was rolled into the chuUng-room, where 
it stayed for twenty-four hours, and where a stranger 
might lose himself in a forest of freezing hogs. 

Before the carcass was admitted here, however, it had to 

pass a government inspector, who sat in the doorway and 

felt of the glands in the neck for tuberculosis. This 

government inspector did not have the manner of a man 

who was worked to death; he was apparently not haunted 

by a fear that the hog might get by him before he had 

finished his testing. If you were a sociable person, he was 

quite willing to enter into conversation with you, and 

to explain to you the deadly nature of the ptomaines which 

are found in tubercular pork ; and while he was talking 

V with you you could hardly be so ungrateful as to no- 

^ tice tnat a dozen carcasses were passing him untouched. 

* This inspector wore an imposing silver bad^e, and he 



THE JUNGLE 43 

gSTv an atmospbere of authority to the scene, and, as it 
were, put the stamp of official approval upon the things 
wLich were done in Durham's. 

Jurgis went down the line with the rest of the yisitors, 
staring open-mouthed, lost in wonder. He had dressed 
hogs himself in the forest of Lithuania ; but he had never 
expected to live to see one hog dressed by several hundred 
men. It was like a wonderful poem to him, and he took it 
all in guilelessly — even to the conspicuous signs demands 
ing immaculate cleanliness of the employees. Jurgis was 
vexed when the cynical Jokubas translated these signs 
with sarcastic comments, offering to take them to the 
secret-rooms Where the spoiled meats went to be doctored. 

The party descended to the next floor, where the various 
waste materials were treated. Here came the entrails, to 
be scraped and washed clean for sausage-casings; men 
and women worked here in the midst of a sickening stench, 
which caused the visitors to hasten by, gasping. To another 
room came all the scraps to be *^ tanked," which meant 
boiling pnd pumping off the grease to make soap and lard; 
below ^ aey took out the refuse, and this, too, was a region 
in which the visitors did not linger. In still other places 
men were engaged in cutting up the carcasses that had 
been through the chilling-rooms. First there were the 
^ splitters,** the most expert workmen in the plant, who 
wmed as high as fifty cents an hour, and did not a thing 
aU day except chop hogs down the middle. Then there 
were ^cleaver men,'* great giants with muscles of iron; 
each had two men to attend him — to slide the half car* 
cass in front of him on the table, and hold it while he 
chopped it, and then turn each piece so that he might chop 
it once more. His cleaver had a blade about two feet long, 
and he never made but one cut; he made it so neatly, too, 
that his implement did not smite through and dull itself—^ 
there was just enough force for a perfect cut, and no 
more. So through various yawning holes there slipped to 
the floor below — to one room &&ms, to another fore- 
quarters, to another sides of pork. One might co down 
to Uus floor and see the pickling-rooms, where the hams 



44 THE JUNGLE 

were put into vats, and the great smoke-roomaf with theb 
air-tight iron doors. In other rooms they prepared salt* 
pork — there were whole cellars full of it, buUt up in great 
towers to the ceiling. In yet other rooms they were put- 
ting up meat in boxes and barrels, and wrapping hams and 
bacon in oiled paper, sealing and labelling and sewinff 
them. From the doors of Siese rooms went men wii£ 
loaded trucks, to the platform where freight-cars were 
waiting to be filled ; and one went out there and realized 
with a start that he had come at last to the ground floor 
of this enormous building. 

Then the party went across the street to where they did 
the killing of beef — where every hour they turned four 
or five hundred cattle into meat. Unlike the place they 
had left, all this work was done on one floor; and instead 
of there being one line of carcasses which moved to the 
workmen, there were fifteen or twenty lines, and the men 
moved from one to another of these. This made a scene 
of intense activity, a picture of human power wonderful to 
watch. It was cdl in one great room, like a circu<« amphi* 
theatre, with a gallery for visitors running over the centre. 

Along one side of the room ran a narrow gallery, a few 
feet from the floor; into which gallery the catUe were 
driven by men with goads which gave them electric shocks. 
Once crowded in here, the creatures were prisoned, each 
in a separate pen, by gates that shut, leaving them no 
room to turn around ; and while they stood bellowing and 
plunging, over the top of the pen there leaned one of the 
^knockers,** armed with a sledge-hammer, and watching 
for a chance to deal a blow. The room echoed with the 
thuds in quick succession, and the stamping and kicking 
of the steers. The instant the animal lutd fallen, the 
^knocker" passed on to another; while a second man 
raised a lever, and the side of the pen was raised, and the 
animal, still kicking and struggling, slid out to the ^ kill* 
ing-bed.^ Here a man put shackles about one leg, and 
pressed another lever, and the body was jerked up into the 
air. There were fifteen or twenty such pens, and it was 
a matter of only a couple of minutes to knodc fifteen or 



^.^ 



THE JUNOLE 45 

twenty cattle and roll them out. Then onoe more the 
gates were opened, and another lot rushed in ; and so out 
of each pen there rolled a steady stream of carcasses, 
which the men upon the killing-beos had to get out of the 
wi^ 

The manner in which they did this was something to be 
teen and never forgotten. They worked with furious in« 
tensity, literally upon the run — at a pace with which 
there is nothing to be compared except a football game. 
It was all higmy specialized labor, each man having his 
task to do; generally this would consist of only two or three 
qiecifio cuts, and he would pass down the une of fifteen 
or twenty carcasses, making these cuts upon each. First 
there came the ^ butcher,*' to bleed them ; this meant one 
swift stroke, so swift that you could not see it — only the 
flash of the knife; and before you could realize it, the 
man had darted on to the next line, and a stream of bright 
ted was pouring out upon the floor. This floor was half 
an inch deep with blooo, in spite of the best efforts of men 
who kept shovelling it through holes ; it must have made 
the floor slippery, but no one could have guessed this by 
watdiing the men at work. 

The carcass hung for a few minutes to bleed ; there was 
no time lost, however, for there were several hanging in 
each line, and one was always ready. It was let down to 
the g^und, and there came the ^ headsman,*' whose task 
it was to sever the head, with two or three swift strokes. 
Then came the ^floorsman,** to make the first cut in the 
skin ; and then another to finish ripping the skin down 
the centre ; and then half a dozen more in swift succes- 
sion, to finish the skinning. After they were through, tiie 
carcass was again swung up ; and while a man with a stick 
examined the skin, to make sure that it had not been cut, 
and another rolled it up and tumbled it through one of 
the inevitable holes in the floor, the beef proceeded on its 
journey. There were men to cut it, and men to split it, 
and men to gut it and scrape it clean inside. There were 
some with nose which throw jets of boilinc^ water upon 
it. and others who removed the feet and added the muJ 



46 THE JUNOLE 

touclies. In the end, as with the hogs, the finished beef 
was run into the cMlling-room, to nang its appointed 
time. 

The visitors were taken there and shown them, all neatly 
hung in rows, labelled conspicuously with the tags of the 

fovemment inspectors — and some, which had been killed 
y a special process, marked with the sign of the *^ kosher'' 
rabbi, certifying that it was fit for sale to the orthodox. 
And then the visitors were taken to the other parts of the 
building, to see what became of each particle of the waste 
material that had vanished through the floor ; and to the 
pickling-rooms, and the salting-rooms, the canning-rooms, 
and the packing-rooms, where choice meat was prepared 
for shipping in refrigerator-cars, destined to be eaten in 
all the four comers of civilization. Afterward they went 
outside, wandering about among the mazes of buildings in 
which was done the work auxiliary to this great industry* 
There was scarcely a thing needed in the business that 
Durham and Company did not make for themselves. There 
was a great steam-power plant and an electricity plant. 
There was a barrel factory, and a boiler-repair shop. There 
was a building to which the grease was piped, and made 
into soap and lard ; and then there was a factory for mak* 
ing lard cans, and another for making soap boxes. There 
was a building in which the bristles were cleaned and dried, 
for the making of hair cushions and such things ; there was 
a building where the skins were dried and tanned, there 
was another where heads and feet were made into glue, 
and another where bones were made into fertilizer. No 
tiniest particle of organic matter was wasted in Durham's. 
Out of the horns of the cattle they made combs, buttons, 
hair-pins, and imitation ivory ; out of the shin bones and 
other big bones they cut knife and tooth-brush handles, 
and mouthpieces for pipes; out of the hoofs they cut 
hair-pins and buttons, before they made the rest into glue. 
From such things as feet, knuckles, hide clippings, and 
sinews came such strange and unlikely products as gelatin« 
isinglass, and phosphorus, bone-blacK, shoe-blacking, and 
bmie-oiL They had curled-hair works fur the cattle taik^ 



THE JUNGLE 47 

and a ^ wool-pnllery ** for the sheep skins ; they made pep^ 
sin from the stomachs of the pigs, and albumen from the 
Uood, and violin strings from the ill-smelling entrails. 
When there was nothing else to be done with a thing, they 
first pat it into a tank and got out of it all the tallow and 
^^rease, and then they made it into fertilizer. All these 
industries were rathered into buildings near by, connected 
by galleries and railroads with the main establishment; 
and it was estimated that they had handled nearly a 
quarter of a billion of animals since the founding of the 
plant by the elder Durham a generation and more ago. 
If you counted with it the other big plants — and tiiey 
were now really all one— it was, so Jokubas informed 
them, the gpreatest aggr^^tion of labor and capital evei 
gathered in one place. It employed thirty thousand men ; 
it supported directly two hundred and fifty thousand people 
in its neighborhood, and indirectly it supported half a mil- 
lion. It sent its products to every country in the civilized 
world, and it furnished the food for no less than thirty 
million people I 

To all of these things our friends would listen open-« 
mouthed — it seemed to them impossible of belief that 
anything so stupendous could lutve been devised by 
mortal man. That was why to Jurgis it seemed almost 
profanity to speak about the place as did Jokubas, scepti- 
cally ; it was a thing as tremendous as the universe — the 
laws and ways of its working no more than the universe 
to be questioned or understood. All that a mere man 
could do, it seemed to Jurgis, was to take a thine like 
this as he found it, and do as he was told ; to be given a 
place in it and a share in its wonderful activities was a 
MeHsing to be grateful for, as one was grateful for the 
sunshine and the rain. Jurgis was even elad that he had 
not seen the place before meeting with his triumph, for 
he felt that the size of it would mive overwhelmed him. 
But now he had been admitted— he was a part of it all t 
He had the feeling that this whole huge establishment 
had taken him under its protection, and had become 
responsible for his welfare. So guileless was he, and 



48 



THE JXJNQJM 



Ignorant of the nature of business, that he did not 
realize that he had become an employee of Brown's, and 
that Brown and Durham were supposed by all the world 
to be deadly rivals — were even required to be deadly 
riyak by the law of the land, and ordered to try to ruin 
eaoh otiier under penalty of fine and imprisonment I 



OHAPTER rv 

Pbomftlt at fleven the next morning Jnrgis reported 
for work« He came to the door that had Men pointed 
out to him« and there he waited for nearly two hours. 
The boss had meant for him to enter, but had not said 
thisy and so it was only when on his way out to hire 
another man that he came upon Jurgis. He gave him a 
|rood cursing, but as Jurgis did not understand a word of 
it he did not object. He followed the boss, who showed 
him where to put his street clothes, and waited while he 
donned the working clothes he had bought in a second- 
hand i(hop and brought with him in a bundle ; tiien he 
led him to the **kimng«beds.** The work which Jurgis 
was to do here was very simple, and it took him but a 
few minutes to learn it. He was provided with a stiff 
besom, such as is used by street sweepers, and it was his 
place to follow down the line the man who drew out the 
smoking entrails from the carcass of the steer ; this mass 
was to DC swept into a trap, which was then closed, so 
that no one might slip into it. As Jurgis came in, the 
first cattle of the morning were just making their appear- 
ance ; and so, with scarcely time to look about him, and 
none to speak to any one, he fell to work. It was a 
sweltering day in July, and the place ran with steaming 
hot blood — one waded in it on the floor. The stencm 
was almost overpowering, but to Jurgis it was nothing. 
His whole soul was dancing with joy — he was at wo» 
at last I He was at work and earning money I All day 
long he was figuring to himself. He was paid the fabu* 
lous sum of seventeen ana a half cents an hour ; and as 
it proved a rush day and he worked until nearly seven 
•Wock in the eveningy he went home to the family with 

f 49 



00 THE JUNGLE 

the tidings that he had earned more than a dollar and a 
half in a single day I 

At home, also, there was more good news ; so much of 
it at once that there was quite a celebration in Aniele's 
hall bedroom. Jonas had been to have an interview with 
the special policeman to whom Szedvilas had introduced 
him, and had been taken to see several of the bosses, with 
the result that one had promised him a job the beginning 
of the next week. And then there was Marija Bercz- 
vnskas, who, fired with jealousy by the success of Jurgis, 
had set out upon her own responsibility to get a place. 
Marija had nothing to take with her save her two brawny 
arms and the word ** job,*' laboriously learned ; but wim 
these she had marched about Packingtown all day, enter- 
ing every door where there were signs of activity. Out 
of some she had been ordered with curses; but Marija 
was not afraid of man or devil, and asked every one she 
saw— visitors and strangers, or work-people like herself, 
and once or twice even high and lof^ office personages, 
who stared at her as if they thought she was crazy. In 
the end, however, she had reaped her reward. In one of 
the smaller plants she had stumbled upon a room where 
scores of women and girte were sitting^ at long tables pre- 
paring smoked beef in cans ; and wandering through room 
after room, Marija came at last to the putce where tiie 
sealed cans were being painted and labelled, and here she 
had the good fortune to encounter the ** forelady.** Marija 
did not understand then, as she was destined to understand 
later, what there was attractive to a ^ f orelad v " about the 
combination of a face full of boundless gooa nature and 
the muscles of a dray horse ; but the woman had told her 
to come the next day and she would perhaps give her a 
chance to learn the tiude of painting cans. The painting 
of cans being skilled piece work, and paying as much as 
two dollars a day, Marija burst in upon the family with 
the yell of a Comanche Indian, and fell to capering about 
the room so as to frighten the baby almost into convul- 
sions. > ^ 

Better luok than all this could hardly have been ho|^i 



THE JUNGLE 51 

for; there was only one of them left to seek a place. 
Jorgis was determined that Teta Elzbieta should stay at 
home to keep house, and that Ona should help her. He 
would not have Ona working — he was not that sort of 
a man, he said, and she was not that sort of a woman. It 
would be a strange thing if a man like him could not sup- 
port the family, with the help of the board of Jonas and 
Marija. He would not even hear of letting the children 
go to work — there were schools here in America for 
children, Jurgis had heard, to which they could go for 
nothing. That the priest would object to these schools 
was something of which he had as yet no idea, and for 
the present his mind was made up that the children of 
Teta Elzbieta should have as fair a chance as any other chil* 
dren. The oldest of them, little Stanislovas, was but thir- 
teen, and small for his age at that ; and while the oldest 
son of Szedvilas was only twelve, and had worked for 
over a year at Jones's, Jurgis would have it that Stani- 
slovas should learn to speak English, and grow up to be a 
skilled man. 

So there was only old Dede Antanas; Jurgis would 
have had him rest too, but he was forced to acbiowledge 
that this was not possible, and, besides, the old man would 
not hear it spoken of —it was his whim to insist that he 
was as lively as any boy. He had come to America as 
full of hope as the best of them; and now he was the 
chief problem that worried his son. For every one thai 
Jurgis spoke to assured him that it was a waste of time 
to seek emplovment for the old man in Packingtown. 
&edvilas told nim that the packers did not even keep the 
men who had grown old in their own service — to say 
nothing of taking on new ones. And not only was it the 
rule here, it was the rule everywhere in America, so far 
as he knew. To satisfy Jurgis he had asked the police- 
man, and brought back the message that the thing was 
not to be thought of. They had not told this to old 
Anthony, who had consequently spent the two days wan- 
dering about from one jMurt of the yards to another, and 
luui now come home to hear about the triumph of th^ 



52 THB jmiTGLE 

others, smiling bravely and saying that it would be his 
turn another day. 

Their good luck, they felt, had given them the right to 
think about a home ; and sitting out on the doorstep that 
summer evening, they held consultation about it, and 
Jurgis took occasion to broach a weighty subject. Pass- 
ing down the avenue to work that morning he had seen 
two boys leaving an advertisement from house to house ; 
and seeing that there were pictures upon it, Jur^ had 
asked for one, and had rolled it up and tucked it into his 
shirt. At noontime a man with whom he had been talk* 
ing had read it to him and told him a little about it, with 
the result that Jurgis had conceived a wild idea. 

He brought out the placard, which was quite a work of 
art. It was nearly two feet long, printed on calendered 
paper, with a selection of colors so bright that they shone 
even in the moonlight. The centre of the placard was 
occupied by a house, brilliantly painted, new, and dazzling. 
The roof of it was of a purple hue, and trimmed wiui 
gold; the house itself was silvery, and the doors and 
windows red. It was a two-story building, with a porch 
in front, and a very fancy scrollwork around the edges; 
it was complete in every tiniest detail, even the door- 
knob, and there was a hammock on the porch and white 
lace curtains in the windows. Underneath this, in one 
corner, was a picture of a husband and wife in loving 
embrace i in the opposite corner was a cradle, with fluffy 
curtains drawn over it, and a smiling cherub hovering 
upon silver-colored wings. For fear that the significance 
of all this should be lost, there was a label, in Polish, 
Lithuanian, and German — ^^Dom. Namau ffeim.^* 
•*Why pay rent?** the linguistic circular went on to 
demand. "Why not own your own home? Do you 
know that you can buy one for less than your rent ? We 
have built thousands of homes which are now occupied 
by happy families.** — So it became eloquent, picturing 
the blissfulness of married life in a house with nothing to 
pav. It even quoted "Home, Sweet Home,** and made 
lx>ld to translate it into Polish — though for some re%9on 



', V 



THE JUNGLE 53 

H omitted the Lithnanian of this'. Perhaps the translator 
found it a difficult matter to be sentimental in a language 
in which a sob is known as a *^ gukcziojimas " and a smue 
as a ^ nusiszypsojimas.'* 

Over this document the family pored lone^, while Ona 
spelled out its contents. It appeared that this house con- 
tained four rooms, besides a basement, and that it might 
be bought for fifteen hundred dollars, the lot and all. 
Of this, only three hundred dollars had to be paid down, 
ike balance being paid at the rate of twelve dollars a 
month. These were frightful sums, but then they were 
in America, where people talked about such without fear. 
They had learned that they would have to pay a rent 
of nine dollars a month for a fiat, and there was no way 
of doing better, unless the family of twelve was to exist in 
one or two rooms, as at present. If they paid rent, of 
course, they might pay forever, and be no better oS; 
whereas, if they could only meet the extra expense in the 
beginning, there would at last come a time when they 
would not have any rent to pay for the rest of their lives. 

They figured it up. There was a little left of the 
money belonging to Teta Elzbieta, and there was a 
little left to Jurgis. Marija had about fifty dollars 
pinned up somewhere in her stockings, and 6i*andf ather 
Anthony had part of the money he had gotten for his 
farm. If they all combined, thev would have enough to 
make the first payment; and if they had employment, 
so that they could be sure of the future, it might really 
prove the best plan. It was, of course, not a thing even 
to be talked of lightly ; it was a thing they wordd have to 
sift to the bottom. And yet, on the other hand, if they 
were going to make the venture, the sooner they did it the 
better; for were they not paying rent aU the time, and 
living in a most horrible way besides? Jurgis was used 
to dirt — there was nothing cordd scare a man who had 
been with a railroad-gang, where one cordd gather up 
the fleas off the floor of the sleeping-room bv the hand- 
fuL But that sort of thing would not do for Ona. They 
most have a better place of some sort very soon — Jurgui 



54 THE JUKGLB 

said it with all the assurance of a man who had just mad« 
a dollar and fifty-seven cents in a single day* Jurgis was 
at a loss to unaerstand why, with wages as they were, so 
many of the people of this district should live the way they 
did. 

The next day Marija went to see her ** forelady/' and 
was told to report the first of the week, and learn the 
business of can-painter. Marija went home, singing out 
loud all the way, and was just in time to join Ona and 
her stepmother as they were setting out to go and make 
inquiry concerning the house. That evening the three 
made their report to the men — the thing was altogether 
as representea in the circular, or at any rate so the agent 
had said. The houses lay to the south, about a mile and a 
half from the yards ; they were wonderful bargains, the 
gentleman had assured them — personally, and for their 
own good. He could do this, so he explained to them^ 
for the reason that he had himself no interest in their 
sale — he was merely the agent for a company that had 
built them. These were the last, and the company was 
going out of business, so if any one wished to take advan- 
tage of this wonderful no-rent plan, he would have to be 
very quick. As a matter of fact there was just a little 
uncertainty as to whether there was a single house left ; 
for the agent had taken so many people to see them, and 
for all he knew the companv mi^ht have parted with the 
last. Seeing Teta Elzbieta s evident grief at this news, 
he added, alter some hesitation, that if they really in- 
tended to make a purchase, he would send a telephone 
message at his own expense, and have one of the houses 
kept. So it had finally been arranged — and they were 
to go and make an inspection thi foUowing Sunday 
morning. 

That was Thursday ; and all the rest of the week the kill« 
ing-gang at Brown's worked at full pressure, and Jursia 
cleared a dollar seventy-five every day. That was at me 
rate of ten and one-half dollars a week, or forty-five a month; 
Jurgis was not able to figure, except it was a very simple 
sum, but Ona was like Ughtning at such things, and she 



THE JX7NGLE 55 

worked out the problem for the family. Marija and Jonas 
were each to pay sixteen dollars a month board, and the old 
man insisted that he could do the same as soon as he got 
a place — which might be any day now. That would m^e 
ninety-three dollars. Then Marija and Jonas were between 
them to take a third share in the house, which would leave 
only eight dollars a month for Jurgis to contribute to the 
payment. So they would have eighty-five dollars a month, 
— or, supposing that Dede Antimas did not get work at 
once, seventy dollars a month — which ought surely to be 
sufficient for the support of a family of twelve. 

An hour before the time on Sunday morning the entire 
party set out. They had the address written on a piece of 
paper, which they showed to some one now and then. It 
proved to be a long mile and a half, but they walked it, 
and half an hour or so later the agent put in an appearance. 
He was a smooth and florid personage, elegantly dressed, and 
he spoke their language freely, which gave him a great 
advantage in dealing with them. He escorted them to the 
house, which was one of a long row of the typical frame 
dwellings of the neighborhood, where architecture is a 
luxury that is dispensed with. Ona's heart sank, for the 
house was not as it was shown in the picture ; the color* 
scheme was different, for one thing, and then it did not 
seem quite so bi^* Still, it was freshly painted, and made 
a considerable show. It was all brand-new, so the agent 
told them, but he talked so incessantly that they were quite 
confused, and did not have time to ask many questions. 
There were all sorts of things they had made up their minds 
to inquire about, but when the time came, they either for- 
got them or lacked the courage. The other houses in the 
row did not seem to be new, and few of them seemed to be 
occupied. When they ventured to hint at this, the agent's 
»ply was that the purchasers would be movins^ in shortly. 
To press the matter would have seemed to be doubting ms 
wonl, and never in their lives had any one of them ever 
spoken to a person of the class called ** gentleman ** except 
with deference and humility. 

The house had a basement, about two feet below the 



50 THB JUNGLB 

street line, and a single story, about six feet above it| 
reached by a flight of steps. In addition there was an 
attio, made by the peak of the roof, and having one small 
window in each end. The street in front of the house 
was unpaved and unlighted, and the view from it con* 
sisted of » few exactly similar houses, scattered here and 
there upon lots grown up with dingy brown weeds. The 
house inside contained four rooms, plastered white; the 
basement was but a frame, the walls being unplastered 
and the floor not laid. The agent explained that the 
houses were built that way, as the purchasers generally 
preferred to finish the basements to suit their own tasta. 
The attio was also unfinished — the family had been figur- 
ing that in case of an emergency they cordd rent this attic, 
but they found that there was not even a fioor, nothing but 
foists, and beneath them the lath and plaster of the ceiling 
below. All of this, however, did not chill their ardor as 
much as might have been expected, because of the volu* 
bility of the agent. There was no end to the advantages 
of the house, as he set them forth, and he was not silent 
for an instant ; he showed them everything, down to the 
locks on the doors and the catches on the windows, and 
how to work them. He showed them the sink in the 
kitchen, with running water and a faucet, something 
which Teta Elzbieta nad never in her wildest dreams 
hoped to possess. After a discoverv such as that it 
would have seemed ungrateful to find any fault, and sa 
they tried to shut their eyes to other defects. 

Still, they were peasant people, and they hun^ on to 
their money by instinct; it was quite in vain that the 
agent hinted at promptness — they would see, they would 
see, they told him, they cordd not decide until they had 
had more time. Ana so they went hom« again, and 
all day and evening there was figuring and debating. It 
was an ag^ny to them to have to make up their minds in 
a matter such as this. They never could agree all to- 
gether; there were so many arguments upon each side, 
and one would be obstinate, and no sooner would the resc 
have convinced him than it would taumpire that hi. «!». 

/ 

\ 



THE JUNGLE 57 

fiaents had caused another to waver. Once, in the even* 
ing, when they were all in harmony, and the house was 
as good as bought, Szedvilas came in and upset them agaia. 
Sz^vilas had no use for property-owning. He told them 
cruel stories of people who had been done to death in this 
«* buying a home'* swindle. They would be almost sure 
to get into a tight place and lose all their money; and 
there was no end of expense that one could never foresee; 
and the house might be good-for-nothing from top to bot- 
tom — how was a poor man to know ? Then, too, they 
would swindle you with the contract— and how was a 
poor man to understand anything about a contract ? It 
was all nothing but robbery, and there was no safety but 
in keeping out of it. And pay rent ? asked Jurgis. Ah, 
yes, to be sure, the other answered, that too was robbery. 
It was all robbery, for a poor man. After half an hour of 
such depressing conversation, they had their minds quite 
made up that uiey had been saved at the brink of a preci- 
pice; but then Szedvilas went away, and Jonas, who was 
a sharp little man, reminded them that the delicatessen 
business was a failure, according to its proprietor, and 
that this might account for his pessimistic views. Which, 
of course, reopened the subject I 

The controlling factor was that they could not stay 
where they were— -they had to go somewhere. And when 
they g^ve up the house plan and decided to rent, the 
prospect of paying out nine dollars a month forever they 
found just as hard to face. All day and all night for 
nearly a whole week they wrestled with the problem, and 
then in the end Jur^ took the responsibility. Brother 
Jonas had gotten his iob, and was pushing a truck in 
Durham's ; and the killing-gang at Brown's continued to 
work early and late, so that Jurgis grew more confident 
every hour, more certain of his mastership. It was the 
kind of thing the man of the family had to decide and 
cany through, he told himself. Others mieht have failed 
at it, but he was not the failL^ kind— he would show 
them how to do it. He would work all day, and all night 
too, if need be; he would never rest until the house wan 



58 THE JUNGLE 

paid for and his people had a home. So he told them, and 
80 in the end the decision was made. 

They had talked about looking at more houses before 
they made the purchase s but then they did not know 
where any more were, and they did not Know any way of 
finding out. The one they haa seen held the sway in their 
thoughts; wheneyer they thought of themselyes in a 
house, it was this house that they thought of. And so 
they went and told the agent thiat they were ready to 
make the agreement. They knew, as an abstract proposi- 
tion, that in matters of business all men are to be accounted 
liars ; but they cordd not but haye been influenced by all 
they had heard from the eloquent agent, and were quite 
persuaded that the house was something they had run a 
risk of losing by their delay. They drew a deep breath 
when he told them that they were still in time. 

They were to come on tne morrow, and he would haye 
the papers all drawn up. This matter of papers was one 
in which Jurgis understood to the full the need of cau- 
tion; yet he could not go himself -^^ eyery one told him 
that he cordd not get a holiday, and that he might lose his 
job by asking. So there was nothing to be done but to 
trust it to the women, with Szedyilas, who promised to go 
with them. Jurgis spent a whole eyening impressing 
upon them the seriousness of the occasion — and then 
finally, out of innumerable hiding-places about their per* 
sons and in their baggage, came forth the precious wads 
of money, to be done up tightly in a little bag and sewed 
fast in tne lining of Teta £lzbieta*s dress. 

Early in the morning they sallied forth. Jurgis had 
given 4eiD so many instoactions and warned them against 
SO many perils, that the women were quite pale with 
fright, and eyen the imperturbable delicatessen yender, 
who prided himself upon being a business man, was ill at 
ease, llie affent had me deed fdl ready, and inyited them to 
sit down and read it ; this Szedyilas proceeded to do— a 
painful and laborious process, during which the agent 
orummed upon the desk. Teta Elzbieta was so embar^ 
rassed that the perspiration came out upon her forehead in 



./ 



THE JUNGLE 59 

beads i for was not this readiDC^ as much as to say plainlv 
to the gentleman^s face that they doubted his honesty r 
Yet Jokubas Szedvilas read on and on; and presently 
there deyeloped that he had good reason for aoing so. 
For a horrible suspicion had begun dawning in his mind ; 
he knitted his brows more and more as he read. This was 
not a deed of sale at all, so far as he could see— it pro* 
Tided oidy for the renting of the property I It was hard 
to tell, with all this strange legal jargon, words he had 
never heard before ; but was not this plain — ^ the party 
of the first part hereby covenants and agrees to rent to 
the said paiiy of the second part I ** And then again 
— »^a monthly rental of twelve dollars, for a perioa of 
eight years and four months I ** Then Szedvilas took off 
his spectacles, and looked at the agent, and stammered m 
question. 

The a^ent was most polite, and explained that that was 
the ususi formula ; that it was always arranged that the 
property should be merely rented. He kept trying to 
show them something in the next paragraph ; but Szed- 
vilas could not get by the word ** rental ^- and when he 
translated it to Teta Elzbieta, she too was thrown into a 
fright. They would not own the home at all, then, for 
nearly nine years I The agent, with infinite patience, 
began to explain arain ; but no explanation wordd do 
now. ElzbCeta had firmly fixed in her mind the last 
solemn wanuig of Jurgis : ^If there is anything wronfi^ 
do not give him the money, but go out and get a lawyer. 
It was an afifonizing moment, but she sat in the chair, her 
hands clenched like death, and made a fearful effort, sum- 
moning all her powers, and gasped out her purpose. 

Jokubas translated her words. She expected the agent 
to fly into a passion, but he was, to her bewilderment, as 
ever imperturbable ; he even offered to go and get a lawyer 
for her, but she declined this. They went a long way, on 
purpose to find a man who would not be a confederata. 
Then let any one imagine their dismay, when, after half an 
hour, they came in with a lawyer, and heard him greet 
the agent by his first name I 



60 THE JUK6LB 

They felt that all was lost ; they sat like prisonen 
summoned to hear the reading of their death-warrant. 
There was nothing more that they could do— -they were 
trapped I The lawyer read over the deed, and when he 
had read it he informed Szedvilas that it was all perfectly 
regular, that the deed was a blank deed such as was often 
used in these sales. And was the price as agreed ? the old 
man asked— -three hundred dollars down, and the balance 
at twelve dollars a month, till the total of fifteen hundred 
dollars had been paid ? Yes, that was correct. And it 
was for the sale of such and such a house— the house and 
lot and everything ? Tes» •— and the lawyer showed him 
where that was all written* And it was all perfectly reg- 
ular — there were no tricks about it of any sort ? They 
were poor people, and this was aU they had in the worldi 
and if there was anything wrong they would be ruined. 
And so Szedvilas went on, askine one trembling question 
after another, while the eyes of the women folks were 
fixed upon him in mute agony. They could not under* 
stand what he was saying, but they knew that upon it 
their fate depended. And when at last he had questioned 
until there was no more questioning to be done, and the 
time came for them to make up their minds, and either 
close the bargain or reject it, it was all that poor Teta 
Elzbieta could do to keep from bursting into tears. Joku* 
has had asked her if she wished to sign ; he had asked 
her twice —-and what could she say ? How did she know 
if this lawyer were telling the trutn — that he was not in 
the conspiracy? And yet, how could she say so— whai; 
excuse could she give ? The eyes of every one in the room 
were upon her, awaiting her decision; and at last, half 
blind with her tears, she began fumbUng in her jacket, 
where she had pinned the precious money. And she 
brought it out and unwrapped it before the men. All of 
this Ona sat watching, from a comer of the room, twisting 
her hands together, meantime, in a fever of fright. Ona 
longed to oxy out and tell bar stepmother to stop, that it 
was all a trap ; bat there seemed to be something clutchin;^ 
ber by the taroaL and she could not make a sound. And 



THE JUNGLE 61 

•o Teta Elzbieta laid the money on the table, and the 
agent picked it up and counted it, and then wrote them a 
receipt for it and passed them the deed. Then he gave a 
si^h of satisfaction, and rose and shook hands with them 
nSf still as smooth and polite as at the beginning. Ona 
had a dim recollection of the lawyer telling Szedvilas that 
his charge was a dollar, which occasioned some debate, 
and more agony ; and then, after they had paid that, too, 
ihey went out into the street, her stepmother clutching 
the deeS in her hand. They were so weak from fright 
that they could not walk, but had to sit down on the way. 
So they went home, with a deadly terror gnawing at their 
eouls i and that evening Jurgis came home and heard 
their story, and that was the end. Jurgis was sure that 
they had been swindled, and were ruined ; and he tore his 
hair and cursed like a madman, swearing that he would 
kill the agent that very night. In the end he seized the 
paper and rushed out of the house, and all the way across 
the yards to Halsted Street. He dragged Szedvilas out 
from his supper, and together thev rushed to consult 
another lawyer. When they enterea his office the lawyer 

Sprang up, for Jurgis looked like a crazy person, with 
ying hair and bloodshot eyes. His companion explained 
the situation, and the lawyer took the paper and began to 
read it, while Jurgis stood clutching the desk with knotted 
hands, trembling in every nerve. 

Once or twice the lawyer looked up and asked a question 
of Szedvilas ; the other did not know a word that he was 
saying, but his eyes were fixed upon the lawyer's face, 
etriving in an agony of dread to read his mind. He saw 
the lawyer look up and laugh, and he gave a gasp ; the 
man said something to Szedvilas, and Jurgis turned upon 
his friend, his heart almost stopping. 

•♦Well?** he panted. 

^ He says it is all right,'* said Szedvilas. 

•* All right f 

*^ Tes, he says it is just as it should be.** And Jurgisi 
Iq his relief, sank down into a chair. 

** Are you sure of it ? " he gasped, and made Szedvilas 



52 THE JXTNOL£ 

translate question after question. He oonld not hear ft 
often enough ; he could not ask with enough yariationa. 
Yes, they luul bought the house, thov had really bought 
it. It l)elonged to them, they had only to pay the money 
and it would be all right. Then Jur^ covered his face 
with his hands, for there were tears in his eyes, and he 
felt like a fool. But he had had such a horrible fright ; 
strong man as he was, it left him almost too wea^ to 
stand up. 

The lawyer explained that the rental was a form— the 
property was said to be merely rented until the last pay* 
ment had been made, the purpose bein^ to make it easier 
to turn the party out if he did not mSke the payments. 
So long as they paid, howevert they had nothing to fear, 
the house was all theirs. 

Jurgis was so grateful that he paid the half dollar the 
lawyer asked without winking an eyelash, and then rushed 
home to tell the news to the family. He found Ona in a 
ffidnt and the babies screaming, and the whole house m 
an uproar— for it had been l^lieved by all that he had 
gone to murder the accent. It was hours before the ex* 
citement could be calmed ; and all through that cruel 
night Jurgis would wake up now and then and hear Ona 
and her stepmother in the next room, sobbmg softly U^ 
themselveso 



CHAPTER V 

Thet had bought their home. It was hard for them to 
lealize that the wonderful house was theirs to move into 
whenever they chose* They spent all their time thinking 
about it, and what they were going to put into it. As 
their week with Aniele was up in three oays, they lost no 
time in ^ettin^ ready. They had to make some shift to 
furnish it, and every instant of their leisure was given to 
discussing this. 

A person who had such a task before him would not 
need to look very far in Packingtown — he had only to 
walk up the avenue and read the signs, or get into a 
street-car, to obtain full information as to pretty much 
evervthing a human creature could need. It was quite 
touching, the zeal of people to see that hb health and 
happiness were provided for. Did the person wish to 
smoke ? There was a little discourse about cigars, show- 
ing him exactly why the Thomas Jefferson Five-cent Per- 
fecto was the only cigar worthy of the name. Had he, 
on the other hand, smoked too much ? Here was a remedy 
for the smoking habit, twenty-five doses for a quarter, and 
a euro absolutely guaranteed in ten doses. In innumerable 
ways such as this, the traveller found that somebody had 
been busied to make smooth his paths through the world, 
and to let him know what had been done for him. In 
Packinfirtown the advertisements had a style all of their 
own, adapted to the peculiar population. One would be 
tenderly solicitous. ** Is your wife pale ? •• it would in- 

Suire. ** Is she discouraged, does she draff herself about 
lie house and find fault with everjrthing ? Why do you 
aot tell her to try Dr. Lanahan*s Life Preservers?** 
Another would be jocular in tone, slapping you on the 

63 



64 THE JUNGLE 

back, 80 to speak. ^ Don't be a chump ! ** it would ex* 
claim, «*Go and get the Goliath Bunion Cure.** **Gret 
a move on you I ** would chime in another. ^It*8 easy, if 
you wear the Eureka Two-fifty Shoe.** 

Among these importunate signs was one that had 
caught the attention of the fanuly by its pictures. It 
showed two very pretty little birds building themselves 
a home; and Marija had asked an acquaintance to read it 
to her, and told them that it related to the furnishing of 
a house. ** Feather your nest,** it ran— and went on to 
say that it could furnish all the necessary feathers for a 
four-room nest for the ludicrously small sum of seventy^ 
five dollars. The particularly important thing about tms 
offer was that only a small part of the money need be had 
at once— > the rest one might pay a few dollars every 
month. Our friends had to have some furniture, there 
was no getting away from that ; but their little fund of 
money had sunk so low that they could hardly get to 
sleep at night, and so they fled to this as their deliver- 
ance. There was more agony and another paper for Elz« 
bieta to sign, and then one nigfht when Jurgis came home, 
he was told the breathless tidings that the furniture had 
arrived and was safely stowed in the house : a parlor set 
of four pieces, a bedroom set of three pieces, a dining- 
room table and four chairs, a toilet-set with beautiful piim 
roses painted all over it, an assortment of crockery, also 
with pink roses — and so on. One of the plates in the 
set had been found broken when they unpacked it, and 
Ona was going to the store the first thing in the morning 
to make them change it ; also they had promised three 
sauce-pans, and there had only two come, and did Jurgis 
think that they were trying to cheat them ? 

The next day they went to the house ; and when the 
men came from work they ate a few hurried mouthfuls 
at Aniele*8, and then set to work at the task of carrying 
their belongings to their new home. The distance was 
in reality over two miles, but Jurgis made two trips that 
night, each time with a huge pile of mattresses and bed- 
ding on his head, with bundles of clothing and bags and 



THE JUNGLE 65 

dungs tied np inmde. Anywhere else in Chicago he 
would have stood a good chance of being arrested; but 
the policemen in Packingtown were apparently used to 
these informal movings, and contented tnemselves with a 
cursory examination now and then. It was quite wonder* 
ful to see how fine the house looked, with all the things in 
it, even by the dim light of a lamp : it was really home, 
and almost as exciting as the placard had described it. 
Ona was fairly dancing, and she and Cousin Marija took 
Jurgis by the arm and escorted him from room to room, 
sitting in each chair by turns, and then insisting that he 
should do the same. One chair squeaked with nis great 
weight, and they screamed with fright, and woke the 
baby and brought everybody running. Altogether it 
was a great day ; and tired as they were, Jurgis and Ona 
sat up late, contented simply to hold each other and gaze 
in rapture about the room. They were going to be mar* 
ried as soon as they could get everything settled, and a 
little spare money put by ; and this was to be their home 
— that little room yonder wordd be theirs! 

It was in truth a never-ending delight, the fixing up of 
this house. They had no money to spend for the pleasure 
of spending, but there were a few absolutely necessary 
things, and the buying of these was a perpetual adventure 
for Ona. It must always be done at night, so that Jurgis 
could go along ; and even if it were only a pepper-cruet, 
or half a dozen glasses for ten cents, that was enough for 
an expedition. On Saturday night they came home with 
a cpreat basketful of thin^ and spread them out on the 
table, while every one stood round, and the children cUmbed 
np on the chairs, or howled to be lifted up to see. There 
were sugar and salt and tea and crackers, and a can of lard 
and a milk-pail, and a scrubbing-brush, and a pair of shoes 
for the second oldest boy, and a can of oil, and a tack-ham- 
mer, and a pound of nails. These ]ast were to be driven 
into the walls of the kitchen and the bedrooms, to hang 
things on ; and there was a family discussion as to the 
place where each one was to be ariven. Then Jurgis 
woold try to hammer, and hit his fingers because urn 



66 THE JUNOLB 

hammer was too small, and get mad because Ona had 
refused to let him pay fifteen cents more and set a bigger 
hammer ; and Ona would be invited to try it nerself, and 
hurt her thumb, and cry out, which necessitated the 
thumb's being kissed by Jurgis* Finally, after every one 
had had a try, the nails woiUd be driven, and something 
hung up* Jurgis had come home with a big packing-box 
on ms head, and he sent Jonas to get another that he had 
bought. He meant to take one side out of these to-morrow, 
and put shelves in them, and make them into bureaus and 
places to keep things for the bedrooms. The nest which 
nad been advertised had not included feathers for quite 
so many birds as there were in this family. 

They had, of course* put their dining-table in the 
kitchen, and the dining-room was used as the bedroom of 
Teta Elzbieta and five of her children. She and the two 
youngest slept in the only bed, and the other three had a 
mattress on the floor. Ona and her cousin dragged a 
mattress into the parlor and slept at night, and the 
three men and the oldest boy slept in the other room, 
having nothing but the very level floor to rest on for 
the present. Even so, however, they slept soundly-— 
It was necessary for Teta Elzbieta to poimd more than once 
on the door at a quarter past flve every morning. |ohe 
would have readv a great pot full of steaming blacK coneop 
and oatmeal and bread and smoked sausages; and then 
she would fix them their dinner pails with more thick 
slices of bread with lard between them — - they could not 
afford butter — and some onions and a piece of chee^and 
so they would tramp away to work. 

This was the first time in his life that he had!, ever really 
worked, it seemed to Jurgis ; it was the first t^me that he 
had ever had anything to do which took all he jpad in him. 
Jurgis had stood with the rest up in the gtillerj and 
watched the men on the killing-beds, marvelling! at their 
speed and power as if they had been wonderful riiachines ; 
it somehow never occurred to one to think of the flesh^and* 
blood side of it — that is, not until he actually |got down 
into the pitandtook off his coat. Thenhe saw thiuscs ina 



{ 



THE JUKGLE 67 

different light, he got at the inside of them. The pace 
tiiey set here, it was (me that called for every faculty of a 
man -* from the instant the first steer fell till the sound- 
ing of the noon whistle, and again from half-past twelve 
tiu heaven only knew what hour in the late afternoon or 
evening, there was never one instant's rest for a man, for 
his hand or his eye or his brain. Jurgis saw how they 
managed it ; there were portions of the work which deter- 
mined the pace of the rest, and for these they had picked 
men whom thev paid high wages, and whom they changed 
frequently* You might easily pick out these pace-makers* 
for they worked under the eye of the bosses, and they 
worked like men possessed. This was called ^^ speeding 
up the gang,*' and if any man could not keep up with the 
pace, there were hundreds outside begring to try. 

Tet Jurgis did not mind it ; he rather enjoyed it. It 
saved him the necessity of flinging his arms about and 
fidgeting as he did in most work* He wordd laugh to 
himself as he ran down the line, darting a glance now and 
then at the man ahead of hinu It was not the pleasantest 
work one could think of, but it was necessary work ; and 
what more had a man the right to ask than a chance 
to do something useful, and to get good pay for doing 
it? 

So Jurgis thought, and so he spoke, in his bold, free 
way; very much to his surprise, he found that it had a 
tendency to get him into trouble. For most of the men 
here took a fearfully different view of the thing. He was 
quite dismayed when he first began to find it out — that 
most of the men hated their work. It seemed strange, 
it was even terrible, when you came to find out tne 
universality of the sentiment; but it was certainly the 
fact — they hated their work. They hated the bosses and 
they hated the owners ; they hated the whole place, the 
whole neighborhood — even the whole city, with an all** 
inclusive hatred, bitter and fierce. Women and little 
children would fall to cursing about it; it was rotten, 
rotten as hell — everything was rotten. When Jurgis 
voold ask them wliat tl^y meant, they would begui 



es THE JUNGLE 

to get suspicions, and content themselves with sayings 
** Never mind, you stay here and see for yourself." 

One of the first problems that Jurgis ran upon was that 
of the unions. He had had no experience with unionsi 
and he had to have it explained to him that the men 
were banded together for the purpose of fighting for 
their rights. Jurgis asked them what they meant by 
their rights, a question in which he was quite sincere, for 
he had not any idea of any rights that he had, except the 
right to hunt for a job, and do as he was told when he 
got it. Generally, however, this harmless question would 
only make his fellow-workingmen lose their tempers and 
call him a fool. There was a delegate of the outcher- 
helpers' union wh o came to see Jurgis to enroll him ; and 
when Jurgis found that this meant that he would have to 
part with some of his money, he froze up directly, and the 
delegate, who was an Irishman and only knew a few words 
of Lithuanian, lost his temper and began to threaten him. 
In the end Jurgis got into a fine rage, and made it suffi* 
ciently plain that it would take more than one Irishman 
to scare him into a union. Little by little he gathered 
that the main thing the men wanted was to put a stop to 
the habit of ** speeding-up " ; they were trying their best 
to force a lessening of the pace, for there were some, they 
said, who could not keep up with it, whom it was killing. 
But Jurgis had no sympathy with such ideas as this — he 
could do the work Inmself, and so could the rest of them, 
he declared, if they were good for anything. If they 
couldn't do it, let them go somewhere else. Jurgis haa 
not studied the books, and he would not have known how 
to pronounce "laissez-faire"; but he had been round the 
world enough to know that a man has to shift for himself 
in it, and that if he gets the worst of it, there is nobody 
to listen to him holler. 

Fet there have been known to be philosophers and plain 
men who swore by Malthus in the books, and would, never- 
theless, subscribe to a relief fund in time of a famine. It 
was the same with Jurgis, who consigned the unfit to 
destruction, while going about all day sick at heart 



THE JUNGLE 69 

because of his poor old father, who was wandering some- 
where in the yards begging for a chance to earn his 
bread. Old Antanas mtd been a worker ever since he 
was a child ; he had run away from home when he was 
twelve, because his father beat him for trying to learn to 
read. And he was a faithful man, too ; he was a man vou 
might leave alone for a month, if only you had made him 
understand what you wanted him to do in the meantime. 
And now here he was, worn out in soul and body, and 
with no more place in the world than a sick dog. He 
had his home, as it happened, and some one who would 
care for him if he never got a job; but his son could 
not help thinking, suppose this had not been the case. 
Antanas Rudkus had been into every building in Pack- 
ingtown by this time, and into nearly every room; he 
had stood mornings among the crowd of applicants till 
the very policemen had come to know his face and to tell 
him to go home and g^ive it up. He had been likewise to 
all the stores and saloons for a mile about, begging for 
some little thing to do ; and everywhere they had ordered 
him out, sometimes with curses, and not once even stop- 
ping to ask him a question. 

So, after all, there was a crack in the fine structure of 
Jura's faith in things as they are. The crack was wide 
while Dede Antanas was hunting a job — and it was yet 
wider when he finally got it. For one evening the old 
man came home in a great state of excitement, with the 
tale that he had been approached by a man in one of 
the corridors of the pickle-rooms of Durham's, and asked 
what he would pay to get a job. He had not known 
what to make of this at first ; but the man had gone on 
with matter-of-fact frankness to say that ha could get 
him a job, provided that he were willing to pay one-third 
of his wages for it. Was he a boss ? Antanas nad asked ; 
to which the man had replied that that was nobody's bosi* 
11688, but that he could do what he said. 

Jurgis had made some friends by this time, and he 
sought one of them and asked what this meant. The 
jErie^d, who was named Tamoszios Kuszleika, was a sharp 



70 THE JUNGLE 

little inan who folded hides on the killing-beds, and he 
listened to what Jiirgis had to-say without seeming at all 
surprised. They were common enough, he said, suoh 
cases of petty graft. It was simply some boss who pro- 
posed to add a little to his income. After Jurgis had 
been there awhile he would know that the plants were 
simply honeycombed with rottenness of that sort — the 
bosses grafted off the men, and they grafted off each 
other ; and some day the superintendent would find out 
about the boss, and then he would graft off the boss. 
Warming to the subject, Tamoszius went on to explain 
the situation. Here was Diirham's, for instance, owned by 
a man who was trying to make as much money out of it 
as he could, and did not care in the least how he did it; 
and underneath him, ranged in ranks and grades like an 
army, were managers and superintendents and foremen, 
each one driving the man next below him and trying to 
squeeze out of mm as much work as possible. And all 
the men of the same rank were pitted against each other ; 
the accounts of each were kept separately, and every man 
lived in terror of losing his job, if another made a better 
record than he. So from top to bottom the place was 
simply a seething cauldron of jealousies and hatreds; 
there was no loyalty or decency anywhere about it, 
there was no place in it where a man counted for any- 
thing against a dollar. And worse than there being no 
decency, there was not even any honesty. The reason 
for that? Who could say? It must have been old 
Durham in the beginning; it was a heritage which the 
self-made merchant had left to his son, along with his 
millions. 

Jurfi^s would. find out these things for himself, if he 
stayed there long enough ; it was the men who had to do 
all the dirty jobs, and so there was no deceiving them ; 
and they caught the spirit of the place, and did like all 
the rest. Jurgis had come there, and thought he was 

Sing to make himself useful, and rise and become a 
illed man; but he would soon find out his error — for 
nobody rose in Packingtown by doing good work. Too 



THB JX7NGLB 71 

eould lay that down for a rule— if yon met a man who 
was riidn^ in Paokingtown, von met a knave. That man 
who had been sent to Jurgis s father by the boss, he would 
rise ; the man who told teles and spied upon his fellows 
would rise; but the man who minded his own business 
and did his work— why, they would ^ speed him up** till 
they had worn him out, and then they would throw him 
into the gutter. 

Jurgis went home with his head buzzing. Yet he could 
not bring himself to believe such things — nO| it could not 
be so. Tamoszius was simply another of the grumblers. 
He was a man who spent all his time fiddling; and he 
would go to parties at night and not get home till sunrise, 
and so of course he did not feel like work. Then, toO| 
he was a puny little chap ; and so he had been left behind 
in the race, and that was why he was sore. And yet so 
many strange things kept coming to Jurgis's notice eveiy 
day! 

He tried to persuade his father to have nothing to do 
with the offer. But old Antanas had begged until ne was 
worn out, and all his courage was gone; he wanted a jots 
any sort of a job. So the next day he went and found the 
man who bad spoken to him, and promised to bring him a 
third of all he earned ; and that same day he was put to 
work in Durham's cellars. It was a ^^ piclde-room," where 
there was never a dry spot to stand upon, and so he had 
to take nearly the whole of his first week's earnings 
to buy him a pair of heavynsoled boots. He was a 
^squeedgie ^ man; his job was to go about all day with a 
long-handled mop, swabbing up tne floor. Except that 
it was damp and dark, it was not an unpleasant job| in 
summer. 

Now Antanas Rudkus was the meekest man that God 
ever put on earth ; and so Jurgis found it a striking con- 
firmation of what the men all said, that his father had 
been at work only two days before he came home as bitter 
as any of them, and cursing Durham's with all the power 
of his soul. For they hsA set him to cleaning out the 
traps « au(i' vhe family sat round and listened in wondei 



72 THB 

while he told &em what that meant* It seemed that \m 
was working in the room where the men prepared the beet 
for canning, and the beef had lain in vats full of chemicalst 
and men with great forks speared it out and dumped it 
into trucks, to be taken to the cooking-room. When they 
had speared out all they could reach, they emptied the vat 
on the floor, and then with shovels scraped up the balance 
and dumped it into the truck. This floor was filthy, vet 
they set Antanas with his mop slopping the ^pickle*' 
into a hole that connected with a sink^ where it was caught 
and used over again forever; and if that were not enought 
there was a trap in the pipe, where all the scraps of meat 
and odds and ends of rehise were caught, and every few 
days it was the old man's task to clean these out, and 
shovel their contents into one of the trucks with the rest 
of the meat t 

This was the experience of Antanas; and then there 
came also Jonas and Mariia with tales to tell. Marija was 
working for one of the independent packers, and was quite 
beside herself and outrageous with triumph over the sums 
of money she was making as a painter of cans. But one 
day she walked home wiui a pale-faced little woman who 
worked opposite to her, Jadvyga Marcinkus by name, and 
Jadvyga told her how she, Marija, had chanced to ^et her 
job. She had taken the place oi an Irish woman "mio had 
oeen working in that factory ever since any one could re- 
member, for over fifteen years, so she declared. Mary 
Dennis was her name, and a long time ago she had been 
•educed, and had a little boy ; he was a cripple, and an 
epileptic, but still he was all that she had in the world to 
love, and they had lived in a little room alone somewhere 
back of Halsted Street, where the Irish were. Mary had 
had consumption, and all day long you might hear her 
eonghing as she worked ; of late she liad been ]gping all to 

Sieoesy and when Marija came, the ^ f orelady^ had sud- 
enly decided to torn her off. The foreladv wd to oome 
ap to a certain standard herself, and coula '%ot stop for 
rick people, Jadvyga explained. The fact th ^ Mary had 
been there so long had not made any 




XHB JUirOUB 73 

It was donbtfol if the even knew that, for boUithe foielady 
and the superintendent were new peopIe» having onlj been 
there two or three years themselves* Jadvyga did not 
know what had become of the poor ereatnrei she woold 
have gone to see her, bnt had been sick hersdf* She had 
pains in her back all the tirne^ Jadvyga explained, and 
feared that she had womb trouble. It was not fit work for 
a woman, handling fourteen^und cans dl day. 
It was a striking circumstance that Jonas, too, had 

Sotten his job by the misfortune of some other person* 
onas pushed a truck loaded with hams from the smoke- 
rooms on to an elevator, and thence to the packing-rooms. 
The trucks were all of iron, and heavy, and uiey put 
about threescore hams on each of them, a load of more 
than a quarter of a ton. On the uneven floor it was a 
task for a man to start one of these trucks, unless he was 
a giant ; and when it was once started he naturally tried 
his best to keep it going. There was always the boss 
prowling about, and if there was a second s delay he 
would wl to cursing ; Lithuanians and Slovaks and such, 
who could not understand what was said to tiiiem, the 
bosses were wont to kick about the place like so many 
dogs. Therefore these trucks went for the most part on 
the run ; and the predecessor of Jones had been lammed 
against the wall uy one and crushed in a horrible and 
namolflss manner. 

All of these were sinister incidents; but thqr were 
trifles compared to what Jurgis saw with his own eyes 
before long. One curious thing he had noticed, the very 
first day, m his profession of shoveller of guts ; which was 
the sharp trick of the floor^bosses whenever there chanced 
to oome a ^ dunk ** calf. Any man who knows anything 
about butchering knows that the flesh of a cow that is 
about to calve, or has just calved, is not fit for food. A 
good many of these came every day to the packing*houses -^ 
and, of course, if they had chosen, it would have been 
an easy matter for the packers to keep them till they were 
fit for food* But for the saving of time and fodder, it was 
thfi \w Ihat oowB of that sort oame along with the others, 



74 THE JUNGLE 

and whoever noticed it would tell the boss, and the boat 
would start up a conversation with the government in* 
specter, and the two would stroll away. So in a trice the 
carcass of the cow would be cleaned out, and the entrails 
would have vanished ; it was Jurgis's task to slide them 
into the trap, calves and all, and on the floor below they 
took out these ^^ slunk " calves, and butchered them for 
meat, and used even the skins of them. 

One day a man slipped and hurt his leg ; and that after- 
noon, when the last of the cattle had been disposed of, and 
the men were leaving, Jurgis was ordered to remain and 
do some special work which this injured man had usually 
done. It was late, almost dark, and the government in« 
specters had all gone, and there were onlv a dozen or two 
of men on the floor. That day they had killed about four 
thousand cattle, and these cattle had come in freight 
trains from far states, and some of them had got hurt. 
There were some with broken leg^ and some with gored 
sides ; there were some that had died, from what cause no 
one could say ; and they were all to be disposed of, here 
in darkness and silence. ^^ Downers,*' the men called 
them ; and the packing-house had a special elevator upon 
which they were raised to the killing-beds, where the gang 
proceeded to handle them, with an air of businesslike 
nonchalance which said plainer than any words that it was 
a matter of everyday routine. It took a couple of hours 
to get them out of the way, and in the ena Jurgis saw 
them go into the chilling-rooms with the rest of the meat, 
being carefully scattered here and there so that they could 
not be identified. When he came home that night he was 
in a very sombre mood, having begun to see at last how 
those mi^ht be right who had knghed at him for his fisdtib 
in America. 



i 






CHAPTER VI 

JxTBGis and Ona were very much in loye; they had 
waited a long time — it was now well into the second 
year, and Jurgis judged everything by the criterion of its 
helping or hindering their union. AU his thoughts were 
there ; he accepted the family because it was a part of 
Ona, and he was interested in the house because it was to 
be Ona's home. Even the tricks and cruelties he saw at 
Durham's had little meaning for him just then, save as 
they might happen to affect his future with Ona. 

The marriage would have been at once, if they had had 
their way ; but this would mean that they would have t^ 
do without any wedding-feast, and when they suggested 
this they came into conmct with the old people. To Teta 
Elzbieta especially the venr suggestion was an afiSiction. 
What I she woula cry. To be married on the roadside 
like a parcel of beggars I No I No I — Elzbieta had some 
traditions behind her; she had been a person of impor- 
tance in her girlhood — had lived on a big estate and had 
Bsrvants, and might have married well and been a lady, 
but for the fact that there had been nine daughters and 
no sons in the family. Even so, however, she knew what 
was decent, and clung to her traditions with desperation. 
They were not |^ing to lose all caste, even if they had 
come to be unskilled laborers in Fackingtown; and that 
Ona had even talked of omitting a vetelija was enough to 
keep her stepmother Iving awake aU night. It was in 
vain for them to say tnat they had so few friends ; they 
were bound to have friends in time, and then the friends 
would talk about it. They must not give up what was 
right for a little money — if they did, the money would 
never do them any good, they could depend upon that 

76 



76 THE JUNGLE 

And Elzbieta would call upon Dede Antanas to support 
her ; there was a fear in the souls of these two, lest this 
journey to a new country might somehow undermine the 
old home virtues of their children. The very first Sunday 
they had all been taken to mass ; and poor as they were, 
Elzbieta had felt it advisable to invest a little of her re- 
sources in a representation of the babe of Bethlehem, made 
in plaster, and painted in brilliant colors. Though it was 
only a foot high, there was a shrine with four snow-white 
steeples, and the Virgin standing with her child in her 
arms, and the kings and shepherds and wise men bowing 
down before him. It had cost fifty cents; but Elzbieta 
had a feeling that money spent for such things was not to 
be counted too closely, it would come back in hidden ways. 
The piece was beautiful on the parlor mantel, and one 
could not have a home without some sort of ornament. 

The cost of the wedding-feast would, of course be re- 
turned to them; but the problem was to raise it even 
temporarily. They had been in the neighborhood so 
short a time that they could not get mucn credit, and 
there was no one except Szedvilas from whom they could 
borrow even a little. Evening after evening Jurgis and 
Ona would sit and figure the expenses, calculating the 
term of their separation. They could not possibly man- 
age it decently for less than two hundred dollars, and 
even though thev were welcome to count in the whole 
of the earnings of Marija and Jonas, as a loan, they could 
not hope to raise this sum in less than four or five months. 
So Ona began thinking of seeking employment herself, sav* 
ing that if she had even ordinarily good luck, she might be 
able to take two months off the time. They were just 
beginning to adjust themselves to this necessity, when 
out of the clear sky there fell a thunderbolt upon them 
•^a calamity that scattered all their hopes to the four 
winds. 

About a block away from them there lived another 
Lithuanian family, consisting of an elderly widow and 
one CTown son ; their name was Majauszkis, and our 
ids stmck UD an acquaintance with them before l<Hig* 



THE JXJ2TGLB 77 

One evening they came over for a yicdt, and naturally the 
first subject upon which the conversation turned was the 
neighborhood and its history; and then Grandmother 
Majauszkiene, as the old lady was called, proceeded to 
recite to them a string of horrors that fairly froze their 
blood. She was a wrinkled-up and wizened personage-— 
she must have been eighty — and as she mumbled the grim 
story through her toothless gums, she seemed a very old 
witch to them. Grandmother Majauszkiene had lived in 
the midst of misfortune so long that it had come to be her 
element, and she talked about starvation, sickness, and death 
as other people might about weddings and holidays. 

The tlun? came gradually. In the first place as to the 
house they had bought-, it was not new at all, as they had 
supposed ; it was about fifteen years old, and there was 
nothing new upon it but the paint, which was so bad that 
it needed to be put on new every year or two. The house 
was one of a whole row that was built by a company which 
existed to make money by swindling Joor peSple^ The 
family had paid fifteen hundred dollars for it, and it had 
not cost the builders five hundred, when it was new — 
Grandmother Majauszkiene knew that because her son 
belonged to a political organization with a contractor who 
put up exactly such houses. They used the very Aim* 
siest and cheapest material ; they built the houses a dozen 
at a time, and they cared about nothing at all except the 
outside shine. The family could take ner word as to the 
trouble they would have, for she had been through it all 
—she and her son had bought their house in exactly the 
same way. They had fooled the company, however, for 
her son was a skilled man, who made as high as a hundred 
dollars a month, and as he had had sense enough not to 
marry, they had been able to pay for the house. 

Grandmother Majauszkiene saw that her friends were 
puzzled at this remark; they did not quite see how pav* 
vug for the house was ^ fooling the companv.*' Evidently 
tney were very inexperienced. Cheap as the houses were, 
they were sold with the idea that the iieople who bought 
them would not be aUe to pay for them. When t£ey 



78 THE JUNGLE 

failed — if it were only by a single month — they wool4 
lose the house and all that they had paid on it, and then 
the company would sell it over a^ain. And did they often 
get a chance to do that? Dieve 7 (Grandmother Majaus- 
zkiene raised her hands.) They did it — how often no 
one could say, but certainly more than half of the time. 
They might ask any one who knew anything at all about 
Packingtown as to that; she had been living here ever 
since this house was buUt, and she could tell them all 
about it. And had it ever been sold before? Sunmilkief 
Why, since it had been built, no less than four families that 
their informant could name had tried to buy it and failed. 
She would tell them a little about it. 

The first family had been Germans. The &milies had 
all been of different nationalities — there had been a repre- 
sentative of several races that had displaced each other in 
the stockyards. Grandmother Majauszkiene had come to 
America with her son at a time when so far as she knew 
there was only one other Lithuanian family in the district ; 
the workers had all been Germans then — skilled cattie- 
butchers that the packers had brought from abroad to 
start the business. Aiterward, as cheaper labor had 
come, these Germans hsMd moved away. The next were 
the Irish — there had been six or eis^ht years when 
Packingtown had been a reg^ar L*ish city. There were 
a few colonies of them still here, enous^h to run all the 
unions and the police force and get aU the graft; but 
the most of those who were working in the packings 
houses had gone away at the next drop in wages— 
after the big strike. The Bohemians had come then, and 
after them the Poles. People said that old man Durham 
himself was responsible for these immigrations; he had 
sworn that he would fix the people of Packingtown so 
that they would never again call a strike on him, and so 
he had sent his agents into every city and village in 
Europe to spread the tale of the chances of work and 
high wages at the stockyards. The people had come in 
hordes ; and old Durham had squeezed tnem tighter and 
tightert speeding them up And grinding them to pieoea. 



THE JUNGLE 79 

«id sending for new ones. The Poles, who had oome by 
lens of thousands, had been driven to the wall by the 
Lithuanians, and now the Lithuanians were giving way 
to the Slovaks. Who there was poorer and more miser* 
able than the Slovaks, Grandmother Majauszkiene had 
no idea, but the packers would find them, never fear. 
It was easy to bring them, for wages were really muoh 
higlier, and it was only when it was too late tbat the 
poor people found out that everjrthing else was higher 
too. They were like rats in a trap, that was the truth ; 
and more of them were piling in every day. By and by 
they would have their revenge, though, for tne thing 
was netting beyond human endurance, and the people 
would rise and murder the packers. Grandmother 
Majauszkiene was a socialist, or some such strange 
thing; another son of hers was working in the mines 
of Siberia, and the old lady herself had made speeches 
in her time— -which made her seem all the more terrible 
to her present auditors. 

They called her back to the story of the house. The 
German family had been a good sort. To be sure there 
had been a great many of them, which was a common fail- 
ing in PacKingtown; but they had worked hard, and the 
father had been a steady man, and they had a good deal 
more than half paid for the house. But he had been 
killed in an elevator accident in Durham's. 

Then there had come the Irish, and there had been lots 
of them, too ; the husband drank and beat the children — 
the neighbors could hear them shrieking any night. They 
were behind with their rent all the time, but the company 
was good to them ; there was some politics back of that. 
Grandmother Majauszkiene could not say just what, but 
the Laffertys had belonged to the "War Whoop League,** 
which was a sort of political club of all the thugs and 
rowdies in the district ; and if you belonged to that, you 
could never be arrested for anytning. Once upon a time 
old Lafferty had been caught with a gang that had stolen 
cows from several of the poor people of the neighborhood 
acd butchered them in an old shanty back of Uie yards 



80 THE JUirOLft 

and sold them. He had been in jail only three daja fof 
it, and had come out laughing, and had not even lost his 
place in the packing-house. He had gone aU to ruin with 
the drink, however, and lost his power; one of his sons, 
who was a good man, had kept him and the family up for 
a year or two, but then he had got sick with consumption. 
That was another thing. Grandmother Majauzskiene 
interrupted herself — this house was unlucky. Every 
family that lived in it, some one was sure to get con* 
sumption. Nobody could tell why that was; there must 
be something about a house, or Uie way it was built — 
some folks said it was because the building had been 
begun in the dark of the moon. There were dozens of 
houses that way in Packingtown. Sometimes there would 
be a particular room that you could point out — if any- 
body slept in that room he was just as good as dead. 
With this house it had been the Irish firsts and then a 
Bohemian family had lost a child of it— -though, to be 
sure, that was uncertain, since it was hard to tell what 
was the matter with children who worked in the yards. 
In those days there had been no law about the age of 
children — the packers had worked all but the babies. 
At this remark the family looked puzzled, and Grand- 
mother Majauszkiene again had to make an explanation — 
that it was against the law for children to work before 
they were sixteen. What was the sense of that? they 
asked. They had been thinking of letting little Stani- 
slovas go to work. Well, there was no need to worry^ 
Grandmother Majauszkiene said — the law made no dififer* 
ence except that it forced people to lie about the ages of 
their children. One would like to know what the law* 
makers expected them to do; there were families that had 
no possible means of support except the children, and 
the law provided them no other way of getting a living. 
Very often a man could get no work in Packingtown for 
months, while a child could go and get a place easily; 
there was always some new machine, by which the packers 
could get as much work out of a child as they had been able 
to get out of a man, and for a third of the pay. 



XHB JUirGLB 81 

To oome back to the house again, it was the woman of 
llie next family that had died. That was after ther had 
been there nearly four years, and this woman had had 
twins regularly every year — and there had been more 
than you could count when they moved in. After she 
died the man would go to work all day and leave them 
to shift for themselves — the neighbors would help them 
now and then, for they would almost freeze to death. At 
the end there were three days that they were alone, be- 
fore it was found out that the father was dead. He was 
a ^ floorsman ** at Jones's, and a wounded steer had broken 
loose and mashed him against a pillar. Then the children 
had been taken away, and the company had sold the house 
that very same week to a party of emigrants. 

So this grim old woman went on with her tale of hor- 
rors. How much of it was exaggeration-— who could 
tell? It was only too plausible. There was tiiat about 
consumption, for instance. They knew nothing about 
consumption whatever, except that it made people cough $ 
and for two weeks they had been worrying about a cough- 
ing-spell of Antanas. It seemed to shake him all over, 
and it never stopped ; you could see a red stain wherever 
he had spit upon the floor. 

And yet all these things were as nothing to what came 
a little later. They had begun to question the old lady 
as to why one family had l^en unable to pay, trying to 
show her by figures that it ought to have been possible ; 
and Grandmother Majauszkiene had disputed their figures 
«— *^You say twelve dollars a month; but that does not 
include the interest.** 

Then they stared at her. ** Interest 1 ^ they cried. 

** Interest on the money you still owe,** she answered. 

** But we don't have to pay any interest 1 ** they ex- 
claimed, three or four at once. ^^ We only have to pay 
twelve dollars each month." 

And for this she laughed at them. ^ Ton are like all 
the rest,** she said; **t£ey trick you and eat you alive. 
They never sell the houses without interest Get youi 
deed, and see.** 



82 THE JITNOLIL 

Then, with a horrible sinking of the heart, Teta Elzbieta 
unlocked her bureaa and brought out the paper that had 
already caused them 60 many agonies* Now they sat 
minidt scarcely bi«atliiiig» while the old lady, who could 
read English, ran over it. ^ Yes,'' she said, finally, *^ here 
it is, of course: ^With interest thereon monthly, at the 
rate of seven per c6nt per annum/ " 

And there followed a dead silence. ^^ What does that 
mean ? " asked Jiirgis finally, almost in a whisper. 

**That means,*' replied the other, **that you have to 
pay them seven dollars next month, as well as the twelve 
dollars." 

Then arain there was not a sound. It was sickening, 
like a nightmare, in which suddenly something gives way 
beneath you, and you feel yourself sinking, sinking, down 
into bottomless abysses. As if in a flash of lightning thev 
saw themselves — victims of a relentless fate, comereo, 
trapped, in the grip of destruction. All the fair struc* 
ture of their hopes came crashing about their ears. — And 
all the time the old woman was going on talking. 
They wished that she would be still ; her voice sounded 
like the croaking of some dismal raven. Jurgis sat with 
his hands clenched and beads of perspiration on his fore* 
head, and there was a great lump in Ona's throat, choking 
her. Then suddenly Teta Elzbieta broke t^e silence with 
a wail, and Marija began to wring her hands and sob, 
Mt.' Ai! Bedaman!'' 

All their outcry did them no good, of course. There 
sat Grandmother Majauszkiene, unrelenting, typifyinc 
fate. No, of course it was not fair, but then fairness had 
nothing to do with it. And of course they had not known 
it. They had not been intended to know it. But it was 
in the deed, and that was all that was necessary, as they 
would find when the time came« 

Somehow or other they got rid of their guest, and then 
they passed a night of lamentation. The children woke up 
and round out that something was wrong, and they wailed 
and would not be comforted. In the morning, oi coursOt 
most of them had to go to work, the packing-houses would 



THB JUNOLS 83 

not ftop for their sorrows ; but by seren o'olook Ona and 
her stepmother were standing at the door of the office of 
the agent. Tes, he told them, when he came, it was quite 
tme that they would have to pay interest. And then 
Teta Elzbieta broke forth into protestations and reproachesi 
so that the people outside stopped and peered in at the win* 
dow. The agent was as bland as ever. He was deeply 
pained, he said. He had not told them, simply because 
ne had supposed they would understand that they had to 
pay interest upon their debt, as a matter of course. 

So they came away, and Ona went down to the yards, 
and at noon-time saw Jurgis and told him. Jurgis took 
it stolidly — he had made up his mind to it by this time. 
It was part of fate ; they would manage it somehow — 
he made his usual answer, ^I will work harder.*' It 
would upset their plans for a time ; and it would perhaps 
be necessary for Ona to get work after all. Then Ona 
added that Teta Elzbieta had decided that little Stani* 
slovas would have to work too. It was not fair to let 
Jurgis and her support the family — the family would 
have to help as it could. Previously Jurgis had scouted 
this idea, but now knit his brows and nodded his head 
slowly— yes, perhaps it would be be^t; they would all 
have to make some sacrifices now. 

So Ona set out that day to hunt for work ; and at night 
Marija came home saying that she bad met a girl named 
Jasaityte who had a friend^ that worked in one of the 
wrapping-rooms in Brown's, and might get a place for 
Ona there ; only the f orelady was the kind that takes 
presents — it was no use for any one to ask her for a place 
unless at the same time they slipped a ten-dollar bill into 
her hand. Jurgis was not in the least surprised at this 
now — he merely asked what the wages of the place would 
be. So negotiations were opened, and after an interview 
Oun came home and reported that the f orelady seemed to 
like her, and had said that, while she was not sure, she 
thought she might be able to put her at work sewing covers 
on hams, a job at which she could earn as much as eight 
or ten dollars a week. That was a bid« so Marija reported. 



84 THE JUNGLE 

after oonsulting her friend ; and then there was an anxiona 
oonference at home. The work was done in one of the 
cellars, and Jurgis did not want Ona to work in snch a 
place ; but then it was easy work, and one could not have 
everything. So in the end Ona, with a ten-dollar bill 
burning a hole in her palm, had another interview with 
the f orelady. 

Meantime Teta Elzbieta had taken Stanislovas to the 
priest and gotten a certificate to the effect that he was 
two years older than he was ; and with it the little boy 
now sallied forth to make his fortune in the world« It 
chanced that Durham had just put in a wonderful new 
lard-machine, and when the special policeman in front of 
the time-station saw Stanislovas and his document, he 
smiled to himself and told him to go— ^Czia t Czia I" 
pointing. And so Stanislovas went down a long stone 
corridor, and up a flight of stairs, which took him into a 
room lighted by electricity, with the new machines fc 
filling lard-cans at work in it. The lard was finished on 
the floor above, and it came in little jets, like beautiful, 
wriggling, snow-white snakes of unpleasant odor. There 
were several kinds and sizes of jets, and after a certain 
precise quantity had come out, each stopped automatically, 
and the wonderful machine made a turn, and took the can 
under another jet, and so on, until it was filled neatiy to 
the brim, and pi-essed tightly, and smoothed off. To 
attend to all this and fill several hundred cans of lard per 
hour, there were necessary two human creatures, one of 
whom knew how to place an empty lard-can on a certain 
spot every few seconds, and the other of whom knew how 
to take a full lard-can off a certain spot every few seconds 
and set it upon a tray. 

And so, after little Stanislovas had stood gazing timidly 
about hhn for a few minutes, a man approached him, and 
asked what he wanted, to which Stanislovas said, ^ Job.*' 
Then the man said ^ How old ? *' and Stanislovas answered, 
•*Sixtin." Once or twice every year a state inspector 
would come wandering through the packing-plants, ask* 
hig a ohild here and there how old ne was; and so the 



THE JX7NGLB 85 

packers were rery oaref al to comply with the law, which 
ocet them as much trouble as was now involved in the 
boss's taking the document from the little boy, and glanc« 
ing at it, and then sending it to the office to liie filed away. 
Then he set some one else at a different job, and showed 
the lad how to place a lard-can every time the empty arm 
of the remorseless machine came to him ; and so was de- 
cided the place in the universe of little Stanislovas, and 
his destiny till the end of his days. Hour after hour, day 
aft^r day, year after year, it was fated that he should 
stand upon a certain square foot of floor from seven in the 
morning until noon, and again from half-past twelve till 
half-past five, making never a motion and thinking never 
a thought, save for uie setting of lard-cans* In summer 
the stench of the warm lard would be nauseating, and in 
winter the cans would all but freeze to his naked little 
fingers in the unheated cellar. Half the year it would be 
dark as night when he went in to work, and dark as nic^ht 
again when he came out, and so he would never know what 
the sun looked like on week-days. And for this, at the end 
of the week, he would carry home three dollars to his 
family, bein^ his pay at the rate of five cents per hour — 
just about his proper share of the total earmngs of the 
million and thiee-quarters of children who are now en- 
gaged in earning their livings in the United States. 

And meantime, because they were young, and hope is 
not to be stifled before its time, Jurgis and Ona were 
a^ain calculating ; for they had discovered that the wages 
of Stanislovas would a little more than pay the interest, 
which left them just about as they had been before I It 
would be but fair to them to say that the little boy was 
ddighted with his work, and at the idea of earning a lot 
of money ; and also that the two were vexy much in love 
mtb eaon other. 



CHAPTER Vn 

All summer long the family toQed, and in the &I1 
they had money enough for Jnrgis and Ona to be married 
according to home traditions of decency. In the latter 
part of November they hired a hall, and invited all their 
new acquaintances, who came and left them over a hundred 
dollars in debt. 

It was a bitter and cruel experience, and it plunged 
them into an agony of despair. Such a time, of bSi times, 
for them to have it, when their hearts were made tender! 
Such a pitiful beginning it was for their married life ; 
they loved each other so, and they could not have the 
briefest respite ! It was a time when everything cried 
out to them that they ought to be happy ; when wonder 
burned in their hearts, and leaped into flame at the slightr 
est breath. They were shaken to the depths of them, 
with the awe of love realized — and was it so very weak 
of them that they cried out for a little peace ? They had 
opened their hearts, like flowers to the springtime, and 
^he merciless winter had fallen upon them. They won* 
dered if ever any love that had blossomed in the world 
had been so crushed and trampled I 

Over them, relentless and savam, there cracked the 
lash of want ; the morning after tne weddingp it sought 
them as they slept, and drove them out before daybreak to 
work. Ona was scarcely able to stand with exhaustion f 
but if she were to lose her place they would be ruined, and 
she would surely lose it if she were not on time that day. 
They all had to go, even little Stanislovas, who was ill 
from overindulgence in sausages and sarsaparilla. AU 
that day he stood at his lard-machine, rocking unsteadily, 
eyes closing in spite of him ; and he all but lost ma 

86 



THE JXTNGLB 87 

place eren 8a» for the foreman booted him twice to waken 
nim. 

It was folly a week before they were all normal agwit 
and meantime, with whining children and cross adults, 
the house was not a pleasant place to live in. Jurgis lost 
his temper very little, however, all things considered* It 
was because of Ona ; the least glance at her was always 
enough to make him control himself. She was so sensi* 
tive — she was not fitted for such a life as this; and a 
hundred times a day, when he thought of her, he would 
clench his hands and fling himself again at the task be« 
fore him. She was too good for faim, he told himself, 
and he was afraid, because she was his. So long he 
had hungered to possess her, but now that the time had 
come he knew that he had not earned the right; that 
she trusted him so was all her own simple goodness, and 
no virtue of his. But he was resolved that she should 
never find this out, and so was always on the watch to 
«ee ' that he did not betray any of his ugly self ; he 
would take care even in little matters, such as his manners, 
and his habit of swearing when things went wrong. The 
tears came so easily into Ona*s eves, and she womd look 
at him so appealin^^ly «— it kept Jurgis quite busy making 
resolutions, in addition to all the other things he had on 
his mind. It was true that more things were soing on at 
this time in the mind of Jurgis than ever had in all his 
life before. 

He had to protect her, to do battle for her against the 
horror he saw about thenu He was all that she had to 
look to, and if he failed she would be lost ; he would wrap 
lus arms about her, and try to hide her from the worl£ 
He had learned the ways of things about him now. It 
was a war of each against all, and the devil take the hind- 
most. Tou did not give feasts to other people, you waited 
for them to give feasts to you. Tou went abput with 
your soul full of suspicion and hatred ; you understood 
that yoa were environed by hostile powers that were trying 
to ^ your money, and who usea all the virtues to bait 
their traps with. The storekeepers plastered up theif 



88 IHE JUNGLE 

windows with all sorts of lies to entice yon } the very 
fences by the wayside, the lamp-posts and telegraph-poles, 
were pasted over with lies. The great corporation which 
employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country—- 
from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie. 

So Jurgis said that he understood it; and yet it was 
really pitiful, for the struggle was so unfair — some had 
so mucn the advantage I Here he was, for instance, vow- 
ine upon his knees that he would save Ona from harm, and 
omy a week later she was suffering atrociously, and from 
the blow of an enemy that he could not possibly have 
thwarted. There came a day when the rain fell in tor- 
rents ; and it bein^ December, to be wet with it and have 
to sit all day long m one of the cold cellars of Brown^s was 
no laughing matter. Ona was a working-girl, and did not 
own waterproofs and such things and so Jurg^ took her 
and put her on the street-car. Now it chanced that this 
car-lme was owned by gentlemen who were trying to make 
monev. And the city having passed an ordinance requir- 
ing them to give transfers, thev had fallen into a rage ; 
and first they had made a rule that transfers could be had 
only when the fare was paid ; and later, growing still uglier, 
they had made another — that the passenger must ask for 
the transfer, the conductor was not allowed to offer it. 
Now Ona had been told that she was to get a transfer ; but 
it was not her way to speak up, and so she merely waited, 
following the conductor about with her eyes, wondering 
when he would think of her. When at last the time came for 
her to get out, she asked for the transfer, and was refused. 
Not knowing what to make of this, she began to argue with 
the conductor, in a language of which he did not under- 
stand a word. After warning her several times, he pulled 
the bell and the oar went on — at which Ona burst into 
tears. At the next comer she got out, of course ; and as 
she had no mere money, she had to walk the rest of the 
way to the yards in the pouring rain. And so all day lone 
she sat shivering, and came home at night with her teeth 
chattering and pains in her head and back. For two weeks 
Biterwaxa she suffered cruelly — and yet every day she 



THE JUNGLE SO 

bad to drag herself to her work. The forewoman was 
especially severe with Ona, because she believed that she 
was obstinate on account of having been refused a holiday 
the day after her weddine. Ona had an idea that her 
^ forelady ** did not like to have her g^rls marry — perhaps 
because she was old and ugly and unmarried herself. 

There were many such dangers, in which the odds were 
all against them. Their chilobren were not as well as they 
had been at home ; but how could thev know that there was 
no sewer to their house, and that the drainage of fifteen 
years was in a cesspool under it? How could they know 
that the pale blue milk that they bought around the comer 
was watered, and doctored with formaldehyde besides? 
When the children were not well at home, Teta Ekbieta 
would gather herbs and cure them ; now she was obliged 
to go to the drug-store and buy extracts — and how was 
she to know that they were all adulterated ? How could 
they find out that their tea and coffee, their suear and flour, 
had been doctored ; that their canned peas had been colored 
with copper salts, and their fruit jams with aniline dyes? 
And even if they had known it, wnat eood would it have 
done them, since there was no place within miles of them 
where any other sort was to be had? The bitter winter 
was coming, and they had to save money to get more cloth- 
ing and bMding | but it would not matter in the least how 
much they saved, they could not get anything to keep 
them warm. All the dothine that was to be Imd in the 
stores was made of cotton and shoddy, which is made by 
tearii^ old clothes to pieces and weaving the fibre ajtsan. 
If they paid higher prices, they might eet frills and nmci- 
neeSy or be cheated ; but genuine quality they could not 
obtain for love nor money. A young friend of Szedvilas's, 
lecently come from abroad, had become a clerk in a store 
<m Ashland Avenue, and he narrated with glee a trick 
that had been played upon an unsuspecting countryman 
by bis boss. The customer had desured to purchase an 
alarm-clock, and the boss had shown him two exactly simi* 
lar, telling him that the price of one was a dollar and of 
(be otbar a dollar seventy^flve. Upon being aaiked what 



/ 



90 THE JD^ULB 

the difference was, the man had woond up the first halfi 
way and the second all the way, and showed the customer 
how the latter made twice as much noise ; upon which the 
oustomer remarked that he was a sound sleeper, and had 
better take the more expensive clock I 



'rhere is a poet who sings that 

. ^MM. . • A • a 



« Deeper their heart grows and nobler their bearings 
Whose youth in the fires of anguish hath died*** 

But it is not likely that he had reference to the kind of an* 
guish that comes with destitution, that is so endlessly bittei 
and cruel, and yet so sordid and petty, so uely* so humiliat- 
ing — unredeemed by the slightest touch of mgnity or even 
of pathos. It is a kind of anguish that poets have not 
commonly dealt with ; its very words are not admitted into 
the vocabulary of poets — the details of it cannot be told 
in polite society at all. How, for instance, could any one 
expect to excite sympathy amon^ lovers of good literature 
by telling how a family found Uieir home alive with ver^ 
min, and of all the suffering and inconvenience and hu« 
miliation they were put to, and the hard-earned money 
they spent, in efforts to get rid of them? After long hesi* 
tation and uncertainty they paid twenty-five cents for a 
big package of insect-powder — a patent preparation which 
clmnced to be ninety •five per cent g3rpsum, a harmless earth 
which had cost about two cents to prepare. Of course it 
had not the least effect, except upon a few roaches which 
had the misfortune to drink water after eating it, and so 
ot their inwards set in a coating of plaster of raris. The 
amily, having no idea of this, and no more money to throw 
away, had nothing^ to do but give up and submit to ona 
more misery for the rest of their days. 

Then there was old Antanas. The winter came, and 
the place where he worked was a dark, unheated cellar« 
where you oould see your breath all day, and where your 
fingers sometimes tried to freeze. So the old man's cough 
new every day worse, until there came a time when it 
hardly ever stopped, and he had become a nuisance about 



I 



THE JUNGLE 01 

the place. Then, too, a still more dreadful thing hap- 
pened to him ; he worked in a place where his feet were 
soaked in chemicals, and it was not long before they had 
eaten through his new boots. Then sores began to break 
out on his *^t, and grow worse and worse. Whether it 
was that his blood was bad, or there had been a cut, he 
could not say ; but he asked the men about it, and learned 
that it was a regular thing — it was the saltpetre. Every 
one felt it, sooner or later, and then it was all up with him^ 
at least for that sort of work. The sores would never 
heal — in the end his toes would drop off, if he did not 

5[uit. Tet old Antanas would not quit ; he saw the suf • 
ering of his family, and he remembered what it had cost 
him to get a job. So he tied up his feet, and went on 
limping about and coughing, until at last he fell to pieces, 
all at once and in a heap, like the One-Horse Shay. 
They carried him to a dry place and laid him on the floor, 
and that night two of the men helped him home. The 
poor old man was put to bed, and though he tried it every 
morning until the end, he never could get up again. He 
would lie there and cough and cough, day and night, 
wasting away to a mere skeleton. There came a time 
when were was so little flesh on him that the bones began 
to poke through — which was a horrible thing to see or 
even to think of. And one night he had a choking fit, 
and a little river of blood came out of his mouth. The 
family, wild with terror, sent for a doctor, and paid half 
a dollar to be told that there was nothing to be done. 
Mercifully the doctor did not say this so that the old man 
oould hear, for he was still cUnging to the faith thai 
to-morrow or next day he would be better, and could go 
back to his job. The company had sent word to him thai 
they would keep it for him — or rather Jurg^s had bribed 
one of the men to come one Sunday afternoon and say 
they had. Dede Antanas continued to believe it, while 
three more hemorrhages came; and then at last one mom* 
iw tiiey found him stiff and cold. Things were not 
iromg weU with them then, and though it nearly broke 
Teta Ekbieta*s h^trt, they were forced to dispense with 



92 THE JUNGLE 

nearly all the decencies of a funeral; they had only a 
hearse, and one hack for the women and children; and 
Jurgis, who was learning things fast, spent all Sunday 
making a bargain for these, and he made it in the pres- 
ence of witnesses, so that when the man tried to charge 
him for all sorts of incidentals, he did not have to pay. 
For twenty-five years old Antanas Rudkus and his son 
had dwelt in the forest together, and it was hard to part 
in this way ; perhaps it was just as well that Jurgis nad 
to give all his attention to the task of having a funeral 
without being bankrupted, and so had no time to indulge 
in memories and grief. 

Now the dreadful winter was come upon them. In the 
forests, all summer long, the branches of the trees do 
battle for light, and some of them lose and die; and 
then come the raging blasts, and the storms of snow and 
hail, and strew the ^ound with these weaker branches. 
Just so it was in Packingtown ; the whole district braced 
itself for the struggle that was an agony, and those whose 
time was come died off in hordes. All the year round 
they had been serving as cogs in the great packing- 
machine ; and now was the time for the renovating of 
it, and the replacing of damaged parts. There came 
pneumonia and grippe, stalking among them, seeking 
for weakened constitutions; there was the annual har- 
vest of those whom tuberculosis had been dragging down. 
There came cruel, cold, and biting winds, and blizzards of 
snow, all testing relentlessly for failing muscles and im- 
poverished blood. Sooner or later came the day when 
the unfit one did not report for work ; and then, with no 
time lost in waiting, and no inquiries or regrets, there 
was a chance for a new hand. 

The new hands were here by the thousands. All day 
long the gates of the packing-houses were besieged by 
starving and penniless men ; they came, literally, oy the 
thousands every single morning, fighting with each other 
for a chance for life. Blizzards and cold made no differ- 
ence to them, they were always on hand ; they were on 



THE JUNGLE 93 ^ 

hand two hours before the sun rose, an hour before the 
work began. Sometimes their faces froze, sometimes their 
feet and their hands; sometimes they froze all together — 
but still they came, for they had no other place to go. 
One day Durham advertised in the paper for two hundred 
men to cut ice ; and all that day tne homeless and starv* 
ing of the cit^ came trudging through the snow from all 
over its two hundred square miles. That night forty 
score of them crowded into the station-house of the stock* 
yards district — they filled the rooms, sleeping in each 
other's laps, toboggan-fashion, and they piled on top of 
each other in the corridors^ till the police shut the doors . 
and left some to freeze outside. On the morrow, before 
daybreak, there were three thousand at Durham's, and 
the police-reserves had to be sent for to quell the riot. 
Then Durham's bosses picked out twenty of the biggest; 
the ^two hundred" proved to have been a printer's 
error. 

Four or five miles to the eastward lay the lake, and 
over this the bitter winds came raging. Sometimes the 
thermometer would fall to ten or twenty degrees below 
zero at night, and in the morning the streets would be 
piled with snowdrifts up to the first-floor windows. The 
streets through which our friends had to go to their work 
were all unpaved and full of deep holes and gullies ; in 
summer, when it rained hard, a man might have to wade 
to his waist to get to his house; and now in winter it 
was no joke getting through these places, before light 
in the morning and after dark at night. They would 
wrap up in all they owned, but they could not wrap up 
against exhaustion ; and many a man gave out in these 
battles with the snowdrifts, and lay down and fell 
asleep. 

And if it was bad for the men, one may imagine how 
the women and children fared. Some would ride in the 
cars, if the cars were running ; but when you are making 
only five cents an hour, as was little Stanislovas, you do 
not like to spend that much to ride two miles. The chil- 
dren would come to the yards with great shawls about 



94 THE JUNGLE 

their ears, and so tied up that you could hardly find them 
— and still there would be accidents. One bitter morn- 
ing in February the little boy who worked at the lard- 
machine with Stanislovas came about an hour late, and 
screaming with pain. They unwrapped him, and a man 
began vigorously rubbing his ears ; and as they were 
frozen st&, it took only two or three rubs to break them 
short off. As a result of this, little Stanislovas conceived 
a terror of the cold that was almost a mania. Every 
morning, when it came time to start for the yards, he 
would l)egin to cry and protest. Nobody knew quite 
how to manage him, for threats did no good — it seemed 
to be something that he could not control, and they feared 
sometimes that he would go into convulsions. In the end 
it had to be arranged that he always went with Jurgis, 
and came home with him again; and often, when the 
snow was deep, the man would carrv him the whole way 
on his shoulders. Sometimes Jurgis would be working 
until late at night, and then it was pitiful, for there was 
no place for the little fellow to wait, save in the doorways 
or in a comer of the killing-beds, and he would all but 
fall asleep there, and freeze to death. 

There was no heat upon the killing-beds; the men 
might exactly as well have worked out of doors all 
winter. For that matter, there was very little heat 
anywhere in the building, except in the cooking-rooms 
and such places — and it was the men who worked in 
these who ran the most risk of all, because whenever 
they had to pass to another room thev had to go through 
ice-cold corridors, and sometimes with nothing on above 
the waist except a sleeveless undershirt. On the killing- 
beds you were apt to be covered with blood, and it would 
freeze solid; if you leaned against a pillar, you would 
freeze to that, and if you put your hand upon the blade 
of your knife, you would run a chance of leaving your 
skin on it. The men would tie up their feet in news- 
papers and old sacks, and these would be soaked in blood 
and frozen, and then soaked again, and so on, until by 
night-time a man would be walking on great lumps the 



THE JtTNGLE 96 

size of the feet of an elephant. Now and then, when the 
bosses were not looking, you would see them plunging 
their feet and ankles into the steaming hot carcass of the 
steer, or darting across the room to the hot-water jets. 
The cruelest thing of all was that nearly all of them — all 
of those who used knives — were unable to wear gloves, 
and their arms would be white with frost and their hands 
would grow numb, and then of course there would be 
accidents. Also the air would be full of steam, from the 
hot water and the hot blood, so that you could not see 
five feet before you ; and then, with men rushing about 
at the speed they kept up on the killing-beds, and all with 
butcher-knives, like razors, in their hands — well, it was 
to be counted as a wonder that there were not more men 
slanghtered than cattle. 

A^d yet all this inconvenience they might have put up 
with, if only it bed not been for one thing — if only there 
had been some place where they might eat. Jurgis had 
either to eat his dinner amid the stench in which he had 
worked, or else to rush, as did all his companions, to 
any one of the hundreds of liquor stores which stretched 
out their arms to him. To the west of the yards ran Ash- 
land Avenue, and here was an unbroken line of saloons — - 
•* Whiskey Row," they called it ; to the north was Forty- 
seventh Street, where there were half a dozen to the block, 
and at the angle of the two was *^ Whiskey Point," a space 
of fifteen or twenty acres, and containing one glue-factory 
and about two hundred saloons. 

One might walk among these and take his choice : 
^ Hot pea-soup and boiled cabbage to-day." *^ Sauer- 
kraut and hot frankfurters. Walk in." ^ Bean-soup and 
stewed lamb. Welcome." All of these things were 
printed in many languages, as were also the names of the 
resorts, which were infinite in their variety and appeal. 
There was the ♦* Home Circle " and the ♦* Cosey Comer " ; 
there were ** Firesides " and •* Hearthstones" and *• Pleas* 
nre Palaces " and " Wonderlands " and " Dream Castles *• 
and *• Lovers Delights." Whatever else they were called, 
they were sure to oe called ^ Union Headquarters," and te 



96 THE JUNGLE 

hold out a welcome to workingmen | and there was always 
a warm stove, and a chair near it, and some friends to laugh 
and talk with. There was only one condition attached,*- 
you must drink. If you went in not intending to drink, 
you would be put out in no time, and if you were slow 
about going, uke as not you would ^et your head split 
open with a beer-bottle in the bargam. But all of the 
men understood the convention and drank ; they believed 
that by it they were getting something for nothing — for 
they did not need to take more than one drink, and upon the 
strength of it they might fill themselves up with a good hot 
dinner. This did not always work out in practice, how* 
ever, for there was pretty sure to be a friend who would 
treat you, and then vou would have to treat him. Then 
some one else would come in — and, anyhow, a few drinks 
were eood for a man who worked hard. As he went back 
he dia not shiver so, he had more courage for his task ; 
the deadly brutalizing monotony of it did not afOict him 
so, — he had ideas while he worked, and took a more cheer* 
ful view of his circumstances. On the way home, however, 
the shivering was apt to come on him again ; and so he 
would have to stop once or twice to warm up against the 
cruel cold. As there were hot things to eat in mis saloon 
too, he might get home late to his supper, or he might not 
set home at all. And then his wife might set out to look 
for him, and she too would feel the cold ; and perhaps she 
would have some of the children with her — and so a 
whole family would drift into drinking, as the current of 
a river drifts down-stream. As if to complete the chain, 
the packers all paid their men in checks, refusing all re* 
quests to pay in coin ; and where in Packingtown could a 
man go to have his check cashed but to a saloon, where 
he could pay for the favor by spending a part of the 
money ? 

From all of these things Jurgis was saved because of 
Ona. He never would take but the one drink at noon* 
time ; and so he got the reputation of being a surly 
fellow, and was not quite welcome at the saloons, and had 
to drift about from one to another. Then at nigkt he 



THE JUNGLE 07 

would go straight home, helping Ona and Stanislovas, or 
often putting the former on a car. And when he got 
home perhaps he would have to trudge several blocks, and 
come staggering back through the snowdrifts with a hs^g 
of coal upon his shoulder. Home was not a very attrac- 
tive place — at least not this winter* They had only been 
able to buy one stove, and this was a small one, and 
proved not big enous^h to warm even the kitchen in the 
bitterest weather. This made it hard for Teta Elzbieta all 
day, and for the children when they could not get to 
Bcnool. At night they would sit huddled round this 
stove, while they ate their supper off their laps ; and then 
Jurgis and Jonas would smoke a pipe, after which they 
womd all crawl into their beds to get warm, after putting 
out the fire to save the coal. Then they would have some 
frightful experiences with the cold. They would sleep 
with all their clothes on, including their overcoats, and 
put over them all the bedding and spare clothing they 
owned ; the children would lueep all crowded into one 
bed, and yet even so they could not keep warm. The 
outside ones would be shivering and sobbing, crawling 
over the others and trying to get down into the centre, 
and causing a fight. This old house with the leaky 
weather-boards was a very different thing from their 
cabins at home, with great thick walls plastered inside 
and outside with mud ; and the cold which came upon 
them was a living thing, a demon-presence in the room. 
They would waken in the midnight hours, when every- 
thing was black ; perhaps they would hear it yelling out* 
aide, or perhaps there would be deathlike stillness -^^ and 
that would be worse yet. They could feel the cold as it 
crept in through the cracks, reaching out for them with its 
icy, death-dealing fingers; and they would crouch and 
cower, and try to nide from it, all in vain. It would come, 
and it would come ; a grisly thing, a spectre bom in the 
black caverns of terror ; a power primeval, cosmic, shadow- 
ing the tortures of the lost souls flung out to chaos 
and destruction. It was cruel, iron-hard ; and hour after 
hour they would cringe in its grasp, alone, alone. There 



98 



THE JUNGLE 



would be no one to hear them if they cried out ; there 
would be no help, no mercy. And bo on until morning-^ 
when they would go out to another day of toil, a little 
weaker, a little nearer to the time when it would be their 
turn to be shaken from the tree. 



CHAPTEE Vin 

Yet even by this deadly winter the germ of hope was 
not to be kept from sprouting in their hearts. It was jnst 
at this time that the great adventure befell Marija. 

The victim was Tamoszius Kuszleika, who plaved the 
violin. Everybody laughed at them, for Tamoszius was 
peUU and fraUy and Marija could have picked him up and 
carried him off imder one arm. But perhaps that was 
why she fascinated him; the sheer volume of Marija'e 
energy was overwhehning. That first night at the wed- 
ding Tomoszius had hardly taken his eyes ofF her; and 
later on, when he came to find that she had really the 
heart of a baby, her voice and her violence ceased to ter- 
rify him, and he got the habit of coming to pay her visits 
on Sunday afternoons. There was no place to entertain 
company except in the kitchen, in the midst of the family, 
and Tamoszius would sit there with his hat between his 
knees, never saying more than half a dozen words at a 
time, and turning red in the face before he managed to 
say those: until finally Jurgis would dap him upon the 
back, in his heartv way, crying, "Come now, brother, give 
UB a tune.'' And then Tamoszius's face would li^ht up 
and he would get out his fiddle, tuck it imder his chin, and 
play. And forthwith the soul of him would flame up and 
oecome eloquent — it was almost an impropriety, for all the 
while his gaze would be fixed upon Marija's face until she 
would begin to turn red and lower her eyes. There was no 
resisting the music of Tamoszius, however; even the chil- 
dren would sit awed and wondering, and the tears would 
run down Teta Elzbieta's cheeks. A wonderful privilege 
it was to be thus admitted into the soul of a man of genius, 

99 



100 THE JUNGLE 

to be allowed to share the ecstasies and the agonies of his 
inmost life. 

Then there were other benefits accruing to Marija from 
this friendship — benefits of a more substantial nature. 
People paid Tamoszius big money to come and make 
music on state occasions ; and also they would invite him 
to parties and festivals, knowing well that he was too 

food-natured to come without his fiddle, and that having 
rought it, he could be made to play while others danced. 
Once he made bold to ask Marija to accompany him to 
such a party, and Marija accepted, to his great delieht — 
after which he never went anvwhere without her, while if 
the celebration were given oy friends of his, he would 
invite the rest of the family also. In any case Marija 
would bring back a huge pocketful of cakes and sandwiches 
for the chudren, and stories of all the good things she 
herself had managed to consume. She was compelled, at 
these parties, to spend most of her time at the refreshment 
table, for she could not dance with anybody except other 
women and very old men ; Tamoszius was of an excitable 
temperament, and afflicted with a frantic jealousy, and any 
unmarried man who ventured to put his arm about the 
ample waist of Marija would be certain to throw the 
orchestra out of tune. 

It was a great help to a person who had to toil all the 
week to be able to look forward to some such relaxation as 
this on Saturday nights. The family were too poor and too 
hard worked to make many acquaintances; in Packing- 
town, as a rule, people know only their near neighbors and 
shopmates, and so the place is like a myriad of little country 
villages. But now there was a member of the family who 
was permitted to travel and widen her horizon ; and so 
each week there would be new personalities to talk about, 
—-how so-and-so was dressed, and where she worked, and 
what she got, and whom she was in love with ; and how 
this man had jilted his girl, and how she had quarrelled 
with the other girl, and what had passed between them; 
and how another man beat his wife, and spent all bef 
eaminga npoo drink, and pawned her very clothes Some 



THE JUNGLE 101 

people would have scorned this talk as gossip $ tmt then 
one has to talk about what one knows. 

It was one Saturday night, as they were coming home 
from a wedding, that Tamoszius found courage, and set 
down his violin-case in the street and spoke his heart ; and 
then Marija clasped him in her arms* She told them all 
about it tne next day, and fairly cried with happiness, 
for she said that Tamoszius was a lovely man. After 
that he no longer made love to her with his fiddle, but 
they would sit for hours in the kitchen, blissfully happy 
in each other's arms ; it was the tacit convention of the 
family to know nothing of what was going on in that 
comer. 

They were planning to be married in the spring, and 
have the garret of the house fixed up, and live there. 
Tamoszius made good wages; and little by little the 
family were paying back their debt to Marija, so she 
ought soon to have enough to start life upon — only, with 
her preposterous soft-heartedness, she would insist upon 
spending a good part of her money every week for things 
which she saw they needed, Marija was really the capi- 
talist of the party, for she had tiecome an expert can- 
painter by this time — she was getting fourteen cents for 
every hundred and ten cans, and she could paint more 
than two cans every minute. Marija felt, so to speak, that 
she had her hand on the throttle, and the neighborhood 
was vocal with her rejoicings. 

Tet her friends would snkke their huads and tell her to 
go slow ; one could not count upon such good fortune for- 
ever — tiiere were accidents that always happened. But 
Marija was not to be prevailed upon, and went on planning 
and dreaming of all the treasures she was goine to have 
for her home; and so, when the crash did come, ner grief 
was painful to see. 

For her canning-factory shut down t Marija would 
about as soon have expected to see the sun shut down — 
the huge establishment had been to her a thing akin to 
*bB planets and the seasons. But now it was shut I And 
^ey had not given her any explanation, they had not eveo 



102 THE JUNGLE 

given her a day's warning; they had simply posted a 
notice one Saturday that all hands would be paid off that 
afternoon, and would not resume work for at least a 
month I And that was all that there was to it — her job 
was gone I 

It was the holiday rush that was over, the girls said in 
answer to Marija's inquiries ; after that there was always 
a slack. Sometimes the factory would start up on half* 
time after a while, but there was no telling — it had been 
known to stay closed until way into the summer* The 
prospects were bad at present, for truckmen who worked 
in the store-rooms said that these were piled up to the ceil- 
ings, so that the firm could not have found room for an* 
other week's output of cans. And they had turned off 
three-quarters of these men, which was a still worse sign, 
since it meant that there were no orders to be filled. It 
was all a swindle, can-painting, said the girls — you were 
crazy with delight because you were making twelve or 
fourteen dollars a week, ana saving half of it ; but you 
had to spend it all keeping alive while you were out, and 
00 your pay was really only half what you thought. 

Marija came home, and because she was a person who 
could not rest without danger of explosion, they first had 
a great house-cleaning, and then she set out to search 
Packingtown for a job to fill up the gap. As nearly aU 
the canning-establishments were shut down, and all the 

firls hunting work, it will be readily understood that 
[arija did not find any. Then she took to trying thti 
stores and saloons, and when this failed she even travelled 
over into the far-distant regions near the lake front, where 
lived the rich people in great palaces, and begged there 
for some sort of work that could be done by a person who 
did not know English. 

The men upon the killing-beds felt also the effects of 
the slump which had turned Marija out ; but they felt it ip 
a different way, and a way which made Jurgis understand 
at last all their bitterness. The big packers did not turn 
their hands off and close down, like t!he canning-faotories) 



THE JUNGLE 103 

bat they began to mn for shorter and shorter hours. 
They had always required the men to be on the killing- 
beds and ready for work at seven o'clock, although there 
was almost never any work to be done till the buyers 
out in the yards had gotten to work, and some cattle had 
eome over the chutes. That would often be ten or eleven 
o'clock, which was bad enough, in all conscience ; but now, 
in the slack season, they would perhaps not have a thing 
for their men to do tUl late in the afternoon. And so 
they would have to loaf around, in a place where the 
thermometer might be twenty deg^es oelow zero I At 
first one would see them running about, or skylarking 
with each other, trying to keep warm ; but before the day 
was over they would become quite chilled through and 
exhausted, and, when the cattle finally came, so near frozen 
that to move was an agony. And then suddenly the place 
would spring into activity, and the merciless ^^ speeding- 
up" would begin I 

There were weeks at a time when Jurgis went home 
after such a day as this with not more tbein two hours' 
work to his credit — which meant about thirty-five cents. 
There were many days when the total was less than half 
an hour, and ouiers when there was none at all. The 

feneral average was six hours a day, which meant for 
ur^ about six dollars a week ; and this six hours of 
worK would be done after standing on the killing-bed till 
one o'clock, or perhaps even three or four o'clock, in the 
afternoon. like as not there would come a rush of cattle 
at the very end of the day, which the men would have to 
dispose of before they went home, often working by 
electric light till nine or ten, or even twelve or one o'clock, 
and without a single instant for a bite of supper. The 
men were at the mercv of the cattle. Perhaps the buyers 
would be holding off for better prices — if they could scare 
the shippers into thinking that they meant to buy nothing 
lliat day, they could get their own terms. For some 
BBason the cost of fodder for cattle in the yards was much 
above the market price — and you were not allowed to 
bring your own fodder I Then, too, a number of cars were 



104 THB JUNGLB 

apt to arrive late in the day, now that &e roads wen 
blocked with snow, and the packers would buy their 
cattle that night, to get them cheaper, and then would 
come into play their iron«clad rule, tnat all cattle must bo 
killed the same day they were bought. There was no use 
kicking about this— -tliere had been one delegation after 
another to see the packers about it, only to be told that it was 
the rule, and that there was not the slightest chance of 
its ever being altered. And so on Christmas Eve Jurgis 
worked till nearly one o*clock in the morning, and on 
Christmas Day he was on the killing-bed at seven o'clock. 
Ail Ihis was bad ; and yet it was not the worst. For 
after all the hard work a man did, he was paid for only 
part of it. Jurgis had once been among those who scoffed 
at the idea of these huge concerns cheating ; and so now he 
could appreciate the bitter ironv of the fact that it was 
precisely their size which enabled them to do it with 
impunity. One of the rules on the killing-becLs was that a 
mi^whowasoQa minute late vas docked an hour; and 
this was economical, for he was made to work the bsJance 
of the hour— he was not allowed to stand round and 
wait. And on the other hand if he came ahead of time he 
got no pay for that ^-though often the bosses would start 
up the gang ten or fifteen minutes before the whistle. 
And this same custom they carried over to the end of the 
day; they did not pay for anv fraction of an hour— for 
^broken time.** A man mimt work full fifty minutes, 
but if there was no work to ml out the hour, there was no 
pay for him. Thus the end of 9very da^r was a sort oi 
lottery — a struggle, all but breaking into open war 
between the bosses and the men, the former trying to 
rush a job throu&^h and the latter trying to stretch it out. 
inrgiB blamed the bosses for this, though the truth to bo 
tola it was not always th^r fault; for the packers kept 
them frightened for their lives — and when one was m 
danger of falling behind the standard, what was easier 
than to catch tip bv making the gang work awhile ^fof 
the church*'? This was a savage witticism the men 
had, which Jurgis had to have explained to hinu OI4 



THE jmraui 105 

man Jones was great on missions and snoh things, and so 
whenever they were doing some particularly disreputable 
jobf the men would wink at each other and say, ^Now 
we^re working for the ohurch t ** 

One of the consequences of all these tilings was that 
Jxxms was no long^er ^rnlexed when he heard men talk 
of fighting for their rights. He felt like &;hting now 
himself; and when the Irish delegate of the butcher* 
helpers* union came to him a second time, he received him 
in a far different spirit. A wonderful idea it now seemed 
to Jorgis, this of the men— that by combining they 
might he able to make a stand and conquer the packers t 
Jurgis wondered who had first thought of it ; and when 
he was told that it was a common tmng for men to do in 
America, he got the first inkling of a meaning in the 
phrase ^ a free country.** The delegate explained to him 
now it depended upon their being able to get every man 
to join and stand b^ the organization, and so Jurgis sig^ 
nified that he was willing to do his share. Before another 
month was by, all the working members of his fiunily had 
onion cards, and wore their union buttons conspicuously 
and with pride. For fully a week they were quite bliss* 
folly happy, tliinking that belonging to a onion meant an 
end of all their troubles. 

But only ten days after she had joined, Marija*s canning* 
factory closed down, and that blow quite staggered them. 
They could not understand why the union nad not pre- 
Tented it, and the very first time she attended a meeting 
Marija got up and inade a speech about it. It was a 
business meeting, and was transacted in English, but 
that made no difference to Marija ; she said what was in 
her, and aU the pounding of the chairman*s gavel and all 
the uproar and confusion in the room could not prevaiL 
Quite apart from her own troubles she was boiling over 
idth a general sense of the injustice of it, and she told 
what she thought of the packers, and what she thought 
of a world where such things were allowed to happen | 
and then, while the echoes of the haU rang with the shock 
of her terriUd voioe, she sat down again and fanned her- 



106 THB JfUSQlM 

■elf, tind the meeting gathered itself together and pHv 
oeeded to discuss the election of a recording secretary. 
Jorgis too had an adventure the first time be attended 
a union meetings but it was not of his own seeking. 
Jurgis had gone with the desire to get into an inconspic- 
uous comer and see what was done ; but this attitude of 
silent and open-eyed attention luxl marked him out for a 
victinu Tommy Finnegan was a little Irishman^ with 
big staring eyes and a wild aspect, a ** bolster ^ by trade» 
and badly cracked* Somewhere back in the far-distant 
past Tommy Finnegan had had a strange experiencei and 
the burden of it rested upon him* All the balance of his 
life he had done nothing but try to make it understood* 
When he talked he caught his victim by the buttonholei 
and his face kept coming closer and closer —- which was 
trving, because his teeth were so bad. Jurgis did not 
mmd tiiat, only he was frightened. The methra of opera* 
tion of the higner intelligences was Tom Finnegan^s theme, 
and he desired to find out if Jurgb had ever considered 
that the representation of things m their present similar- 
ity might be idtogether unintelligible upon a more elevated 
plane. There were assuredly wonderrul mysteries about 
the developingof these things ; and then, becoming coii> 
fidential, Mr. Finnegan proceeded to tell of some mscov* 
eries of his own. ^ If ye have iver had onything to do 
wid shperrits,** said he, and looked inquiringly at Jurgis, 
who kept shaking his head. ^ Niver mind, niver mind,** 
continued the ower, *^but their infiuences may be oper> 
atin* upon ye ; it^s shure as Vm tellin' ye, it*s them that 
has the reference to the immejit surroundings that has the 
most of power. It was voucnsafed to me in me youthful 
days to be acqmunted widi shperrits** — and so Tommy 
Finnegan went on, expounding a system^ of philosophyt 
while the perspiration came out on Jurgis*s forehead, so 
great was his agitation and embarrassment. In the end 
one of the men, seeing his plight, came over and rescued 
him; but it was some time ben>re he was able to find any 
one to explain things to him, and meanwhile his fear lert 
the strange little Irishman should get him cornered again 



THE JUNGLK 107 

tnm enough to keep him dodging aboat the room the 
whole evening. 

He never missed a meeting, however. He had picked 
up a few words of English by this time, and friends would 
help him to understand. They were often very turbulent 
meetings, with half a dozen men declaiming at once, in 
as many dialects of English ; but the speakers were all 
desperately in earnest, and Jurgis was in earnest too, for 
he understood that a fight was on, and that it was his 
fight. Since the time of his disillusionment, Jurgis had 
sworn to trust no man, except in his own family; but 
here he discovered that he had brothers in affliction, and 
allies. Their one chance for life was in union, and so 
the struggle became a kind of crusade. Jurgis had al* 
wavs been a member of the church, because it was the 
right thing to be, but the church had never touched him, 
he left all that for the women. Here, however, was a 
new religion — one that did touch him, that took hold of 
every fibre of him ; and with all the zeal and fury of a 
convert he went out as a missionary. There were many 
non-union men among the Lithuanians, and with these 
he would labor and wrestle in prayer, trying to show 
them the right. Sometimes they would be obstinate and 
refuse to see it, and Jurgis, alas, was not always patient I 
He iorgot how he himself had been blind, a short time 
ago — after the fashion of all crusaders since the original 
ones, who set out to spread the gospel of Brotherho(^ by 
force of arma. 



CHAPTER IX 

Okb of the first consequences of the discoveiy of the 
onion was that Jurgis became desirous of learning English. 
He wanted to know what was going on at the meetings, 
and to be able to take part in them ; and so he began to 
look about him, and to try to pick up words. The chil- 
dren, who were at school, and leamin^^ fast, would teach 
him a few ; and a friend loaned him a Uttle book that had 
some in it, and Ona would read them to him. Then Jurgis 
became sorry that he could not read himself ; and later on 
in the winter, when some one told him that there was a 
night-school that was free, he went and enrolled* After 
that, every evening that he got home from the yards in 
time, he would go to the school ; he would go even if he 
were in time for onlv half an hour. They were teachine 
him both to read ana to speak English -— and thev would 
have taught him other things, if only he had had a little 
time. 

Also the union made another great difference with him 
—it made him begin to pay attention to the country. It 
was the beginning of democracy with him. It was a little 
state, the union, a miniature republic ; its affairs were evory 
man's affairs, and every man had a real say about them. 
In other words, in the union Jurgis learned to talk politics. 
In the place where he had come from there had not been 
any politics — in Russia one thought of the government 
as an afiSiction like the lightning and the hau* ^ Duck, 
litUe brother, duck,** the wise old peasants would whisper ; 
** everything passes away.** And when Jurgis had first 
oome to America he had supposed that it was the same. 
He had heard people say that it was a free country — bok 
vrbat did that mean? He found that here, preoisely as in 

lOS 



THE JUNGLE 100 

Boflsia, ^kmte were rich men who owned everything; and 
if one coold not find any work, was not the hanger he 
began to feel the same sort of hunger? 

When Jurgis had been working about three weeks at 
Brown% there had come to him one noon-time a man who 
was employed as a night-watchman, and who asked him if 
he would not like to take out naturalization papers and be* 
come a citizen, Jursps did not know what that meanti 
but the man expliuned the advantaffes. In the first placeu 
it would not cost him anything, ana it would get him half 
a day off, with his pay just thosame; and then when elec* 
tion time came he would be able to vote *— and there was 
something in that. Jurgis was naturally glad to accept, 
and so tm night-watchman said a few woras to the boss, 
and he was excused for the rest of the day. When, later 
on, he wanted a holiday to get married he could not get 
it; and as for a holiday wiw pay just the same-* what 
power had wrought that miracle neayen only knew t How* 
ever, he went with the man, who picked up several other 
newly landed imnugrants, Poles, Lithuanians, and Slovaks, 
and took them all outside, where stood a great four-horse 
tally-ho coach, with fifteen or twenty men already in it* 
It was a fine chance to see the sights of the city, and the 
party had a merry time, with plenty of boer handed up 
from inside. So they drove down-town and stopped before 
an impodng granite building, in which they mterviewed 
an official, who had the papers all ready, with only the 
names to be filled in. So each man in turn took an oath 
of which he did not understand a word, and then was pre- 
sented with a handsome ornamented document with a oiff 
red seal and the shield of the United States upon it, and 
was told that he had become a citizen of the Republic and 
the equal of the President himself. 

A month or two later Jurgis had another interview with 
this same man, who told him where to go to ^ register.** 
And then finally, when election day came, the packing- 
bouses posted a notice that men who desired to vote might 
remain away until nine that morning, and the same ni^t- 
watohman took Jurgis and the rest of his flock into the 



no THE JUNGLE 

back room of a saloon, and showed each of them where 
and how to mark a ballot, and then gave each two dollars, 
and took them to the polling place, where there was a 
policeman on duty especially to see that they got through 
all right* Jurgis felt quite proud of this good luck till 
he got home and met Jonas, who had taken the leader 
aside and whispered to him, offering to vote three times 
for four dollars, which offer bad been accepted* 

And now in the union Jurgis met men who explained 
all this mystery to him; and he learned that America 
differed from Russia in that its government existed under 
the form of a democracy* The officials who ruled it, and 
got all the graft, had to be elected first ; and so there were 
two rival sets of grafters, known as political parties, and 
the one got the office which bought the most votes. Now 
and then the election was very close, and that was the 
time the poor man came in* In the stockyards this was 
only in national and state elections, for in local elections 
the democratic party always carried everything* The 
ruler of the district was therefore the democratic boss, 
a little Irishman named Mike Scully* Scullv held an 
important party office in the state, and bossed even the 
mayor of the city, it was said ; it was his boast that he 
carried the stockyards in his pocket* He was an enor- 
mously rich man — he had a hand in all the big graft in 
the neighborhood. It was Scully, for instance, who owned 
that dump which Jurgis and Ona had seen the first day 
of their arrival* Not only did he own the dump, but he 
owned the brick-factory as well ; and first he took out the 
clay and made it into bricks, and then he had the city 
bring garbage to fill up the hole, so that he could build 
houses to sell to the people* Then, too, he sold the bricks 
to the city, at his own price, and the city came and got 
them in ite own wagons. And also he owned the ower 
hole near by, where the stagnant water was ; and it was 
he who cut the ice and sold it ; and what was more, if the 
men told truth, he had not had to pay any taxes for the 
water, and he had built the ice-house out of city lumber, 
and had not had to pay anything for that. The news- 



THE JUNGLB HI 

papen had got hold of that story, and there had heen a 
acandal; but Scully had hired somebody to confess and 
take all the blame, and then skip the country. It was 
said, too, that he had built his brick-kiln in the same way, 
and that the workmen were on the city pay-roll while they 
did it; however, one had to press closely to get these 
things out of the men, for it was not their business, and 
Mike Scully was a good man to stand in with. A note 
signed by him was equal to a job any time at the packing- 
houses ; and also he employed a good many men himself, and 
worked them only eight hours a day, and paid them the 
highest wages. This gave him many friends — all of whom 
be had gotten together into the ^War-Whoop League,** 
whose club-house you might see just outside of the yards. 
It was the biggest club-house, and the biggest club, in all 
Chicago ; and they had prize-fights every now and then, 
and cock-fights and even dog-fights. Tne policemen in 
tiie district all belonged to the league, and instead of sup- 
pressing the fights, they sold tickets for them. The man 
that had taken Jurgis to be naturalized was one of these 
^ Indians," as they were called; and on election day there 
would be hundreds of them out, and all with big wads of 
money in their pockets and free drinks at every saloon in 
the (ustrict* That was another thing, the men said — all 
the saloon-keepers had to be ^^ Indians,'* and to put up on 
demand, otherwise they could not do business on Sundays, 
nor have any gambling at all. In the same way Scully 
bad all the jobs in the nre department at his disposid, and 
all the rest of the city graft in the stockyards district ; he 
was buildine a blocK of flats somewhere up on Ashland 
Avenue, and the man who was overseeing it for him was 
drawing pay as a city inspector of sewers. The city in* 
wpectoT of water-pipes had been dead and buried for over 
m year, but somebody was still drawing his pay. The city 
inspector of sidewalks was a bar-keeper at the War-Whoop 
cafe -^ and maybe he could not make it uncomfortable for 
may tradesman who did not stand in with Scully I 

Even the packers were in awe of him, so the men said. 
It gave them pleasure to believe this, for Scully stood as 



112 THE JUNGLE 

the peopIe^s man, and boasted of it boldly when election 
day came. The packers had wanted a bndge at Ashland 
Avenue, bat they had not been able to get it till they had 
seen Scully ; and it was the same with ^ Bubbly Creek,'' 
which the city had threatened to make the pacKers cover 
over, till Scully had come to their aid. *' Bubbly Creek** 
is an arm of the Chicago River, and forms the southern 
boundary of the yards ; all the drainage of the square mile 
of packing-houses empties into it, so that it is recdly a great 
open sewer a hundred or two feet wide. One long arm of 
it is blind, and the filth stays there forever and a day. 
The grease and chemicals that are poured into it undergo 
ail sorts of strange transformations, which are the cause 
of its name ; it is constantly in motion, as if huge fish were 
feeding in it, or ereat leviathans disporting themselves in 
its depths. Bubbles of carbonic acid gas will rise to the 
surface and burst, and make linm two or three feet wide. 
Here and there the grease and nlth have caked solid, and 
the creek looks like a bed of lava ; chickens walk about on 
it, feeding, and manv times an unwary stranger has started 
to stroll across, and vanished temporarily. The packers 
used to leave the creek that way, till every now and then 
the surface would catch on fire and burn furiouslv, and 
the fire department would have to come and put it out. 
Once, however, an ingenious stranger came and started to 
gather this filth in scows, to make lard out of ; then the 
packers took the cue, and got out an injunction to stop 
Idm, and afterwards gathered it themselves. The banks 
of ^ Bubbly Creek '* are plastered thick with hairs, and 
this also the packers gather and clean. 

And there were things even stranger than this, accord* 
ing to the gossip of the men. The packers had secret 
mains, through which they stole billions of gallons of 
the citv^s water. The newspapers had been full of this 
scandal — once there had even been an investigation^ and 
an actual uncovering of the pipes ; but nobody had been 
punished, and the thing went right on. And then there 
was the condamnod meat industry, with its endless hor« 
rors. The people of Chicago saw the government in- 



THE JUNaiiB US 

spectors in Paokingtown, and tliey all took that to mean 
that they were proteoted from cuseased meat; they did 
not understand that these hundred and sixty-three in» 
spectors had been appointed at the reouest of the packers, 
and that l^ey were paid by the Unitea States government 
to certify that all the dis^used meat was kept in the state* 
They had no authority beyond that; for the inspection 
of meat to be sold in the city and state the whole force 
in Packingtown consisted of three henchmen of the local 
political machine I * And shortly afterward one of these, 
a physician, made the discoyery that the carcasses of 
steers which had been condemned as tubercular by the 
government inspectors, and which therefore contained 
ptomaines, which are deadly poisons, were left upon an 
open platform and carted away to be sold in the cit^; 
and so he insisted that these carcasses be treated with 
an injection of kerosene— -and was ordered to resign 
the same weekt So indignant were the packers wbA 
they went farther, and compelled the mayor to abolish the 
whole bureau of inspection ; so that since then there has 
not been even a pretence of any interference with the ffraft. 
There was said to be two thousand dollars a week hush- 
money from the tubercular steers alone ; and as much 

• ^Rnte and BegalatioiiB for the Iiupeotion of Live 8to6k and thoir 
Products." United States Department of Agiiooltore, Bnreaa of Animal 
Industries, Order No. 125: — 

SsoTioH 1. Proprietors of slan^terhonses, canning, salting, packing, 
or rendering establishments engaged in the slan^^terhig of oatUe, sheep^ 
or swine, or the packing of any of their products, iKe earcaasM or prod' 
wets of wMeh are to became etUiiecte of interstate or foreign eommerce^^ 
iball make application to the Secretary of Agricnltore for inspection of 
Mid aoimals and their products. • • . 

Sbctioh 15. Such rejected or condemned ftwtmaia ghaU at once be 
ivmoTed by the owners from the pens containing j^nimaJg which haye 
been inspected and found to be free from disease and fit for human food« 
and shcOl be disposed of in accordance with the laws^ ordinances^ anM 
regtOations of ths state and munidpalitg in tehich said refected or oon- 
demned animals are located, . . . 

Sxcnov 25. A microecopic examination f6r trichina shall be made of 
all swine products exported to countries requiring such examination. Jfa 
microscopic examination wiXl be mad€ of hogs slaughtered for interstate 
trade^ but this examination shdU be eoi^ned to those intended for the 
export trade. 



«p 



114 THE JUNGLK 

•gain from the hogs whioh had died of cholera on the 
tniins, and which you might see any day being loaded into 
box-cars and hauled away to a place called Glote, in Indiuiai 
where they made a fancy grade of lard. 

Jurgis heard of these tlmigs little by little, in the gossip 
of those who were obliged to perpetrate them. It seemed 
as if eyery time you met a person from a new department^ 
you heard of new swindles and new crimes. There wasi 
lor instance, a Lithuanian who was a cattle-butcher for the 
plant where Marija had worked, which killed meat for can- 
ning only ; and to hear this man describe the animals which 
came to his place would haye been worth while for a Dante 
or a Zola. It seemed that they must haye ac^ncies all oyer 
the country, to hunt out old and crippled and diseased 
cattle to be canned. There were cattle which had 
been fed on ^whiskey-malt,*' the refuse of the brew- 
eries, and had become what the men called ^ steerly ** — 
which means coyered with boils. It was a nasty job kill* 
ing these, for when you plunged your knife into them they 
would burst and splash foul-smelling stuff into your face ; 
and when a man's sleeyes were smeared with blood, and his 
hands steeped in it, how was he oyer to wipe his face, or to 
clear his eyes so that he could see? It was stuff such as 
this that made the ^^ embalmed beef ^ that had killed sey^ 
end times as many United States soldiers as all the bullets 
of the Spaniards; only the army beef, besides, was not 
fresh canned, it was old stuff that had been lying for 
years in the cellars. 

Then one Sunday eyening, Jurgis sat puffin? his pipe by 
Che kitchen stoye, and talking with an old fellow whom 
Jonas had introduced, and who worked in the canning- 
rooms at Durham's; and so Jurgis learned a few things 
about the great and only Durham canned goods, which 
had become a national institution. They were regular 
alchemists at Durham's; they adyertised a mushroom- 
oatsup, and the men who made it did not know what a 
mushroom looked like. They adyertised ^ potted chicken,'* 
— >and it was like the boarding-house soup of the comie 
papers, through which a chicken had walked with rub* 



THE JTTNGLK lltf 

bers OTL Perhaps they had a secret pro*3e88 for making 
chickens chemically— -who knows? said Jurgis^s friend; 
the things that went into the mixture were tripe, and 
the fat of pork, and beef suet, and hearts of beef, and 
finally the waste ends of veal, when they had any. They 
put uieae up in several grades, and sold them at several 
prices ; but the conteots of the cans all came out of the 
same hopper. And then there was ^^ potted game" and 
«* potted grouse,'* ** potted ham,** and ** devilled ham " — 
de-vyled, as the men called it. *^De-vyled'* ham was 
made out of the waste ends of smoked beef that were 
too small to be sliced by the machines; and also tripe, 
dyed with chemicals so that it would not show white; 
and trimmings of hams and corned beef; and potatoes, 
skins and all ; and finally the hard cartilaginous gullets 
of beef, after the tongues had been cut out. All this 
ingenious mixture was ground up and flavored with 
q>ice8 to make it taste like someUiing. Anvbody who 
could invent a new imitation had been sure of a f ortime 
from old Durham, said Jurgis's informant; but it was 
hard to think of anything new in a place where so many 
diarp wits had been at work for so long; where men wel* 
oomed tuberculosis in the cattle they were feeding, because 
it made them fatten more quickly; and where they bought 
up all tiie old rancid butter left over in the grocery-stores of 
a continent, and ^^ oxidized '^ it by a forced-air process, to 
isaSke away the odor, rechumed it with skim-milk, and sold 
it in bricks in the cities I Up to a year or two ago it had 
been the custom to kill horses in the yards — ostensibly 
for fertilizer ; but after long agitation the newspapers had 
been able to make the public realize that the horses were 
being canned. Now it was against the law to kill horses in 
Pacungtown, and the law was really complied with— for 
the present, at any rate. Any day, however, one might 
0ee sharp-homed and shaggy-haired creatures running 
with the sheep — and yet what a job you would have to 
get the public to believe that a good part of what it buys 
for lamb and mutton is really goat's flesh I 

Hiere was another interestmg set of statistics that a 




7 



THE JUNGLE 

person might have gathered in Packinfi^wn — those of the 
various afflictions of the workers. When Jurgis had first 
inspected the packing-plants with Szedvilas, he had mar" 
f elled while he listened to the tale of all the things that 
were made out of the carcasses of animals, and of tdl the 
lesser industries that were maintained there; now he 
found that each one of these lesser industries was a 
separate little inferno, in its way as horrible as the 
kiUing-beds, the source and fountain of them all. The 
workers in each of them had their own peculiar diseases. 
And the wandering visitor might be sceptical about all 
the swindles, but he could not be sceptical about these, 
for the worker bore the evidence of them about on his 
own person— -generally he had only to hold out his 
hand* 

There were the men in the pickle-rooms, for instanooi 
where old Antanas had gotten his death ; scarce a one of 
these that had not some spot of horror on his person* 
Let a man so much as scrape his finger pushing a truck 
in the pickle-rooms, and he mi^ht have a sore that would 
put him out of the world; au the joints in his fingers 
might be eaten by the acid, one by one. Of the butchers 
and floorsmen, the beef -boners and trimmers, ana all those 
who used knives, you could scarcely find a person who 
had the use of his thumb ; time and time again the base 
of it had been slashed, till it was a mere lump of flesh 
against which the man pressed the knife to hold it. The 
hands of these men would be criss-crossed with cuts, until 
you could no loncrer pretend to count them or to trace 
them. They would have no nails, — they had worn them 
oS pulling hides; their knuckles were swollen so that 
their finders spread out like a fan. There were men who 
worked m the cooking-rooms, in the midst of steam and 
sickening odors, by artificial light; in these rooms the 
germs of tuberculosis might live for two years, but the 
supply was renewed every hour. There were the beef- 
luggers, who carried two-huudred-pound quarters into 
the refrigerator-cars ; a fearful kind of work, that began 
at four o'clock in the morning, and that wore out the 



THE JUNGLE U7 

most powerful men in a few years. There were those 
who worked in the chilling-rooms, and whose special 
disease was rheumatism; the time-limit that a man could 
work in the chilling-rooms was said to be five years. 
jThrre were the wool-pluckers, whose hands went to 
pieces even sooner than the hands of the pickle-men; 
for the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid 
to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull 
oat this wool with their bare hands, till the acid had 
eaten their fingers off. There were those who made the 
tins for the canned-meat; and their hands, too, were a 
maze of cuts, and each cut represented a chance for blood« 
poisoning. Some worked at the stamping-machines, and 
it was very seldom that one could worK long there at the 
pace that waa set, and not give out and forget himself, 
and have a part of his hand chopped off. There were the 
^ hoisters,'' as they were called, whose task it was to press 
the lever which lifted the dead cattle off the floor* They 
ran along upon a rafter, peering down through the damp 
and the steam ; and as old Durham's architects had not 
bmlt the killing-room for the convenience of the hoisters, 
at every few feet they would have to stoop under a beam, 
say four feet above the one they ran on ; which got them 
into the habit of stooping, so that in a few years they 
would be walking like chimpanzees. Worst of any, how- 
ever, were the fertilizer-men, and those who served in the 
cooking-rooms. These people could not be shown to 
the visitor,— -for the odor of a fertilizer-man would scare 
any ordinary visitor at a hundred yards, and as for the 
other men, who worked in tank-rooms full of steam, and 
in some of which there were open vats near the level of the 
floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats ; 
and when they were fished out, there was never enough 
of them left to be worth exhibiting, — sometimes they 
would be overlooked for days, till ^1 but the bones of 
them had gone out to the world as Durham's Pure Leaf 
Lardl 



■ 



CHAPTER X 

DxmiKO the earl^ part of the winter the family had had 
money enough to hve and a little over to pay their debts 
with ; but when the earnings of Jurgis fell from nine or 
ten dollars a week to five or six, there was no longer any- 
thing to spare. The winter went, and thu spring came, 
and found them still living thus from hand to mouth, 
hangine on day by day, with literally not a month's 
wages oetween them and starvation* Marija was in 
despair, for there was still no word about the reopen- 
ing of the canning-factory, and her savings were al- 
most entirely gone. She had had to give up all idea of 
marrying then ; the family could not get along without 
her— -though for that matter she was likely soon to 
become a burden even upon them, for when her money 
was all gone, they would have to pay back what they 
owed her in board. So Jurgis and Ona and Teta 
Elzbieta would hold anxious conferences until late at 
ni^ht, trying to figure how they could manage this too 
without starving. 

Such were the cruel terms upon which their life was 
possible, that they might never nave nor expect a single 
instant's respite from wornr, a single instant in which they 
were not haimted by the tnought of money. They would 
no sooner escape, as by a miracle, from one difficulty, than 
a new one would come into view. In addition to all Uieii 
physical hardships, there was thus a constant strain upon 
their minds ; they were harried all day and nearly all night 
by worry and fear. This was in truth not living ; it was 
scarcely even existing, and they felt that it was too little 
for the price they paid. They were willing to work all 

lis 



THE JJTSQUi 119 

the time ; and when people did their best, ought they not 
to be able to keep alive ? 

There seemed never to be an end to the things they had 
to bny and to the unforeseen contingencies. Once their 
water-pipes froze and burst ; and when, in their ignorance* 
they thawed them out, they had a terrifying flood in their 
house. It happened while the men were awav, and poor 
Blzbieta rushed out into the street screaming for help, for 
she did not even know whether the flood could be stopped, 
or whether they were ruined for life. It was nearly as bad 
as the latter, they found in the end, for the plumber charged 
them seventy-five cents an hour, and seventy-five cents for 
another man who had stood and watched him, and included 
all the time the two had been going and coming, and also 
a charge for all sorts of materud and extras. And then 
again, when they went to pay their January's instalment 
on the house, the agent terrified them by asking them if 
they had had the insurance attended to ^et. In answer to 
their inauiry he showed them a clause in the deed which 
pirovidea that they were to keep the house insured for one 
thousand dollars, as soon as tne present policy ran out, 
which would happen in a few days. Poor Elzbieta, upon 
whom again fell the blow, demanded how much it would 
cost them. Seven dollars, the man said ; and that night 
came Jurgis, grim and determined, requesting that the 
agent woi^d w good enough to inform him, once for all, 
as to all the expenses they were liable for. The deed was 
signed now, he said, with sarcasm proper to the new way 
of life he had learned — the deed was signed, and so the 
agent had no longer anything to gain by keeping quiet. 
And Jurgis looked the fellow squarely in the eye, and so 
he did^ not waste any time in conventional protests, but 
read him the deed. They would have to renew the insur- 
ance every year ; they would have to pay the taxes, about 
ten dollars a year ; they would have to pay the water-tax, 
about six dollars a year — (Jurgis silently resolved to shut 
ofiF the hydrant). This, besides the interest and the 
monthly instalments, would be all — unless by chance the 
eity should happen to deoide to pat in a sewer or to lay a 



120 THE J17NGLB 

ddewalk. Yes, said the a^nt, they would have to havB 
these, whether they wanted them or not, if the city said 
so. The sewer would cost them about twenty-two dol* 
lars, and the sidewalk fifteen if it were wood, twenty-five 
if it were cements 

So Jurgis went home again ; it was a relief to know the 
worst, at any rate, so that he could no more be surprised 
by fresh demands. He saw now how they had been plun* 
dered; but they were in for it, there was no turning back* 
They could only go on and make the fight and win— for 
defeat was a thing that could not even t^ thought of. 

When the springtime came, they were delivered from 
the dreadful cold, and that was a great deal ; but in addi- 
tion they had coimted on the money they would not have 
to pay for coal -* and it was just at this time that Marija*s 
board bec^an to f alL Then, too, the warm weather brought 
trials of its own ; each season had its trials, as they found. 
In the spring there were cold rains, that turned the streets 
into canals and bogs ; the mud would be so deep that 
wagons would sink up to the hubs, so that half a dozen 
horses could not move them. Then, of course, it was im« 
possible for any one to get to work with dry feet ; and thia 
was bad for men that were poorly clad and shod, and still 
worse for women and children. Later came midsummer, 
with the stifling heat, when the dingy killing-beds of 
Durham's became a vexr purgatory; one time, in a 
single day, three men fell dead from sunstroke. All day 
long the rivers of hot blood poured forth, until, witii tlie 
sun beatinff down, and the i^ motionless, the stench was 
enough to knock a man over ; all the old smells of a genera* 
I tion would be drawn out by this heat — for there was never 
any washing of the walls and rafters and pillars, and they 
were caked with the filth of a lifetime. The men who 
worked on the killins^-beds would come to reek with foul- 
ness, so that you cotud smell one of them fifty feet away; 
there was simply no such thing as keepiiuf deoent, the 
most careful man gave it up in the end, and wallowed in 
nndeanness. There was not even a place where a man 
could wash his handsi and the men ate as muoh raw Uood 



THE JUNGLE 121 

m food at diimer*time. When they were at work they 
oould not even wipe off their faces — - they were as helpless 
as newly bom babes in that respect ; ana it may seem like 
a small matter, but when the sweat began to ran down their 
necks and tickle them, or a fly to bother them, it was a tor- 
tare like being burned alive. Whether it was the slaugh- 
ter-houses or the dumps that were responsible, one could 
not say^ but with the hot weather there descended upon 
PacUngtown a veritable Egyptian plaguy of flies ; there 
eould he no describing this-— the houses would be black 
with thenu There was no escaping ; you might provide 
all your doors and windows with screens, but their buzzing 
oatside would be like the swarming of bees, and whenever 
Tou opened the door they would rush in as if a storm of 
wind were drivmg them. 

Perhaps the simmier-time suggests to you thoughts of 
the country, visions of green nelds and mountains and 
sparkling lakes. It had no such suggestion for the people 
in the yards. The great packing-machine ground on 
remorselessly^ without thinkmg of green fields ; and the 
men and women and children who were part of it never 
saw any green thing, not even a flower. Four or five miles 
to the east of them lay the blue waters of Lake Michigan ; 
but for all the good it did them it might have been as far 
away as the Pacific Ocean. They had only Sundays, and 
iben they were too tired to walk. They were tied to the 
great packing-machine, and tied to it for life. The man* 
•gers and superintendents and clerks of Packingtown were 
i£ recruited from another dass, and never from the 
workers ; they scorned the workers, the very meanest of 
thenu A poor devil of a bookkeeper who had been work- 
ing in Durham's for twenty years at a salary of six dollars 
a week| and might work there for twenty more and do no 
better, would yet consider himself a gentleman, as far 
removed as the poles from the most skilled worker on the 
killing4>eds; he would dress differently, and live in 
another part of the town, and oome to work at a different 
Koor <rf the day,and in every way make sure that he never 
mUbed elbows with a labdxing-man. Perhaps this war 



122 THE JUNGLE 

due to the repulsiyeness of the work ; at any rate, th« 
people who worked with their hands were a class aparti 
and were made to feel it. 

In the late spring the canning-factory started up again, and 
so once more Marija was heard to sing, and the love-musio 
of Tamoszius took on a less melancholy tone. It was not 
for long, however ; for a month or two later a dreadful 
calamity fell upon Marija. Just one year and three days 
after she had l)egun work as a can-painter, she lost her 
job. 

It was a long story. Marija insisted that it was because 
of her activity in the union. The packers, of course, had 
spies in all the unions, and in addition they made a prac« 
tice of buying up a certain number of the union officials, as 
many as they thought they needed. So every week they 
received reports as to what was goine on, ana often they 
knew things before the members of we union knew them. 
Any one who was considered to be dangerous by them 
would find that he was not a favorite with his boss ; and 
Marija had been a great hand for going after the foreign 
people and preachmg to them. However that might be, 
the known facts were that a few weeks before the factory 
closed, Marija had been cheated out of her pay for three 
hundred cans. The girls worked at a long table, and 
behind them walked a woman with pencil and notebook, 
keeping count of the number they finished. This woman 
was, of course, only human, and sometimes made mistakes; 
when this happened, there was no redress — if on Saturday 
you got less money than you had earned, you had to make 
the best of it. But Marija did not understand this, and 
made a disturbance. Marija^s disturbances did not mean 
anything, and while she had known only Lithuanian and 
Polish, they had done no harm, for people onlv laughed 
at her and made her cry. But now Marija was able to call 
names in English, ana so she got the woman who made 
the mistake to disliking her. Probably, as Marija claimed, 
she made mistakes on purpose after that ; at any rate, she 
made them, and the tnird time it happened Marija went 
on the war*patih and took the matter nrot to the f orelady 



THE JUNGLB 123 

and when she got no satisfaction there, to the snperin* 
tendent. This was unheard-of presumption, but the super* 
intendent said he would see about it, which Marija took to 
mean that she was going to get her money ; after waiting 
three days, she went to see the superintendent again* 
This time the man frowned, and said that he had not haQ 
time to attend to it ; and when Marija, against the advice 
and warning of every one, tried it once more, he ordered 
her back to her work in a passion* Just how things hap* 
pened after that Marija was not sure, but that afternoon 
the forelady told her that her services would not be any 
longer required. Poor Marija could not have been more 
dnmf ounded had the woman knocked her over the head ; 
at first she could not beHeve what she heard, and then 
she grew furious and swore that she would come anyway^ 
that her place belonged to her. In the end she sat down 
in the middle of the floor and wept and wailed. 

It was a cruel lesson ; but then Marija was headstrong— 
she should have listened to those who had had experience. 
The next time she would know her place, as the forelady 
expressed it; and so Marija went out, and the family 
xaced the problem of an existence a^ain. 

It was especially hard this time, for Ona was to be con* 
fined before long, and Jurgis was trving hard to save up 
money for this. He had heard dreadnil stories of the mid* 
wives, who grow as thick as fleas in Packingtown ; and he 
had made up his mind that Ona must have a man-doctor. 
Jurgis could be very obstinate when he wanted to, and 
he wtis in this case, much to the dismay of the women, 
who felt that a man-doctor was an impropriety, and that 
the matter really belonged to them. The cheapest doctor 
they could find would charge them fifteen 'dollars, and 

Serhaps more when the bill came in ; and here was Jurgis, 
eclaring that he would pay it, even if he had to stop eat- 
ing in the meantime I 

Marija had only about twenty-five dollars left. Day 
ftfter day she wandered about the yards begging a job, but 
tins time without liope of findinflr it. Marija could do the 
wofk of an able-boaied man, vmen she was cheerful, but 



124 £HE JITNOLK 

discouragement wore her out easily, and she would come 
home at night a pitiable object. She learned her lesson 
this time, poor creature ; she learned it ten times over. 
All the family learned it along with her— -that when you 
have once got a job in Packmgtown, you hang on to it| 
come what wilL 

Four weeks Marija hunted, and half of a fifth week. 
Of course she stopped paying her dues to the union. 
She lost all interest in the union, and cursed herself for a 
fool that she had ever been dragged into one. She had 
about made up her mind that she was a lost soul^ when 
somebody told her of an opening, and she went and got 
a place as a ^ beef -trimmer.'* She got this because the 
boss saw that she had the muscles of a man, and so he 
dischai^ed a man and put Marija to do his work, paying 
her a Uttle more than half what he had been paying 
before. 

When she first came to Packingtown, Marija would 
Lave scorned such work as this. She was in another 
canninff'factory, and her work was to trim the meat of 
those diseased cattle that Jurgis had been told about not 
long before. She was shut up in one of the rooms where 
the people seldom saw the daylight ; beneath her were the 
chilUng-rooms, where the meat was frozen, and above her 
were tne cooking-rooms; and so she stood on an ice-cold 
floor, while her head was often so hot that she could 
scarcely breathe. Trimming beef off the bones by the 
hundri-weight. whUe stanSing up from early moJning 
till late at pight, with heavy boots on and the floor always 
damp and fufi of puddles, liable to be thrown out of work 
'^definitely because of a slackening in the trade, liable 
i^ain-to be kept overtime in rush seasons, and be worked 
tUl she trembled in every nerve and lost her grip on her 
slimy knife, and mve herself a poisoned wound -*tliat 
was the new life that unfolded itself before Marija. But 
because Marija was a human horse she merely laughed 
and went at it ; it would enable her to pay her board 
again, and keep the family going. And as for Tamoszius 
^-^wdlf they had waited a long time, and they ocNild wait 



THE JUNGLB 125 

a littl« longer. Ther oould not poasibly get aloi^ apoa 
his wages alonOf and the f amilT could not live without 
hers, lie could come and visit her, and sit in the kitchen 
and hold her hand, and he must manage to be content 
with that. But day by day the music of Tamoszius's 
violin became more nassionate and heart-breaking ; and 
Marija would sit witn her hands clasped and her cheeks 
wet and all her body a-tremble, hearing in the wailiiu( 
melodies the voices of the unborn generations whi<£ 
cried out in her for life. 

Marija's lesson came just in time to save Ona from a 
similar fate. Ona, too, was dissatisfied with her place, and 
had far more reason than Marija. She did not tell half 
of her story at home, because she saw it was a torment 
to Jurgis, and she was afraid of what he might do. For 
a lone time Ona had seen that Miss Henderson, the fore* 
lady in her department, did not like her. At first she 
thought it was the old-time mistake she had made in ask* 
ing lor a holiday to get married. Then she concluded 
it must be because she did not ^ive the f orelady a present 
occasionaliy — she was the kind that took presents from 
the girls, Ona learned, and made all sorts of discrimina* 
tions in favor of those who gave them. In the end, how- 
ever, Ona discovered that it was even worse than that. 
Miss Henderson was a newcomer, and it was some time 
before rumor made her out ; but finally it transpired that 
she was a kept- woman, the former mistress of the superin- 
tendent of a department in the same building. He had 
put her there to keep her quiet, it seemed — and that not 
altogether with success, for once or twice they had been 
heard quarrelling. She had the temper of a hyena, and 
soon the place she ran was a witch's caldron. There 
were some of the girls who were of her own 9ort, who 
were willing to toady to her and flatter her ; and these 
would carry tales about the rest, and so the furies were 
unchained in the place. Worse than this, the woman 
Hved in a bawdy-house down-town, with a coarse, red-faced 
7rishmaa named Ckumor. who was tiie boss of the loading* 



126 THE JXJlSQhE 

gang outside, and would make free with the giib as fbey 
went to and from thoir work. In the slack seasons some 
of them would go with Miss Henderson to this house 
down-town -— in fact, it would not be too much to say that 
she managed her department at Brown^s in conjunction 
with it. Sometimes women from the house would be 

Siven places alongside of decent girls, and after other 
ecent girls had l^en turned o£F to make room for them. 
When you worked in this woman^s department the house 
down-town was never out of your thoughts all day — there 
were always whiffs of it to l>e caught, like the odor of the 
Packingtown rendering-plants at night, when the wind 
shifted suddenly. There would be stories about it going 
the rounds ; the girls opposite you would be telling them 
and winking at you. In suen a place Ona woiSd not 
have stayed a day, but for starvation ; and, as it was, she 
was never sure that she could stay the next day. She 
understood now that the real reason that Miss Henderson 
hated her was that she was a decent married girl ; and 
she knew that the talebearers and the toadies hated her 
for the same reason, and were doing their best to make 
her life miserable. 

But there was no place a girl could co in Packingtown, 
if she was particular about tnings of tnis sort ; there was 
no place in it where a prostitute could not get along better 
than a decent girL Here was a population, low-chtss and 
mostly foreign, hanging always on the verge of starvation, 
and dependent for its opportunities of life upon the whim 
of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old- 
time slave-drivers; under such circumstances immorality 
was exactly as inevitable, and as prevalent, as it was under 
the system of chattel slavery. Thin^ that were quit€ 
unspeakable went on there in the packing-houses all the 
time, and were taken for granted by everybody ; only 
they did not show, as in the old slavery times, because 
ihere was no difference in color between master and slave. 

One morning Ona stayed home, and Jurgis had the 
man-dootor^ according to his whim, and she was safely 



THE JUNGLE 127 

X 

deliyered of a fine baby. It was an enormous big boy, 
and Ona was such a tiny creature herself, that it seemed 
quite incredible. Jurgis would stand and gaze at the 
stranger by the hour, unable to believe that it had really 
happened. 

The coming of this boy was a decisiye event with Jurgis. 
It made him irrevocably a family man; it lolled the last 
lingering impulse that he might have had to go out in the 
evenings and sit and talk with the men in the saloons. 
There was nothing he cared for now so much as to sit and 
look at the baby. This was very curious, for Jurgis had 
never been interested in babies before. But then, this 
was a very unusual sort of a baby. He had the brightest 
little black eyes, and little black ringlets all over his head ; 
he was the living image of his father, everybody said — 
and Jurgis found this a fascinating circumstance. It was 
sufficiently perplexing that this tiny mite of life should 
have come into the world at all in the manner that it had; 
that it should have come with a comical imitation of its 
other's nose was simply uncanny. 

Perhaps, Jurgis thought, this was intended to signify 
that it was his c^iby ; tlmt it was his and Ona's, to care for 
all its life. Jurgis had never possessed anything nearly 
so interesting — a baby was, when you came to think about 
it, assuredly a marvellous possession. It would grow up 
to be a man, a human soul, with a personality all its own, 
a will of its own I Such thoughts would keep haunting 
Jurgis, filling him with all sorts of strange and almost 
painful excitements. He was wonderfully proud of little 
An tanas ; he was curious about all the details of him — the 
washing and the dressing and the eating and the sleeping 
of him, and asked all sorts of absurd questions. It took 
him quite a while to get over his alarm at the incredible 
shortness of the little creature's legs. 

Jur^ had, alas, very little time to see his baby ; he 
never felt the chains about him more than just then. 
When he came home at night, the baby would be asleep, 
and it would be the merest chance if he awoke before 
Juigis had to go to sleep himself. Then in the morning 



128 THB JUNGIA 

there was no time to look at him, so really the only obaooe 
the father had was on Sundaja. Thia waa more cmel ^et 
for Ona, who ouj^ht to have stayed home and nursed him, 
the doctor said, for her own health as well as the baby's ; 
but Ona had to go to work, and leave him for Teta 
Elzbieta to feed upon the pale blue poison that was called 
milk at the comer-grocery. Ona's confinement lost her 
only a week's wages— she would go to the factory the 
second Monday, and the best that J urgis could persuade 
her was to ride in the car, and let him run alone behind 
and help her to Brown's when she alighted* After that 
it would be all right, said Ona, it was no strain sitting 
still sewine hams all day ; and if she waited longer she 
might find that her dreadful forelady had put some one 
else in her place. That would be a greater calamity than 
ever now, Ona continued, on account of the baby. They 
would all have to work harder now on his account, it 
was such a responsibility — • they must not have the baby 
grow up to suffer as they had. And this indeed had been 
the first thin^ that Jurgis had thought of himself — he 
had clenched his hands and braced himself anew for the 
struggle, for the sake of that tiny mite of human possibility. 
Ana so Ona went back to Brown's and saved her place 
and a week's wages ; and so she gave herself some one of 
the thousand ailments that women group under the title 
of ^ womb-trouble," and was never again a well person as 
long as she lived. It is difficult to convey in words all 
that this meant to Ona; it seemed such a slight offence, 
and the punishment was so out of all proportion, that 
neither she nor any one else ever connected the two. 
^Womb-trouble" to Ona did not mean a specialist's 
diagnosis, and a course of treatment, and perhaps an opera- 
tion or two ; it meant simply headaches and pains in the 
back, and depression ana heartsickness, and neuralgia 
when she haa to go to work in the rain. The great 
majority of the women who worked in Packingtown 
suffered in the same way, and from the same oause, so it 
was not deemed a thing to see the doctor about ; instead 
Ona would try patent medicines, one after another, as 



THTC jxnsouti 



129 



bar Mends told h%T about them. As these all eoataiiied 
alcohol, or some other stimnlanti she found that they all 
did her good while she took them ; and so she was always 
chasing the phantom of good health, and losing it beoaosa 
she was too poor to continne* 



p 



CHAPTER XI 

DuBiKG the summer the packing-hoases were in full 
activity again, and Jorgis made more money. He did 
not make so much, however, as he had the previous sum- 
mer, for the packers took on more hands. Tnere were new 
men every week, it seemed — it was a regular svstem ; and 
this number they would keep over to the next slack season, 
so that every one would have less than ever. Sooner or 
later, by this plan, they would have all the floating labor 
of Chicago trained to do their work. And how verv cun* 
ning a trick was thati The men were to teach new hands, 
who would some day come and break their strike; and 
meantime they were kept so poor that they could not 
prepare for the trial I 

But let no one suppose that this superfluity of employees 
meant easier work for any one I On the contrary, &e 
speedinff-up seemed to be growing more savaee all the 
time; wey were continually inventing new devices to 
crowd the work on— -it was for all the world like the 
thumb-screw of the medieval torture-chamber. They 
would get new pace-makers and pay them more; they 
would drive the men on with new machinery —- it was 
said that in the hog-killing rooms the speed at which 
the hogs moved was determined by clock-work, and that it 
was increased a little every day. In piece-work they would 
reduce the time, requiring the same work in a shorter time, 
and paying the same wages ; and then, after the workers 
had accustomed themselves to this new speed, they would 
reduce the rate of payment to correspond with the reduc- 
tion in time I They had done this so often in the canning 
establishments that the girls were fairly desperate ; their 
wages had gone down by a full third in tiie past two yearsi 

ISO 



THE JUNGLE 131 

and a storm of discontent was brewing that was likely to 
break any day. Only a month after Marija had become a 
beef-trimmer the canning-factory that she had left posted 
a cut that would divide the girls' earnings almost squarely 
in half ; and so g^^eat was the indignation at this that they 
marched out without even a parley, and organized in the 
street outside. One of the girls had read somewhere that 
a red flag was the proper symbol for oppressed workers, 
and so they mountea one, and paraded all about the yardi^ 
yelling with rage. A new union was the result of this 
outburst, but the impromptu strike went to pieces in three 
days, owing to the rush of new labor. At the end of it 
the girl who had carried the red flag went down-town and 
got a position in a great department store, at a salary of 
two dollars and a half a week. 

Jurgis and Ona heard these stories with dismay, for 
there was no telling when their own time might come. 
Once or twice there had been rumors that one of the big 
houses was ^oing to cut its unskilled men to fifteen cents 
an hour, and Jurg^ knew that if this was done, his turn 
would come soon. He had learned by this time that 
Packingtown was really not a number of firms at all, but 
one great firm, the Beef Trust. And every week the 
managers of it got together and compared notes, and 
there was one scale for all the workers in the yards and 
one standard of efficiency. Jurgis was told that they also 
fixed the price they would pay for beef on the hoof and 
the price of all dressed meat in the country ; but that was 
something he did not understand or care about. ^ 

The only one who was not afraid of a cut was Marija, 
who congratulated herself, somewhat naively, that there 
had been one in her place only a short time before she 
came. Marija was getting to be a skilled beef-trimmer, 
and was mounting to the heights again. During the sum- 
mer and fall Jurgis and Ona managed to pay her back the 
last penny they owed her, and so she began to have a bank 
account. Tamoszius had a bank account also, and they ran 
a race, and began to figure upon household expenses once 
more. 



132 THE JXTNGLB 

The poMetsion of yast wealth entails earee and nepoa* 
iibilities, however, a« poor Marija fonnd out. She had 
taken the advice of a Mend and invested her savings in 
a bank on Ashland Avenue* Of course she knew nothing 
about it, except that it was big and imposing — what pos- 
sible chance has a poor foreign working-girl to understand 
the banking business, as it is conducted in this land of 
frenzied finance? So Marija lived in continual dread 
lest something should happen to her bank, and would go 
out of her way mornings to make sure that it was s^ 
there. Her principal bought was of fire, for she had 
deposited her money in bills, and was afraid that if they 
were burned up the bank would not give her any others. 
Jurg^ made fun of her for this, for he was a man and was 

Eroud of his superior knowledge, telling her that the bank 
ad fire-proof vaults, and all its millions of dollars hidden 
safely away in them. 

However, one morning Marija took her usual detour, 
and, to her horror and dismay, saw a crowd of people in 
front of the bank, filling the avenue solid for half a block. 
All the blood went out of her face for terror. She broke 
into a run, shouting to the people to ask what was the 
matter, but not stopping to hear what they answered, till 
she had come to where the throng was so dense that she 
could no longer advance. There was a '^ run on the bank," 
they told her then, but she did not know what that was, 
and turned from one person to another, trying in an agony 
of fear to make out what they meant. Had someuung 
gone wrong with the bank? Nobody was sure, but they 
thought so. Couldn't she get her money? There was 
no telling ; the people were afraid not, and they were 
all trying to get it. It was too early yet to tell anything 
—the bank would not open for nearly three hours. So in 
a frenzy of despair Marija began to claw her way toward 
the doors of this building, through a throng of men, women, 
and children, all as excited as herself. It was a scene of 
wild confusion, women shrieking and wringing their hands 
and fainting, and men fighting and trampling down every- 
thing in their way. m the midst of the mel^ Marija 



THE JUNGLE 133 

recollected that she did not have her bank-book, and could 
not get her money anyway, so she f oaght her way oat and 
started on a run for home. This was fortunate for her, 
for a few minutes later the police-reserves arrived. 

In half an hour Marija was back, Teta EUzbieta with 
her, both of them breathless with running and sick with 
fear. The crowd was now formed in a line, extending 
for several blocks, with half a hundred policemen keeping 
guard, and so there was nothing for them to do but to 
take their places at the end of it. At nine o'clock the 
bank opened and began to pay the waiting throng ; but 
then, what good did that do Marija, who saw three thou- 
sand people before her — enough to take out the last penny 
of a dozen banks? 

To make matters worse a drizzling rain came up, and 
soaked them to the skin ; yet all the morning they stood 
there, creeping slowly toward the goal — all the after- 
noon they stood there, heart-sick, seeing that the hour of 
closing was coming, and that they were going to be left 
out. Marija made up her mind that, come what might, 
she would stay there and keep her place ; but as nearly all 
did the same, all through the long, cold night, she ^ot 
very little closer to the bank for that. Toward evening 
Jurgis came ; he had heard the story from the children, 
and he brought some food and dry wraps, which made it 
a little easier. 

The next morning, before daybreak, came a bigger 
crowd than ever, and more policemen from down-town. 
Marija held on like grim death, and toward afternoon she 
ffot into the bank and got her money — all in big silver 
aollars, a handkerchief full. When she had once got 
her hands on them her fear vanished, and she wanted to 
put them back again; but the man at the window was 
savage, and said that the bank would receive no more 
deposits from those who had taken part in the ran. So 
Marija was forced to take her dollars home with her, 
watching to riffht and left, expecting every instant that 
some one woula try to rob her ; and when she eot home 
she was not much better off. Until she could final another 



134 THE JXTirOLB 

bank there was nothing to do but sew them up in her 
clothes, and so Marija went about for a week or more, 
loaded down with bullion, and afraid to cross the street 
in front of the house, because Jurgis told her she would 
sink out of sight in the mud. Weighted this way she 
made her way to the yards, again in fear, this time to see 
if she had lost her place ; but fortunately about ten per 
cent of the working-people of Packingtown had been 
depositors in that bank, and it was not convenient to dis« 
charge that many at once. The cause of the panic had 
been the attempt of a policeman to arrest a drunken man 
in a saloon next door, which had drawn a crowd at the 
hour the people were on their way to work, and so started 
the** run." 

About this time Jurgis and Ona also began a bank- 
account. Besides having paid Jonas and Marija, they 
had almost paid for their furniture, and could have that 
little sum to count on. So long as each of them could 
bring home nine or ten dollars a week, they were able to 
get along finely. Also election day came round again, 
and Jurgis made half a week's wages out of that, all net 
profit. It was a very close election that year, and the 
echoes of the battle reached even to Packingtown. The 
two rival sets of grafters hired halls and set off fireworki 
and made speeches, to try to get the people interested in 
the matter. Although Jurgis did not understand it all, 
he knew enough by this time to realize that it was not 
supposed to be right to sell your vote. However, as every 
one did it, and ms refusal to join would not have made 
the slightest difference in the results, the idea of refuung 
would have seemed absurd^ had it ever come into his 
head. 

Now ohill winds and shortening days began to warn 
them that the winter was coming again. It seemed as il 
the respite had been too short — tiiey had not had time 
enough to get ready for it ; but still it came, inexoraUy, 
and the hunted look began to come back into the eyes of 
tittle Stanislovas. The prospeot struck fear to Uie heart 



\^ 



THE JUNGLE 1S5 

of JnT^ alflo, for he knew that Ona was not fit to face 
the cold and the snow-drifts this year. And suppose that 
some day when a blizzard struck them and the cars were 
not running, Ona should have to give it up, and should 
oome the next day to find that her place had been given 
to some one who lived nearer and could be depended on? 

It was the week before Christmas that the first great 
storm came, and then the soul of Jurgis rose up within 
him like a sleeping lion. There were four days that the 
Ashland Avenue cars were stalled, and in those days, for 
the first time in his life, Jurgis knew what it was to 
be really opposed. He had faced difiiculties before, but 
they had been child's play ; now there was a death strug- 
gle, and ail the furies were unchained within him. The 
first morning they set out two hours before dawn, Ona 
wrapped all in blankets and tossed upon his shoulder like 
a sacK of meal, and the little boy, bundled nearly out cf 
sight, hanging by his coat-tails* There was a raging bla£t 
beating in his face, and the thermometer stood below zero ; 
the snow was never short of his knees, and ia some of the 
drifts it was nearly up to his armpits* It would catch 
his feet and try to trip him; it would build itself into 
a wall before him to beat him back ; and he would fling 
himself into it, plunging like a wounded buffalo, pufiKng 
and snorting in rage. So foot by foot he drove his way, 
and when at last he came to Durham's he was stagger- 
ing and almost blind, and leaned against a pillar, gasping, 
and thanking God that the cattle came late to the killing- 
beds that day. In the evening the same thing had to be 
done again ; and because Jurgis could not tell what hour 
of the night he would get off, he got a saloon-keeper to 
let Ona sit and wait for him in a corner. Once it was 
eleven o'clock at night» and black as the pit, but still they 
got home. 

That blizzard knocked many a man out, for the crowd 
ontside begging for work was never greater, and the 
packers would not wait long for any one. When it was 
over, the soul of Jurgis was a song, for he had met the 
imemy and conquered, and felt himsiftlf the master of hit 



136 THE JUNGLE 

&te. — So it might be with some monarch of the f oiest 
that has yanquished his foes in fair fight, and then fails 
into some cowardly trap in the night-time. 

A time of peril on the killing-beds was when a steer 
broke loose. Sometimes, in the haste of speeding-up, 
they would dump one of the animals out on the floor 
before it was fully stunned, and it would get upon its feet 
and run amuck. Then there would be a yell of warning 
— the men would drop everything and dash for the 
nearest pillar, slipping here and there on the floor, and 
tumbling over each other. This was bad enough in the 
summer, when a man could see ; in winter-time it was 
enough to make your hair stand up, for the room would 
be so full of steam that you could not make anything out 
five feet in front of you. To be sure, the steer was gen* 
erally blind and frantic, and not especially bent on hurting 
any one ; but think of the chances of running upon a 
kmfe, while nearly every man had one in his hand I 
And then, to cap the climax, the floor-boss would come 
rushmg up with a rifle and begin blazing away I 

It was in one of these melees that Jurgis fell into his 
trap. That is the only word to descriM it; it was so 
cruel, and so utterly not to be foreseen. At first he 
hardly noticed it, it was such a slight accident — simply 
that in leaping out of the way he turned his ankle. 
There was a twinge of pain, but Jurgis was used to pain, 
and did not ' coddle himself. When he came to walk 
home, however, he realized that it was hurting him a great 
deal; and in the morning his ankle was swollen out 
nearly double its size, and he could not get his foot into 
his snoe. Still, even then, he did nothing more than 
swear a little, and wrapped his foot in old rags, and hob- 
bled out to lake the car. It chanced to be a rush day at 
Durham's, and all the long morning he limped about widi 
his aching foot ; by noon-time the pain was so great that 
it made him faint, and after a couple of hours in the after* 
noon he was fairly beaten, and had to tell the boss. 
They sent for the company doctor, and he examined the 
loot and told Jurgis to go home to bed* adding that ha 



THE JUKGLB IX 

Imd probably laid himself up for months by his foUy. 
The injury was not one that Durham and Company could 
be held responsible for, and so that was all there was to 
ibt so far as the doctor was concerned. 

Jurgis got home somehow, scarcely able to see for the 
pain, and with an awful teh^r in his soul. Elzbieta 
helped him into bed and bandaged his injured foot with 
cold water, and tried hard not to let him see her dismay ; 
when the rest came home at night she met them outside 
and told them, and they, too, put on a cheerful face, say- 
ing it would oxily be for a week or two, and that they 
would pull him through. 

When they had gotten him to sleep, however, they sat 
by the kitchen fire and talked it over ^i frightened whis- 
pers. They were in for a siege, that was plainly to be 
seen. Jurgis had only about sixty dollars in the bank, 
and the slack season was upon them. Both Jonas and 
Marija might soon be earning no more than enough to 
pay their board, and besides that there were only the 
wages of Ona and the pittance of the little boy. There 
was the rent to pay, and still some on the furniture ; then 
was the insurance just due, and every month there was 
sack after sack of coaL It was January^ midwinter, an 
awful time to have to face privation. Deep snows would 
oome again, and who would carry Ona to ner work now ? 
She might lose her place — > she was almost certain to lose 
it. And then little Stanislovas began to whimper — > who 
would take care of him ? 

It was dreadful that an accident of this sort, that no 
man can help, should have meant such suffering. The 
bitterness of it was the daily food and drink of Jurgis. 
It was of no use for them to try to deceive him ; be 
knew as much about the situation as they did, and he 
knew that the family mi^ht literally starve to death. 
The worry of it fairly ate him up— >he began to look hag- 
gard the first two or three days of it. in truth, it was 
almost maddeninff for a strong man like him, a fighter, to 
have to lie there helpless on ms back. It was for aU the 
world the old stoxy of Prometheus bound. As Juigis lay 

10 



IX THB JUNGLE 

on his bed, hoar after hour, there came to Um emotloiis 
that he had never known before. Before this he had met 
life with a welcome — it had its trials, but none that a 
man could not face. But now, in the night-time, when 
he lay tossing about, there would come stalking into his 
chamber a grisly phantom, the sight of which made his 
flesh to curl and his hair to brbtle up. It was like seeing 
the world fall away from underneath his feet ; like plung* 
ing down into a bottomless abyss, into yawning caverns of 
despair. It might be true, then, after all, what others had 
told him about Uf e, that the best powers of a man might not 
be equal to it I It might be true that, strive as he would» 
toil as he would, he might fail, and eo down and be 
destroyed I The thought of this was like an icy hand at 
his heart ; the thought that here, in this ghastly home of 
all horror, he and aU those who were dear to mm might 
lie and perish of starvation and cold, and there would be 
no ear to hear their cnr, no hand to help them I It was 
true, it was true, — tiia,t here in this huge city, with its 
stores of heaped-up wealth, human creatures might be 
hunted down and destroyed by the wild-beast powers of 
nature, just as truly as ever they were in the days of the 
eave-men I 

Ona was now making about thirty dollars a month, and 
8tanislovas about thirteen. To add to this there was the 
board of Jonas and Marija, about forty-five dollars. De« 
ducting from this the rent, interest, and instalments on 
the furniture, they had left sixty dollars, and deducting 
the coal, they had fifty. They did without ever^thinff 
that human bein^ could do without ; they went in old 
and rageed clothmg, that left them at the mercy of the 
cold, and when the ohildren*s shoes wore out, they tied 
them up with string. Half invalid as she was, Ona would 
do herself harm bv walking in the rain and cold when she 
ought to have ridden ; they bought literally nothing but 
f o^ — and still they could not keep alive on fifty dollars 
a month. They might have done it, if only they could 
have gotten pure food, and at fair prices; or if only they 
had Imown what to get— if they had not been so pitifully 



THE JUNGLE 1S9 

ignorant t But they had oome to a new connfanr^ where 
everything was different, including the food. They had 
always been accustomed to eat a great deal of smoked 
sausage, and how could they know uiat what they bought 
in America was not the same — that its color was made 
by chemicals, and its smoky flavor by more chemicals, 
and that it was full of ^ potato-flour '* besides ? Potato- 
flour is the waste of potato after the starch and alcohol 
have been extracted ; it has no more food value than so 
much wood, and as its use as a food adulterant is a penal 
offence in Europe, thousands of tons of it are shipped to 
America every year. It was amazing what quantities of 
food such as this were needed every day, by eleven 
hungry persons. A dollar sixtv-five a day was simply 
not enough to feed them, and there was no use trying ; 
and so e^3h week they made an inroad upon the pitinil 
little bank-account that Ona had begun. Because the 
account was in her name, it was possible for her to keep 
this a secret from her husband, and to keep the heart- 
ttckness of it for her own. 

It would have been better if Jurais had been really ill ; 
if he had not been able to think. For he had no resources 
such as most invalids have; all he could do was to lie 
there and toss about from side to side. Now and then he 
would break into cursing, regardless of everything ; and 
now and then his impatience would get the better of him, 
and he would tr^ to pret up, and poor Teta filzbieta would 
have to plead with lum in frenzy. Elzbieta was all alone 
with him the greater part of the time. She would sit and 
smooth his forehead by the hour, and talk to him and try 
to make him forget. Sometimes it would be too cold for 
Ihe children to go to school, and they would have to play 
in the kitchen, where Jurgis was, because it was the only 
loom that was half warm. These were dreadful times, for 
Jnigis would get as cross as any bear; he was scarcely to 
be Elamed, for he had enough to worry him, and it was 
bard when he waa trying to take a nap to be kept awake 
by Doiffy and peevish chudren. 

]Cbln0ta*s only zesooroe in those timeB was Uttle Antan^ 



140 THE JX7KOLB 

indeed, it would be hard to say how thej could hare gotten 
along at all if it had not been for little Antanas. It was 
the one consolation of Jurgis's long imprisonment that 
now he had time to look at his baby, Teta Elzbieta 
would put the clothes-basket in which the baby slept 
alongside of his mattress, and Jurgis would lie upon one 
elbow and watch him by the hour, imagming things. 
Then little Antanas would open his eyes — he was begin- 
ning to take notice of things now ; and he would smile — 
how he would smile t So Jurgis would begin to forget 
and be happy, because he was in a world where there waa 
a thing so beautiful as the smile of little Antanas, and 
because such a world could not but be good at the heart 
of it. He looked more like his father every hour, Elzbieta 
would say, and said it many times a day, because she saw 
that it pleased Jurgis; the poor little terror-stricken 
woman was planning all day and all night to soothe the 
prisoned giant who was intrusted to her care. Jurgis, 
who knew nothing about the age-long and everlastmff 
hypocrisy of woman, would take the bait and grin with 
deUght; and then he would hold his finger in front of 
little Antanas's eyes, and move it this way and that, and 
laugh with glee to see the baby follow it. There is no 

Jet (juite so fascinating as a baby; he would look into 
urns's face with such uncanny seriousness, and Jargia 
woind start and cry : ^PdHaukt Look, Muma, he knows 
his papa I He does, he does I T%k tnano mirdeU^ the 111 
rascal l** 



CHAPTER Xn 

Fob three weeks after his injury Jurgis never got np 
from bed. It was a yery obstinate sprain ; the swelling 
would not go down, and the pain still continued. At the 
end of that time, however, he could contain himself no 
longer, and began trying to walk a little everv day, labor- 
ing to persuade himself uiat he was better, ifo areuments 
eould stop him, and three or four days later he declared 
that he was goin^ back to work. He limped to the cars 
and ^ot to Browir s, where he found that the boss had kept 
his ^ace — that is, was wilUng to turn out into the snow 
the poor devil he had hired in the meantime. Every now 
and then the pain would force Jurgis to stop work, but he 
stuck it out till nearly an hour before closing. Then ho 
was forced to aeknowledTO that he could not go on with« 
out fainting ; it almost broke his heart to do it, and he 
stood leaning against a pillar and weeping like a child. 
Two of the men had to help him to the car, and when he 
got out he had to sit down and wait in the snow till some 
one came along. 

So they put him to bed again, and sent for the doctor, as 
tbey oucfht to have done in the bennning. It transpired 
tiiat he nad twisted a tendon out of place, and could never 
have gotten well without attention. Then he gripped the 
•ides of the bed, and shut his teeth together, and turned 
white with agony, while the doctor pmled and wrenched 
away at his swollen ankle. When finally the doctor left, 
he told him that he would have to lie quiet for two months, 
and that if he went to work before that time he might lame 
himself for life. 

Three days later there came another heavy snow-storm, 
andJonas aiid Marija and Ona and little Stamslovas all set 

141 



142 THE JXJNGLE 

out together, an hour before daybreak, to try to get to tide 
yards. Aboat noon the last two came back, the boy scream* 
ing with pam. His fingers were all frosted, it seemed. 
They had had to giye up trying to get to the yards, and 
had nearly perished in a drift. All that they knew how 
to do was to hold the frozen fingers near the fire, and 
so little Scanisloyas spent most of the day dancing about 
in horrible agony, till Jurgis flew into a passion of neryous 
rage and swore like a madman, declaring that he would 
kill him if he did not stop. All that day and night the 
family was half -crazed with fear that Ona and the boy had 
lost their places ; and in the morning^ they set out earlier 
than eyer, after the little fellow had been beaten with a 
stick by Jurgis. There could be no trifling in a case like 
this, it was a matter of life and death ; little Stanisloyas 
could not be expected to realise that he might a great deal 
better freeze in the snow-drift than lose his job at the lard- 
machine. Ona was quite certain that she would find her 
place gone, and was all unneryed when she finally got to 
Brown's, and found that the forelady herself had failed to 
come, and was therefore compelled to be lenient. 

One of the consequences of this episode was that the 
first joints of three of the little boy's fingers were perma- 
nently disabled, and another that thereafter he always had 
to be beaten before he set out to work, wheneyer there 
was fresh snow on the ground. Jur^s was called upon to 
do the beating, and as it hurt his foot he did it with a 
yengeance ; but it did not tend to add to the sweetness of 
his temper. They say that the best dog will turn cross 
if he be kept chained all the time, and it was the same 
with the man ; he had not a thing to do all day but lie and 
curse his fate, and the time came when he wanted to curse 
eyerything. 

This was neyer for yery long, howeyer, for when Ona 
began to cry, Jurgis could not stay angry. The poor fel- 
low looked like a homeless ghost, with his cheeks sunken 
in and his long black hair straggling into his eyes ; he was 
too discouraged to cut it, or to think about his appearance. 
His muscles were wasting away, and what were left were 



THB JlTNGLfi 143 

soft and flabby. He had no appetite, and thej conld not 
afford to tempt him with delicacies. It was better, he said, 
that he should not eat, it was a saving. About the end of 
March he had got hold of Ona's bai^-book, and learned 
that there was only three dollars left to them in the 
world. 

But perhaps the worst of the consequences of this long 
siege was that they lost another mem ber of their family ; 
Brother Jonas disappeared. One Saturday night he did 
not come home, and thereafter all their efforts to get trace 
of him were futile. It was said by the boss at Durham's 
that he had gotten his week's money and left there. That 
might not be true, of course, for sometimes they would say 
that when a man had been killed ; it was the easiest way 
out of it for all concerned. When, for instance, a man had 
fallen into one of the rendering tanks and had been made 
into pure leaf lard and peerless fertilizer, there was no use 
letting the fact out and making his family unhappy. 
More probable, however, was the theory that Jonas had 
deserted them, and gone on the road, seeking happiness. 
He had been discontented for a long time, and not with- 
out some cause. He paid good board, and was yet obliged 
to live in a family where nobody had enough to eat. And 
Marija would keep giving them all her money, and of 
course he could not but feel that he was called upon to do 
the same. Then there were crying brats, and all sorts of 
misery ; a man would have had to be a good deal of a hero 
to stand it all without gprumbling, and Jonas was not in 
the least a hero — he was simply a weather-beaten old 
fellow who liked to have a good supper and sit in the 
comer by the fire and smoke his pipe in peace before he 
went to bed. Here there was not room by the fire, and 
through the winter the kitchen had seldom been warm 
enou^ for comfort. So, with the springtime, what was 
more ii^oly than that the wild idea of escaping had come 
to him ? Two years he had been yoked like a horse to a 
half-ton truck in Durham's dark cellars, with never a rest, 
save on Sundays and four holidays in the year, and vdth 
never a word of thanks — only kicks and blows and curses. 



144 THE JUirOIiB 

aach as no dooent dog would hare stood. And now the 
winter was over, and the sprin? winds were blowing— 
and with a day's walk a man might put the smoke of Pack- 
ingtown behind him forever, and be where the grass was 
green and the flowers all the colors of the rainbow t 

But now the income of thQ family was cut down more 
than one-third, and the food*demand was cut only one- 
eleventh, so that they were worse off than ever. Alse 
they were borrowing mone^ from Marija, and eating up 
her bank-account, and spoiling once again her hopes of 
marriage and happiness. And thev were even going into 
debt to Tamoszius Kuszleika and letting him impoverish 
himself. Poor Tamoszius was a man without any relar 
tives, and with a wonderful talent besides, and he ought 
to have made money and prospered ; but he had fallen ia 
love, and so ^ven hostages to fortune, and was doomed 
to be dragged down too. 

So it was finally decided that two more of the childrea 
would have to leave schooL Next to Stanislovas, who 
was now fifteen, there was a girl, little Eotrina, who was 
two years younger, and then two boys, Vilimas, who was 
eleven, and Nikalojus, who was ten. Both of these last 
were bright boys, and there was no reason why their family 
should starve when tens of thousands of children no older 
were earning their own livings. So one morning they 
were given a quarter apiece and a roll with a sausage in it. 
uid, with their minds top-heavy with good advice, were 
sent out to make their way to the city and learn to sell 
newspapers. They came back late at night in tears, hav- 
ing^ walked the five or six miles to report that a man had 
OTOred to take them to a place where they sold newspapers, 
and had taken their money and gone into a store to get 
them, and nevermore been seen. So they both received a 
whipping, and the next morning set out again. This 
time they found the newspaper place, and procured their 
stock ; and after wandering about till nearly noontime, 
saying ** Paper ?** to every one they saw, they had all 
their stock taken away and received a thrashing besides 
from a big newsman upon whose territory they nad trea- 



THE JUKftUB 141 

paawd* Fortnnatelj, howover, tfaej Iiad alreadj sold 
some papers, and came back with nearly as mush as ihej 
started, with. 

After a week of mishaps snch as these, the two little 
fellows began to learn the ways of the trade, — the names 
of the different papers, and how many of each to get, and 
what sort of people to offer them to, and where to go and 
where to stay away from. After this, leaving home at 
four o*clock in the morning, and running about the streetSt 
first with momine papers and then with evening, they 
might come home Iftte at night with twenty or thirty cents 
apiece — possibly as much as forty cents. From this they 
liad to deduct their car-fare, since the distance was so 
great ; but after a while they made friends, and learned 
still more, and then they would save their car-fare. They 
would ^et on a car when the conductor was not looking, 
and hide in the crowd ; and three times out of four he 
would not ask for their fares, either not seeing them, or 
thinking they had already paid ; or if he did ask, they 
would hunt through their pockets, and then begin to cry, 
and either have their fares paid by some kind old lady, or 
else try the trick ^^ on a new car. AU this was fair 
play, they felt. Whose fault was it that at the hours 
when workingmen were going to their work and back, the 
cars were so crowded that the conductors could not collect 
all the fares 7 And besides, the companies were thieves, 
people said — had stolen all their franchises with the help 
•f scoundrelly politicians I 

Now that the winter was by, and there was no more 
danger of snow, and no more coal to buy, and another 
room warm enough to put the children into when they 
cried, and enough money to get along from week to weeK 
with, Jurgis was less terrible than he had been. A man 
can get used to anything in the course of time, and Jurgis 
had gotten used to lying about the house. Ona saw tms, 
and was very careful not to destroy his peace of mind, by 
letting him know how very much pain she was suffering. 
It was now the time of the spring rains, and Ona hM 



146 THE JUNQLE 

often to ride to her work, in spite of the ezj^nse ; she was 
getting paler every day, and sometimes, in spite of her 
Kood resolutions, it pained her that Jurgis did not notice 
it. She wondered if he cared for her as much as ever, if 
iJl this misery was not wearing out his love. She had 
to be away from him all the time, and bear her own 
troubles while he was bearing his i and then, when she 
came home, she was so worn out ; and whenever they 
talked they had only their worries to talk of — ^^nily it 
was hard, in such a lue, to keep any sentiment alive. The 
woe of this would flame up in Ona sometimes — at night 
she would suddenly dasp her big husband in her arms and 
break into passionate weeping, demanding to know if he 
really lovea her. Poor Jurgis, who had in truth grown 
more matter-of-fact, under tne endless pressure of penury, 
would not know what to make of these things, ana could 
only try to recollect when he had last been cross ; and so 
Ona would have to forgive him and sob herself to sleep. 

The latter part of April Jurgis went to see the doctor* 
and was given a bandage to la^ about his ankle, and told 
that he might eo back to work. It needed more than the 
permission of tiie doctor, however, for when he showed up 
on the killing-floor of Brown's, he was told by the foreman 
that it had not been possible to keep his job for him. 
Jurgis knew that this meant simply that the foreman had 
found some one else to do the worK as well and did not want 
to bother to make a change. He stood in the doorway* 
looking^ mournfully on, seeing his friends and companions 
at worK, and feeling like an outcast. Then he went out 
and took his place with the mob of the unemployed. 

This time, however, Jurgis did not have the same fine con* 
fidence, nor the same reason for it. He was no longer the 
finest-looking man in the throne, and the bosses no longer 
made for him; he was thin and haggard, and his clothes 
were seedy, and he looked miseraUe. And there were 
hundreds who looked and felt just like him, and who had 
been wanderinp^ about Packingtown for months begging 
for work. This was a critical time in Jurgis^s life, and u 
\ie had been a weaker man ho would have gone the way 



THE JUNGLE Ut 

the rest did* Those out-of-work wretches would stand 
about the packing-houses every morning till the police 
drove them away, and then they would scatter among the 
saloons. Very few of them had the nerve to face the re* 
buffs tiiat they would encounter by trying to get into tne 
building to interview the bosses; if they did not get a 
chance in the morning, there would be nothing to do but 
hang about the saloons the rest of the day and night. 
Jurgis was saved from all this — partly, to be sure, be- 
cause it was pleasant weather, and there was no need to be 
indoors ; but mainly because he carried with him alwavs 
the pitiful little face of his wife. He must get work, he 
told himself, fighting the battle with despair every hour of 
the day. He must get work t He must have a place 
again and some money saved up, before the next winter 
came. 

But there was no work for him. He sought out all the 
members of his union— Jurgis had stuck to the union 
through all this — and begged them to speak a word for 
him. He went to every one he knew, asking for a chance, 
there or anywhere. He wandered all day through the 
buildings ; and in a week or two, when he had been all 
over the yards, and into every room to which he had 
access, and learned that there was not a job anywhere, he 
persuaded himself that there might have been a change 
in the places he had first visited, and began the round all 
over; till finally the watchmen and the ^^ spotters ^ of the 
companies came to know him by sight and to order him 
out with threats. Then there was nothing more for him 
to do but go with the crowd in the morning, and keep 
in the front row and look eager, and when he failed, go 
back home, and play with little Kotrina and the baby. 

The peculiar bitterness of all this was that Jurgis saw 
so plainly the meaning of it. In the begiuning he had 
been fresh and strong, and he had gotten a job the first 
day; but now he was second-hand, a damaged article, so to 
speak, and they did not want him. They nad got the best 
out of him, — they had worn him out, with their speeding- 
up and their oarelesHuess, and now they had thrown him 



X48 '^*^^' tUTNCOiE 

awavl And Jorgis would make the aoqnaintanoe of oiheza 
of these unemployed men and find wkt they had idl had 
the same experienoe. There were some, of course, who 
had wandered in from other places, who had been ground 
up in other mills ; there were others who were out from 
their own fault— • some, for instance, who had not been 
able to stand the awful grind without drink. The vast 
majority, however, were simply the worn-out parts of the 
great merciless packing-machine; they had toiled there, 
and kept up with the pace, some of them for ten or twenty 
▼ears, until finally the time had come when they could not 
Keep up with it any more* Some had been frankly told 
that they were too old, that a sprier man was needed; 
others had given occasion, by some act of carelessness or 
incompetence ; with most, however, the occasion had been 
the same as with Jurgis. They had been overworked and 
underfed so long, and finally some disease had laid them on 
their backs; or they had cut themselves, and had blood- 
poisoning, or met with some other accident. When a man 
came ba^ after that, he would get his place back only by 
the courtesy of the boss. To tms there was no exception, 
save when the accident was one for which the firm was 
liable; in that case they would send a slippery lawyer to 
see him, first to try to get him to sign away his claims, but 
if he was too smart for that, to promise him that he and 
his should always be provided with work. This promise 
they would keep, strictly and to the letter— for two years. 
Two ^ears was the ^statute of limitations,'* and after that 
the victim could not sue. 

What happened to a man after any of these things, all 
depended upon the circumstances. If he were of the highly 
denied workers, he would probably have enough saved up 
to tide him over. The best-paid men^ the *^ splitters, 
made fifty cents an hour, which would be five or six dollars 
a day in the rush seasons, and one or two in the dullest. 
A man could live and save on that; but then there were 
only half a dozen splitters in each place, and one of them 
that Jurgis knew had a family of twenty-two children, all 
hofiiiig to grow up to be splitters like tbeir father. Vox 



THE JUNGLE 



U9 



ma unskilled man who made ten dollars a week in the 
rush seasons and five in the dull, it all depended npon his 
age and the number he had dependent npon him. An un- 
married man ooold save, if he did not drink, and if he was 
absolutely selfish — that is, if he paid no heed to the 
demands of his old parents, or of his little brothers and 
sisters, or of anj other relatives he might have, as well as 
of the members of his union, and his chums, and the 
people who might be starving to death next door. 



^ 



CHAPTER XIII 

DuBiKG this time that Jurgis was looking for work oc- 
curred the death of little Knstoforas, one of the children 
of Teta Elzbieta. Both Kristoforas and his brother, 
Juozapas, were cripples, the latter having lost one leg by 
haying it run over, and Kristoforas having congenital dis* 
location of the hip, which made it impossible for him ever 
to walk. He was the last of Teta Elzbieta's children, and 
perhaps he had been intended by nature to let her know 
that she had had enouc^h. At any rate he was wretchedly 
sick and undersized ; he had the rickets, and though he 
was over three years old, he was no bigger than an ordi- 
nary child of one. All day long he would crawl around the 
floor in a filthv little dress, wmning and fretting ; because 
the floor was full of draughts he was al^'^s catchin? cold, 
and snuffline because ms nose ran. Tnis made nim a 
nuisance, and a source of endless trouble in the family. 
For his mother, with unnatural perversity, loved him Ix^ 
of all her children, and made a perpetual fuss over him — - 
Would let him do anything undisturbed, and would burst 
into tears when his fretting drove Jurgis wild. 

And now he died. Perhaps it was the smoked sausage 
he had eaten that momine — which may have been made 
out of some of the tubercular pork that was condemned as 
Hnfit for export. At any rate, an hour after eatine it, the 
child had begun to cry with pain, and in another hour he 
was roUine about on the noor in convulsions. Little 
Kotrina, who was all alone with him, ran out screaminp^ 
for heh>, and after a while a doctor came, but not until 
Kristoforas had howled his last howl. No one was really 
sorry about this except poor Elzbieta, who was inconsol- 
able. Jurgis announced that so far as he was concerned 



152 THE JUNGLE 

he faced in dread the prospect of reaching the lowest 
There is a place that waits for the lowest man ~ the fer- 
tilizer-plant I 

The men would talk about it in awe-stricken whispers. 
Not more than one in ten had ever really tried it ; the 
other nine had contented themselves with hearsay evi- 
dence and a peep through the door. There were some 
thin^ worse than even starving to death. They would 
ask Jurgis if he had worked there yet, and if he meant to ; 
and Jureis would debate the matter with himself. As 
poor as uiey were, and making all the sacrifices that they 
were, would he dare to refuse any sort of work that was 
offered to him, be it as horrible as ever it could ? Would 
he dare to go home and eat bread that had been earned 
by Ona, vreSk. and complaining as she was, knowing that 
he had been given a chance, and had not had the nerve 
to take it ?— - And yet he might argue that way with him- 
self all day, and one crlimpse into the fertilizer- works would 
seod him away agaiE sheering. He was a man, and ho 
would do his dut^ ; he went and made application-— but 
surely he was not also reouired to hope for success ! 

The fertilizer-works of Durham's lay away from the rest 
of the plant. Few visitors ever saw them, and the few 
who did would come out looking like Dante, of whom the 
peasants declared that he had b^n into helL To this part 
of the yards came all the ^tankage,** and the waste prod- 
ucts of all sorts; here they dried out the bones, — and in 
suffocating cellars where the daylight never came you 
mi^ht see men and women and cmldren bending over 
whirling machines and sawing bits of bone into all sorts of 
shapes, breathing their lunn full of the fine dust, and 
doomed to die, every one of them, within a certain defi- 
nite time. Here thev made the blood into albumen, and 
made other foul-smelling things into things still more 
f oul-0melling< In the corridors and caverns where it was 
done yon might lose yourself as in the great caves of 
Kentucky, u the dust and the steam the dectrio lights 
would shine like &r-off twinkUng stars — red and Uue- 
green and purple stanii according to tiie oolor of the mist 



THE JUNQLE 151 

the child would have to be buried by the city, since they 
had no money for a funeral ; and at this the poor woman 
almost went out of her senses, wringing her hands and 
screaming with grief and despair. Her child to be buried 
in a pauper's grave I And her stepdaughter to stand by 
and hear it said without protesting I It was enough to 
make Ona's father rise up out of Im grave to rebuke her I 
If it had come to this, they might as well give up at once, 
and be buried all of them together I • • . In the end 
Marija said that she would help with ten dollars; and 
Jurgis being still obdurate, Elzbieta went in tears and 
begged the money from the neighbors, and so little Kristo- 
foras had a mass and a hearse with white plumes on it, 
and a tiny plot in a graveyard with a wooden cross to 
mark the place. The poor mother was not the same for 
months after that ; the mere sight of the floor where little 
Kristoforas had crawled about would make her weep. 
He bad never had a fair chance, poor little fellow, she 
would say. He had been handicapped from his birth. If 
only she had heard about it in time, so that she might 
have had that great doctor to cure him of his lameness I 
• • . Some time ago, Elzbieta was told, a Chicago billion- 
naire had paid a fortune to bring a great European surgeon 
over to cure his little daughter of the same disease 
from which Kristoforas had suffered. And because this 
surgeon had to have bodies to demonstrate upon, he an- 
nounced that he would treat the children of the poor, a 
piece of mamanimity over which the papers became quite 
eloquent. Elzbieta, alas, did not read the papers, and no 
one had told her ; but perhaps it was as well, for just then 
they would not have had the car-fare to spare to go every 
day to wait upon the surgeon, nor for tnat matter any- 
body with the time to take the child. 

All this while that he was seeking for work, there was a 
dark shadow banging over Jurgis; as if a savage beast were 
lurldng somewhere in the pathway of his life, and he knew 
it, and yet could not help approachingthe place. There 
are all stages of being out of work in x^ackingtown, and 



\ 



\ 



THE JUNGLE 153 

and the brew from which it came. For the odors in these 
ghastly charnel-houses there may be words in Lithuanian, 
but there are none in English. The person entering 
would have to summon his courage as for a cold-water 
plunge. He would go on like a man swimming under 
water; he would put his handkerchief over his face, and 
beg^ to cough aDct choke ; and then, if he were still obsti« 
nate, he would find his head beginning to ring, and the 
▼eins in his forehead to throb, imtil finally he would be 
assailed by an oyerpowering blast of ammonia fumes, 
and would turn and run lor his life, and come out 
half-dazed. 

On top of this were the rooms where they dried the 
^ tankage,'* the mass of brown stringy stuff that was left 
after the waste portions of the carcasses had had the lard 
and tallow tried out of them. This dried material they 
would then grind to a fine powder, and after they had 
mixed it up well with a mysterious but inoffenfflye 
brown rock which they brought in and nound up by the 
hundreds of carloads for that purpose, the substance was 
ready to be put into bags and sent out to the world as any 
one of a hundred different brands of standard bone-phos- 
^late. And then the farmer in Maine or California or 
Texas would buy this, at say twenty-fiye dollars a ton, 
and plant it with his com ; and for several days after the 
operation the fields would have a strong odor, and the 
ntrmer and his wagon and the very horses that had 
hauled it would all have it too. In Packingtown the 
fertilizer is pure, instead of being a flavoring, and instead 
of a ton or so spread out on several acres under the open 
sky, there are hundreds and thousands of tons of it in one 
bmlding, heaped here and there in haystack piles, cover- 
ing the floor several inches deep, and filling the air with a 
choking dust that becomes a blinding sand-storm when the 
wind stirs. 

It was to this building that Jurgis came daily, as if 
dragged by an unseen hand. The month of May was an 
exceptionally cool one, and his secret prayers were granted ; 
but early in June there oame a reoord-breaking hot spelU 

11 



s 



154 THE JUlfQLE 

and after that there were men wanted in the fertilizev- 
mili. 

The boss of the ninding room had come to know Jurgis 
by this time, and nad marked him for a likely man ; and 
so when he came to the door about two o'clock this breath- 
less hot day, he felt a sudden spasm of pain shoot through 
him — the boss beckoned to him I In ten minutes more 
Jurc^ had pulled off his coat and overshirt, and set his 
teeth together and gone to work. Here was one more 
difficulty for him to meet and conquer I 

His labor took him about one minute to learn. Before 
him was one of the vents of the mill in which the fertilizer 
was being ground — rushing forth in a great brown river, 
with a spray of the finest dust flung forth in clouds. Jurgis 
was given a shovel, and along with half a dozen others it 
was his task to shovel this fertilizer into carts. That 
others were at work he knew bv the sound, and by the 
fact that he sometimes collided with them; otherwise 
they might as well not have been there, for in the blind- 
ing dus^torm a man could not see six feet in front of his 
face. When he had filled one cart he had to grope around 
him until another came, and if there was none on hand he 
continued to gprope till one arrived. In five minutes he 
was, of course, a mass of fertilizer from head to feet ; they 
gave him a sponge to tie over his mouth, so that he could 
breathe, but the sponge did not prevent his lips and eye- 
lids from caking up with it and ms ears from mling soud* 
He looked like a brown ghost at twilight — from hair to 
shoes he became the color of the buil(un^ and of every- 
thing in it, and for that matter a hundred yards outside 
it. The building had to be left open, and when the 
wind blew Durham and Company lost a great deal of 
fertilizer. 

Working in his shirt-sleeves, and with the thermometer 
at over a hundred, the phosphates soaked in through evenr 
pore of Jurgis's skin, and in five minutes he had a heaa* 
ache, and in fifteen was almost dazed. The blood was 
poundine in his brain like an engine's throbbing ; there 
was a frightful pain in the top of his skulL and he could 



THE JUNGLE 155 

hardly control his hands. Still, with the memory of his 
four months' siege behind him, he f onght on, in a frenzy 
of determination ; and half an hour later he began to 
vomit — he vomited until it seemed as if his inwards most 
be torn into shreds. A man could get used to the ferti* 
lizer-mill, the boss had said, if he would only make up his 
mind to it ; but Jiirgis now began to see that it was a 
question of making up his stomach* 

At the end of that day of horror, he could scarcely 
stand. He had to catch himself now and then, and lean 
against a building and get his bearings. Most of the 
men, when they came out, made straight for a saloon — 
they seemed to olace fertilizer and rattlesnake poison in 
one class. But jurgis was too HI to think of drinking— 
he could only make his way to the street and stagger on to 
a car. He nad a sense of humor, and later on, when he 
became an old hand, he used to think it fun to board a 
street-car and see what happened. Now, however, he was 
too ill to notice it — how the people in the car began to 
gasp and sputter, to put their han(£kerchief s to their nosesi 
and transfix him with furious glances. Jurgis only knew 
that a man in front of him immediately got up and gave 
him a seat ; and that half a minute later me two people on 
each side of him got up ; and that in a full minute the 
crowded car was nearly empty-* those jpassengers who 
could not get room on the platform having gotten out 
to walk. 

Of course Jurgis had made his home a miniature ferti- 
lizer-mill a minute after entering. The stuff was half an 
inch deep in his skin — his whole system was full of it, 
anil it would have taken a week not merely of scrubbing, 
but of vigorous exercise, to get it out of him. As it was, 
he could be compared with nothing known to men, save 
that newest discovery of the savants, a substance which 
emits energy for an unlimited time, without being itself 
in the least diminished in power. He smelt so mat he 
made all the food at the table taste, and set the whole 
fiunily to vomiting ; for himself it was three days before 
he ooold keep anything upon liis stomach— he might 



156 THE JUKOLE 

wash his hands, and use a knife and fork, but were not hit 
mouth and throat filled with the poison ? 

And still Jurgis stuck it out I In spite of splitting 
headaches he would stagger down to the plant and take 
up his stand once more, and begin to shovel in the blinding 
clouds of dust. And so at the end of the week he was a 
fertilizer-man for life — he was able to eat aeain, and 
though his head never stopped aching, it ceased to be so 
bad that he could not work. 

So there passed another summer. It was a summer of 
prosperity, all over the country, and the country ate gen- 
erously of packing-house proaucts, and there was plenty 
of work for all the family, in spite of the packers* efforts 
to keep a superfluitv of htbor. They were again able to 
pay their deots and to begin to save a litUe sum ; but 
there were one or two sacrifices they considered too heavy 
to be made for long — it was too bad that the boys 
should have to sell papers at their age. It was utterly 
useless to caution them and plead with them ; quite with- 
out knowing it, they were taking on the tone oi their new 
environment. They were learnine to swear in voluble 
English ; they were learning to pick up cigarnstumps and 
smoke them, to pass hours of Uieir time gambling with 
pennies and dice and cigarette-cards ; they were learning 
the location of all the houses of prostitution on the 
^ Levee,'' and the names of the " madames *^ who kept 
them, and the days when they mve their state banquets, 
which the police captains and the big poUticians all 
attended. If a visiting ^ country-customer ^ were to ask 
them, they could show him which was ^Hinkydink^s** 
famous saloon, and could even point out to him by name 
the different gamblers and thugs and ^hold-up men*' who 
made the pk^ their headquarters. And worse yet, the 
boys were getting out of the habit of coming home at 
night. What was the use, they would ask, of wasting 
time and energy and a possible car-fare riding out to the 
stockvards every night when the weather was pleasant 
and tney could crawl under a truck or into an emptj doot' 



THE JUNGLE 157 

way and sleep exactly as well ? So long as they brought 
home a half dollar for each day, what mattered it when 
they brought it 7 But Jurgis aeclared that from this to 
ceasing to come at all would not be a very lon^ step, and 
so it was decided that Vilimas and Nikalojus should 
return to school in the fall, and that instead Elzbieta 
should go out and get some work, her place at home being 
taken by her younger daughter. 

Little Kotrina was like most children of the poor, pre« 
maturely made old; she had to take care of her little 
brother, who was a cripple, and also of the baby ; she 
had to cook the meals and wash the dishes and clean 
house, and have supper ready when the workers came 
home in the evening. She was only thirteen, and small 
for her age, but she did all this without a murmur ; and 
her mother went out, and after trudging a couple of days 
about the yards, settled down as a servant of a ^ sausage- 
machine.^ 

Elzbieta was used to working, but she found this change 
S hard one, for the reason that she had to stand motionless 
upon her feet &om seven o'clock in the mominj? till half- 
past twelve, and again from one till half -past nve. For 
the first few days it seemed to her that she could not stand 
it— she suffered almost as much as Jurgis had from the 
fertilizer, and would come out at sundown with her head 
&irly reeling. Besides this, she was working in one of 
the dark holes, by electric light, and the dampness, too, 
was deadly •» there were always puddles of water ou the 
floor, and a sickening odor of moist flesh in the room. 
The people who worked here followed the ancient custom 
of nature, whereby the ptarmigan is the color of dead 
leaves in the fall and of snow in the winter, and the cha- 
meleon, who is black when he lies upon a stump and turns 
green when he moves to a leaf. The men and women who 
worked in this department were precisely the color of the 
^ fresh country sausage '* they made. 

The sausage-room was an interesting place to visit, for 
two or three minutes, and provided that you did not look 
at the people ; the machines were perhaps the most wonder* 



158 THE JUNGLE 

ful things in the entire plant. Presumably sausages were 
once chopped and stu£Fed by hand, and if so it woidd be 
interesting to know how many workers had been displaced 
by these inventions. On one side of the room were the 
hoppers, into which men shovelled loads of meat and 
wheelbarrows full of spices; in these great bowls were 
whirling knives that made two thousand revolutions a 
minute, and when the meat was ground fine and adidter- 
ated with potato-flour, and well mixed with water, it was 
forced to the stuffing-machines on the other side of the 
room. The latter were tended by women; there was a 
sort of spout, like the nozzle of a hose, and one of the 
women would take a long string of "casing'* and put the 
end over the nozzle and then work the whole thing on, as 
one works on the finger of a tight glove. This string 
woidd be twenty or thirty feet long, but the woman 
would have it all on in a ji£^; and when she had several 
on, she would press a lever, and a stream of sausage-meat 
woidd be shot out, taking the casing with it as it came. 
Thus one might stand and see appear, miraculously bom 
from the machine, a wriggling snake of sausage of incred- 
ible length. In front was a big pan which caught these 
creatures, and two more women who seized them as fast 
as they appeared and twisted them into links. This was 
for the uninitiated the most perplexing work of all; for 
all that the woman had to give was a single turn of the 
wrist; and in some way she contrived to give it so that 
instead of an endless chain of sausages, one after another, 
there grew under her hands a bundi of strings, all dan- 
gling from a single centre. It was quite like the feat of a 
prestidigitator — for the woman worked so fast that the 
^e coidd literally not follow her, and there was only a 
mist of motion, and tan^e after tangle of sausages appear- 
ing. In the midst of the mist, however, the visitor would 
suddenly notice the tense set face, with the two wrinkles 
graven in the forehead, and the ghastly pallor of the 
dieeks; and then he would sudd^y recollect that it 
was time he was going on. The woman dkl not go on; 
sbe stayed right there — hour after hour, day after day» 



THE JUNGLE 



159 



year after year, twisting sausage-links and racing with 
death. It was piece-work» and she was apt to have a 
family to keqp alive; and stem and ruthless eoonomic 
laws had arranged it that she could only do this by woric- 
iog just as she did, with all her soul upon her work, and 
with never an instant for a stance at the well-diessed 
ladies and gentlemen who came to stare at her, as at some 
wild beast in a menagerie. 



1 



CHAPTER XIV 

With one member trimminfi^ beef in a oanneiy^ and 
another working in a sausage lactoTj^ the family had a 
first-hand knowledge of the great majority of racking- 
town swindles. For it was uie custom, as they found, 
whenever meat was so spoiled that it could not be used 
for anything else, either to can it or else to chop it up 
into sausage. With what had been told them by Jona8» 
who had worked in the pickle-rooms, they could now 
study the whole of the spoiled-meat industry on tiie 
inside, and read a new and grim meaning into^hat old 
Packingtown jest,—- that they use everytmng of the pig 
except the squeal. 

Jonas had told them how the meat that was taken out 
of pickle would often be found sour, and how they would 
rub it up with soda to take away the smell, and sell it to 
be eaten on free-lunch counters ; also of all the miracles 
of chemistry which they performed, giving to any sort of 
meat, fresh or salted, whole or chopped, any color and 
any flavor and any odor they chose. In the pickling of 
hams they had an ingenious apparatus, by which Uiey 
saved time and increased the capacity of the plant— a 
machine consisting of a hollow needle attacned to a 
pump ; by plunging this needle into the meat and work* 
mg with his foot, a man could fill a ham with pickle in a 
few seconds. And yet, in spite of this, there would be 
hams found spoiled, some of them with an odor so bad 
that a man could hardly bear to be in the room with them. 
To pump into these the packers had a second and much 
stronger pickle which destroyed the odor — a process 
Imown to the workers as ^giving them thirty per cent." 
Also, after the hams had been smoked, there would be 

160 



THE JTJNGLB; 161 

found some that had gone to the bad. Formerly these 
had been sold as ^Nomber Three Grade, but later on 
some ingenious perspn had hit upon a new device, and 
now they would extract the bone, about which the bad 
part generally la^, and insert in the hole a white-hot iron. 
After this invention there was no longer Number One, Two, 
and Three Grade— there was only Number One Grade. 
The packers were always originating such schemes — they 
had what thev called ^ boneless hams," which were all the 
odds and ends of pork stuffed into casing ; and ^ Cali* 
fomia hams,** which were the shoulders, with big knuckle* 
loints, and nearly all the meat cut out ; and fancy ^ skinned 
hams,** which were made of the oldest hogs, whose skins 
were so heavy and coarse that no one would buv them-* 
that is, imtil thev had been cooked and chopped fine and 
labelled ^ head cheese ** t 

It was only when the whole ham was spoiled that it came 
into the department of Elzbieta. Cut up by the two- 
tiiousand*revolutions-a-minute flyers, and mixed with half 
a ton of other meat, no odor that ever was in a ham could 
make any difference. There was never the least attention 
paid to what was cut up for sausage ; there would come 
all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been 
rejected, and that was mouldy and white-— it would be 
dosed with borax and glycerine, and dumped into the 
hoppers, and made over again for home consumption. 
There would be mca.t that had tumbled out on the floor, 
in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped 
and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There 
would be meat stored in great piles in rooms ; and the 
water from leaky roofs woidd drip over it, and thousands 
of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these 
storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand 
over these piles of meat and sweep off handf uls of the 
dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the 
pacfceiB would put poisoned bread out for them; they 
would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into 
the hoppers toeether. Tbis is no fairy story and no joke ; 
the meat would be shovelled into oart8» and the man who 



162 THE JUNGLE 



the shovelling would not trouble to lift out a rat evea 
when he saw one— there were things that went into the 
sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a 
tidbit. There was no place for the men to wash their 
hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a 
practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled 
into the sausage. There were the butt-ends of smoked 
meat, and the scraps of corned beef, and all the odds and 
ends of the waste of the plants, that would be dumped 
into old barrels in the cellar and left there. . Under the 
system of rigid economy which the packers enforced, 
tifiere were some jobs that it only paid to do once in a 
long time, and among these was the cleaning out of the 
waste-barrels. Every spring they did it; and in the 
barrels would be dirt and rust and old nails and stale 
water — and cart load after cart load of it would be taken 
up and dumped into the hoppers with fresh meat, and sent 
out to the public's breakfast. Some of it they would 
make into *^ smoked** sausage— but as the smomng took 
time, and was therefore expensive, they would call upon 
their chemistry department, and preserve it with borax 
and color it with gelatine to make it brown. All of their 
sausage came out of the same bowl, but when they came 
to wrap it the v would stamp some of it *^ special,'* and for 
this they would charge two cents more a pound. 

Such were the new surroundings in which Elzbieta was 

Slaoed, and such was the work she was compelled to do* 
t was stupefying, brutalizing work ; it left her no time 
to think, no strength for anything. She was part of the 
machine she tended, and every faculty that was not 
needed for the machine was doomed to be crushed out of 
existence. There was only one mercy about the cruel 
grind — that it gave her the gift of insensibility. Little 
by little she sank into a torpor-— she fell silent^ She 
would meet Jurgis and Ona in the evening, and the three 
would walk home together, often without saying a word. 
Ona, too, was falling into a habit of silence — Ona, wh« 
had once gone about singing like a bird. She was siok 



THE JITNOLE 163 

and miaerable, and often she would barely have strength 
enough to dra^ herself home. And there they would eat 
what they had to eat, and afterwards, because there was 
only their misery to talk of, they would crawl into bed 
and fskil into a stupor and never stir until it was time to 
get up again, and dress by candle-lifi^ht, and go back to 
the machines. They were so numbed that they did not 
even suffer much from hunger, now; only the children 
continued to fret when the food ran short. 

Yet the soul of Chia was not dead — the souls of none 
of them were dead, but only sleeping ; and now and then 
they would waken, and tnese were cruel times. The 
gates of memory would roll open — old joys would stretch 
out their arms to them, old hopes and dreams would call 
to them, and they would stir beneath the burden that lay 
upon them, and feel its foreyer immeasurable weight, 
lliey oould not eyen cry out beneath it ; but anguish 
would seize them, more dreadful than the agony of death. 
It was a thing scarcely to be spoken— -a thing never spoken 
by all the world, that will aot know its own defeat. 

They were beaten ; they had lost the game, they were 
swept aside. It was not less tra^o because it was so 
sormd, because that it had to do with wages and grocery 
bills and rents. They had dreamed of freedom ; of a 
chance to look about them and learn something ; to be 
decent and clean, to see their child grow up to to strong. 
And now it was all gone — it would never be I They 
had played the game and they had lost. Six years more 
of toil ihej had to face before they could expect the 
least respite, the cessation of the payments upon the 
house; and how cruelly certain it was that they could 
never stand six years of such a life as they were living ! 
lliery were lost, they were going down — and there was 
no aeliveranoe for them, no hope ; for all the help it gave 
them the vast city in which they lived might have been 
an ocean waste, a wilderness, a desert, a tomb. So often 
this mood would come to Ona, in the night-time, when 
sometUng wakened her ; she would lie, afraid Kd the beat* 
ing of h^ own heart, fronting the Uood-red eyes of the 



164 THE JUNGLE 

old primeval (error of life. Once she cried alond, and woke 
Jorgis, who was tired and cross. After that she learned to 
weep silently — their moods so seldom came together now ( 
It was as if their hopes were buried in separate graves. 

Jurgisy being a man, had troubles of his own. There 
was another spectre following him. He had never spoken 
of it, nor would he allow any one else to speak of it — he 
had nev^r acknowledged its existence to himself. Yet the 
battle with it took all the manhood that he had — and once 
or twice, alas, a little more. Jurgis had discovered drink« 

He was working in the steaming pit of hell ; day i^ter 
day, week after week — until now there was not an organ 
of nis body that did its work without pain, until the sound 
of ocean breakers echoed in his head day and night, and 
the buildings swayed and danced before him as he went 
down the street. And from all the unending horror of 
this there was a respite, a deliverance — he could drink I 
He could forget the pain, he oould slip off the burden ; he 
would see clearly asain, he would be master of his brain, 
Df his thoughts, of Lis will. His dead self would stir in 
1dm, and he would find himself laughing and cracking 
jokes with his companions — he would be a man again, 
and master of his life. 

It was not an easy thins for Jurgis to take more than 
two or three drinks. Witn the first drink he could eat a 
meal, and he could persuade himself that that was econ- 
omy ; with the second he could eat another meal — but 
there would come a time when he could eat no more, and 
then to pay for a drink was an unthinkable extravagance, 
a defiance of the age-long instincts of his hunger-hauniksd 
class. One day, however, he took the plunge, and drains 
up all that he had in his pockets, and went home half 
*^ piped," as the men phrase it. He was happier than he 
had been in a year; and yet, because he knew that the 
happiness would not last, ne was savage, too— with those 
who would wreck it, and with the world, and with his 
life ; and then again, beneath this, he was sick with the 
shame of himself. Afterward, when he saw the despair of 
his family, and reckoned up the money he had spent» the 



THE JUNGLE 165 

tears came into his eyes, and he began the long battle 
with the spectre. 

It was a battle that had no end, that never could have 
one. But Jurffis did not realize that very clearly; he was 
not given much time for reflection. He simply knew that 
he was always fighting. Steeped in misery and despair 
as he was, merely to walk down the street was to be put 
upon the rack. There was surely a saloon on the corner—^ 

Eerhaps on all four corners, and some in the middle of the 
lock as well; and each one stretched out a hand to him — 
each one had a personality of its own, allurements unlike 
any other. Going and coming — before sunrise and after 
dark — there was warmth and a glow of light, and the 
steam of hot food, and perhaps music, or a mendly face, 
and a word of good cheer. Jurgis developed a fondness 
for having Ona on his arm whenever he went out on the 
street, and he would hold her tightly, and walk fast It 
was pitiful to have Ona know of this — it drove him wild 
to tmnk of it; the thing was not fair, for Ona had never 
tasted drink, and so could not understand. Sometimes, in 
desperate hours, he would find himself wishing that she 
mififht learn what it was, so that he need not be ashamed 
in ner presence. They might drink together, and escape 
from the horror— escape for a while, come what would. 

So there came a time when nearly all the conscious life 
of Jurgis consisted of a struggle with the craving for 
liquor. He would hav^ ugly moods, when he hated Ona 
and the whole family, because they stood in his way. He 
was a fool to have married; he had tied himself down, 
had made himself a slave. It was all because he was a 
married man that he was compelled to stay in the yards; 
if it had not been for that he might have gone off like 
Jonas, and to hell with the packers. There were few 
single men in the fertilizer-mill — and those few were 
working onlj for a chance to escape. Meantime, too, they 
had something to think about while they worked, — they 
had the memory of the last time they had been drunk, and 
the hope ofi;he time when they would be drunk again. As 
for Jurgis, h^ was expected to bring home every penny; 



166 THB JT7N0LB 

he oonld not even go with the men at noon-time— -he wai 
suppoeed to sit down and eat his dinner on a pile of ferti* 
iizer dust* 

This was not always his mood, of ooutse ; he still loved 
his family. Bnt just now was a time of triaL Poor litde 
Antanas, for instance — who had never failed to win him 
with a smile — little Antanas was not smiling just now, 
being a mass of fiery red pimples. He had had all the dis- 
eases that babies are heir to, in quick succession, scarlet 
fever, mumps, and whooping-cougn in the first year, and 
now he was down with the meades. There was no one 
to attend him but Kotrina ; there was no doctor to help 
him, because they were too poor, and children did n(^ 
die of the measles — at least not often. Now and then 
Kotrina would find time to sob over his woes, but for the 
greater part of the time he had to be left alone, barricaded 
upon the bed. The floor was full of draughts, and if he 
caught cold he would die. At night he was tied down, 
lest he should kick the covers off him« while the family 
lay in their stupor of exhaustion. He would lie and scream 
for hours, almost in convulsions ; and then, when he was 
worn out, he would lie whimpering and wailing in his tor- 
ment. He was burning up with fever, and h& eyes were 
running sores; in the daytime he was a thing uncanny 
and impish to behold, a plaster of pimples and sweat, a 
great purple lump of misery. 

Tet all this was not really as cruel as it sounds, for, sick 
as he was, little Antanas '«f as the least unfortunate member 
of that fkoiilv* He was quite able to bear his sufferings-^ 
it was as if ne had aU these complaints to show what a 
prodigy of health ho was. He was the child of his parents* 
youth and joy ; he grew up like the conjurer's rose budb, 
and all the world was his oyster. In general, he toddled 
around the kitchen all dav with a lean and hungry look — 
the portion of the family s allowance that fell to him was 
not enough, and he was unrestrainable in his demand for 
more. Antanas was but little over a year old, and already 
Qo one but his father could manage him. 

It seemed as if he had taken all of his mother's strength 



J THlsi JUNGLE l«7 

^-had left nothine for those that might come after him. 
Ona was with child again now, and it was a dreadful thing 
to contemplate ; even Jurgis, dumb and despairing as he 
was, could not but understand that yet other agonies were 
on tiie way, and shudder at the thought of them. 

For Ona was yisibly going to pieces. In the first place 
she was developing a coug^ like the one that had killed 
old Dede Antanas. She had had a trace of it ever since that 
fatal morning when the greedv street-car corporation had 
turned her out into the rain ; out now it was oeg^ning to 
grow serious, and to wake her up at night. Even worse 
than that was the fearful nervousness from which she suf • 
fered ; she would have frightful headaches and fits of 
aimless weeping ; and sometimes she would come home at 
night shudaering and moaning, and would fiing herself 
down upon the ^d and burst into tears. Several times 
she was quite beside herself and hvsterical; and then 
Jurgis would go half mad with frieht. Elzbieta would 
expkdn to him that it could not be helped, that a woman 
was subject to such things when she was pregnant; but 
he was hardly to be persuMed, and would beg and plead to 
know what had happened. She had never been tike this 
before, he would areue — it was monstrous and nnthink* 
able. It was the life she had to live, the accursed work 
she had to do, that was killing her by inches. She was 
not fitted for it — no woman was fitted for it, no 
woman ought to be allowed to do such work ; if the 
world could not keep them alive any other way it 
ought to kill them at once and be done with it. They 
ought not to marry, to have children; no workii^ 
man ought to marry — if he, Jur^is, had known what a 
woman was like, he would have had Ids eyes torn out first. 
So he would carry on, becoming half hysterical himself 
which was an unbearable thing to see in a big man ; Ona 
would pull herself together and fling herself into his arms, 
b^fging him to stop, to be still, that she would be better, 
it would be all right. So she would lie and sob out her 
grief ui>on his shoulder, while he razed at her, as helpl< 
as a wounded animal, the target oi unseen enemiea» 



! 



CHAPTER XV 

The beginning of these perplexinjj ihin^ was in the 
gammer ; and each time Ona woula promise him with 
terror in her voice that it would not happen again — but 
in vain. Each crisis would leave Jurgis more and more 
frightened, more disposed to distrust Elzbieta's consola- 
tions, and to believe that there was some terrible thing 
about all this that he was not allowed to know. Once or 
twice in these outbreaks he caught Ona's eye, and it 
aeemed to him like the eye of a hunted animid; there 
were broken phrases of anguish and despair now and then* 
amid her frantic weeping. It was onl^ because he was 
so numb and beaten himself that Jurgis did not worry 
more about this. But he never thought of it, except whea 
he was dragged to it — he lived like a dumb beast of bur- 
den, knowing only the moment in which he was. 

The winter was coming on again, more menacing and 
cruel than ever. It was OctoSer, and the holiday rush 
had begun. It was necessary for the packing-machines 
to grind till late at night to provide food that would be 
eaten at Christmas breakfasts ; and Marija and Elzbieta and 
Chia, as part of the machine, began worKing fifteen or six- 
teen hours a day. There was no choice about this — what* 
ever work there was to be done they had to do, if they wished 
to keep their places ; besides that, it added another pittance 
to their incomes, so thev staggered on with the awful load* 
They would start work every morning at seven, and eat 
their dinners at noon, and then work until ten or eleveo 
at night without another mouthful of food. Jurgis wanted 
to wait for them, to help them home at night, but they 
would not think of this ; the fertilizer-mill was not run* 
ning overtime, and there was no place for him to wait save 

168 

I 





THE JUNGLE 



In a saloon. JEach would stagger out into the darkneS 
and make heir way to the comer, where they met ; or ii 
the others had already gone, would get into a car, and 
begin a painful struggle to keep awake. When they got 
home they were always too tired either to eat or to undress ; 
they would crawl into bed with their shoes on, and lie like 
logs. If thej should fail, they would certainly be lost ; 
if they held out, they might have enough coal for the 
winter. 

A day or two before Thankseiving Day there came a 
snowHstorm. It began in the afternoon, and by evening 
two inches had fallen. Jurgis tried to wait for the women* 
but went into a saloon to get warm, and took two drinks, 
and came out and ran home to escape from the demon ; 
there he lay down to wait for them, and instantly fell 
asleep. When he opened his eyes again he was in the 
midst of a nightmare, and found Elzbieta shaking him and 
ciying out. At first he could not realize what she was 
saying— Ona had not come home. What time was it, he 
asked. It was morning — - time to be up. Ona had not 
been home that night I And it was bitter cold, tod a foot 
of snow on the ground. 

Jurgis sat up with a start. Marija was crying with 
fright and the children were wailing in sympathy— little 
Stanisloyas in addition, because the terror of the snow was 
upon him. Jurgis had nothing to put on but his shoes and 
his coat, and in half a minute he was out of the door. 
Then, howeyer, he realized that there was no need of 
haste, that he had no idea where to go. It was still dark 
as midnight, and the thick snowflakes were sifting 
down — eyery thing was so silent that he could hear the 
rustle of them as they fell. In the few secouds that he 
stood there hesitating he was coyered white. 

He set off at a run for the yards, stopping by the way 
to inquire in the saloons that were open. Ona might haye 
been oyercome on the way ; or else she mieht haye met 
with an accident in the machines. When he got to the 
place where she worked he inquired of one of tiie watch* 
meii-— diere had not been any accident, so far aa thA \sAaDL 

12 



/^ 




THB JXrSOiLSt 

^ heard. At the time-officet which he jfonnd alreaAf 
open, the clerk told him that Ona's check hiid been tomea 
in the night before, showing that she had left her work* 

After that there was nothing for him to do bul wait| 
racing back and forth in the snow, meantime , to keep from 
neezing. Already the yards were full of activity ; cattle 
were l^ing unloaded &om the oars in the , distance, and 
across the way^ the ^ beef-lngmra ** were tc«iling in the 
darkness, carrying two-hundrea-pound quarters of bullocks 
into the refrigerator-cars. Before the hrst streaks of day« 
light there came the crowding throiigs of workingmen, 
ahivering, and swinging their mnner pails as they hurried 
by. Jurgis took up his stand by the time-office window, 
where alone there was light enough for him to see ; the 
•now feU so thick that it was only oy peering closely that 
he could make sure that Ona did not pass mm. 

Seven o'clock came, the hour when the great packings 
machine began to move. Jurcpis ought to have been at 
his place in the f ertilizer-mill ; but instead he was waiting, 
in an agony of fear, for Ona. It was fifteen minutes af t^ 
tiie hour when he saw a form emerge from the snow-mist, 
and sprang toward it with a cry. It was she^ running 
swiftly ; as she saw him, she staggered forward, and haQ 
fell into his outstretched arms. 

^What has been the matter?** he cried, anxiously. 
•* Where have you been?'* 

It was sevenu seconds before she oould get breath to 
answer him. ^I couldn't get home,** she exclaimed. ^The 
snow—- the oars had stopped.** 

^But where were you then ?** he demanded. 

**I had to go home with a friend,** she panted— *^ with 
Jadvyga.** 

Jurgis drew a deep breath ; but then he noticed that she 
was sobbinff and trembling — as if in one of those nervous 
crises that ne dreaded so. ^ But what's the matter ? " he 
oried. ^ What has happened ? ** 

^ Oh, Juigis, I was so frightened I ** she said, clinging 
to him wild^. *^ I have been so worried I ** 

They were near the time-stauon window, and people 



THE JUNGLE 171 

were staring at them. JargU led her away. ^ How do 
you mean ? he asked, in perplexity. 

*^I was afraid — I was just afraid I ** sobbed Ona. ^1 
knew yon wouldn't know where I was, and I didn't know 
what yon might do. I tried to get home, but I was so 
tired. Oh, Jurgis, Jurgis I '* 

He was eo glM to get her back that he could not think 
clearly about anything else. It did not seem strange to 
him that she should ro so very much upset ; all her fright 
and incoherent protestations did not matter since he had 
her back. He let her cry away her fears ; and then, be- 
cause it was nearly ei^ht o'clock, and they would lose 
another hour if they delayed, he left her at the packing- 
house door, with h^ ghastly white face and her naunted 
eyes of terror. 

There was another brief interval. Christmas was al- 
most come ; and because the snow still held, and tibo 
searching cold, morning after morning Jurgis haJf carried 
)us wife to her post, staggering with her through the dark- 
ness ; until at last, one night, came the end. 

It lacked but three days of the holidays. About mid- 
night Marija and Elzbieta came home, exclaiming in alarm 
when they found that Ona had not come. The two had 
agreed to meet her ; and, after waiting, had gone to the 
room where she worked, only to find that the ham- wrap- 
ping girls had quit work an hour before, and left. There 
was no snow that night, nor was it especially cold ; and 
still Ona had not come I Something more serious must 
be wrong this time. 

They aroused Jurgis, and he sat up and listened crossly 
to the story. She must have gone home again with Jad- 
vyga, he said ; Jadvyga lived only two blocks from the 

iaras, and perhaps she had been tired. Nothing could 
ave happened to her — and even if there had, there was 
nothing could be done about it untU morning. Jur^ 
ramed over in his bed, and was snoring again before uie 
two had closed the door. 
in the morning, however, he was up and out nearly an 



172 THE JUKOLB 

hour before the usaal time. Jadvjga HaToinkns lived cm 
the other side of the yards, beyond Halsted Street, with 
her mother aud sisters, in a single basement room — for 
Mikolas had recently lost one hand from blood-poisoning, 
and their marriage had been put off forever. Tne door of 
the room was in the rear, reached by a narrow court, and 
Jurgis saw a light in the window and heard something 
frying as he passed ; he knocked, half expecting that Ona 
would answer. 

Instead there was one of Jadvyga^s uttle sisters, who 
gazed at him through a crack in the door. ^Where's 
Ona ? ** he demandra ; and the child looked at him in 
perplexity. ^ Ona ? ^ she said. 

** Yes,*' said Jurgis, ** isn't she here ? ** 

** No,*' said the child, and Jurgis gave a start. A mo* 
ment later came Jadvyga, peering over the child's head. 
When she saw who it was, she slid around out of sight, 
for she was not quite dressed. Jurgis must excuse ner, 
•he began, her mother was very ill 

^Ona isn't here?" Jurgis demanded^ too alarmed to 
wait for her to finish. 

**Why, no," said Jadvym. **What made you think 
ihe would be here ? Had soe said she was coming ? ** 

^No,** he answered. *^But she hasn't come nome--' 
and I thought she would be here the same as before.*' 

^ As before ? " echoed Jadvyga, in perplexity. 

^ The time she spent the night here," said Jurgis. 

^ There must be some mistake," she answered, quickly. 
^ Ona has never spent the night here." 

He was only half able to resize her words. •* Why —why 
~ " he exclaimed. ^ Two weeks ago, Jadvyga 1 She told 
me so — the night it snowed, and she could not get home." 

^ There must be some mistake," declared the girl, again ] 
^she didn't come here." 

He steadied himself by the doornsill ; and Jadvyga iit 
bar anxietv — for she was fond of Ona— * opened tiie door 
wide, holdinff her jacket across her throat. ^Are you 
sure vou di&'t misunderstand her?" she cried. ^She 
\DQst nave meant wmewlMTO alia* She 



THE JUNGLE ^73 

«'She nid hero»'' inristed Joiffis. «Shetold me aU 
•boat 700» and how yoa were, and what yon said. Are 
yon anre ? Yon haven't forgotten ? Ton weren^t away?*' 

**No^ no I ** ahe ezdaimed — and then came a peevish 
Toioe— -^ Jadyrga, yon are giving the baby a cold« Shnt 
the door I ** Jnrgis stood for huf a minnte more, stam* 
mering his perplexity tbrongh an eighth of an inch ct 
crock ; and then, as there was really nothing more to be 
nid^ he excused himself and went away. 

He walked on half dazed, without knowing where he 
went. Ona had deceived bimi She had lied to himi 
And what could it mean— where had she been? Where 
was she now? He could hardly grasp the thing-— much 
less try to solve it; but a huniuea wild surmises came to 
' 'm, a sense of impending calamity overwhelmed hinu 

Because there was nothing else to do, he went back to 
the time-office to watch again. He waited until nearly an 
hour after seven, and then went to the room where Ona 
worked to make inquiries of One's ^ f orelady." The ^ fore- 
lady ,** he found, had not yet come ; all the Imes of cars that 
came from down-town were stalled — there had been an acci- 
dent in the power-house, and no cars had been running 
since last night. Meantime, however, the ham-wrappers 
were working away, with some one else in charge cl 
them. The eirl who answered Jurgis was buqr* and 
as she talked me looked to see if she were being watched* 
Then a man came up, wheeling a truck ; he ki^w Jurgis 
for Ona's husband, and was curious about the mystery. 

^Maybe the cars had something to do with it,*' he wag" 
t{ested — ^ maybe she had gone down-town.** 

^No,** said Jtugis, ^gj^^ never went down*iown.** 

^Perhaps not,** said the man. 

Jurgis tnought he saw him exchange a swift glance with 
the girl as he spoke, and he demanded quickly, ^ What do 
yon know about it ? ** 

But the man had seen that the boss was watching him ; 
he started on again, pushing his truck. ^ I don't know 
anything about it," ne saic^ over his shoulder^ **How 
should I know where yoor wifo goes?** 



174 THE .rXTNGLB 

Then Jorgis went out agradn, and paced up and dowB 
before the buUding. All the morning he stayed there, 
with no thought of his work. About noon he went to 
the police station to make inquiries, and then came back 
again for another anxious vigil. Finally, toward the 
middle of the afternoon, he set out for home once more» 

He was walking out Ashland Avenue. The street-can 
had begun running again, and several passed him, packed 
to the steps with people. The sight of them set Jurgis 
to thinking again of the man's sarcastic remark ; and ludf 
involuntarily ne found himself watching the cars— with 
the result that he gave a sudden stamed exclamationt 
and stopped short in his tracks. 

Then he broke into a run. For a whole block he tore 
after the car, only a little ways behind. That rusty black 
hat with the drooping red flower, it might not be Ona's, 
but there was very litue likelihood of it. He would know 
for certain very soon, for she would get out two blocks 
ahead. He slowed down, and let the car go on. 

She got out ; and as soon as she was out of sight on the 
side stroet Juigb broke into a run. Suspicion was rife in 
him now, and he was not ashamed to shadow her; he saw 
her turn the comer near their home, and then he ran again, 
and saw her as she went up the porch*steps of the house. 
After that he turned bacl^ and tor five minutes paced up 
and down, his hands clenched tightly and his lips set, hui 
mind in a turmoiL Then he went home and entered* . 

As he opened the door, he saw Elzbieta, who had also 
been looking for Ona, and had come home again. She 
was now on tiptoe, and had a finger on her lips. Jurgis 
waited until she was close to him. 

^ Don 't make any noise,^ she whisperedf hurriedly. 

«" What's the matter? ** he asked. 

^Ona is asleep,** she panted. ^She*8 been very ilL 
Fm afraid her mind's been wandering, Jurgis. She was 
lost on the street all night, and Tve only just suooeedad 
in getting her quiet.*' 

^ When did sne come in?** he asked* 

^Sooii after yon kft this morning,** said Elsbiata. 




THB JUNOLB 175 

« And has she been out sinoe?" 

*No, of coarse not. She's so weak, Jniffis, she 

And he set his teeth hard together, ^loaare 
me,** he said. 

Elzbieta started, and tamed pale. ^ Why I " she gasped. 
•• What do yoa mean? *• 

Bat Jargis did not answer. He poshed her aside, and 
strode to the bedroom door and opened it. 

Ona was sitting on the bed. She tamed a startled look 
npon hii^ as he entered. He closed the door in EIzbieta*s 
foce, and went toward his wife. ^ Where have 70a been? "* 
he demanded. 

She had her hands clasped tightly in her lap, and he saw 
that her face was as white as paper, and drawn with pain. 
She rasped once or twice as she tried to answer him, and 
tiien began, speaking low, and swiftly, ^ Jargis, I — I think 
I have l^n oat d my mind. I started to come last night, 
and I coald not find the way. I walked-^ I widkea aU 
night, I think, and — and I onlyjgot home — this momin|^.** 

^Ton needed a rest,** he saic^ in a hard tone. ^ Wny 
didyon go oat again? ^ 

ne was looking her fairly in the face, and he coald read 
the sadden fear and wild nncertainty that leaped into her 

2es. ^I— I had to go to — to the store,** she gasped^ 
nost in a whisper, ^ I had to go——** 

^ Yoa are lying to me,** said J argis. 

Then he clenched his hands and took a step toward her. 
^ Why do yoa lie to me? ** he cried, fiercely. ^ What are 
yoa doinp^ that yoa have to lie to me? ** 

^ Jurns I ** she exdiumed, starting ap in fright. ^ Ok» 
Jor^ns, now can yoa? ** 

^ loa have lied to me, I say I ** he cried* ^ Too told me 
Toa had been to JadYyga*s hoase that other night, and yo« 
hadn't. Ton had been where yoa were last night — some- 
wheres down-town, for I saw yoa get off the car. Where 
were you?** 

It was as if he had stmck a knife into her. She seemed 
to ffo all to pieces. For half a second she ptood, reeling 
and swayiniir, staring at him with horror in her eyes ; thei^ 



176 THE JUKGIiB 



with a cry of anguish, she tottered forward, crtretohing oat 
her arms to him. 

But he stepped aside, deliberately, and let her falL She 
caught herseli at the side of the bed, and then sank dowot 
burying her face in her hands and bursting into frantic 
weeping. 

There came one of those hysterical crises that had so 
often dismayed him. Ona sobbed and wept, her fear and 
anguish building themselves up into long climaxes. Furl* 
ous ffusts of emotion would come sweeping over her, ahak* 
ing her as the tempest shakes the trees upon the hills ; all 
her frame would quiver and throb with them — it was as 
if some dreadful thing rose up within her and took pos- 
session of her, torturing her, tearing her. This thing had 
been wont to set Jurgis quite beside himself ; but now 
he stood with his lips set tightly and his hands dendied 
— she might weep till she killed hersel£» but she should 
not move him tnis time — not an inch, not an inch. Be* 
cause the sounds she made set his blood to running cold 
and his lips to quivering in spite of himself, he was glad 
of the diversion when Teta Elzbieta, pale with fright» 
opened the door and rushed in ; yet he turned upon her 
with an oath. ^^Qo out!** he cried, *^go out I And 
then, as sh^ stood hesitating, about to speak, he seized 
her by the arm, and half flung her from the room, slam* 
ming the door and bamne it with a table. Then he 
turned again and faced Ona, crying — ^NoWf answer 
mel" 

Tet she did not hear him— she was still in the grip of 
the fiend. Jur^ could see her outstretched hands, shak* 
ing and twitchmg, roaming here and there over the bed 
at will, like living things ; he could see convulsive shud* 
derings start in ner wAy and run through her limbs. 
She was sobbing and choking — it was as if there were 
too many sounds for one throat, they came chasing each 
other, like waves upon the sea. Then her voice would be* 
gin to rise into screams, louder and louder until it brofai 
in wild, horrible peals of laughter. Jurgis bore it until 
he could bear it no longer, and then 1^ sprang at bat^ 



THE JUNGIil 177 

ber by the shoulders and shalring her« shoating 
into her ear : ^Stop it, I say I Stop it ! 

She looked up at him, out of her agony ; then she f eU 
forward at his feet. She caught them in her hands, in 
n>it9 of his efforts to step aside, and with her faoe upon 
the floor lay writhing. It made a choking in Jurgis's 
throat to hear her, and he cried again, more savagely uian 
before : ""Stop it, I say 1 " 

This time she heeded him, and caught her breath and 
lay silent, save for the gasping sobs that wrenched all her 
frame. For a long minute she lay there, perfectly motion- 
less, until a cold fear seized her husband, thinsing that 
she was dying. Suddenly, however, he heurd her voioe^ 
faintly : ^ Jurgis I Jurgls I " 

••What is it?" he saM. 

He had to bend down to her, she was so weak. She 
was pleading with him, in broken phrases, painfully ut- 
tered : •• Have fidth in me I Believe me I ^ 

•• Believe what ? ** he cried. 

••Believe that I — that I know best —that I love von I 
And do not ask me —what you did. Oh, Jurgis, please, 
please I It ia for the best — it is-— >** 

He started to speak again, but she rushed on frantically, 
heading him off. •• If you will only do it I If you wul 
only— only believe me I It wasn't my fault — I couldn't 
help it — it will be all right— it is nothing— it is no 
hann. Oh, Jurgis — please, pleasel ** 

She had hold of him, and was trying to raise herself to 
look at him ; he could feel the palsied shaking of her 
hands and the heaving of the bosom she pressed against 
him. She manacled to catdi one of hb hands and gripped 
it convulsively, curawing it to her face, and bathing it in 
her tears. •• Oh, believe me, believe me 1 " she wailed 
again ; and he shouted in fury, •• I will not I ^ 

But still she clung to him, wailing aloud in her despair t 
•^Oh, Jurgis, think what you are doing I It will ruin us 
— it will ruin us I Oh, no, you must not do it t No, 
don't, don't do it. You must not do it t It will drive me 
mad— it will kill me — no, no, Jurgis, I am crazy —it is 



178 THE JUNGLB 

nothing. Ton do not really need to know. We can \m 
happy — we can love each other just the same. Oh^ 
please, please, believe me 1 ** 

Her words fairly drove him wild. He tore his hands 
loose, and flung her off. *^ Answer me,*' he cried. ^ God 
damn it, I say — answer me I *' 

She sank down apon the floor, becfinning to cry again. 
It was like listening to the moan of a damned soul, and 
Jurgis could not stond it. He smote his fist upon th« 
table « by his side, and shouted again at her, ^* Answer 
mel- 

She began to scream aloud, her voice like the voice 
of some wild beast: ^Ah! Ah I I can't I I can't d* 
iti- 

•* Why can't you do it ? ** he shouted. 

•• I don't know how I " 

He sprang and caught her by the arm, lifting her np^ 
and glaring mto her face. ^ TeU me where you were last 
nifi^t I " he panted. ^ Quick, out with it I " 

Then she began to wlusper, one word at a time : ^ I — 
was in — a house — down-town ** 

"What house ? What do you mean ?" 

She tried to hide her eyes away, but he held her. " Miss 
Henderson's house," she gasped. 

He did not understand at first. "Miss Henderson's 
house," he echoed. And then suddenly, as in an explo- 
sion, the horrible truth burst over him, and he reeled 
and staggered back with a scream. He caught himself 
against the wall, and put his hand to his forehead, star* 
ing about him, and whispering, " Jesus I Jesus t " 

An instant later he leaped at her, as she lay grovellin|^ 
at his feet. He seized her bv the throat. " Tell me t " 
he gasped, hoarsely. " Quick 1 Who took you to that 
place?" 

She tried to get away, making him furious ; he thought 
it was fear, or the pain of his clutch — he did not uncter- 
stand that it was the aeony of her shame. Still she aar 
swered him, "Connor.*" 

M Connor," he gasped. " Who is Connor f 



THE JUNOLB 179 

^ The bofls,** she answered, •'Theman — ** 

He tightened his grip, in his frenzy, and only when he 
saw her eyes dosing did he realize that he was choking 
her. Then he relaxed his fingers, and cronched, waiting, 
until she opened her lids again. His breath beat hot into 
her face, 

^ Tell xne,^ he whispered, at last, ^ tell me about it.** 

She lay perfectly motionless, and he had to hold his 
breath to catch her words. ^ I did not want-— to do it,* 
she said ; ^I tried— I tried not to do it. I only did it 
*^to save Gs. It was our only chance.*' 

Aeain, for a space, there was no sound but his panting. 
Ona^ eyes dosed and when she spoke again she did not 
open them. ^He told me — he would have me turned 
on. He told me he would— we would all of us lose our 
places. We could never get anything to do — here — 
again. He— -he meant it — he would have ruined us.** 

Jurgis's arms were shaking so that he could scarcely 
hold himself up, and lurched forward now and then 
as he listened. ^ When-* when did this begin?** he 
gasped, 

^ At the very first,'* she said. She spoke as if in a 
trance, ^ It was all — it was their plot — Miss Hender* 
son's plot. She hated me. And he — he wanted me. 
He used to speak to me — out on the platform. Then he 
beg^n to — to make love to me. He offered me money. 
He begged me — he said he loved me. Then he threat* 
ened me. He knew all about us, he knew we would 
starve. He knew your boss — he knew Marija*s. He 
would hound us to death, he said — then he said if I 
would — if I— we would all of us be sure of work- 
always. Then one day he caught hold of me —he would 
not let go — he. — he '* 

** Where was this?** 

^ In the hallway — at night— after every one had gone. 
I could not help it. I thought of you — of the baby — of 
mother and the children, 1 was atraid of him —afraid to 
cry out.** 

A moment ago her &oe had been ashen gray, now it was 



180 THB JUNGLB 

•oarlet. She was beginning to fareathe hard agaia Jmgii 
Blade not a sound. 

^ That was two months ago. Then lie wanted me to 
eome — to that house. He wanted me to stay there. He 
said all of us — that we would not have to work. He 
made me oome there— in the evenings. I told you-* 
thoufirht I was at the factory. Then-^one night 
it snoweo, and I oouldn^t get back. And last night— 
the cars were stopped. It was such a little thing — to 
ruin us alL I tried to walk, but I couldn^t. I didn't 
want you to know. It would haye — it would have been 
all right. V7e could have gone on— > just the same*— *you 
need never have known aMUt it. He was getting tired 
of me— he would have let me alone soon. I am going to 
have a baby— I am getting ugly. He told me that— 
twice, he told me, last ni^^ht. He kicked me —last night 
—too. And now vou will kill him— you— you will kill 
1dm — and we shall die.** 

All this she had said without a quiver ; she lay still as 
death, not an evelid moving. And Jurgis, too, said not 
a word. He lifted himself by the bed, and stood up. He 
did not stop for another glance at her, but went to the 
door and opened it. He did not see EL&bieta, croudiing 
terrified in the comer. He went out, hatless, leaving the 
street door open behind him. The instant his feet wei^ 
on the sidewalk he broke into a run. 



He ran like one possessed, blindly, furiously, 
neither to the right nor left. He was on Ashland Avenue 
before exhaustion compelled him to slow down, and theOf 
noticing a car, he made a dart for it and drew himseU 
aboard. His eyes were wild and his hair flying, and he 
was breathing hoarsely, like a wounded bull; but the 
people on the car did not notice this particularly -^ per* 
naps it seemed natural to them that a man who smelt as 
Jurgis smelt should exhibit an aspect to correspond. 
They began to give way before him as usual. The con* 
ductor t^k his nickel gingerly, with the tips of his fingers, 
and then left him wiui we platform to himself. Jurgis 



XHE JimaLB 181 

did not even notice it — his thoughts were for away; 
Within his soul it was like a roaring fomaoe ; he stood 
waiting, waiting, crouching as if for a spring. 

Ho had some of his breath back when the car came to 
the entrance of the yards, and so he leaped off and started 
a^^ain, racing at foil speed. People turned and stared at 
him, but he saw no one — there was the factory, and he 
bounded through the doorway and down the corridor. 
He knew the room where Ona worked, and he knew 
Connor, the boss of the loading-gang outside. He looked 
for the man as he sprang into the room* 

Hie truckmen were nard at work, loading the freshly 
packed boxes and barrels upon the cars. Jurgis shot one 
twift glance up and down the platform — the man was not 
on it. But then suddenly he heard a voice in the corridor, 
and started for it with a bound. In an instant more he 
fronted the boss. 

He was a big, red-faced Irishman, coarse-featured, and 
smelling of liquor. He saw Jurgis as he crossed the 
threshold, and turned white. He hesitated one second, 
as if meanings to run ; and in the next his assailant was 
upon him. He put up his hands to protect his face, but 
Jurgis, lunging with all the power of his arm and body, 
struck him fairly between the eyes and knocked him bacs:- 
ward* The next moment he was on top of him, burying 
his fingers in his throat. 

To Jurgis this man's whole presence reeked of the crime 
he had committed; the touch of his body was madness to 
him— it set every nerve of him a-tremble, it aroused all 
the demon in his souL It had worked its will upon Ona, 
this great beast — and now he had it, he had it I It was 
his turn now! Things swam blood before him, and he 
screamed aloud in his fury, lifting his victim and smashing 
his head upon the floor. 

The pla^ of course, was in an uproar ; women fainting 
and shneldng, and men rushing in. Jur^ was so bent 
upon his task that he knew nothing of tms, and scarcely 
realized that people were trying to mterf ere with him ; it 
was only when half a dosan men had seized him by the 



182 



THE JUNGLE 



legs and shoulders and were pulling at him, that he under- 
stood that he was losing his prey. In a flash he had heot 
down and sunk his teeth into the man's cheek ; and when 
they tore him away he was dripping with blood, and little 
ribbons of skin were hanging in his mouth. 

They got him down upon the floor, clinging to him by 
his arms and legs, and still they could hardly hold him. 
He fought like a tiger, writhinsp and twisting, half flinging 
them off, and starting toward his unconscious enemy. 
But yet others rushed m, until there was a little mountain 
of twisted limbs and bodies, heaving and tossing, and 
working its way about the room. In the end, by their 
sheer weight, they choked the breath out of him, and then 
they carried him to the company police-station, where he 
lay still until tiiey had summoned a patrol wagon to taku 
awaje 



CHAPTER XVI 

When Jorgis got up again he went c^aietly enongh. 
He was exhaustedand half dazed^ and besides he saw the 
blue uniforms of the policemen. He drove in a patrol 
wagon with half a dozen of them watching him ; keeping 
as mr away as possible, however, on account of the f ertil* 
iser. Then he stood before the sergeant's desk and gave 
his name and address,' and saw a charge of assault and 
battery entered against him* On his way to his ceU 
a burly policeman cursed him because he started down the 
wrong corridor, and then added a kick when he was not 
quick enough; nevertheless, Jurgis did not even lift 
his eyes — he had lived two years and a half in Pack- 
ingtown, and he knew what the police were. It was as 
much as a man's very life was worth to anger thenit 
here in their inmost lair; like as not a dozen would pile 
on to him at once, and pound his face into a pulp. It 
would be nothing unusual if he got his skull cracked im 
the melee — in which case they would report that he had 
been drunk and had fallen down, and there would be no 
one to know the difference or to care. 

So a barred door clanged ^pon Jurgis and he sat down 
upon a bench and buried his face in his hands. He was 
alone; he had the afternoon and all of the night to him* 
self. 

At first he was like a wild beast that has glutted itself; 
he was in a dull stupor of satisfaction. He had done up 
the scoundrel pretty well — not as well as he would have 
if they had given him a minute more, but pretty well, all 
the same; the ends of his fingers were still tingling from 
their contact with the fellow^ throat. But then^ little b) 

183 



184 THB JUKGLB 

^ 

little, as his strength came back and his senses cleared, he 
began tiO see beyond his momentary gratification; that he 
had nearly killea the boss would not help Ona — not the 
horrors that she had borne, nor the memory that would 
haunt her all her days. It would not help to feed her and 
her child ; she would certainly lose her place, while he «--- 
what was to happen to him God only knew. 

Half the night he paced the floor, wrestling with this 
nightmare ; and when he was exhausted he lay down, try* 
ing to sleep, but finding instead, for the first time in ms 
life, that his brain was too much for him. In the cell nex:t 
to him was a drunken wife-beater and in the one beyond a 
veiling maniac. At midnight they opened the station- 
house to the homeless wanderers who were crowded about 
the door, shivering in the winter blast, and they thronged 
into the corridor outside of the cells. Some of them 
stretched themselves out on the bare stone floor and fell to 
snoring; others sat up, laughing and talking, cursing and 
quarreUine. The air was letid with their breath, yet in 
spite of this some of them smelt Jurgis and called down the 
torments of hell upon him, while he lay in a far comer 
of his cell, counting the throbbings of the blood in his 
forehead. 

They had brought him his supper, which was ^^ duffers 
and dope'*— being hunks of dry bread on a tin plate, 
and coffee, called ^dope'* because it was drugged to 
keep the prisoners quiet. Jurgis had not known uiis, or 
he would have swaUowed the stuff in desperation; as it 
was, every nerve of him was a-quiver with shame and rage. 
Toward morning the place fell silent, and he got up and 
began to pace his cell ; and then within the soul of him 
there rose up a fiend, red-eyed and cruel, and tore out 
the strings of his heart. 

It was not for himself that he suffered—- what did a 
man who worked in Durham's fertilizer-mill care about 
anything that the world might do to him I What was 
any tyranny of prison compared with the tyranny of the 
past, of the thing that had happened and could not be 
teoalled* of the memory that could never be effacedl The 



THE JUNGLE 185 

horror of it drove him mad; he stretohed out his arms to 
heaven, crying out for deliverance from it — and there was 
no deliverance, there was no power even in heaven that 
could undo the past. It was a ghost that would not down; 
it followed him, it seized upon him and beat him to the 
ground* Ah, if only he could have foreseen it — but then, 
he would have foreseen it, if he had not been a fool I He 
smote his hands upon his forehead, cursing himself because 
he had ever allowed Ona to work where she had, because 
he had not stood between her and a fate which every one 
knew to be so common. He should have taken her away, 
even if it were to lie down and die of starvation in the 
gutters of Chicago's streets! And now — oh, it could not 
be true; it was too monstrous, too horrible. 

It was a thing that could not be faced; a new shudder* 
ing seized him every time he tried to think of it. No, 
there was no bearing the load of it, there was no living 
under it. There would be none for her— -he knew that 
he might pardon her, might plead with her on his knees, 
but we would never look him in the face again, she 
would never be his wife again. The shame of it would 
kill her-*there could be no other deliverance, and it was 
best that she should die. 

This was simple and clear, and yet, with cruel inconsist- 
encv, whenever he escaped from this nightmare it was to 
suffer and cry out at the vision of Ona starving. They 
had put him in jail, and they would keep him here a long 
time, years maybe. And Ona would surely not go to 
work again, broken and crushed as she was. And Elzbieta 
and Marija, too, might lose their places — if that hell- 
fiend Connor chose to set to work to ruin them, they 
would all be turned out. And even if he did not, they 
could not live — even if the bovs left school again, 
they could surely not pay all the oiUs without him and 
Ona. They had only a few dollars now — they had just 
paid the rent of the house a week ago, and that after it was 
two weeks over-due. So it would be due again in a 
week I They would have no money to pay it then -^ and 
they would lose the hoii86» after all their long, heart-fareak- 

u 



186 THE «TI7NGLE 

ing struggle. Three times now the agent had warned him 
that he would not tolerate another delay. Perhaps it was 
veiT base of Jurgis to be thinking about the house when 
he nad the other unspeakable thing to fill his mind; yet, 
how much he had suffered for this house, how much they 
had all of them suffered I It was their one hope of res» 
pite, as long as they lived ; they had put all their money 
into it — and they were working-people, poor people, whose 
money was their strength, the very substance of them, body 
and soul, the thing by which they lived and for lack of 
which they died. 

And they would lose it all ; they would be turned out 
into the streets, and have to hide in some icy garret, and 
live or die as best they could t Jurgis had all the night 
—-and all of many more nights — to think about this, and 
he saw the thing in its details ; he lived it all, as if he 
were there. They would sell their furniture, and then 
run into debt at the stores, and then be refused credit; 
they would borrow a little from the Szedvilases, whose deli- 
catessen store was tottering on the brink of ruin; the 
neighbors would come and help them a little — poor, sick 
Jadvyga would bring a few spare pennies, as she always 
did when people were starving, and Tamoszius Eusleika 
would bring them the proceeds of a nieht's fiddling. 
So they would struggle to han^ on until ne got out of 
jail — or would they know that he was in jail, would they 
be able to find out anything about him? Would they hd 
allowed to see him — or was it to be part of his pumsh* 
ment to be kept in ignorance about their fate ? 

His mind would hang upon the worst possibilities ; he 
saw Ona ill and tortured, Marija out of ner place, little 
Stanislovas unable to get to woi*k for the snow, the whole 
family turned out on the street. Ood Almighty I would 
they actually let them lie down in the street and die? 
Would there be no help even then — would they wander 
about in the snow till they froze? Jurgis had never seen 
snj dead bodies in the streets, but he had seen people 
evicted and disappear, no one knew where ; and though 
the city had a reUef^boreaOt though there was a eharit? 



THE JUNGLE 187 

organization society in the stockyards district, in all hb life 
there he had never heard of either of them* They did not 
advertise their activities, having more calls than they could 
attend to without that. 

— So on until morning. Then he had another ride in the 
patrol wagon, along wiUi the drunken wife-beater and the 
maniac, sevexttl ^ plain drunks '* and ^' saloon fighters,'* a 
burglar, and two men who had been arrested for stealing 
meat from the packing-houses. Along with them he was 
driven into a large, white- walled room, stale-smelling and 
crowded. In front, upon a raised platform behind a "rail^ 
sat a stout, florid-faced personage, with a nose broken out 
in purple blotches. 

Our friend realized vaguely that he was about to be 
tried* He wondered what for — whether or not his vic- 
tim might be dead, and if so, what they would do with 
him. Hang him, perhaps, or beat him to death — nothing 
would have surprised Jurgis, who knew little of the laws. 
Tet he had picked up gossip enough to have it occur to 
him that the loud-voiced man upon the bench might be 
the notorious Justice Callahan, about whom the people 
of Packingtown spoke with bated breath. 

•^Pat** Callahan — ** Growler •• Pat, as he had been 
known before he ascended the bench— -had begun life 
as a butcher-boy and a bruiser of local reputation ; he had 
gone into politics almost as soon as he had learned to talk, 
and had held two offices at once before he was old enough 
to vote. If Scully was the thumb, Pat Callahan was t^e 
first finger of the unseen hand whereby the packers held 
down the people of the district. No politician in Chicago 
ranked higher in their confidence; he had been at it a 
long time— had been the business agent in the city coun- 
cil of old Durham, the self-made merchant, way back in 
the early days, when the whole city of Chicago had been 
up at auction. ^Growler*' Pat had ^ven up holding 
city offices very early in his career — canng only for party 

>wer, and giving the rest of his time to superintending 
lis dives and brothels. Of late years, however, since 
his chUdien were growing up, he had begun to valua 



188 THE JUKGLB 

respectability, and had had himself made a magistrate: 
a position for wliioh he was admirably fitted, because ol 
his strong conservatism and his contempt for '« foreigners." 

Jurgis sat gazing about the room for an hour or two; 
he was in hopes that some one of the family would come, 
but in this ne was disappointed. Finally, he was led 
before the bar, and a lawyer for the company appeared 
against him. Connor was under the doctor's care, the 
lawyer explained briefly, and if his Honor would hold the 
prisoner for a week — *^ Three hundred doUars,*' said hia 
Honor, promptly. 

Jurgis was staring from the judge to the lawyer 5n per- 
plexity. •* Have you any one to go on your bona? ^ 
demanded the judge, and then a clerk who sUkA at 
Jurgis's elbow explained to him what this meant. The 
latter shook his head, and before he realized what had 
happened the policemen were leading him away again. 
They took him to a room where oUier prisoners were 
waiting, and here he stayed until court adjourned, when 
he had another long and bitterly cold riae in a patrol 
wagon to the county jail, which is on the north side of 
the city, and nine or ten miles from the stockyards. 

Here they searched Jurgis, leaving him only his money, 
which consisted of fifteen cents. Then they led him to 
a room and told him to strip for a bath ; aiter which he 
had to walk down a long gallery, past the grated oell- 
doors of the inmates of the jail. This was a great event 
to the latter— the daily review of the new arrivals, all 
stark naked, and many and diverting were the comments. 
Jurgis was required to stay in the bath longer than any 
one, in the vain hope of getting out of him a few of his 
phosphates and acids. The prisoners roomed two in a 
cell, but that day there was one left over, and he was the 
one. 

The cells were in tiers, opening upon ffalleries. His 
eell was about five feet by seven in size, wiw a stone floor 
and a heavy wooden bench built into it. There was no 
window— •me only light came from windows near the 
roof at one end of tb ooort outaida. There were two 



u:i:> 



JUNGUB 189 



lRiiikB» one above the other, each with a citraw mattress 
and a pair of nay blankets — the latter stiff as boards 
with filth, and idive with fleas, bed-bugs, and lice. When 
Jnrgia lifted up the mattress he discovered beneath it a 
layer of scurrying roaches, almost as badly frightened as 
himself. 

Here thiy brought him more ^ duffers and dope,** with 
the addition of a bowl of soup. Many of the prisoners 
had their meals brought in from a restaurant, but Jurgis 
had no money for that. Some had books to read and cards 
to play, with candles to bum by night, but Jurgis was all 
alone in darkness and silence* He could not sleep again ; 
there was the same maddening procession of thoughts that 
lashed him like whips upon his naked back. When night 
fell he was pacing up and down his cell like a wild beast 
that breaks its teeth upon the bars of its cage. Now and 
then in his frenzy he would fling himself against the walls 
of the place, beating his hands upon them. They cut him 
and bruised him — uiey were cold and merciless as the men 
who had built them. 

In the distance there was a church-tower bell that tolled 
the hours one by one. When it came to midnight Jurgis 
was lying upon the floor with his head in his arms, listen* 
ing. Instead of falling silent at the end, the bell broke 
into a sudden clangor. Jurgis raised his head; what 
could that mean— a fire? God I suppose there were to 
be a fire in this jail ! But then he made out a melody in 
the rinmig; there were chimes. And they seemed to 
waken uie city -~ all around, far and near, there were bells, 
ringing wUd music ; for fuUv a minute Jurgis lay lost in 
wonder, before, all at once, the meaning of it broke o^^v 
him — that this was Christmas Eve I 

Christmas Eve — he had forgotten it entirely I There 
was a breaking of flood-gates, a whirl of new memories and 
new griefs ruahing into his mind. In far Lithuania they 
had celebrated Clmstmas ; and it came to him as if it had 
been yesterday — himself a little child, with his lost 
brother and his dead father in the cabin in the deep black 
fotesti where the snow faU aU day and aU night and buried 



100 THE JUNGLE 

them from the world. It was too far off for Santa Clabi 
in Lithuania, but it was not too far for peace and good 
will to men, for the wonder-bearing vision of the Clmst- 
cluld* And even in Packingtown they had not forgotten 
it — some gleam of it had never failed to break their dark- 
ness. Last Christmas Eve and all Christmas Day Jurgis 
had toiled on the killing-beds, and Ona at wrapping hamsi 
and still they had found strength enough to ti^e the 
children for a walk upon the avenue, to see the store 
windows all decorated with Christmas trees and ablaze 
with electric lights. In one window there would be live 
fifeese, in another marvels in sugar — pink and white canes 
big enough for ogres, and cakes with cherubs upon them ; 
in a tUrd there would be rows of fat yellow turkeys, deco- 
rated with rosettes, and rabbits and squirrels hanging ; in 
a fourth would be a fairy-land of toys — lovely dolls with 
pink dresses, and woolly sheep and drums and soldier 
nats. Nor did they have to go without their share of all 
tbis, either. The ^t time they had had a big basket with 
them and all their Christmas marketing to do — a roast of 
pork and a cabbage and some rye-bread, and a pair of 
mittens for Ona, and a rubber doll that squeaked, and a 
littie green cornucopia full of candy to be hung from the 
gas jet and gazed at bv half a dozen pairs of longing eyes. 
Even half a year of the sausage-machines and the fer- 
tilizer-mill had not been able to kill the thought of Christ- 
mas in them ; there was a choking in Jurgis's throat as 
he recalled that the very night Ona had not come home 
Teta Elzbieta had taken him aside and shown him an old 
valentine that she had picked up in a paper store for three 
oente — dingy and shop-worn, but with bric^ht colors, and 
figures of angels and doves. She had wiped all the specks 
off this, and was going to set it on the mantel, where the 
children could see it. Great sobs shook Jurgis at this 
memory-— they would spend their Christmas in misery 
and despair, with him in prison and Ona ill and their 
home in desolation. Ah, it was too cruel I Why at 
least had they not left him alone — why, after they had 
shul him in jaU, must they be ringing Christmas cnimes 
^n hia e&n i 



THE JUNGLE 191 

Bat no, their bells were not ringing for him — their 
Christmas was not meant for him, they were simply not 
counting him at alL He was of no consequence— he was 
flong aside, like a bit of trash, the carcass of some animaL 
It was horrible, horrible 1 His wife might be dying, his 
baby might be starving, his whole family might hd perish* 
ing in the cold — and all the while they were ringing their 
Christmas chimes 1 And the bitter mockery of it — all 
this was punishment for him I They put him in a place 
where the snow could not beat in, where the cold could 
not eat through his bones ; they brought him food and 
drink — why, in the name of heaven, if they must punish 
him, did they not put his family in jail and leave him oxxU 
side-— why could they find no better way to punish him 
than to leave three weak women and six helpless children 
to starve and freeze? 

That was their law, that was their justice t Jurgis 
stood upright, trembling with passion, his hands clenched 
and lus arms upraised, nis whole soul ablaze with hatred 
and defiance. Ten thousand curses upon them and their 
law I Their justice — it was a lie, it was a lie, a hideous, 
brutal lie, a thing too black and hateful for any world 
but a world of nightmares. It was a sham and a loath* 
some mockery. There was no justice, there was no rights 
anywhere in it — it was only force, it was tyranny, the 
will and the power, reckless and unrestrained I They had 
ground him beneath their heel, they had devoured all his 
substance ; they had murdered his old father, they had 
broken and wrecked his wife, they had crushed and cowed 
his whole family ; and now they were through with him, 
they had no fiui^her use for him—- and because he had 
interfered with them, had gotten in their way, this was 
what they had dono to himl They had put him behind 
bars, as if he had been a wild beast, a thing without sense 
or reason, without rights, without affections, without 
feelings. Nay, they would not even have treated a beast 
as they had treated him I Would any man in his senses 
have trapped a wild thing in its lair, and left its young 
behind to die 7 



192 



THE JTTNGIiE 



These midniglit hours were fateful ones to Jurgis ; in 
them was the beginning of his rebellion, of his outlawry 
and his unbelief. He had no wit to trace back the social 
orime to its far sources — he could not say that it was the 
thing men have called ^the system'* that was crushing 
him to the earth ; that it was the packers, his masters, 
who had bought up the law of the land, and had dealt out 
their brutal will to him from the seat of justice. He 
only knew that he was wronged, and that the world had 
wronged him; that the law, that society, with all its 
powers, had declared itself his foe. And every hour his 
soul grew blacker, every hour he dreamed new dreams of 
vengeance, of defiance, of raging, frenzied hate. 

^ The vilest deeds, like poison weeds^ 

Bloom weU in prison air ; 
It is only what is good in Man 

That wastes ana withers there; 
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate^ 

And the Warder is Despaur.** 

So wrote a poet, to whom the world had dealt its 
justice-— 

^ I know not whether Laws be rights 

Or whether Laws be wrong; 
All that we know who lie in gaol 

Is that the wall is strong. 
And they do well to hide their heO^ 

For in it things are done 
That Son of Grod nor son of Man 

£ver should look upon 1 ** 



CHAPTER XVn 

At seyen o'clock the next morning Jurris was let out 
to get water to wash his cell — a duty which he performed 
faithfully, but which most of the prisoners were accus- 
tomed to shirk, until their cells became so filthy that the 
guards interposed. Then he had more ^' duffers and dope,'* 
and afterward was allowed three hours for exercise, in a 
long, cement-walled court roofed with glass* Here were 
all the inmates of the jail crowded together. At one side 
of the court was a place for visitors, cut off by two heavy 
wire screens, a foot apart, so that nothing could be passed 
in to the prisoners; here Jurgis watched ?'*T?'^"9ly, but 
there came no one to see him. 

Soon after he went back to his cell, a keeper opened the 
door to let in another prisoner. He was a dapper young 
fellow, with a light brown mustache and blue eyea, and a 
CTaceful figure. He nodded to Jurgis, and then, as the 
keeper closed the door upon him, began gazing critically 
about him. 

^ Well, pal,** he said, as his glance encountered Jurgis 
again, "good morning.** 

** Good morning,** said Jurgis. 

** A rum go for Christmas, eh?** added the other. 

Jurgis nodded. 

The new-comer went to the bunks and inspected the 
blankets ; he lifted up the mattress, and then dropped it 
with an exclamation. " My God I '* he said, " that s the 
worst yet.'* 

He glanced at Jurgis again. "Looks as if it hadn't 
been slept in last night. Couldn't stand it, eh?" 

^ I didn't want to ^eep last night," said Jur^a« 

193 



>» 



194 THE JUNGLB 

•* When did you oome in?* 

«* Yesterday.*' 

The other had another look roondt and then wrinkled 
np his nose. ^There's the devil of a atink in here,** ha 
aaid, suddenly. «" What is it? ** 

^ It's me," said Jorgis. 

•^You?" 

•* Yes, me.** 

^ Didn't they make you wash? ** 

*^ Yes, but this don't wash.** 

•♦Whatisit?" 

«* Fertilizer." 

«" Fertilizer i fke deuce I What are you? *" 

**I work in the stockyards-* at least I did unt& the 
other day. It's in my clothes." 

^That's a new one on me," said the new-comer. ^I 
thought rd been up against 'em alL What are yoo ia 

« I hit my boss." 

u Oh — that's it. What did he do? " 

^ He — he treated me mean." 

** I see. You're what's called an honest working-man I " 

•* What are you? " Jurgis asked. 

««I?" The other laughed. ""They say Vm a oraeka* 
man," he said. 

** What's that? " asked Jurgis. 

^ Safes, and such things," answered the other. 

^Ohf" said Jur^s, wonderingly, and stared at the 
speaker in awe. ^ xou mean you break into them— -yoa 
—you — " 

^ Yes," laughed the other* ^ that's what they say." 

He did not look to be over twenty-two or three, thoueh^ 
as Jurgis found afterward, he was thirty. He spoke nke 
a man of education, like what the world calls a ^ gentleman.** 

*• Is that what you're here for? " Jurgis inquired. 

•* No," was the answer. •* I'm here for disorderly oon* 
duct. They were mad because they couldn't get any 
evidence." 

^ What o .four name?" the young fellow continued after 



THE JUNGLE 196 

a pftnae. ^^My name's Daane — Jack Dnane. Vve more 
than a dozen, but that's my company one." He seated him- 
self on the floor with his back to the wall and his legs 
crossed, and went on talking easily ; he soon put Jurgis 
on a friendly footing — he was evidently a man of the 
world, used to getting on, and not too proud to hold con- 
versation with a mere laboring man. He drew Jurgis 
oat, and heard all about his ufe — all but the one un- 
mentionable thing; and then he told stories about his 
own life. He was a great one for stories, not always of 
the choicest. Being sent to jail had apparently not dis- 
turbed his cheerfulness ; he had ^^ done time " twice before, 
it seemed, and he took it all with a frolic welcome. What 
with women and wine and the excitement of his vocation, 
a man could afford to rest now and then. 

Naturally, the aspect of prison life was changed for 
Jurgis by tne arrival of a cell-mate. He could not turn 
his face to the wall and sulk, he had to speak when he 
was spoken to; nor could he help bemg interested 
In the oonversation of Duane— the first educated man 
with whom he had ever talked. How could he help lis- 
tening with wonder while the other told of mid- 
night ventures and perilous escapes, of feastings and 
or^es, of fortunes squandered in a night? The young 
feuow had an amused contempt for Jurgis, as a sort ot 
working mule ; he, too, had felt the world's injustice, but 
instead of bearing it patiently, he had struck back, and 
•track hard. He was striking all the time — there was 
war between him and society. He was a genial free* 
booter, living off the enemy, without fear or shame. He 
was not alwuys victorious, but then defeat did not mean 
annihilation, and need not break his spirit. 

Withal he was a good-hearted fellow — too much so, it 
appeared. His story came out, not in the first day, nor the 
second, bat in the long hours that dragged by, in which 
they had nothing to do but talk, and nothing to talk of 
bat themselves. Jack Duane was from the East; he was 
a college-bred man — had been studying electrical engi- 
neering* Then his &ther had met witn misf ortune in busif 



196 THE JUNGLE 

ness and killed himself; and there had been his mother 
and a younger brother and sister. Also, there was an in- 
vention of Daane*s; Jurgis could not understand it clearly, 
but it had to do with telegraphing, and it was a very im- 
portant thing — there were fortunes in it, millions upon 
millions of dollars. And Duane had been robbed of it by 
a great companyi and got tangled up in lawsuits and lost 
all his money. Then somebody had given him a tip 
on a horse-race, and he had tried to retrieve his fortune 
with another person's money, and had to run away, and 
all the rest had come from thai The other asked liini 
what had led him to safe-breaking— to Jurgis a wild and 
appalling occupation to think about. A man he had met, 
his cell-mate had replied — one thing leads to another. 
Didn't he ever Wonder about his family, Jurgis asked. 
Sometimes, the other answered, but not often — he didn't 
allow it. Thinking about it would make it no better. 
This wasn't a world in which a man had any business 
with a family; sooner or later Jurgis would find that out 
also, and give up the fight and shift for himself. 

Jurgis was so transparently what he preteneded to be 
that his cell-mate was as open with him as a chUd; 
it was pleasant to tell him adventures, he was so full 
of wonder and admiration, he was so new to the ways 
of the country. Duane did not even bother to keep 
back names and places — he told all his triumphs and his 
failures, his loves and his griefs. Also he introduced 
Jurgis to many of the other prisoners, nearly half of whom 
he knew bv name. The crowd had already given Jurgis 
a name — tney called him " the stinker." This was cruel, 
but they meant no harm by it, and he took it with a good- 
natured grin. 

Our friend had caught now and then a whiff from the 
sewers over which he lived, but this was the first time 
that he had ever been splashed by their filtL This jail 
was a Noah's ark of the city's crime — there were 
murderers, '' hold-up men " and burglars, embezzlers, 
counterfeiters and forgers, bigamists, "shoplifters," "con* 
fidence-men," petty thieves and pickpockets, gamblers and 



THE JUNGLE 197 

procurers, brawlers^beggars, tramps and drunkards, they 
srere black and white, old and young, Americans and 
aatives of every nation under the sun. There were 
bardened criminals and innocent men too poor to give 
bail; old men, and boys literally not yet in their teens, 
rhey were the drainage of the ^reat festering ulcer of 
society ; they were hideous to look upon, sickening to 
talk to. All life had turned to rottenness and stench in 
them — love was a beastliness, joy was a snare, and Ood 
^'as an imprecation. They strolled here and there about 
the courtyard, and Jurgis listened to them. He was 
ignorant and the^ were wise ; they had been eyery where 
and tried everything. They could tell the whole nateful 
story of it, set forth the inner soul of a city in which 
justice and honor, women's bodies and men's souls, were 
for sale in the market-place, and human beings writhed 
and fought and fell upon each other like wolves in a pit; 
in which lusts were raging fires, and men were fuel, and 
humanity was festering and stewing and wallowing in its 
own corruption. Into this wild-beast tangle these men 
had been born without their consent, they had taken part 
in it because they could not help it; that they were in 
jail was no disgrace to them, for the game had never 
been fair, the dice were loaded. They were swindlers 
and thieyes of pennies and dimes, and they had been 
trapped and put out of the way by the swindlers and 
thieves of millions of dollars. 

To most of this Jurgis tried not to listen. They 
frightened him with their savage mockery; and all the 
while his heart was far away, where his loved ones were 
calling. Now and then in the midst of it his thoughts 
would take flight; and then the tears would come into his 
eyes — and he would be called back by the jeering laugh* 
ter of his companions. 

He spent a week in this company, and during all that 
time he had no word from his Lome. He paid one of his 
tit' teen cents for a postal card, and his companion wrote a 
note to the fiunily, telling them where he was and when he 



198 THE JUNGLB 

would be tried. There came no answer to it» howevet^ 
and at last, the day before New Year's, Jurgis bade mod- 
by to Jack Duane. The latter gave him his address, 
or rather the address of his mistress, and made Jurgis 
promise to look him up. ^ Maybe I could help you out of 
a hole some day,** he said, and added that he was sorry to 
have him go. Jurgis rode in the patrol wagon back to 
Justice CaUahan's court for triaL 

One of the first things he made out as he entered the 
room was Teta Elzbieta and little Kotrina, looking pale 
and frightened, seated far in the rear. His heart began 
to pound, but he did not dare to try to signal to them, 
and neither did Elzbieta. He took his seat in the prisoners' 
pen and sat gazing at them in helpless agony. He saw 
that Ona was not with them, and was full of foreboding 
as to what that might mean. He spent half an hour 
brooding over this — and then suddenly he straightened 
up and the blood rushed into his face. A man hs^ come 
in — Jurgis could not see his features for the bandages 
that swathed him, but he knew the burly figure. It was 
Connor I A trembling seized him, and his limbs bent as 
if for a spring. Then suddenly he felt a hand on his 
collar, and heard a voice behind him : ^ Sit dovoi, you son 
ofa !'• 

He subsided, but he never took his eyes off his enemv. 
The fellow was still alive, which was a disappointment, in 
one way ; and yet it was pleasant to see him, all in peni- 
tential plasters. He ana the companv lawyer, who was 
with him, came and took seats withm the judge's railing ; 
and a minute later the clerk called Jurgis^ name, and uie 

Eliceman jerked him to his feet and led him before the 
r, gripping him tightly by the arm, lest he should spring 
upon the boss. 

Jurgis listened while the man entered the witness chair^ 
took the oath, and told his story. The wife of the prisoner 
had been employed in a department near him, and had 
been discharged for impudence to him. Half an hour 
later he had been violently attacked, knocked down, and 
almost choked to death. He had brought witnesses — 



THE JUNGLE 199 

•*Tli©y will probably not be necessary,** observed the 
jadge, and he turned to Jurgis. *^ You admit attacking 
the plaintiff ? ** he asked. 

^ Him 7 '' inquired Jurgis, pointing at the boss. 

^ Yes,** said the judge. 

**I hit him, sir,** said Jurgis. 

^ Say ^ your Honor,* ** said the officer, pinching his arm 
baid. 

** Your Honor,** said Jurgis, obediently. 

« You tried to choke him ? ** 

** Yes, sir, your Honor.'* 

** Ever been arrested before ? ** 

•*No, sir, your Honor. ** 

•* What have you to say for yourself ? ** 

Jurgis hesitated. What had he to say ? In two years 
and a half he had learned to speak English for practical 
purposes, but these had never included uie statement that 
some one had intimidated and seduced his wife. He tried 
once or twice, stammering and balking, to the annoyance of 
the judge, who was gasping from the odor of fertilizer. 
Finally, the prisoner maae it understood that his vocabu- 
lary was inadequate, and there stepped u]p a dapper young 
man with waxed mustaches, bidding him speak in any 
language he knew. 

tmrgis began ; supposing that he would be given time, 
he explained how the boss had taken advantage of his 
wife*8 position to make advances to her and had threatened 
her with the loss of her place. When the interpreter had 
translated this, the judge, whose calendar was crowded, 
and whose automobile was ordered for a certain hour, 
interrupted with the remark : ^^ Oh, I see. Well, if he 
made love to your wife, why didn't she complain to the 
fuperintendent or leave the place ? ** 

Jurgis hesitated, somewhat taken aback; he began to 
explain that they were very poor — that work was hard 
to get — 

^ I see,** said Justice Callahan ; ^ so instead you thought 
VOQ would knock him down.** He turned to the plaintiff, 
iDqniring, ^ Is there any truth in this story, Mr. Connor 7 ** 



200 THE JUNGLE 

*^Not a partide, your Honor/* said the boss. ^It b 
very unpleasant — tnej tell some such tale every tune you 
have to discharge a woman — '* 

" Yes, I know," said the judge* " I hear it often enough. 
The fellow seems to have handled you pretty rougldy. 
Thirty days and costs. Next case.'* 

Jurgis had been listening in perplexity. It was only 
when the policeman who had him by the arm turned and 
started to lead him away that he realized that sentence 
had been passed. He gazed round him wildly. ^^ Thirty 
days! " he panted — and then he whirled upon the judge. 
"What will my family do?" he cried, frantically. "I 
have a wife and baby, sir, and they have no money — my 
God, they will starve to death I " 

" You would have done well to think about them before 
you committed tha assault," said the judge, dryly, as he 
turned to look at the next prisoner. 

Jurgis would have spoken again, but the policeman had 
seized him by the colliur and was twisting it, and a second 
policeman was making for him with evidently hostile 
intentions. So he let them lead him away. Far down 
the room he saw Elzbieta and Kotrina, risen from their 
seats, staring in fright; he made one effort to go to them, 
and then, brought back by another twist at his throat, he 
bowed his head and gave up the struggle. They thrust 
him into a cell-room, where other prisoners were waiting ; 
and as soon as court had adjourned they led him down 
with them into the " Black Maria," and orove him away. 

This time Jurgis was bound for the " Bridewell,** a pet^ 
jail where Cook County prisoners serve their time. It 
was even filthier and more crowded than the county jail ; 
all the smaller fry out of the latter had been sifted into 
it — the petty tlueves and swindlers, the brawlers and 
vagrants. For his cell-mate Jurgis had an Italian fruit- 
seUer who had refused to pay his graft to tiie policeman, 
and been arrested for carrying a large pocket-knife ; as 
he did not understand a word of English our friend w»i 
glad when tie left. He gave place to a Norwegian sailor; 



THE JUNGLE 201 

wbo had lost half an ear in a drunken brawl, and who 
proved to be quarrelsome, cursing Jurgis because he moved 
m his bunk and caused the roaches to drop upon the lower 
one. It would have been quite intoleraole, staying in a 
cell with this wild beast, but for the fact that all day long 
the prisoners were put at work breaking stone. 

Ten days of his thirty Jurgis spent thus, without hear- 
ing a word from his family ; then one day a keeper came 
and informed him that there was a visitor to see him* 
Jurg^ turned white, and so weak at the knees that he 
could hardly leave his cell. % 

The man led him down the corridor and a flight of 
steps to the visitors' room, which was barred like a cell. 
Through the grating Jurgis could see some one sitting in 
a chair; and as he came into the room the person started 
up, and he saw that it was little Stanislovas. At the sight 
01 some one from home the big fellow nearly went to pieces 
— he had to steady himself by a chair, and he put his 
other hand to his forehead, as if to dear away a mist. 
** Well?** he said, weakly. 

Little Stp^'o^ovas was also trembling, and all but too 
frightened to speak. *^ They -—they sent me to tell 
you — ** he said, with a gulp. 

" Wdl?** JuTffis repeated. 

He followed ue boy's glance to where the keeper was 
standing watohing them. ^ Never mind that,** Jurgis 
cried, irildly. *^How are they?" 

^Om is very sick,** Stanislovas said; ^and we are 
almosj stBTving. We can't get along; we thought you 
miffhi be able to help us.** 

Jui^^ gripped the chair tighter ; there were beads of 
perspiration on his forehead, and his hand shook. ^ I — 
can't — help you,** he said. 

** Ona lies in her room all dav,** the boy went on, breath- 
lessly. ^She won't eat anything, and she cries all the 
time. She won't tell what is the matter and she won't go 
to work at all. Then a long time ago the man came for 
the rent. He was very cross. He came again last week. He 
sddd he would turn us out of the house. iaidthenMarija*^*" 

14 



202 THE JUNGLE 

A sob choked StaniBlovas, and he stopped. ^^ What's 
the matter with Marija ? " cried Jnrgis. 

" She's cut her hand ! " said the boy. " She's cut it bad, 
this time, worse than before. She can't work and it's all 
turning ^een, and the company doctor says she may — 
she may have to have it cut off. And Marija cries all the 
time — her money is nearly all gone, too, and we can't 
pay the rent and the interest on the house; and we have 
no coal and nothing more to eat, and the man at the store, 
he says — " 

The little fellow stopped again, beginning to whimper, 
" Go on 1 " the other panted in frenzy — " Go on 1 " 

«*I— I will,'* sobbed Stanislovas. "It's so — so col* 
all the time. And last Sunday it snowed again — a deep, 
deep snow — and I couldn't — couldn't get to work." 

"GodI" Jurgis half shouted, and he took a step t#- 
ward the child. There was an old hatred between them 
because of the snow — ever since that dreadful mominr 
when tJie boy had had his fingers frozen and Jurgis bM 
had to beat him to send him to work. Now he clenched 
his hands, looking as if he would try to break through the 
grating. ** You Tittle villain," he cried, " you didn't trjrl" 

"I did — I did I" wailed Stanislovas, shrinkinfir from 
him in terror. "I tried all day — two days. £lzbieta 
was with me, and she couldn't either. We couldn't walk 
at all, it was so deep. And we had nothing to eat. and 
oh, it was so cold! I tried, and then the tmrd day Ona 
went with me—" 

" Onal " 

" Tes. She tried to go to work, too. She had to. We 
were all starving. But she had lost her place — " 

Jurfi^ reeled, and gave a gasp. "She went back to 
that place ? " he screamed. 

" Sne tried to," said Stanislovas, gazing at him in per. 
plexity. " Why not, Jurris ? " 

The man breathed hard, three or four times. " Go — - 
<^n," he panted, finally. 

" I went with her," said Stanislovas, " but Miss Hen* 
derson wouldn't take her back. And Connor saw her and 



THE JUNGLE 203 

^nreed her. He was etill bandaged up — why did yon hit 
him, Jargisi" (There was some taBcinating mystery 
aboQt this, the little fellow knew ; bat he coald get no 
Batisfaction.) 

Jorgia could not epeak ; he could only stare, his eyes 
starting out. " She has been trying to get other work," 
the boy went on; "bnt she's so weak she can't keep up. 
And my boss would not take me back, either — Ona says 
he knows Coniior, and that's the reason ; they've all got 
a grudge against na now. So I've got to go down-town 
and seU |)apers with the rest of thelwyB and Kotrina — " 

"Kotnnal" 

'* Y es, she's been selling papers, too. She does beet, be- 
cause she's a girl. Only tne cold is so bad — its terrible 
coming home at night, Jurgis. Sometimes they can't 
come home at all — I'm going to try to hud them to-night 
and sleep where they do, it's so late and it's such a long 
ways home. I've had to walk, and I didn't know where 
it was — I don't know how to get back, either. Only 
mother said I mast come, because von would want to 
know, and maybe somebody would help your family when 
they had put you in jail so yon couldn't work. And I 
walked all day to get here — and I only had a piece of 
bread for breakfast, Jurgis. Mother hasn't any work 
either, because the sausage department is shut down; and 
she goes and begs at houses with a basket, and people give 
her food. Only she didn't get much yesterday; It was 
too cold for her fingers, and to-day she was crying — " 

Bo little Stanislovas went on, sobbing as he talked ; and 
Jurgis stood, gripping the table tightly, saying not a word, 
bnt feeling that hie head would burst ; it was like having 
weights piled upon him, one after another, crushing the 
life out of him. He struggled and fought within himself 
— as if in some terrible n^tmare, in which a man suffers 
an agony, and cannot lift^is hand, nor cry out, bnt feels 
that ne is going mad, that his brain is on fire — 

Just when it seemed to him that another turn of the 
screw would kill him, little Stanislovas stopped. " You 
cannot heJp us I " he said weakly. 



204 



THE JUNGLE 



Jorgis shook his head. 

**They won't give you anything here?* 

He shook it again. 

** When are you coming out? ** 

•* Three weets yet," Jurgis answered. 

And the boy gazed around him uncertainly. ^ Then I 
might as well go," he said. 

Jurgis nodded. Then, suddenly recollecting, he put 
his hand into his pocket and m*ew it out, shaking. 
^* Here," he said, holding out the fourteen cents. ^^ Take 
this to them." 

And Stanislovas took it, and after a little moro hesita- 
tion, started for the door. " Good-by, Jurgis," he said, 
and the other noticed that he walked unsteadily as he 
passed out of sight. 

For a minute or so Jurgis stood clinging to the chair, 
reeling and swaying ; then the keeper touched him on the 
irm, and h% tumeaand went back to breaking stone. 



CHAPTER XVni 

JuBOis did not get out of the Bridewell quite as soon 
m he had expected. To his sentence there were added 
^ court costs of a dollar and a half — he was supposed to 
pay for the trouble of putting him in jail, and not having 
the money, was obliged to work it off by three days more of 
toil. Nobody had token the trouble to tell him this — only 
after counting the days and looking forward to the end in 
an agony of impatience, when the hour came that he ex* 

Eected to be free he found himself still set at the stone- 
eap, and lauehed at when he ventured to protest. Then 
he concluded he must have counted wrong ; but as another 
day passed, he gave up all hope — and was sunk in the 
depths of despair, when one morning after breakfast a 
keeper came to him with the word that his time was up at 
last. So he doffed his prison garb, and put on his old 
fertilizer clothing, and heard the door of the prison clang 
behind him. 

He stood upon the steps, bewildered ; he could hardly 
believe that it was true, — that the skv was above him 
again and the open street before him ; that he was a free 
man. But then the cold began to strike through his 
clothes, and he started quickly away. 

There had been a heavy snow, and now a thaw had set 
in ; a fine sleety rain was falling, driven by a wind that 
pierced Jurgis to the bone. He had not stopped for his 
overcoat when he set out to ^^ do up " Connor, and so his 
rides in the patrol wagons had been cruel experiences ; 
his clothing was old and worn thin, and it never had been 
very warm. Now as he trudged on the rain soon wet it 
through ; there were six inches of watery slush on thA 

205 



206 THE JUNGLE 

sidewalks, so that his feet would soon have been soake^ 
even had there been no holes in his shoes. 

Jurgis had had enough to eat in the jaU, and the work 
had been the least trying of any that he had done since he 
came to Chicago ; but even so, he had not grown strong 
'—the fear and grief that had preyed upon his mind had 
worn him thin. Now he shiverea and shrimk from the 
rain, hiding his hands in his pockets and hunching his 
shoulders together. The Bridewell grounds were on the 
outskirts of the city and the country around them was 
unsettled and wild — on one side was the big drainage 
canal, and on the other a maze of railroad tracks, and so 
the wind had full sweep. 

After walking a ways, Jurgis met a little ragamuffin 
whom he hailed : " Hey, sonny ! ** 

The boy cocked one eye at him — he knew that Jurgis 
was a •' jail bird " by his shaven head. ** Wot yer want?** 
he queried. 

"How do you go to the stockyards?** Jurgis de- 
manded. 

" I don't go,** replied the boy. 

Jurgis hesitated a moment, nonplussed. Then he said^ 
** I mean which is the way ? ** 

•* Why don't yer say so then ? ** was the response, and 
the boy pointed to the northwest, across the tracks. 
"That way.** 

" How far is it ? ** Jurgis asked. 

" I dunno ** said the other. " Mebby twenty miles or 



so. 



" Twenty miles I ** Jurgis echoed, and his face fell. He 
had to walk eyery foot of it, for they had turned him out 
of jail without a penny in his pockets. 

xet, when he once got started, and his blood had 
warmed with walking, he forgot eyerything in the feyer 
of his thoughts. All the dreadful imaginations that had 
haunted him in his cell now rushed into his mind at once* 
The agony was almost oyer — he was goin? to find out; 
and he clenched his hands in his pockets as he strode, fol* 
lowing his flying desire, almost at a run. Ona — tiia 



THE JUNGLE 207 

Inby — the family — the house — he would know the 
tnitii about them all I And he was comioK to the rescue 
— he was free ^ainl His hands were his own, and he 
could help them* lie could do battle for them against the 
world. 

For an hour or so he walked thus, and then he began 
to look about him. He seemed to be leaving the city slto- 
sether. The street was tormng into a country road, lead- 
ing out to the westward; there were snow-covered fields 
pn either side of him. Soon he met a farmer driving a 
iiro>horse wagon loaded with straw, and he stopped him. 

" Is this the way to the stockyards 7 *' he asked. 

The farmer scratched his head. ** I dunno jest where 
titer be," he said. "■ Bat they're in the city somewhere, 
and you're going dead away from it now." 

Joivis looked dazed. '^I was told this was tiie way*" 
he sua. 

«Who told yon?" 

«* A boy." 

" Well, mebbe he was playing a joke on ye. The best 
thing ye kin do is to go back, and when ye git into town 
■sk a policeman. I'd take ye in, only I've come a long 
WOTS an' I'm loaded heavy. Git upl '* 

So Jurgb turned and followed^ and toward the end of 
the morning he began to see Chioago aeam. Past endless 
Uocks of two-story shanties he walkeu, along wooden 
sidewalks and unpaved pathways treacherous with deep 
slush-holes. Every few blocks there would be a railroad 
crossing on the level with the sidewalk, a death-trap for 
tbe unwary; long freight-trains would be passing, the cars 
clanking and crashing together, and Jui^ would pace 
about waiting, burning up with a fever of impatience. 
Occasionally the cars would stop for some minutes, and 
wagons and street'Csrs would crowd together waiting, the 
drivers swearing at each other, or hiding beneath umbrellas 
out of the rain ; at such times Jnrgis would dodge imder 
the gates and run across the tracks and between the cara^ 
taking his life into his hands. 

He orossed a long bridge over s river frosen solid aul 



208 THB JUNOLB 

eovered with diuslu Not even on the river bank was the 
snow white — the rain which fell was a dilated solutioa 
of smoke, and Jorgis's hands and face were streaked with 
black. Then he came into the business part of the cityt 
where the streets were sewers of inky blackness, with 
horses slippmg and plunging, and women and cbildren 
flying across in panic-stricken droves. These streets 
were huge canons formed by towering black buildings, 
echoing with the clan£^ of car-gongs and the shouts of 
drivers ; the people who swarmed in them were as busy 
as ants — all hurrjring breathlessly, never stopping to 
look at anything nor at each other. The solitary tramp- 
ish-looking foreigner, with water-soaked Clothing and 
haggard face and anxious eyes, was as much alone as he 
hurried past them, as much unheeded and as lost, as if he 
had been a thousand miles deep in a wilderness. 

A policeman gave him his direction and told him that 
he haii five miles to go. He came again to the slum-dis- 
tricts, to avenues of saloons and cheap stores, with long 
din^ red factory buildings, and coal-yards and railroad- 
tracks; and then Jurgis Ufted up his head and began to 
sniff the air like a startled animal — scenting the far-off 
odor of home. It was late afternoon then, and he was 
hungry, but the dinner invitations hung out of the saloons 
were not for him. 

So he came at last to the stockyards, to the black vol* 
canoes of smoke and the lowing cattle and the stench. 
Then, seeins^ a crowded car, his impatience got the better 
of him. and he lumped aboard, hiding behind another man« 
unnoticed by the conductor. In ten minutes more he had 
reached his street, and home. 

He was half running as he came round the comeTr 
There was the house, at any rate — and then suddenly hd 
stopped and stared. What was the matter with the house ? 

tfurgis looked twice, bewildered; then he glanced at the 
house next door and at the one beyond — then at the sa- 
loon on the comer. Tes, it was the right place, quite 
certainly— he had not made any mistake. Bdt the house 
'-* the house was a different color I 



THE JTTNOLh 209 

He came a couple of steps nearer. Tes ; it had been 
gray and now it was yellow I The trimmings around the 
windows had been red, and now they were green I It was 
all newly painted I How strange it made it seem I 

Jurgis went closer yet, but keeping on the other side of 
the street. A sudden and horrible spasm of fear had 
come over him. His knees were shaking beneath him, and 
his mind was in a whirl. New paint on the house, and 
new weatherboards, where the old had begun to rot off, 
and the agent had got after them I New shingles over the 
hole in the roof, too, the hole that had for six months been 
the bane of his soul — he having no money to have it fixed 
and no time to fix it himself, and the rain leaking in, and 
overflowing the pots and pans he put to catch it, and flood<> 
ing the attic and loosening the plaster. And now it was 
fixed I And the broken window-pane replaced I And 
curtains in the windows! New, white curtains, stiff and 
shiny I 

Then suddenly the front door opened. Jurgis stood, 
his chest heaving as he straggled to catch his breath. 
A boy had come out, a stranc;er to him ; a big, fat, rosy-^ 
tsheeked youngster, such as had never been seen in his 
home before. 

Jurgis stared at the boy, fascinated. He came down 
the steps whistling, kicking off the snow. He stopped at 
the foot, and picked up some, and then leaned ap;ainst the 
railing, making a snow-ball. A moment later he looked 
aroiind and saw Jurgis, and their eyes met; it was a hostile 
glance, the boy evidently thinking that the other had sus- 
picions of the snow-baU. When Jurgis started slowly 
across the street toward him, he gave a quick glance about, 
meditating retreat, but then he concluded to stand his 
ground. 

Jurgis took hold of the railing of the steps, for he was 
a little unsteady. ** What — what are you doing here ? •* 
he managed to gasp. 

" Go onl " said the boy. 

**Tou— ** Jurgis tried again. '•What do you want 
here?" 



210 THE JUNGLE 

** Me t ^ answered the boy, angrily. ** I Kve here.* 

^^ Yon live here I " Jorgis panted. He tamed white, and 
elung more tightly to the railing. *^Yoa live here! 
Then whereas my family f ** 

The boy looked sorprised. " Your family 1 ^ he echoed* 

And Jurgis started toward him, *^I — this is my 
house I ^ he cried* 

** Gome off I " said the boy; then suddenly the door up- 
stairs opened, and he called: ^Hey, mat Here's a fellow 
says he owns this house." 

A stout Irish woman came to the top of the stepe, 
••What's that?" she demanded. 

Jur^ turned toward her. ** Where is my family! *• 
he cried, wildly. ^^ I left them here t This is my home I 
What are you doing in my home! " 

The woman stared at him in frightened wonder^ she 
must have thought she was dealing with a mamao— 
Jur^ looked like one. " Your home r' she edhoed. 

"Iffy homel'* he half shrieked. "I lived here, I tell 
you.** 

" You must be mistaken," she answered him. ** No one 
ever lived here. This is a new house. They told us sow 
They—" 

"What have they done with my family!" shouted 
Jurgis, frantically. 

A light had b^un to break upon the woman ; perhaps 
she hM had doubts of what " tnev " had told her. " I 
don't know where your family is," she said. " I bought 
the house only three days ago, and there was nobody here, 
and they told me it was all new. Do you really mean yon 
had ever rented it!" 

"Bented it I" panted Jurgis. "I bought it! I paid 
for it I I own it I And they — ^my God, can't yon tdl 
me where my people went!" 

She made him understand at last that she knew nothing. 
Jurgis's brain was so confused that he could not grasp the 
situation. It was as if his family had been wiped out of 
existence ; as if they were proving to be dream people, who 
never had existed at all. He was quite lost— b;Jr then 



THE JUNGLE 211 

snddenly he thought of Grandmother Majanszkiene, who 
lived in the next block. She would know! He turned 
and started at a run. 

Grandmother MajauBzkiene came to the door herself. 
She cried out when she saw J^JP^y wild-eyed and shaking. 
Yes, yes, die could tell him. The family had moved ; they 
had not been able to pay the rent and they had been turned 
out Into the snow, and the house had been repidnted and 
sold again the next week. No, she had not heard how 
they were, but she could tell him that they had gone back 
to Aniele Jukniene, with whom they had stayed when they 
first came to the yards. Wouldn't Jurgis come in and 
rest ? It was certainly too bad — if only he had not got 
into jail — 

And so Jurgis turned r nd stagmred away. He did not 
go very far — round the comer ne gave out completely, 
and sat down on the steps of a saloon, and hid his face m 
his hands, and shook all over with dry, racking sobs. 

Their home I Their home I They had lost it I Grief, 
despair, rage, overwhelmed him — what was any imagina- 
tion of the thing to this heart-breaking, crushing reality 
of it — to the sight of strange people living in his house, 
hanging their curtains in his windows, staring at him witii 
hostile eyes I It was monstrous, it was unthinkable -— 
they could not do it — it could not be true t Only think 
what he had suffered for that house — what miseries they 
had all suffered for it — the price they had paid for it I 

The whole long agony came back to him. Their sacri- 
fices in the beginning, their three hundred dollars that 
they had scraps together, all they owned in the world«all 
that stood between mem aua biaivacionl And then theiv 
toil, month by month, to get together the twelve dollars, 
and the interest as well, and now and then the taxes, and 
the other charges, and the repairs, and what not I Why, 
they had put tneir very souls into their payments on that 
house, they had paid for it with their sweat and tears — ^yes, 
more, with their very life-blood. Dede Antanas had oied 
of the struggle to earn that money — ^he would have been 
alive and strong to-day if he had not had to work in 



v^i2) THE JUNGLE 

Durham^s dark cellars to earn his share. And Ona, too^ 
had given her health and strength to pay for it — she was 
wrecKed and rained because of it ; and so was he, who had 
been a big, strong man three years ago, and now sat here 
shivering, broken, cowed, weeping Like a hysterical child. 
Ah I they had cast their all into the fight ; and they had 
lost, they had lost I All that they had paid was gone — 
every cent of it. And their house was gone — they were 
back where they had started from, flung out into the cold 
to starve and freeze I 

Jurgis could see all the truth now — could see himself, 
through the whole long course of events, the victim of 
ravenous vultures that nad torn into his vitals and de- 
voured him ; of fiends that had racked and tortured 
him, mocking him, meantime, jeering in his face. Ah, 
God, the horror of it, the monstrous, hideous, demo- 
niacal wickedness of it I He and his family, helpless 
women and children, struggling to live, ignorant anf 
lefenceless and forlorn as they were — and the enemie 
that had been lurking for them, crouching upon their trai 
and thirsting for their blood I That first lying circular 
that smooth-tongued slippery agent I That trap of thi 
extra payments, the interest, and all the other charges tha 
they had not the means to pay, and would never hav« 
attempted to pay I And then all the tricks of the packers 
their masters, the tyrants who ruled them, — the shut 
downs and the scarcity of work, the irregular hours am 
the cruel speeding-up, the lowering of wages, the raising o.. 
prices ! The mercilessness of nature about them, of hea^ 
and cold, rain and snow ; the mercilessness of the city, of 
the country in which they lived, of its laws and customs 
that they did not understand I All of these things had 
worked together for the company that had marked them 
for its prey and was waiting for its chance. And now, 
with this last hideous injustice, its time had come, and it 
had turned them out ba? and baggage, and taken their 
house and sold it again I And they could do nothing, 
they were tied hand and foot — the law was against them, 
the whole machinery of society was at their oppressors^ 



THE JUKOLE 213 

oommand I If Jnrgis so much as raised a hand against 
them, back he would go into that wild-beast pen from 
which he had just escaped I 

To get up and go away was to give up, to acknowledge 
defeat, to lea ve the strange family in possession ; and 
Jurgis might have sat shiverinfi^ in the rain for hours before 
he could do that, had it not been for the thought of his 
family. It might be that he had worse things yet to learn 
— and so he got to his feet and started away, walking on« 
wearily, half -dazed. 

To Aniele's house, in back of the yards, was a good two 
miles ; the distance had never seemed lOnger to Jurgis, 
and when he saw the famiUar dingy-gray shanty his heart 
was beating fast. He ran up the steps and began to ham- 
mer upon the door. 

The old woman herself came to open it. She had shrunk 
all up with her rheumatism since J urgis had seen her last, 
and her yellow parchment face stared up at him from a 
little above the level of the door-knob. She gave a start 
when she saw him. *^Is Ona here?" he cried, breath- 
lessly. 

** X es,'* was the answer, " she's here.** 

** How — " Jurgis began, and then stopped short, 
clutching convulsively at the side of the door. From 
somewhere within the house had come a sudden cry, a 
wild, horrible scream of anguish. And the voice was 
Ona's. 

For a moment Jurgis stood half -paralyzed with fright ; 
then he bounded past the old woman and into the room. 

It was Aniele's kitchen, and huddled round the stove 
were half a dozen women, pale and frightened. One of 
them started to her feet as Jurgis entei^ ; she was hae- 
gard and frightfully thin, with one arm tied up in band- 
ages — he hardly realized that it was Mari ja. He looked 
first for Ona ; then, not seeing her, he stared at the 
women, expecting them to speak. But they sat dumb, 
gadng back at him, panic-strickeii ; and a second later 
eame another piercing scream. 

It was from the rear of the house, and upstairs. Jurgis 



214 THE JUNGLE 

bounded to a door of the room and flung it open > there 
was a ladder leading through a trap-door to the garret, 
and he was at the foot of it, when suddenly he heard a 
voice behind him, and saw Mari ja at his heels. She seized 
him by the sleeve with her good hand, panting wildly, 
** No, no, Jurgis I Stop I '* 

*♦ Wliat do you mean ? '* he gasped. 
•* You mustn't go up," she cried. 

Jurgis was half-crazed with bewilderment and fright. 
«* What's the matter ? " he shouted. " What is it ? " 

Marija clung to him tightly ; he could hear Ona sob- 
bing and moaning above, and he fought to get away and 
climb up, without waiting for her reply. " No, no," she 
rushed on. " Jurgis I You mustn't go up I It's — it's 
the child I " 
** The child ? " he echoed in perplexity. ^^Antanas ? " 
Marija answered him, in a whisper : ^^ The new one ! ** 
And then Jurgis went limp, and caught himself on the 
ladder. He stared at her as if she were a ghost. *^ The 
new one I " he gasped. ^^ But it isn't time," he added, 
wildly. 

Marija nodded. "I know," she said ; " but it's come." 
And then again came Ona's scream, smiting him like a 
blow in the face, making him wince and turn white. Her 
voice died away into a wail — then he heard her sobbing 
again, ^^ My God — let me die, let me die I " And Marija 
flung her arms about him, crying : *^ Come out I Come 
away I'' 

She dragged him back into the kitchen, half carrying 
him, for he had gone all to pieces. It was as if the pillars 
of his soul had fallen in — he was blasted with horror. 
In the room he sank into a chair, trembling like a leaf, 
Marija still holding him, and the women staring at him in 
dumb, helpless fright. 

And then again Ona cried out ; he could hear it nearly 
as plainlv here, and he staggered to his feet. ^^ How long 
has this oeen going on ? " he panted. 

*^ Not very long, Marija answered^ and then, at a signal 



THE JUNGLE 215 

from Aniele, she rushed on : *^ You go away, Jurgis — you 
can't help — go away and come back later. It's all right 
— it's — - 

^ Who's with her ? '* Jur^ demanded ; and then, seeing 
Marija hesitating, he criea again, ** Who's with her?" 

^ She's — she's all right," she answered. ^^Elzbieta's 
with her.** 

" But the doctor I " he panted. ** Some one who knows l** 

He seized Marija by the arm ; she trembled, and her 
Toice sank beneath a whisper as she replied, "We — we 
have no money." Then, frightened at the look on his 
face, she exclaimed : " It's all right, Jurgis I You don't 
understand— go away — go away I Ah, if you only had 
waited I" 

Above her protests Juigis heard Ona again ; he was 
almost out of his mind, ft was all new to him, raw and 
horrible — it had fallen upon him like a lightning stroke. 
When little Antanas was bom he had been at work, and 
had known nothing about it until it was over; and 
now he was not to be controlled. The frightened women 
were at their wits' end ; one after another they tried to 
reason with him, to make him understand that this was the 
lot of woman. In the end they half drove him out inco the 
rain, where he began to pace up and down, bareheaded and 
frantic. Because he could hear Ona from the street, he 
would first go away to escape the sounds, and then come 
back because he could not help it. At the end of a quar* 
ter of an hour he rushed up the steps arain, and for fear 
that he would break in the door tiiey haa to open it and 
let him in. 

There was no arguing with him. Thev could not tell him 
that all was going weU-«how could they know, he cried 
— why, she was dying, she was being torn to pieces t 
Listen to her — listen I Why, it was monstrous— it 
could not be allowed — there must be some help for itl 
Had they tried to get a doctor? They might pay him 
afterwards — they could promise — 

" We couldn't promise, Jurgis," protested Marija. •• We 
had aomoney^-^wa have soaroely been able to keep ative.^ 



216 THE JUNGLE 



**But i oan work,** Jnrgis exdaimecL ^I can Mm 
money I *• 

** Yes,** she answered — " but we thought you were in 
jaiL How could we know when you would return? 
They will not work for nothingo*' 

Marija went on to tell how she had tried to find a mid* 
wife, and how they had demanded ten, fifteen, even twenty- 
five dollars, and imA in cash. ** And I had only a quarter,'* 
she said. ^*I have spent every cent of my money — all 
that I had in the bank ; and I owe the doctor who has 
been coming to see me, and he has stopped because he 
thinks I don't mean to pay him. And we owe Aniele for 
two weeks' rent, and she is nearly starving, and is afraid 
of being turned out. We have been borrowing and beg- 

Sing to keep alive, and there is nothing more we can 
o — " 

** And the children ? '* cried Jurgis. 

^ The children have not been home for three dajrs, the 
weather has been so bad. They could not know what is 
happening — it came suddenly, two months before we 
expected it." 

Jurffis was standing by the table, and he caught himself 
with nis hands ; his nead sank and his arms shook — it 
looked as if he were going to collapse. Then suddenly 
Aniele got up and came hobbKng toward him, fumbling 
in her skirt pocket. She drew out a dirty rag, in one 
oome>* of which she had something tied. 

"^ Here, Jurgis t ** she said, ** I have some money. 
Paiauk/ Seel*' 

She unwrapped it and counted it out— -thirty-four 
cents. ^ Ton go, now," she said, ^ and try and eet some* 
body yourself. And maybe the rest can help — give 
him some money, you ; he will pay you back some day, 
and it will do hun good to have something to think about, 
even if he doesn't succeed. When he comes back, maybe 
it will be over." 

And so the other women turned out the contents of their 
pocket-books ; most of them had only pennies and nickels, 
but they jpiTe him alL M nu Olszewski, who lived next 



THE JUNGLE 



217 



door, and had a husband who was a skilled oatile-butcher, 
bnt a drinking man, gave nearly half a dollar, enough to 
raise the whole sum to a dollar and a quarter. Then 
Jurgis thrust it into his pocket, still holding it tightly in 
his fist, and started away at a run. 



If 



CHAPTER XIX 

^'Madamb Haupt, Hebamme,** ran a jign, 8wiiigiii( 
from a secondHstory window over a saloon on the avenue ; 
at a side door was another sign, with a hand pointing ap 
a dingy flight of steps. Jorgis went up them, three at 9 
time* 

Madame Haupt was frying pork and onions, and had 
her door half open to let out the smoke. When he tried 
to knock upon it, it swung open the rest of the way, and 
he had a glimpse of her, with a black bottle turned up t4 
her lips. Then he knocked louder, and she started and pvl 
it away. She was a Dutch woman, enormously fat — whea 
she walked she rolled like a small boat on the ocean, and 
the dishes in the cupboard jostled each other. She wort 
a filthy blue wrapper, and her teeth were black. 

^ Vot is it ? " she said, when she saw Jurgis. 

He had run like mad all the way and was so out of breath 
he could hardly speak. His hair was disordered and his 
eyes wild — he looked like a man that had risen from the 
tomb. " My wife 1 " he panted. " Come quickly 1 " 

Madame Haupt set the frying pan to one side and wiped 
her hands on her wrapper. ^ You vant me to oome for a 
case ? " she inquired. 

♦♦ Yes,** gasped Jurgis. 

^ I haf yust come back from a case,** she said. ^ I hal 
had no time to eat m^ dinner. Still — if it is so bad — ** 

** Yes — it is 1 ** cned he. 

•* Veil, den, perhaps — vot you pay ? *• 

** I — I — how much do you want ?** Jurgis stammeredL 

*• Tventy-five dollars." 

His face f elL ^ I can't pay that,** he said. 



THE JUNGLE 819 

The woman was watching him narrowly. ^ How much 
do yon pay ! " she demanded. 

*' Mnst 1 pay now — right away ! ^ 

^ Yee ; aU my costomerB do." 

^I — ^I haven't mnch money,'' Jargis be^an in an agony 
of dread. " I've been in — in trouble— and my money is 
gone. But 111 pay you— every cent — just as soon as I 
can ; I can work — ^ 

** Yot is your workt ** 

*^ I have no place now. I must get one. But I—'' 

** How much haf you got now I " 

He could hardly bring himself to reply. When he said 
^A dollar and a quarter," the woman laughed in his face. 

^^ I vould not put on my hat for a dollar und a quarter," 
she said. 

^ Its all Pve got," he pleaded, his voice breakinff. ** I 
must get some one— my wife will dia I can't hmp it — 

Madame Haupt had put back her pork and onions on 
the stove. She turned to him and answered, out of the 
steam and noise: ^^Oit me ten dollars cash, und so you 
can pay me the rest next mont'»" 

^^1 can't do it — ^I haven't got it I" Jurgis protested. 
^ I tell you I have only a dollar and a quarter." ^ 

The woman turned to her work. "I don't believe you," 
she said. ^^Dot is all to try to sheat me. Yot is de reason 
a biff man like you has got onlv a dollar imd a quarter! " 

^ I've just been in jail," Jurgis cried, — he was ready to 
get down upon his knees to the woman, — ^^ and I had no 
money before, and my family has almost starved." 

** Vere is your friends, dot ought to help you I " 

^They are aQ poor," he answered. ^^They gave me 
this, r have done everything I can— " 

^ Haven'^t you got netting you can sell t " 

^* I have nothing, I tell you — ^I have nothing,* he cried| 
frantically. 

^^ Can't you borrow it, den t Don*t your store people 
trust you I " Then, as he shook his head, she went on: 
^ listen to me — ^if you git me you viU be glad of ik 



2:^0 THE JUNGLB 

I yill save your wife and baby for yon, und it Till not seem 

like mooch to you in de end. If you loose dem now how 
you tink you feel den ? Und here is a lady dot knows her 
business — I could send you to people in dis block, und 
dey yould tell you — ** 

Madame Haupt was pointing her cooking-fork at Jurgia 
persuasively ; but her words were more than he coidd 
bear. He flung up his hands with a gesture of despair 
and turned and started away. ^^ It's no use,** he exclaimed 
— but suddenly he heard the woman's voice behind him 
again : — 

^ I vill make it five dollars for you.** 

She followed behind him, arguing with him. ^ You vilt 
be foolish not to take such an oner," she said. ^You 
von't find nobody to go out on a rainy day like dis for 
less. Vy, I haf never took a case in mv lue so sheap as 
dot. I couldn't pay mine room rent — ' 

Jurgis interrupted her with an oath of rage. ^If I 
havens got it," he shouted, ^* how can I pay it ? Damn 
it, I womd pay you if I could, but I tell you I haven't got 
it. I haven't got it ! Do you hear me— J haven* t got 

ur 

He turned and started away again. He was halfway 
down the stairs before Madame Haupt could shout to him : 
^Vait I I vill ffo mit you t Ck>me ciackl" 

He went back into the room amin. 

^It is not goot to tink of anybody suffering,** she said, 
in a melancholy voice. **I might as veil go mit you for 
netting as vot you offer me, but I vill ixj to help you. 
How far is it?** 

^ Three or four blocks from here.** 

^Tree or four I Und so I shall get soakedt Oott in 
Himmel, it ought to be vorth morel Yun dollar and a 
quarter, and a day like dis I But you understand now — 
you vill pay me de rest of twenty-nve dollars soon ?** 

^ As soon as I can.** 

•* Some time dis mont' ? ** 

^ Yes, within a month,** said poor JorgiSi •* Anything! 
Hurry up I *• 



THE JUNGLE 221 

^ Vere fs de dollar and a quarter?** persisted Madame 
Hanpt, relentlessly. 

Jurgis put the money on the table and the woman 
oonnted it and stowed it away. Then she wiped her 
ereasy hands again and proceeded to get read^, complain* 
ing au the time ; ohe was so fat that it was painful for her 
to move, and she grunted and gasped at every step. She 
took off her wrapper without even taking the trouble to 
turn her iMik to Juigis, and put on her corsets and dress. 
Then there was a black bonnet which had to be adjusted 
carefully, and an umbrella which was mislaid, and a bag 
full of necessaries which had to be collected from here and 
there — * the man being nearly crazy with anxiety in the 
meantime. When they were on the street he kept about 
four paces ahead of her, turning now and then, as if he 
could hurry her on by the force of his desire. But 
Madame Haupt could only go so &r at a step, and it took 
all her attention to get the needed breath for that. 

They came at last to the house, and to the g^np of 
frightened women in the kitchen. It was not over yet, 
Jurgis learned — he heard Ona crying still; and mean* 
time Madame Haupt removed her bonnet and laid it on 
the mantelpiece, and got out of her baop, first an old dress 
and then a saucer of goose-grease, whidi she proceeded to 
rub upon her hands. The more cases this goose-grease is 
used in, the better luck it brings to the midwife, and so she 
keeps it upon her kitchen mantelpiece or stowed away in 
a cupboara with her dirty dotfaes, for months, and som^ 
times even for years. 

Then they escorted her to the ladder, and Jurgis heard 
her rive an exclamation of dismav. ^ Gk)tt in Himmel^ 
vot n>r haf you brought me to a pmoe like dis ? I could 
not climb up dot ladder. I could not git troo a trap-door I 
I vill not try it — yv, I might kill myself already. Vot 
sort of a place is dot for a woman to bear a child in 
— up in a garret, mit only a ladder to it ? Tou ought 
to be ashamed of yourselves I ** Jureis stood in the door, 
way and listened to her scolding, luuf drowning out the 
horriUa moans and 5Kireams of Ona. 



223 THE JUNGLE 

At last Aniele succeeded in pacifying her, and slie 
essayed the ascent ; then, however, she had to be stopped 
while the old woman cautioned her about the floor ox the 
garret. They had no real floor — they had laid old boards 
in one part to make a place for the family to live ; it was 
all right and safe there, but the other part of the garret 
had only the joists of the floor, and the lath and plaster of 
the ceihng below, and if one stepped on this there would 
be a catastrophe. As it was half dark up above, perhaps 
one of the others had best go up first witn a candle. Then 
there were more outcries and threatening, until at last 
Jurgis had a vision of a pair of elephantine legs disap- 

B taring through the trap-door, and felt the house shake as 
adam Haupt started to walk. Then suddenly Aniele 
came to him and took him by the arm. 

"Now," she said, "you go away. Do as I tell you — 
you have done all you can, and you are only in the way. 
Go away and stay away." 

" But where shall I go ?" Jurgis asked, helplessly. 

" I don't know where," she answered. "Go on the 
street, if there is no other place— only go! And stay all 
night 1" 

In the end she and Marija pushed him out of the door 
and shut it behind him. It was just about sundown, and 
it was turning cold — the rain had changed to snow, and 
the slush was freezing. Jurgis shivered in his thin cloth- 
ing, and put his hands into his pockets and started away. 
He had not eaten since morning, and he felt weak and ill; 
with a sudden throb of hope he recollected he was only a 
few blocks from the saloon where he had been wont to eat 
his dinner. They might have mercy on him there, or he 
might meet a friend. He set out for the place as fast as 
he could walk. 

" Hello, Jack," said the saloon-keeper, when he entered 
— they call all foreiffuers and unskilled men "Jack" in 
Packingtown. " Where've you been? " . 

Jurgis went straight to the bar. " I've been in iail,** 
he said, " and I've just got out. I walked home all the 
way, and I've not a cent, and had nothing to eat since this 



1 



THE jnyOLE 223 

inonung. And Pve lost mj home, and mj vife's ill, and 
I'm done up." 

The saloon-teeper gazed at bim, with his h^gard white 
(aoe and his blue trembling lips. Then he pnaked a big 
bottle toward him. " Fill lier up I" he Baid. 

Jorffis eonldhardly hold the bottle, his hands shook so, 
" Don b be afraid," said the saloon-keeper; ** fill her npl" 

So Jnrgis drank a hnge glass of whiskey, and theii 
turned to the luiioh>oonnter, in obedience to the other's 
suggestion. Be ate all he dared, staffing it in as fast as 
he ooold; and then, after trjing to speak his gratitnde, 
he went and sat down hy the big red store in the middle 
of the room. 

It was too good to last, however — like all things in this 
hard world. His soaked olothiog began to steam, and the 
horrible stench of fertilizer to fill the room. In an hour 
or so the packing-honses would be oloaing and the men 
coming in from their work; and thej wonld not coma 
into a place that smelt of Jurgis. Also it was Satarday 
night, and in a couple of hoars woald come aTiolin and a 
oomet, and in the rear part of the saloon the families of 
the neighborhood woulddanoe and feast opon wienerwnrst 
and l^er, until two or three o'clock in the morning. The 
saloon-keeper coached once or twice, and then remarked, 
" Say, Jack, I'm airaid you'll have to quit" 

He was used to the sight of haman wrecks, thif saloon- 
keeper ; he " fired " dozens of them eyery night, just as 
haggard and cold and forlorn as this one. But they were 
all men who had given np and been counted out, while 
Jurgis was still in thefight, and had reminders of decency 
about him. As he got ap meekly, the other reflected that 
he had always been a steady man, and might soon be a 

food customer again. "Toa've beennpagtunstitjlsee," 
e said. "Come this way." 

In the rear of the saloon were the oellar-sturs. Ther« 
was a door above and another below, both safely padlock' 
ed,makingtheBtairsan admirable place to stowaway acu8< 
tomer who might still chance to have money, or a politiaal 
light whom it was not advisable to kick out of doorr 



2M THB JUNGLE 

So Jnrgis spent the night. The whiskey had only half 
warmed mm, and he could not sleep, exhausted as he was; 
he would nod forward, and then start up, shivering witli 
the cold, and begin to remember again. Hour after hour 
passed, until he could only persuMe himself that it was 
not morning by the sounds of music and laughter and 
singing that were to be heard from the room. When at 
last these ceased, he expected that he would be turned out 
into the street ; as this did not happen, he fell to wonder^ 
ing whether the man had forgotten him. 

In the end, when the silence and suspense were no long^ 
to be borne, he got up and hammered on the door; and 
the proprietor came, yawning and rubbing his eyes. 
He was keeping open all night, and dozing between cus« 
tomers. 

^ I want to go home,** Jurgis said. ^ Fm worried about 
my wife— I can't wait any longer.** 

««Why the hell didn't you say so before?** said the man. 
^ I thought you didn't have any home to go to.** 

Jurgis went outside. It was four o'clock in the mom* 
ing, and as black as night. There were three or four 
inches of fresh snow on the ground, and the flakes were 
falling thick and fast. He turned toward Aniele's and 
started at a run. 

There was a light burning in the kitchen window and 
the blinds were drawn. The door was unlocked and 
Jurgis rushed in. 

Aniele, Marija, and the rest of the women were huddled 
about the stove, exactly as before; with them were 
several new-comers, Jurgis noticed— also he noticed that 
the house was silent. 

"Well?" he said. 

No one answered him; they sat staring at him with 
their pale faces. He cried again : "Well?" 

And then, by the light of the smoky lamp, he saw 
Marija, who sat nearest him, shaking her heail slowly. 
•• Not yet,** she said. 

And Jurgis gave a oiy of dismay. ^Not ifett^ 



THE JXTNGLB 225 

Again Marija^s head shook. The poor fellow stood 
dnmf ounded* ^ I don't hear her,'* he ^ped« 

^ She's been quiet a long time," rephed the other. 

There was another pause -— broken suddenly bj a voice 
from the attic : ^^ Hello, there 1 " 

Several of the women ran into the next room, while 
Marija sprang toward Jurgis. ^^ Wait here I " she cried, 
and the two stood, pale and trembling, listening. In a 
few moments it became clear that Madame Haupt was 
engaged in descending the ladder, scolding and exhorting 
again, while the ladder creaked in protest. In a moment or 
two she reached the ground, angpry and breathless, and they 
heard her coming into the room. Jurgis gave one glance 
at her, and then turned white and reeled. She had her 

Bcket off, like one of the workers on the killine-beds. 
er hands and arms were smeared with blood, and blood 
was splashed upon her clothing and her face. 

She stood breathing hard, and gazing about her; no 
one made a sound. 

^^ I haf done my best," she began suddenly. ^ I can do 
netting more — dere is no use to try." 

Again there was silence. 

^ It ain't my fault," she said. ^ You had ought to haf 
had a doctor, und not vaited so long — it vas too late 
already ven I come." Once more were was deathlike 
stillness. Marija was clutching Jurgis with all the power 
of her one well arm. 

Then suddenly Madame Haupt turned to Auiele. ^^ You 
haf not got someting to drink, hey? " i^e queried. ** Some 
brandy?" 

Aniele shook her head. 

*^ Herr Gott I " exclaimed Madame Haupt. ^^ Such peo- 

eel Perhaps you vill give me someting to eat den — I 
d had notting since yesterday morning, und I haf 
vorked myself near to death here. If I could haf known 
it vas like dis, I vould never haf come for such money as 
you gif me." 

At this moment she chanced to look round, and saw 
Jurgis. She shook her finger at him. ^ You uiLd&x%\»sA 



226 THE JUNGLE 

me," she said, ^^ you pays me dot money ynst de samet 
is not my fault dat you send for me so late I can't help 
you vife. It is not my fault if der baby comes mit one 
arm first, so dot I can't save it. I haf tried all night, 
und in dot place vere it is not fit for dogs to be bom, 
und mit netting to eat only vot I brings in mine own 
pockets." 

Here Madame Haupt paused for a moment to get her 
breath ; and Marija, seeing the beads of sweat on Jurgis's 
forehead, and feeling the quivering of his frame, broke 
out in a low voice : •* How is Onaf " 

^^How is she?" echoed Madame Haupt. ^'How do yeu 
tink she can be ven you leave her to kill herself so t I 
told dem dot ven they send for de priest. She is young, 
und she might haf got over it, und been veil und strong, 
if she been treated right. She fight hard, dot girl — she 
is not yet quite dead." 

And Jurgis gave a frantic scream. ^^ Dead I " 

"She vill die, of course," said the other, angrily, **Der 
baby is dead now." 

The garret was lighted by a candle stuck upon a board ; 
it had almost burned itself out, and was sputtering anit 
smoking as Jurgis rushed up the ladder. He could make 
out dinuy in one comer a pallet of raes and old blankets, 
spread upon the floor; at the foot of it was a crucifix, 
and near it a priest muttering a prayer. In a far comer 
crouched Elzbieta, moaning and wailing. Upon the pallet 
lay Ona. 

She was covered with a blanket, but he could see her 
shoulders and one arm lying bare ; she was so shrunkea 
he would scarcely have known her — she was all but a 
skeleton, and as white as a piece of chalk. Her eyelids 
were closed, and she lav still as death. He staggered 
toward her and fell uponnis knees. with a cry of anguisb: 
••Onal Onal" 

She did not stir. He caught her hand in his, and begaa 
to clasp it firantically, calling: "Look at me I Answer met 
It is Jnigis come back— don^ you hear met ** 



THE JUNOLB 227 

There was the funtest qoivering of the eyelids, and he 
called again in frenzy: ^Onal Onal** 

Then suddenly her eyes opened — one instant. One 
instant she looked at him — there was a flash of recog- 
nition between them, he saw her afar off, as through 
a dim vista, standing forlorn. He stretched out bos 
arms to her, he called her in wild despair; a fearful 
yearning surged up in him, hunger for her that was 
agony, desire that was a new being bom within him, tear* 
ing his heartstrings torturing him. But it was all in 
vain — she faded from him, she slipped back and was gone* 
And a wail of anguish bui*st from him, great sobs shook 
all his frame, and hot tears ran down his cheeks and fell 
upon her. He clutched her hands, he shook her, he caught 
her in his arms and pressed her to him ; but she lay cold 
and still — she was gone — she was gone I 

The word rang through him like the sound of a bell, 
echoing in the far depths of him, making forgotten chords 
to vibrate, old shadowy fears to stir — fears of the dark, 
fears of the void, fears of annihilation. ?'ie was dead I 
She was dead ( He would never see her again, never hear 
her again I An icy horror of loneliness seized him ; he 
saw himself standing apart and watching all the world 
fade away from him — a world of shadows, of fickle 
dreams. He was like a little child, in his fright and 
grief; he called and called, and got no answer, and his 
cries of despair echoed through the house, making the 
women down-stairs draw nearer to each other in fear. He 
was inconsolable, beside himself — the priest came and laid 
his hand upon his shoulder and whispered to him, but ho 
heard not a i>ound. He was gone away himself, stum- 
bling through the shadows, and groping after the soul 
that had fled. 

So he lay. The gray dawn came up and crept into tho 
attic. The priest left, the women left, and he was alone 
with the stiO, white figure — quieter now, but moaning 
and shuddering, wrestlme with the grisly fiend. Now 
and then he would raise nimself and stare at the whitA 



228 THE JUKGLB 

mask before him, then hide his eyes, because he oonld not 
bear it. Dead I dead! And she was only a girl, she was 
barely eighteen I Her life had hardly began — and here 
she lay murdered •— mangled, tortured to death I 

It was morning when he rose up and came down into 
the kitchen — hs^gard and ashen gray, reeling and dazed. 
More of the neighrors had come in, and they stared at lum 
in silence as he sank down upon a chair by the table and 
buried his face in his arms. 

A few minutes later the front door opened ; a blast of 
cold and snow msbed in, and behind it little Kotrina, 
breathless from running, and blue with the cold« ^ Tm 
home again I '* she exclaimed. ^^ I could hardly — ** 

And then, seeing Jurgis, she stopped with an exclama- 
tion. Looking from one to another she saw that some; 
thing had happened, and she asked, in a lower voicci' 
"What's the matter ?•• . 

Before any one could reply, Jurgis started up i he wiit 
toward her, widking unsteadily. ^ Where have you bee^ ** 
he demanded* 

^Selling papers with the boys,** she said. ^Tha 
gnow — ** / 

^ Have you any money? ^ he demanded. ^ 

•* Yes.** ' 

** How much?* 

** Nearly three dollars, JurgifL** 

•* Give It to me.** 

Kotrina, frightened by his manner, glanced at the others. 
** Give it to me I ** he commanded again, and she put her 
hand into her pocket and pulled out a lump of coins tied 
in a bit of rag. Jurgis took it without a word, and went 
out of the door and down the street. 

Three doors away was a saloon. " Whiskey,** he said, as 
he entered, and as the man pushed him some, he tore at 
the rag with his teeth and pidled out half a dollar. ^ How 
much is the bottle? ** he said. ^ I want to get drunk.** 



CHAPTER XX 

Bttt a Uff man cannot gtay drank very long on three 
dollars. That was Sunday morning, and Monday night 
Jurgis came home, sober and sick, realizing that he had 
spent every cent the family owned, and had not bought a 
single instant's f orgetfulness with it. 

Ona was not yet buried ; but the police had been noti« 
fied, and on the morrow they would put the body in a pine 
coffin and take it to the potter's field. Elzbieta was out 
begging now, a few pennies from each of the neighbors, to 
iret enoufifh to pay for a mass for hert and the children 
^re nvsLis stt^n^ to death, whUe he. ^-f or-nothing 
rascal, had been spending their money on drink. So spoke 
Aniele, scornfully, and when he started toward the fire 
she added the information that her kitchen was no longer 
for him to fill with his phosphate stinks. She had crowded 
all her boarders into one room on Ona's account, but now 
he could go up in the garret where he belonged — and not 
there much longer, either, if he did not pay her some 
rent. 

Jurgis went without a word, and, stepping oyer half a 
dozen sleeping boarders in the next room, ascended the 
ladder. It was dark up aboye ; they could not afford any 
light ; also it was nearly as cold as outdoors. In a comer, 
as far away from the corpse as possible, sat Marija, holding 
little Antanas in her one gooa arm and trying to soothe 
him to sleep. In another corner crouched poor little 
Juozapas, waUing because he had had nothing to eat all 
day. Marija said not a word to Jurgis; he crept in 
like a mapped our, and went and sat down by the 
kody. 

229 



S80 THE JUNGLE 

Perhaps he ought to have meditated upon the honge? 
of the children, and apon his own baseness; but he 
thought only of Ona, he rave himself up again to the 
luxury of grief. He shed no tears, being ashamed to 
make a sound ; he sat motionless and shuddering with his 
anguish. He had never dreamed how much he loved Ona» 
until now that she was gone ; until now that he sat here, 
knowing that on the morrow they would take her away, 
and that he would never lay eyes upon her again — never 
all the days of his life. His old love, which had been 
starved to death, beaten to death, awoke in him again; 
the flood-gates of memory were lifted — he saw all their 
life together, saw her as he had seen her in Lithuania, the 
first day at the fair, beautiful as the flowers, singing like 
a bird. He saw her as he had married her, with all her ten- 
derness, with her heart of wonder ; the very words she had 
spoken seemed to ring now in his ears, the tears she had 
i^ed to be wet upon his cheek. The long, cruel battle with 
misery and hunger had hardened and embittered him, but 
it had not changed her— she had been the same hungrj 
soul to the end, stretching out her arms to him, pleadmg 
with him, begging him for love and tenderness. And abo 
had suffered — so cruelly she had suffered, such agoniest 
such infamies — ah, Ood, the memory of them was not to 
be borne. What a monster of wickecmess, of heartlessnesa, 
he had been 1 Every angry word that he had ever spoken 
came back to him and cut him like a knife; every sdfish 
act that he had done — with what torments he paid for 
them now I And such devotion and awe as well^ up in 
his soul — now that it could never be spoken, now that it 
was too late, too late t His bosom was choking with it» 
bursting with it ; he crouched here in the darkness beside 
her, stretching out his arms to her— -and she was gone 
forever, she was dead! He could have screamed aloud 
with the horror and despair of it ; a sweat of agony beaded 
his forehead, yet he dared not make a sound— he scarcely 
dared to breathe, because of his shame and loathing of 
himself. 

Late at night oame Elzbieta, having gotten the momaf 



THE JUNGLE 231 

for a mass, and paid for it in advance, lest she should be 
tempted too sorely at home. She brought also a bit of 
stale rye-bread that some one had given her, and with that 
they quieted the children and got them to sleep. Then 
she came over to Jurgis and sat down beside him. 

She said not a wora of reproach — she and Marija had 
chosen that course before; she would only plead with 
him, here by the corpse of his dead wife. Already Elas* 
bieta had choked down her tears, grief being crowded out 
of her soul by fear. She had to bury one of her children 
-—but then she had done it three times before, and each 
time risen up and gone back to take up the battle for the 
rest. Elzbieta was one of the primitive creatures : like the 
angleworm, which goes on living though cut in half ; like 
a nen, which, deprived of her chickens one by one, will 
mother the last uiat is left her. She did this because it 
was her nature — she asked no questions about the justice 
of it, nor the worthwhileness of life in which destructioB 
and death ran riot* 

And this old common-sense view she labored to impress 
upon Jureis, pleading with him with tears in her eyes. 
Ona was dead, but the others were left and they must bo 
saved. She did not ask for her own children. She and 
Marija could care for them somehow, but there was Anta* 
Bas, ms own son. Ona bad given Antanas to him — the 
VLttie fellow was the only remembrance of her that he had » 
ha must treasure it and protect it, he must show himself 
a man. He knew what Ona would have had him do, 
what she would ask of him at this moment, if she could 
•peak to him. It was a terrible thing that she should have 
died as she had ; but the life had been too hard for her, 
and she had to go. It was terrible that they were not 
able to bury her, that he could not even have a day to 
mourn her — but so it was. Their fate was pressmg; 
ihey had not a cent, and the children wordd perish — some 
money must be had. Could he not be a man for Ona*8 
take, and pull himself together? In a little while they 
would be out of dan^r — now that they had eiven up 
Um house they could hve more cheaply, and wiu aU tho 



J32 THE JUNGLE 

children working they could get along, if only he would 
not ffo to pieces. So Elzbieta went on, with feverish in- 
tensity. It was a struggle for life with her ; she was not 
afraid that Jursfis would go on drinking, for he had no 
money for that, out she was wild with dre^ at the thought 
that he might desert them, might take to the road, as Jonas 
had done. 

Bat with Ona^s dead body beneath his eyes, Jurgis could 
not well think of treason to his child. Yes, he said, he 
would try, for the sake of Antanas. He would g^ve the 
little fellow his chance — would get to work at once, yes, 
to-morrow, without even waiting for Ona to be buried. 
They might trust him, he would keep his word, come what 
might. 

And so he was out before daylight the next morning, 
headache, heartache, and all. He went straight to Gra- 
ham's fertilizer-mill, to see if he could get back his job. 
But the boss shook his head when he saw him — no, his 
place had been filled long ago, and there was no room for 
nim. 

^* Do you think there will be ? '' Jurgis asked. ** I may 
have to wait." 

" No," said the other, ** it will not be worth your whUe 
to wait — there will be nothing for you here." 

Jurgis stood gazing at him in perplexity . ^^ What is the 
matter ? " he a^ed. " Didn't I do my work ? " 

The other met his look with one of cold indifference, 
and answered, *^ There will be nothing for you here, I 
said." 

Jurgis had his suspicions as to the dreadful meaning of 
that incident, and he went away with a sinking at the 
heart. He went and took his stand with the mob of hun* 
gry wretches who were standing about in the snow before 
the time-station. Here he stayed, breakfastless, for two 
hours, until the throng was driven away by the clubs of 
the police. There was no work for him that day. 

Jurgis had made a good many acquaintances in his Ion? 
services at the yards — there were saloon-keepers who would 
trust him for a drink and a sandwich, and members of his 



THE JUNGLE 233 

old union who would lend him a dime at a pinch. It waa 
not a question of life and death for him, therefore; he might 
hunt sill day, and come again on the morrow, and try hang- 
ing on thus for weeks, like hundreds and thousands of 
others. Meantime, Teta Elzbieta would go and beg, oyer 
in the Hyde Park district, and the children would bring 
home enough to pacify Aniele, and keep them all alive. 

It was at the end of a week of this sort of waiting, 
roaming about in the bitter winds or loafing in saloonSi 
that Jurgis stumbled on a chance in one of the cellars of 
Jones's big packing plant. He saw a foreman passing the 
open doorway, and hailed him for a job. 

^Push a truck?'* inquired the man, and Jurgis an« 
swered, >^Yes, sir!'' before the words were well out of 
his mouth. 

^ What's your name ? ** demanded the other. 

•* Jurgis Rudkus." 

** Worked in the yards before ? •* 

•^Yes." 

•* Whereabouts ? " 

**Two places, — Brown's killing-beds and Durham's 
fertilizer-mill." 

** Why did you leave there ? " 

*^The first time I bad an accident, and the last time I 
was sent up for a month." 

^I see. Well, I'll give you a triaL Gome early to- 
morrow and ask for Mr. Thomas." 

So Jurgis rushed home with the wild tidings that ha 
bad a job — that the terrible siege was over. The rem- 
nants of the family had quite a celebration that night; 
and in tibe morning Jurgis was at the place half an hour 
before the time of opening. The foreman came in shortly 
afterward, and when he saw Jurgis he frowned. 

^ Oh," he said, ^ I promised you a job, didn't 1 7" 

^ Yes, sir," said Jurgis. 

** WelL Pm sorry, but I made a mistake. I can't use 
you." 

Jnrffia stared, dumfounded. **What'8thematter7''he 
gasped. 

16 



2S4 THE JXTNGLB 

** Nothing/' said the man, ** only I can't use you," 

There was the same cold, hostile stare that ne had had 
from the boss of the fertilizer-mill. He knew that there 
was no use in saying a word, and he turned and went 
away. 

Out in the saloons the men could tell him all about the 
meaning of it ; they gazed at him with pitying eyes — 
poor devil, he was blacklisted I What had he aone ? 
they asked «• knocked down his boss? Good heavensi 
then he might have known I Why, he six)od as much 
chance of getting a job in Packingtown as of being chosen 
mayor of ChicaTO. Why had he wasted his time hunt- 
ing ? They haa him on a secret list in every office, big 
and little, in the place. They had his name by this time 
in St. Louis and New TorK, in Omaha and Boston, in 
Kansas City and St. Joseph. He was condemned and 
sentenced, without trial and without appeal ; he could 
never work for the packers again — he could not even 
clean cattle-pens or drive a truck in any place where they 
controlled. He might try it, if he chose, as hundreds had 
tried it, and found out for themselves. He would never 
be told anything about it ; he would never get any more 
satisfaction than he had gotten just now ; but he would 
always find when the time came that he was not needed. 
It would not do for him to give any other name, either — 
they had company ^^ spotters " for just that purpose, and 
he wcrddn't keep a job in Pc^kingtown three days. It 
was worth a fortune to the packers to keep their black-- 
list effective, as a warning to the men and a means of 
keeping down union agitation and political discontent. 

Jurgis went home, carrying these new tiding to the 
fitmily council. It was a most cruel thing ; here in Una 
district was his home, such as it was, the place he was used 
to and the friends he knew— and now every possibility of 
em^oyment in it was closed to him. There was not^iing 
in Packingtown but packing-houses ; and so it was the 
same thing as evicting him from his home. 

^ He and the two women spent all day and half the night 
discussing it. It would be convenient, down-town« to the 



THE JUKGLB 235 

ohildxeii*8 plaoe of wotki but then Marija was on the 
road to recoyeiy, and had hopes of getting a job in 
the yards ; and tiiongh she did not see her old-time loyer 
once a month, because of the misery of their state, yet she 
ooold not make up her mind to go away and give him up 
foreyer. Then, too, Elzbieta had heard something about 
m chance to scrub floors in Durham's offices, and was 
waiting eyerr day for word. In the end it was decided 
that Jurgis shoula go down-town to strike out for himself, 
and they would decide after he got a job. As there was 
no one from whom he could borrow there, and he diured 
not be^ for fear of being arrested, it was arranged that 
eyery Saj he should meet one of the children and be giyen 
fifteen cents of their earnings, upon which he could Keep 
ffoiiKp. Then all day he was to pace the streets with 
nuncbeds and thousands of other homeless wretches, inquir« 
ing at stores, warehouses, and factories for a chance ; and* 
at night he was to crawl into some doorway or underneath 
a truck, and hide there until midnight, when he might get 
into one of the station-houses, and spread a newspaper 
upon the floor^ and lie . down in the midst of a throng of 
** bums " and beggars, reeking with alcohol and tobacco^ 
and filthy with yermin and disease. 

So for two weeks more Jurgis fought with the demon 
of despair. Once he got a chance to load a truck for half 
a day, and again he carried an old woman's yalise and was 
giyen a quarter. This let him into a lodging-house on 
seyeral mghts when he might otherwise haye frozen to 
death ; and it also gaye hmi a chance now and then to 
buy a newsi>aper in the morning and hunt up jobs while 
his riyals were watching and waiting for a paper to be 
thrown away. This, howeyer, was really not the adyan- 
tage it seemed, for the newspaper adyertisemeuts were a 
cause of much loss of precious time and of many weary 
journeys A f cQl half of these were *^ f akes,** put in by 
the endless yariety of establishments which preyed upon 
the helpless ignorance of the unemployed. If Jurgis lost 
mlj his time, it was because he had nothing else to lose 4 



£36 THB JUiraUB 

whenever a smooth-tonraed agent would tell him of Hm 

wonderful positions he nad on hand, he ooidd only shake 
his head sorrowfully and say that he had not the neoessary 
dollar to deposit ; when it was explained to him what 
^ big money he and all his family could make by color* 
ing photographs, he could only promise to come in again 
when he had two dollars to invest in the outfit 

In the end Jur^ ^ot a chance through an accidental 
meeting with an old-tmie acquaintance of his union days. 
He met this man on his way to work in the eiant factories 
of the Harvester Trust ; and his friend told him to come 
along and he would speak a good word for him to his 
boss, whom he knew welL So Jurgis trudged four or five 
miles, and passed through a waiting throng of unemployed 
at the gate under the escort of nis friend. His knees 
nearly gave way beneath him when the foreman, after 
'looking him over and questioning him, told him that he^ 
could find an opening for him. 

How much this accident meant to Jurgis he realized 
only by stages ; for he found that the harvester-works 
were we sort of place to whigh philanthropists and 
reformers pointed with pride. It had some thought for 
its employees ; its workshops were big and roomy, it pro- 
vided a restaurant where the workmen could buy ffood 
food at cost, it had even a reading-room, and decent p&oes 
where its girl-hands could rest ; also the work was £ree 
from many of the elements of filth and repulsivenees that 
prevailed at the stockyards. Day after dajr Jurgis dis- 
covered these things — things never expected nor dreamed 
of by him — until this new place came to seem akind of a 
heaven to him. 

It was an enormous establishment, covering a hundred 
and sixty acres of ground, employing five thousand people, 
and turning out over three hundred thousand machines 
every year — a good part of all the harvesting and mow* 
ing machines used in the country. Jurgis saw very little 
of it, of course — it was all specialized work, the same as 
at the stockjrards ; each one of the hundreds of parts of 
a mowing-machine was made separately, and sometimes 



THB JUNGLE 2Sf 

liandled by hundreds of men. Where Jorgis worked there 
was a machine which cut and stamped a certain piece of 
steel about two square inches in size; the pieces came 
tumbling out upon a tray, and all that human hands had 
to do was to pUe them in regular rows, and change the 
trays at intervals. This was done by a single boy, who 
stood with eyes and thought centred upon it, and fingers 
flying so fast that the sounds of the bits of steel stri£uig 
upon each other was like the music of an express train as 
one hears it in a sleepine-car at night. This was ** piece- 
work," of course ; and besides it was made certain that 
the boy did not idle, by setting the machine to match the 
highest possible speed of human hands. Thirty thousand 
of these pieces he handled every day, nine or ten mil- 
lions every year— -how many in a lifetime it rested with 
the gods to say. Near by him men sat bending over whirl- 
ing grindstones, putting the finishing touches to the steel 
of the reaper; picking them out of a basket with 



1^ 



the right hand, pressing first one side and then the other 
against the stone and mially dropping them with the left 
hand into another basket. One of these men told Jurgis 
that he had sharpened three thousand pieces of steel a &y 
for thirteen years. In the next room were wonderful ma- 
chines that ate up long steel rods by slow stages, cutting 
them off, seizing the pieces, stamping heads upon them, 
rindine them and polishing them, threading them, and 
nally dropping them into a basket, all ready to bolt the 
harvesters together. From yet another machine came 
tens of thousands of steel burs to fit upon these bolts. 
In other places all these various parts were dipped into 
troughs of paint and hung up to dry, and then sUd alons^ 
on trolleys to a room where men streaked them with red 
and yellow, so that they might look cheerful in the har- 
vest-fields. 

Jura's friend worked upstairs in the casting-rooms, 
and his task was to make the moulds of a certain part. 
He shovelled black sand into an iron receptacle and 
pounded it tight and set it aside to harden ; tiien it would 
oe taken out, and molten iron poured into it. This maa^ 



SS8 THE JUNGLE 

too, was paid by the mould ^>or rather for perfect cask 
ings, nearly half his work going for naught. You might 
see him, alone with dozens of others, toiling like one pos* 
sessed by a wole community of demons ; Ms arms work- 
ing like the driying rods of an engine, his long, black hair 
flying wild, his eyes starting out, the sweat rolling in 
riyers down his face. When he had shoyelled the mould 
full of sand, and reached for the pounder to pound it with, 
it was after the manner of a canoeist running rapids and 
seizing a pole at sight of a submerged rock. All day long 
this man would toil thus, his whole being centred upon 
the purpose of making twenty-three instead of twenty* 
two ana a half cents an hour; and then his product 
would be reckoned up by the census-taker, and jubilant 
captains of industry womd boast of it in their lianquet* 
halls, telling how our workers are nearly twice as efficient 
as those of any other country. If we are the greatest 
nation the sun eyer shone upon, it would seem to h% 
mainly because we haye been able to goad our wage* 
earners to this pitch of frenzy; though there are a few 
other things that are great among us, including our drink* 
bill, which is a billion and a quarter of dollars a year, and 
doubling itself eyery decade. 

There was a machine which stamped out the iron plates, 
and then another which, with a mighty thud, mashed Uiem 
to the sh^e of the sitting-down portion of the American 
farmer. Then they were piled upon a truck, and it was 
Jurffis's task to wheel them to the room where the 
macmines were ^assembled.'' This was child's play for 
him, and he got a dollar and seyenty-iiye cents a day for 
it ; on Saturday he paid Aniele die seyenty-fiye cents a 
week he owed her for the use of her garret, and also re* 
deemed his oyercoat, which Elzbieta had put in pawn 
when he was in jaiL 

This last was a great blessing. A man cannot go about 
in midwinter in Chicago with no oyercoat and not pay 
for it, and Jurgis had to walk or ride fiye or six milee 
back and forth to his work. It so happened that half 



THE JUNGLE 289 

of this was in one direction and half in another, neces- 
sitating a change of cars ; the law required that transfers 
be given at all intersecting points, but the railway corpo* 
ration had gotten round th^ by arranging a pretence at 
separate ownership. So whenever he wished to ride, he 
had to pay ten cents each way, or over ten per cent of his 
income to this power, which had gotten its franchises long 
ago by buying up the city council, in the face of popular 
clamor amounting almost to a rebellion. Tired as he 
felt at night, and dark and bitter cold as it WbS in the 
morning, Jurgis generally chose to walk; at the hours 
other workmen were travelling, the street-car monopoly 
saw fit to put on so few cars that there would be men 
hanging to every foot of the backs of them and often 
•Touching upon the snow-covered roof. Of course the 
doors could never be closed, and so the cars were as cold 
as outdoors; Jurgis, like many others, found it better to 
spend his fare for a drink and a free lunch, to give him 
strength to walk. 

These, however, were all slight matters to a man wh» 
had escaped from Durham's fertilizer-mill. Jurgis be- 
gan to pick up heart again and to make plans. He had 
lost his house, but then the awful load of the rent and 
interest was off his shoulders, and when Marija was well 
again they could start over and save. In the shop where 
he worked was a man, a Lithuanian like himself, whom 
the others spoke of in admiring whispers, because of the 
mighty feats he was performing. All day he sat at a 
machine turning bolts ; and then in the evening he went 
to the public school to study English and learn to read. 
In addition, because he had a family of eight children to 
support and his earnings were not enough^ on Saturdays 
and Sundays he served as a watchman ; he was required 
to press two buttons at opposite ends of a building every 
five minutes, and as the walk only took him two minuteSi 
he had three minutes to study between each trip* Jurjgis 
felt jealous of this fellow ; for that was the sort of thing 
he himself had dreamed of, two or three years ago. H# 
aadght do it even yet, if he had a fur chance — bo miq^ 



240 



THE JXJNGLB 



attract attention and become a skilled man or a boss, as 
some had done in this place. Suppose that Marija could 
get a job in the big mill where they made binder-twine — 
then they would move into this neighborhood, and he 
would really have a chance. With a hope like that, 
there was some use in living ; to find a place where you 
were treated like a human being — by God I he would 
show them how he could appreciate it. He laughed to 
himself as he thought how he would hang on to this 
job I 

And then one afternoon, the ninth of his work in the 
pliace, when he went to get his overcoat he saw a group 
of men crowded before a placard on the door, and when 
be went oyer and ad:ed what it was, they told him that 
teginning with the morrow his department of the harvester 
works would be closed until further notice I 



CHAPTER XXI 

Teat was the way they did it! There was not half an 
lioor's warning — the works were closed I It had hap- 
pened that way before, said the men, and it would happen 
that way foreyer. They had made all the harvesting-ma- 
chines that the world needed, and now they had to wait 
till some wore out I It was nobody's fault — that was the 
way of it; and thousands of men and women were turned 
•ut in the dead of winter, to live upon their sayings if they 
had any, and otherwise to die. So many tens of thousands 
already in the city, homeless and begging for work, and 
now several thousand more added to them I 

Jurgis walked home with his pittance of pay in his 
pooke^ heartbroken, overwhelmea. One more oandage 
nad been torn from his eyes, one more pitfall was reveided 
to him I Of what help was kindness and decency on the 
part of employers — when thev could not keep a job for 
Um, when there were more harvesting-machmes made 
than the world was able to buy I What a hellish mockery 
it was, anyway, that a man snould slave to make harvest- 
ing-machines for the country, only to be turned out to 
st^e for doing his duty too well I 

It took him two days to get over this heart-sickening 
disappointment. He did not drink anything, because 
Elzbieta got his money for safekeeping, and knew him to# 
well to be in the least frightened by his angrv demands. 
He stayed up in the garret, however, and sulked — what 
was the use of a man's hunting a job when it was taken 
from him before he had time to learn the work? But 
then their money was going again, and little Antanas was 
kungrjy and crying with the bitter cold of tb^ ^g^xt^^ 

841 



242 THE JUNGLE 

Also Madame Haupt, the midwife, was after him for soma 
money. So he went out once more. 

For another ten days he roamed the streets and alleys 
of the huge city, sick and hungry, begging for any work. 
He tried in stores and offices, in restaurants and hotels» 
along the docks and in the railroad-yards, in warehouses 
and mills and factories where they made products that 
went to every comer of the world. There were often 
one or two chances — but there were always a hundred 
men for every chance, and his turn would not come. At 
night he crept into sheds and cellars and doorways — until 
there came a spell of belated winter weather, witn a raging 
gale, and the thermometer five degrees below zero at sun* 
down and falling all night. Then Jurgis fought like 
a wild beast to get into the big Harrison Street police-sta- 
tion, and slept down in a corridor, crowded with two other 
men upon a single step. 

He had to fi^t often in these days — to fight for a place 
near the factory gates, and now and again with gangs on 
the street. He found, for instance, tnat the business of 
carrying satchels for railroad-passengers was a preempted 
one — whenever he essayed it, eight or ten men and boys 
would fall upon him and force him to run for his lUfe 
They always nad the policeman ^^ squared,'* and so there 
was no use in expecting protection. 

That Jurgis did not starve to death was due solely to 
the pittance the children brought him. And even this was 
never certain. For one thing the cold was idmost more 
than the children could bear ; and then they, too, were in 
perpetual peril from rivals who plundered and beat them. 
The law was against them, too — little Vilimas, who was 
really eleven, but did not look to be eight, was stopped on 
the streets by a severe old lady in spectacles* who told him 
that he was too young to be workms and that if he did 
not stop selling papers she would send a truant-officer after 
him. Also one night a strange man caught little Kotrina 
by the arm and tried td perstuide her into a dark cellar- 
way, an experience which filled her with such terror that 
the was hardly to be kept at work. 



THE JUNGLE 243 

At last, on a Sunday, as there was no nse looking tor 
woi^ Jorgis went home by stealing rides on the cars. 
He found that they had been waiting for him for three 
days — there was a chance of a job for him. 

It was quite a story. Little Jnozapas, who was near 
crazy with hunger these days, had ^one out on the street 
to beg for himself. Juozapas had only one leg, having 
been run over by a wagon when a little child, but he haa 
got himself a broomstick, which he put under his arm for a 
crutch. He had fallen in with some other children and 
found the way to Mike Scully's dump, which lay three 
or four blocks away. To this place there came every day 
many hundreds of wagon-loads of garbage and trash from 
the lake-front, where the rich people lived; and in the 
heaps the children raked for food — there were hunks of 
bread and potato peelings and apple-cores and meat* 
bones, all of it half frozen and quite unspoiled. Little 
Juozapas gorged himself, and came home with a newspaper 
full, which he was feeding to Antanas when his mother 
came in. Elzbieta was horrified, for she did not believe 
that the food out of the dumps was fit to eat. The next 
day, however, when no harm came of it and Juozapas be- 
gan to cry with hunger, she gave in and said that he might 
go again. And that afternoon he came home with a story 
of how while he had been dig^g away with a stick, a 
lady upon the street had called him. A real fine lady, the 
little boy explained, a beautiful lady; and she wanted to 
know all about him, and whether he got the garbage for 
chickens, and why he walked with a broomstidk, and why 
Ona had died, and how Jurgis had come to go to jail, and 
what was the matter with Marija, and everything. In 
the end she had asked where he lived, and said that she 
was coming to see him, and bring him a new crutch to 
walk with. She had on a hat with a bird upon it, 
Juozapas added, and a long fur snake around her neck. 

She really came, the very next morning, and climbed the 
ladder to the garret, and stood and stared about her, turn-* 
ing pale at the sight of the blood stains on the floor where 
Ona had died. She was a ^^ settlement- worker,'* she ez* 



9M THB JUiraLB 

plained tp Elzbieta — she lived aioimd on Ashland Ayenne. 
Elzbieta knew the place, over a feed-store; somebody had 
wanted her to go there, but she had not cared to, for she 
thought that it must have something to do with religion^ 
and the priest did not like her to have anythinc^ to do with 
stranfi^e religions. They were rich people who came to 
live there to find out about the poor people; but what 
good they expected it would do them to know, one could 
not imagine. So spoke Elzbieta, naively, and the young 
lady laughed and was rather at a loss for an answer— she 
stood and gazed about her, and thought of a cynical 
remark that had been made to her, that she was stajiding 
upon the brink of the pit of hell and throwing in snow- 
balls to lower the temperature. 

Elzbieta was glad to have somebody to listen, and she 
told all their woes, — - what had happened to Ona, and the 

J*ail, and the loss of their home, ana Marija's accident, and 
low Ona had died, and how Jurgis could get no work. 
As she listened the prettv young lady's eyes filled with 
tears, and in the midst of it she burst into weeping and 
hid her face on Elzbieta's shoulder, quite regardless of the 
fact that the woman had on a dirty old wrapper and that 
the garret was full of fleas. Poor Elzbieta was ashamed 
of herself for having told so woful a tale, and the other 
had to beg and plead with her to get her to go on. The 
end of it was that the young lady sent them a basket of 
things to eat, and left a letter that Jurgis was to take to a 
genUeman who was superintendent in one of the mills of 
the great steel-works in South ChicaTO. ^^ He will get 
Jurgis something to do,*' the young bdy had said, and 
added, smiling through her tears— ^ If he doesn^ he will 
never marry me.** 

The steel- works were fifteen miles awav, and as usual it 
was so contrived that one had to pay two rares to get thure* 
Far and wide the sky was flaring with the red glare that 
leaped from rows of towering chimneys— for it was pitch 
iAvk when Jurgis arrived. The vast works, a city in 
themselves, were surrounded by a stockade ; and already 



THE JXnrGLB S45 

a full hundred men were waiting at the gate where new 
hands were taken on. Soon after daybreak whistles began 
to blow, and then suddenly thousands of men appeared, 
streaming from saloons and boarding-houses across the 
way, leaping from trolley-cars that passed — it seemed as 
if tiiey rose out of the ground, in the dim gray light. A 
river of them poured in through the gate — and then 
gradually ebbed away again, until there were only a few 
&te ones running, and the watchman pacing up and down, 
and the hungry strangers stamping and shivering. 

Jurg^s presented his precious letter. The gatekeeper 
was surly, and put him through a catechism, but he in- 
sisted that he knew nothing, and as he had taken the 
precaution to seal his letter, there was nothing for the 
gatekeeper to do but send it to the person to whom it was 
addressed. A messenger came back to say that Jurgis 
should wait, and so he came inside of the gate, perhaps 
not sorry enough that there were others less fortunate 
watching him with greedy eyes. 

The great mills were getting under way— one could 
hear a vast stirring, a rolnng and rumbling and hammer- 
ing. LitUe by littie the scene grew plain: towering, 
black buildings here and there, long rows of shops and 
sheds, little railways branching everywhere, bare gray 
cinders under foot and oceans of billowing black smoke 
above. On one side of the grounds ran a railroad with a 
dozen tracks^ and on the ower side lay the lake, where 
steamers came to load. 

Jurgis had time enough to stare and speculate, for it 
was two hours before he was summoned. He went into 
the oflSce-building, where a company time-keeper inter- 
viewed him. The superintendent was busy, he said, but 
he (the time-keeper) would try to find Jurgis a job. He 
had never worked in a steel-mill before ? But he was 
ready for anything ? Well, then, they would go and see. 

So they l>egan a tour, among sights that made Jurgis 
stare amazed. He wondered it ever he could get used to 
working in a place like this, where the air shook with 
deafening thonder, and whistles shrieked warnings oa sU 



248 1!HB JUNOIiifi 



It was at the and of this rail'a progress that JurgiB gol 
his chance. They had to be moved by men with crowb£r8» 
and the boss here could use another man. So he took off 
his coat and set to work on the spot. 

It took him two hours to get to this place everj day 
and cost him a dollar and twenty cents a week. As this 
was out of the question, he wrapped his bedding in a 
bundle and took it with him, and one of his fellow- work- 
ing-men introduced him to a Polish lodging-house, where 
he might have the privilege of sleeping upon the floor for 
ten cents a night. He got his meals at free-lunch counters, 
and every Saturday night he went home — bedding and 
all — and took the greater part of his money to the ffunily. 
Elzbieta was sorry for tms arrangement, for she feared 
that it would get him into the habit of living^ without 
them, and once a week was not very often for lum to sea 
his baby; but there was no other way of arranging it. 
There was no chance for a woman at the steel-works, and 
Marija was now ready for work again, and lured on from 
day to day by the hope of finding it at the yards. 

In a week Jurgis got over his sense of helplessness and 
bewilderment in the rail-mill. He learned to find his wav 
about and to take idl the miracles and terrors for granted, 
to work without heariiu; the rumbling and crashing. From 
blind fear he went to t£e other extreme ; he became reck* 
less and indifferent, like all the rest of the men, who took 
but little thoufi^ht of themselves in the udor of their work. 
It was wondenul, when one came to think of it, that these 
men should have taken an interest in the work they did; 
they had no share in it —they were paid by the hour, and 
paid no more for being interested. Also they knew that 
if thev were hurt thev would be fiun^ aside and forgotten 
-^and still they would hurry to their task by dangerous 
short-cuts, would use methods that were quicker and more 
effective in spite of the fact that they were also risky. 
His fourth day at his work Jurgis sawa man stumble while 
running in front of a car, and have his foot mashed off; 
and berare he had been there three we^s be was witness 



THE JUNGLE 249 

of a yet more dreadful accident. There was a row of 
brick-fomaces, shining white through every erack with 
the molten steel inside. Some of these were bulging dan- 
gerously, yet men worked before them, wearing blue 
glasses when they opened and shut the doors. One mom« 
ing as Jurgis was passing, a furnace blew out, spraying 
two men with a shower of liquid fire. As they lay scream- 
ing and rolling upon the ground in agony, / urg^s rushed 
to help them, and as a result he lost a good part of the 
skin from the inside of one of his hands. The company 
doctor bandaged it up, but he got no other thanks from 
any one, and was laid up for eight working days without 
any pay. 

Most fortunately, at this juncture, Elzbieta got the 
loi^-awaited chance to go at five o'clock in the morning 
and help scrub the office-floors of one of the packers. 
Jurgis came home and covered himself with blankets to 
keep warm, and divided his time between sleeping and 
playing witii little Antanas. Juozapas was away raking 
m the dump a good part of the time, and Elzbieta and 
Bfarija were hunting for more work. 

Antanas was now over a year and a half old, and was a 
perfect talking-machine. He learned so fast that every 
week when Jurgis came home it seemed to him as if 
he had a new (mild. He would sit down and listen and 
stare at him, and give vent to delighted exclamations, — 
^Palauk! Mwmal Tu mono 9zirdele ! ** The little fellow 
was now really the one delight that Jurgis had in the 
world — his one hope, his one victory. Tnank God, An- 
tanas was a boy I And he was as tough as a pine-knot, 
and with the appetite of a wolf. Nothing had hurt him, 
and nothing could hurt him ; he had come through all 
the suffering and deprivation unscathed — only sli^Hler- 
voiced and more determined in his grip upon life. He 
was a terrible child to manage, was Antanas, but his 
&ther did not mind that — he would watch him and smile 
to himself with satisfaction. The more of a fighter he 
was the better— he would need to fight belore he got 
tfarooi^ 

IT 



8E0 THE JXTNGLE 

Jargil had got the habit of buying the Sunday paper 
whenever he had the money ; a most wonderful paper 
could be had for only five cents, a whole armful, with all 
the news of the world set forth in big headlines, that 
Jurgis could spell out slowly, with the children to help 
him at the long words. There was battle and murder 
and sudden death — it was marvellous how they ever heard 
about so many entertaining and thrilling happenings ; the 
stories must be all true, for surely no man could have made 
such things up, and besides, there were pictures of them 
all, as real as life. One of these papers was as good as a 
circus, and nearly as good as a spree — certainly a most 
wonderful treat K>r a working-man, who was tired out and 
stupefied^ and had never had any education, and whose 
work was one dull, sordid grind, day after day, and year 
after year, with never a sight of a green field nor an hour's 
entertainment, nor anything but liquor to stimulate his 
imagination. Among other things, these papers had pages 
full of comical pictures, and these were the main joy in 
life to little Antanas. He treasured them up, and would 
drag them out and make his father tell him about them ; 
there were all sorts of animals among them, and Antanas 
could tell the names of all of them, lying upon the floor for 
hours and pointing them out with his chubby little fingers. 
Whenever the storv was plain enous^h for J urgis to make 
out, Antanas would have it repeated to him, and then he 
would remember it, prattling funny little sentences and 
mixing it up with other stones in an irresistible fashion. 
Also his quaint pronunciation of words was such a delight 
•"-and the phrases he would pick up and remember, the 
most outlandish and impossible thines I The first time 
that the little rascal burst out wiUi ^^ God-damn,** his 
father nearly rolled off the chair with glee ; but in the 
end he was sorry for this, for Antanas was soon ^^ God« 
damning *• everything and everybody. 

And then, when he was able to use his hands, Jor^ 
took his bedding ag^in and went back to his task of shut* 
kkg rails. It was now April, and the snow had giveii 




THE JUNGLE 251 

place to cold rains, and the unpaved street in front of 
Aniele's house was turned into a canal. Jurgis would 
have to wade through it to get homct and if it was late 
he might easily get stuck to ms waist in the mire. But he 
did not mind this much-— it was a promise that summer 
was coming. Marija had now gotten a place as beef* 
trimmer in one of the smaller packing-plants ; and he told 
himself that he had learned his lesson now, and would meet 
with no more accidents — so that at last there was pros- 
pect of an end to their long agony* They could save 
money again, and when another winter came they would 
have a comfortable place ; and the children would be off 
the streets and in school again, and they might set to work 
to nurse back into life their habits of decency and kind* 
ness. So once more Jurgis began to make plans and 
dream dreams* 

And then one Saturday night he jumped off the car 
and started home, with the sun shining low under the 
edge of a bank of clouds that had been pouring floods of 
water into the mud-soaked street. There was a rainbow 
in the sky, and another in his breast — for he had thirty- 
six hours* rest before him, and a chance to see his family. 
Then suddenly he came in sight of the house, and noticed 
that there was a crowd before the door. He ran up the 
steps and pushed his way in, and saw Aniele*s kitchen 
crowded with excited women. It reminded him so vividly 
of the time when he had come home from jail and found 
Ona dying, that his heart almost stood stiU. ^What's 
the matter? ** he cried. 

A dead silenoe had fallen in the room, and he saw that 
every^ one was staring at him. ** What*s the matter? *^ he 
exclaimed again. 

And then, up in the garret, he heard sounds of wailincf, 
in Mari ja*s voice. He started for the ladder — and Aniele 
seized him by the arm. **No» nol** she exclaimed. 
•* Don't go up there I •• 

** What is it? •• he shouted. 

And the old woman answered him weakly : ^ It's An* 
tanas. He's dead. He was drowned out in the streetl " 



CHAPTER XXn 

JuBGis took the news in a peculiar way. He turned 
deadly pale, but he caught himself, and for half a minute 
stood in the middle of the room, clenching his hands tightly 
and setting his teeth. Then he pushed Aniele aside and 
strode into the next room and climbed the ladder. 

In the comer was a blanket, with a form half showing 
beneath it $ and beside it lay Elzbieta, whether crying or 
in a faint, Jurgis could not tell. Marija was pacing the 
room, screaming and wringing her hands. He clenched 
his hands tighter yet, and his voice was hard as he spoke. 

^ How did it happen? ** ho asked. 

Marija scarcely heard him in her agony. He repeated 
the question, louder and yet more harshly. ^ He fell off the 
sidewalk I** she wailed. The sidewalK in front of the 
house was a platform made of half -rotten boards, about 
five feet above the level of the sunken street. 

^ How did he come to be there? '' he demanded* 

^ He went -* he went out to play,** Marija sobbed^ her 
Toice choking her. ^^ We couldn^t make him stay in. He 
must have got caught in the mud I ** 

** Are you sure that he is dead? " he demanded. 

•• Ai I ai I •• she wailed. ** Yes ; we had the doctor.* 

Then Jurgis stood a few seconds, wavering. He did 
not shed a tear. He took one glance more at the blanket 
with the little form beneath it, and then turned suddenly 
to the ladder and climbed down aeain. A silence feu 
once more in the room as he entered. He went straight 
to the door, passed out, and started down the street. 

^Then his wife had died, Jurgis made for the nearest 
saloon, bat be did not do that now^ though be had his 



1 



week's wages in his pocket. He walked and walked, see* 
ing nothing, splashing through mud and water* Later on 
he sat down upon a step and hid lus face in his hands and 
for half an hour or so he did not move. Now and then he 
would whisper to himself : ^ Dead I Dead! '* 

Finally, he got up and walked on again. It was about 
sunset, and he went on and on until it was dark, when he 
was stopped by a railroad-crossing. The gates were down, 
and a long train of freight-cars was thundering by. He 
stood and watched it ; and all at once a wild impulse seized 
him, a thought that had been lurking within him, un- 
spoken, unrecognized, leaped into sudden life. He started 
down the tracK, and when he was past the g^te-keeper's 
shanty he sprang forward and swung himself on to one of 
the cars. 

By and by the train stopped again, and Jurgis sprang 
down and ran under the car, and hid himself upon the 
truck. Here he sat, and when the train started again, he 
fought a battle with his soul. He gripped his hands and 
set nis teeth together—- he had not wept, and he would 
not— -not a tear I It was past and over, and he was 
done with it— he would fling it off his shoulders, be free 
of it, the whole business, that night. It should go like a 
black, hateful nightmare, and in the morning he would be 
a new man. And every time that a thought of it assailed 
him—- a tender memory, a t race of a tear — he rose up, 
cursing with ra^e, and pounded it down. 

He was fighting for his life; he mashed his teeth 
together in his desperation. He had Seen a fool, a fool t 
He had wasted lus life, he had wrecked himself, with his 
accursed weakness ; and now he was done with it — he 
would tear it out of him, root and branch I There should 
be no more tears and no more tenderness; he had had i 
enough of them — they had sold him into slavery I Now 
he was going to be free, to tear off his shackles, to rise up 
and fight. He was glad that the end had come — it haa 
to come some time, and it was just as well now. This was 
no world for women and children, and the sooner they got 
out of it the better for them. Whatever Antanas might 



254 TEDS JUNGLB 

suffer where he was, he could suffer no more than ht 
would have had he^ stayed upon earth. And meantime 
his father had thought the last thought about him that 
he meant to ; he was going to think of himself, he was 
going to fight for himself, against the world that had baffled 
him and tortured him I 

So he went on, tearing up all the flowers from the gsij> 
den of his soul, and setting his heel upon them. The train 
thundered deafeningly, and a storm of dust blew in his 
&ce; but though it stopped now and then through the 
night, he clung where he was — he would cling there until 
he was driven off, for eyery mile that he got from Pack* 
ingtown meant another loaa from his mind. 

Whenever the cars stopped a warm breeze blew upon 
him, a breeze laden with the perfume of fresh fields, of 
honeysuckle and clover. He snuffed it, and it made his 
heart beat wildly — he was out in the country again I He 
was going to live in the country I When the dawn came 
he was peering out with hungry eyes, getting glimpses of 
meadows and woods and rivers. At last he could stand it 
no longer, and when the train stopped again he crawled 
out. Upon the top of the car was a brakeman, who shook 
his fist and swore ; Jurgis waved his hand derisivelyt and 
started across the country. 

Only think that he haa been a countryman all his life ; 
and for three long years he had never seen a country sight 
nor heard a country sound I Excepting for that one mlk 
when he left jail, when he was too much worried to notice 
anything, and for a few times that he had rested in the 
oity parks in the winter time when he was out of work, 
he had literally never seen a tree I And now he felt like 
a bird lifted up and borne away upon a gale ; he stopped and 
stared at each new sight of wonder, — at a herd of cows, 
and a meadow full of daisies, at hedgerows set thick with 
June roses, at little birds singing in the trees. 

Then he came to a farm-house, and after getting himself 
a stick for protection, he approached it. The farmer was 
greasing a wagon in front of the bam, and Jurgis went 
to him. ^I would like to cret some breakfast, please,^ 
be 6idd» 



THE JUNQLB »» 

^Do jon want to work?** eaid the iarmer. 

••No,** said Jurgis, •*! don't.'* 

**Then you can't get anything here»** snapped the 
Other. 

^ I meant to pay for it,** said Jurgis. 

-< Oh," said the fanner ; and then added sarcastically, 
•*We don't serve breakfast after 7 A.M.'* 

** I am very hungry," said Jurgis, gravely ; •* I would 
like to buy some food." 

^ Ask the woman," said the farmer, nodding over his 
shoulder. The ^ woman " was more tractable, and for a 
dime Jurgis secured two thick sandwiches and a piece of 
pie and two apples. He walked off eating the pie, as the 
least convenient thing to carry. In a few minutes he 
came to a stream, and he climbed a fence and walked 
down the bank, along a woodland path. By and by he 
found a comfortable spot, and there he devoured his meal, 
slaking his thirst at the stream. Then he lay for hours, 
just gazing and drinking in joy; until at last he felt 
sleepy, ana lay down in the shade of a bush. 

When he awoke the sun was shining hot in his face. 
He sat up and stretched his arms, and then gazed at the 
water sliding by* There was a deep pool, sheltered and 
silent, below him, and a sudden wonderful idea rushed 
upon him. He might have a bath I The water was free, 
and he might get into it — all the way into it I It would 
be the first time that he had been all the way into the water 
since he left Lithuania I 

When Jurgis had first come to the stockyards he had 
been as clean as any working-man could well be. But 
later on, what with sickness and cold and hunger and 
discouragement, and the filthiness of his work, and the 
vermin in his home, he had given up washing in winter, 
and in summer only as much of him as would go into a 
basin. He had had a shower-bath in jail, but nothing 
since — and now he would have a swim I 

The water was warm, and he splashed about like a very 
boy in his glee. Afterward he sat down in the water near 
the bank, and proceeded to scrub himself— soberly and 



256 THE JUKGLK 

methodioallji soonring every inch of him with sand. 
While he was domg it he would do it thoroughly, and see 
how it felt to be clean. He even scrubbed ms head with 
sand, and combed what the men called ^^ crumbs " out of 
his long, black hair, holding his head under water as long 
as he could, to see if he could not kill them all. Then, 
seeing that the sun was still hot, he took his clothes from 
the bank and proceeded to wash them, piece by piece ; as 
the dirt and grease went floating off down-stream he 
grunted with satisfaction and soi:^ed the clothes again, 
venturing even to dream that he might get rid of the 
fertilizer. 

He hung them all up, and while they were drying he 
lay down in the sun and had another long sleep. They 
were hot and stiff as boards on top, and a little damp on 
the under-side, when he awakened ; but being hungry, he 
put them on and set out again. He had no knife, but 
with some labor he broke himself a good stout club, and, 
armed with this, he marched down the road again. 

Before long he came to a big farm-house, and turned up 
the lane that led to it. It was lust supper-time, and the 
farmer was washing his hands at the kitchen-door. 
** Please, sir,** said Jurgis, ^can I have something to eat? 
I can pay.** To which the farmer responded promptly, 
" We don't feed tramps here. Get outi *• 

Jurgis went without a word ; but as he passed round 
the bam he came to a freshly ploughed and harrowed field. 
In which the farmer had set out some young peach-trees i 
and as he walked he jerked up a row of them by the roots, 
more than a hundrea trees in all, before he reached the 
end of the field. That was his answer, and it showed his 
mood ; from now on he was fighting, and the man who hit 
him would get all that he gave, every time. 

Beyond the orchard Jurgis struck through a patch of 
woods, and then a field of winter-grain, and came at last 
to another road. Before long he saw another farm-house, 
and, as it was beginning to cloud over a little, he asked 
here for shelter as well as food. Seeing the fanner eying 
him dubiously, he added, ^^ 1*11 be glad to sleep in the hamr 



ram rOKoia 257 

^ Wen, I dxmox^^ said the otlier. **]>o joa smoke? ** 

«« Sometimes,*' sud Jorgis, "^but TU do it out of 
doors.*' When ike man had assented, he inquired, 
^How much will it cost me? 1 haven't very much 
money." 

** I reckon about twenty oents for supper," replied the 
farmer. ** I won't charge ye for the barn." 

So Jurgis went in, and sat down at the table with the 
farmer's wife and half a dozen children. It was a bounti* 
ful meal— -there were baked beans and mashed potatoes 
and asparaeus chopped and stewed, and a dish of straw* 
berries, and great, tliick slices of bread, and a pitcher of 
milk. Jurgis had not had such a feast since his wedding 
day, and he made a mighty effort to put in his twenty 
cents' worth. 

They were all of them too hungry to talk ; but after- 
ward they sat upon the steps and smoked, and the farmer 
questioned his guest. When Jurgis had explained that 
he was a working-man from Chicago, and that he did not 
know just whither he was bound, the other said, ^ Why 
don't you stay here and work for me ? " 

** I'm not looking for work just now," Jur^ answered. 

** I'll pay ye goM," said the other, eying nis big form 
— *^ a dollar a aay and board ye. Help's terrible scarce 
round here." 

^ Is that winter as well as summer ? " Jurgis demanded 
quickly. 

M^.^no," said the farmer; ^I couldn't keep ye after 
November -— I ain't got a big enough place for that." 

^ I see," said the other, *♦ that's what I thought. When 
you get through working your horses this fall, will you 
turn them out in the snow?" (Jurgis was beginning to 
think for himself nowadays.") 

^ It ain't quite the same, the farmer answered, seeing 
the point. ^ There ought to be work a stronfi^ fellow like 
you can find to do, in the cities, or some place, m the winter 
time." 

^ Yes," said Jurgis, ^Hhat's what thev all think; and so 
tbej crowd into the cities, and when they have to beg ox. 



86B THE JX7NGLB 

steal to liye, then people ask 'em why they doat go into 
the country, where help is scarce.** 

The farmer meditated awhile. 

** How about when your money's gone ? ** he inquired, 
finally. *♦ You'll have to, then, won't you ? •• 

** Wait till she's gone," said Jurgis ; •* then 111 see," 

He had a long sleep in the bam and then a big break- 
fast of coffee and bread and oatmeal and stewed cherriesi 
for which the man charged him only fifteen cents, perhaps 
having^ been influenced by his arguments. Then Jurgis 
bade rarewell, and went on his way. 

Such was the beginning of his life as a tramp. It was 
seldom he got as fair treatment as from this last farmer, 
and so as time went on he learned to shun the houses and 
to prefer sleeping in the fields. When it rained he would 
find a deserted building, if he could, and if not, he would 
wait until after dark and then, with his stick ready, begin 
a stealthy approach upon a bam. Generally he could get 
in before the dog got scent of him, and then he would 
hide in the hay and be safe until morning ; if not, and the 
dog attacked him, he would rise up and make a retreat in 
battle order. Jurgis was not the mighty man he had once 
been, but his arms were still good, and there were few 
farm dogs he needed to hit more than once. 

Before long there came raspberries, and then black* 
berries, to help him save his money ; and there were apples 
in the orchards and potatoes in the ground — he learned 
to note the places and fill his pockets after dark. Twice 
hd even managed to capture a chicken, and had a feasti 
once in a deserted bam and the other time in a lonely 
spot alongside of a stream. When all of these things 
failed him he used his money carefully, but without worry 
— for he saw that he could earn more wheneyer he chose. 
Half an hour's chopping wood in his lively fashion was 
enoueh to bring him a meal, and when the farmer had 
seen him working he would sometimes try to bribe him to 
stay. 

But Jurgis was not staying. He was a free maa noWf 



THS JUKGLB 259 

% bnooaneer. The old Wanderluit had got into his blood, 
the joy of the unbound life, the joy of seeking, of looping 
without limit. There were mishaps and discomforts — 
but at least there was always something new ; and only 
think what it meant to a man who for years had been 
penned up in one place, seeing nothing but one dreary 
prospect of shanties and factories, to be suddenly set 
u>ose beneath the open sky, to behold new landscapes, 
new places, and new people every hour I To a man 
whose whole life had consisted of doing one certain 
thing all day, until he was so exhausted that he could 
only lie down and sleep until the next day —-and to be 
DOW his own master, working as he pleased and when he 
pleased, and facing a new adventure every hourl 

Then, too, his health came back to him, all his lost youth- 
ful vigor, his joy and power that he had mourned and forgot- 
ten I It came with a sudden rush, bewildering him, startling 
him; it was as if his dead childhood had come back to 
him, laughing and calling I What with plenty to eat and 
fresh air and exercise that was taken as it pleased him, he 
would waken from his sleep and start off not knowing what 
to do with his energy, stretching his arms, laughing, sing- 
ing old songs of home that came back to him. Now and 
then, of course, he could not help but tliink of little An* 
tanas, whom he should never see again, whose little voice 
he should never hear ; and then he would have to battle 
with himself. Sometimes at night he would waken dream- 
ing of Ona, and stretch out his arms to her, and wet the 
ground with his tears. But in the morning he would get 
up and shake himself, and stride away again to battle with 
the world. 

He never asked wh^re he was nor where he was going; 
the country was big enough, he knew, and there was no'^ 
danger of his coming to the end of it. And of course he 
could always have company for the asking — everywhere 
he went there were men living Just as he lived, and whom 
he was welcome to join. He was a stranger at the busi- 
ness, but they were not clannish, and they taught him all 
ibeir tricks, — what towns and villages it was l^t to keep 



260 THE JUNGLE 

away from, and how to read the secret signs upon the 
fences, and when to beg and when to steal, and just how 
to do both. They laughed at his ideas of paying for any* 
thing with money or with work — for they got all they 
wanted without either. Now and then Jurgis camped out 
with a gang of them in some woodland haunt, and foraged 
with them in the neighborhood at night. And then among 
them some one would ^^ take a shine " to him, and they 
would go off together and travel for a week, exchanging 
reminiscences. 

Of these professional tramps a great many had, of course, 
been shiftless and vicious all their lives. But the vast 
majority of them had been working-men, had fought the 
long fight as Jurgis had, and found that it was a losing 
fight, and given up. Later on he encountered yet another 
sort of men, those from whose ranks the tramps were 
recruited, men who were homeless and wandering, but 
still seeking work — seeking it in the harvest-fields. Of 
these there was an army, the huge surplus labor army of 
society ; called into bein^ under the stern system of nature, 
to do the casual work of the world, the tasks which were 
transient and irregular, and yet which had to be done. 
They did not know that they were such, of course ; they 
only knew that they sought the job, and that the job was 
fleeting. In the early summer they would be in Texas, 
and as the crops were ready they would follow north with 
the season, ending with the fall in Manitoba. Then they 
would seek out the big lumber-camps, where there was 
winter work ; or failing in this, would drift to the cities, 
and live upon what they had managed to save, with the 
help of such transient work as was there, — the loading and 
unloading of steamships and drays, the digging of ditches 
and the shovelling of snow. If there were more of them 
on hand than chanced to be needed, the weaker ones died 
off of cold and hunger, again according to the stem sva- 
tem of nature. 

It was in the latter part of July, when Jurgis was iK 
Missouri, that he came upon the harvest- work. Here were 
crops that men had worked for three or four months to 



THE JUNGLE 261 

prepare, and of which they would lose nearly all unless 
they could find others to help them for a week or two. 
So all over the land there was a cry for labor— agencies 
were set up and all the cities were drained of men, even 
college boys were brought by the car-load, and hordes of 
frantic farmers would hold up trains and carry off wagon- 
loads of men by main force. Not that they did not pay 
them well — any man could get two dollars a day and his 
board, and the best men could get two dollars and a half 
or three. 

The harvest-fever was in the very air, and no man with 
any spirit in him could be in that region and not catch it. 
Jurgis joined a gang and worked from dawn till dark, 
eighteen hours a day, for two weeks without a break. 
Then he had a sum of money that would have been a for- 
tune to him in the old days of misery — but what could 
he do with it now? To be sure he might have put it in a 
bank, and, if he were fortunate, get it back again when he 
wanted it. But Jurgis was now a homeless man, wander* 
ing over a continent ; and what did he know about bank- 
ing and drafts and letters of credit? If he carried the 
money about with him, he would surely be robbed in the 
end ; and so what was there for him to do but enjoy it 
while he could? On a Saturday night he drifted into a 
town with his fellows ; and because it was raining, and 
there was no other place provided for him, he went to a 
saloon. And there were some who treated him and whom 
he had to treat, and there was laughter and singing and 
g^ood cheer ; and then out of the rear part of the saloon a 
eirl's face, red-cheeked and merry, smiled at Jureis, and 
his heart thumped suddenly in his throat. He nodded to 
her, and she came and sat by him, and they had more 
drink, and then he went upstairs into a room with her, and 
the wild beast rose up within him and screamed, as it has 
screamed in the jungle from the dawn of time. And then 
because of his memories and his shame, he was glad when 
others joined them, men and women ; and they had more 
drink and spent the night in wild rioting and debauchery 
In the van of the surplus-labor army, there followed 




'Jl&i THE JITNGLE 

« 

another, an army of women, they also straggling for 
under tJie stem system of nature. Because there were 
rich men who sought pleasure, there had been ease and 
plenty for them so long as they were young and beautiful ; 
and later on, when they were crowded out by others 
youDger and more beautiful, they went out to follow upon 
the trail of the working-men* Sometimes they came of 
themselves, and the saloon-keepers shared with them ; or 
sometimes they were handled by agencies, the same as the 
labor army. They were in the towns in harvest-time, 
near the lumber-camps in the winter, in the cities when 
the men came there ; if a regiment were encamped, or a 
railroad or canal being made, or a great exposition 
ready, the crowd of women were on hand, living in s! 
or saloons or tenement-rooms, sometimes eight or ten of 
them together. 

In the morning Jurgis had not a cent, and he went out 
upon the road again. He was sick and disgusted, but 
after the new plan of his life, he crushed his feelings 
down. He had made a fool of himself^but he could not 
help it now — all he could do was to see that it did not 
happen again. So he tramped on until exercise and fresh 
air Danisned his headache, and his strength and joy re- 
turned. This happened to him every time, for Jurgis 
was still a creature of impulse, and his pleasures had not 
yet become business. It would be a long time before he 
could be like the majority of these men of the road, who 
roamed until the hunger for drink and for women mas- 
tered them, and then went to work with a purpose in 
mind, and stopped when they had the price of a spree. 

On the contrary, try as he would, Jurgis could not help 
being made miserable by his conscience. It was the ghost 
that would not down. It would come upon him in the 
most unexpected places — sometimes it fairly drove him 
to drink. 

One night be was caught by a thunder-storm, and he 
sought shelter in a little house just outside of a town. It 
was a working-man's home, and the owner was a Slav like 
himself, a new emigrant from White Russia; he bade 



THE JUNGLE 263 

Jfurgis welcome in his home lang^uage, and told him to 
come to the kitohen-fire and dry himself. He had no bed 
for him, but there was straw in the garret, and he ooold 
make out. The man's wife was coolun^ the supper, and 
their children were playing about on tne floor. Jurgis 
8at and exchanged thoughts with him about the old coun- 
try, and the places where they had been and the work they 
had done. Then they ate, and afterward sat and smoked 
and talked more about America, and how they found it. 
In the middle of a sentence, however, Jurgis stopped, 
seeing that the woman had brought a big basin of water 
and was proceeding to undress her youngest baby. The 
rest had crawled into the closet where they slept, but 
the baby was to have a bath, the working-man explained. 
The nights had begun to be chilly, and nis mother, igno- 
rant as to the climate in America, had sewed him up for 
the winter; then it had turned warm aeain, and some 
kind of a rash had broken out on the child. The doctor 
had said she must bathe him every night, and she, foolish 
woman, believed hinu 

Jurgis scarcely heard the explanation ; he was watch* 
ing the baby. He was about a year old, and a sturdy 
little fellow, with soft fat legs, and a round ball of a stom- 
ach, and eyes as black as cotds. His pimples did not seem 
to bother him much, and he was wild with glee over the 
bath, kicking and squirming and chuckling with delight, 
pulling at Im mothers face and then at his own little toes. 
When she put him into the basin he sat in the midst of it 
and grinned, splashinfif the water over himself and squeal- 
ing like a little pig. He spoke in Russian, of which Jurgis 
knew some ; he spoke it with the quunt^t of baby accents 
— and every wotcI of it brought back to Jurgis some word 
of his own dead little one, and stabbed him like a knife. 
He sat perfectly motionless, silent, but dipping his hands 
tightly, while a storm gathered in his bosom and a flood 
heaped itself up behind his ejres. And in the end he 
oould bear it no more, but buried his face m his hands 
and burst into tears, to the alarm and ama^^ment of his 
hosts. Between the shame of this and Ims vos Jurgit 



264 



XHB JUNOLB 



ooold nofc stand it» and got up and roahed oat into tha 
lahu 

He went on and on down the road, finally coming to a black 
woods, where he hid and wept as if his heart would break. 
Ahf what agony was that, what despair, when the tomb of 
memory was rent open and the ghosts of his old life came 
forth to scourge him I What terror to see what he had 
been and now could never be — to see Ona and his child 
and his own dead self stretching out their arms to him, 
eallinff to him across a bottomless abyss— > and to know 
that uiey were jg^one from him f orever» and he writhing 
aad aofiEooating in the mire of his own idleness 1 



CHAPTER XXin 

Eably in the fall Jorgis set out for Chicago again. All 

e joy went oat of tramping as soon as a man could not 
keep warm in the hav; and, like many thousands of others^he 
deluded himself witn the hope that by coming early he could 
avoid the rush. He brought fifteen dollars with him, 
kidden away in one of his shoes, a sum which had been saved 
from the saloon-keepers, not so much by his conscience, 
aa by the fear whicn filled him at the thought of being 
•at of work in the city in the winter-time. 

He travelled upon the railroad with several other men, 
hiding in freight-cars at night, and liable to be thrown off 
at any time, regardless of tne speed of the train. When 
he reached the city he left the rest, for he had money and 
tliey did not, and he meant to save himself in this fight. 
He would bring to it all the skill that practice had 
brought him, and he would stand, whoever felL On 
bdr nights he would sleep in the park or on a truck or an 
empty barrel or box, and when it was rainy or cold he 
would stow himself upon a shelf in a ten-cent lodging* 
house, or pay three cents for the privileges of a ^* squatter '' 
in a tenement hallway. He woidd eat at free lunches, five 
jents a meal, and never a cent more — so he mic^ht keep 
alive for two months and more, and in that time he would 
sorely find a job. He would have to bid farewell to his 
summer cleanliness, of course, for he would come out of 
the first night^s lodging with his clothes alive with vermin. 
Iliere was no place in the city where he could wash even 
his face, unless he went down to the hdce-fr<^t ^and 
there it would soon be all ice. 

18 265 



266 THE JUNGLE 

First he went to the steel-mill and the hanresteiwwotki^ 
and found that his places there had been filled long am. 
He was careful to keep away from the stockyards —-he 
was a single man now, he told himself, and he meant to 
stay one, to have his wages for his own when he got a job. 
He began the long, weary round of factories and ware* 
houses, tramping ^ day, from one end of the city to the 
other, finding everywhere from ten to a hundred men 
ahead of him. He watched the newspapers, too — but no 
longer was he to be taken in by smooth-spoken agents. 
He had been told of all those tricks while ^on the road.** 

In the end it was through a newspaper that he got a job, 
after nearly a month of seeking. It was a call for a hun- 
dred laborers, and though he thought it was a ^ fake,** he 
went because the place was near by. He found a line of 
men a block long, but as a wagon chanced to come out of 
an alley and break the line, he saw his chance and sprang 
to seize a place. Men threatened him and tried to throw 
him out, but he cursed and made a disturbance to attract a 
policeman, upon which they subsided, knowing that if the 
latter interfered it would I)e to ^ fire ** them aU. 

An hour or two later he entered a room and confronted 
a big Irishman behind a desk. 

^ Ever worked in Chicago before ? ** the man inquired ; 
and whether it was a good angel that put it into Jurgis*8 
mind, or an intuition of his smirpened wits, he was moved 
to answer, ** No, sir.** 

•* Where do you come from 1^ 

•• Kansas City, su-.'* 

•* Any references ? ** 

^ No, sir. Fm just an unskilled man. Fve got goo4 
arms.** 

^^I want men for hard work— -it's all underground, 
digging tunnels for telephones. Maybe it won't suit 
you.** 

^Tm wttling, sir — anything lor me. What's tiim 
pay?- 

^ Fifteen cents an hour.** 

" I'm willing, su-.** 



THE JUNGLB 287 

* An ri^ht ; go back there and give yonr name.'* 

So mthin half an hour he was at work, far underneath 
the streets of the city. The tunnel was a peculiar one for 
telephone*wires ; it was about eight feet high, and with 
a level floor nearly as wide. It had innumerable branches 
— a perfect spider-web beneath the city ; Jurgis walked 
over naif a mile with his gang to the place where they were 
to work. Stranger yet, the tunnel was lighted by eleo- 
tricity, and upon it was laid a double-tracked, narrow* 
gauge railroaa t 

But Jurgis was not there to ask questions, and he did 
not give the matter a thought. It was nearly a year after* 
ward that he finally learned the meaning of this whole 
affair. The City Council had passed a quiet and innocent 
Uttle bill allowing a company to construct telephone con* 
duits under the city streets; and upon the strenrax of this, a 
great corporation had proceeded to tunnel all Chicago with 
a system of railway freight-subways. In the city there 
was a combination of employers, representing hundreds of 
millions of capital, and formed for the purpose of crushing 
the labor unions. The chief union which troubled it was 
the teamsters' ; and when these freight tunnels were com- 
pleted, connecting all the big factories and stores with the 
railroad depots, tSiey would haye the teamsters' union by 
the throat. Now and then there were rumors and mur* 
murs in the Board of Aldermen, and once there was a com- 
mittee to investigate — but each time another small fortune 
was paid over, and the rumors died away ; until at last the 
city woke up with a start to find the work completed. 
There was a tremendous scandal, of course ; it was found 
that the city records had been falsified and other crimes 
Gommitted, and some of Chicago's big capitalists got into 
jail— figuratively speaking. The aldermen declared that 
they had had no idea of it all, in spite of the fact that the 
main entrance to the work had been in the rear of the 
saloon of one of them. 

It was in a newly opened cut that Jurgis worked, and so 
he knew that he had an all-winter job. He was so rejoiced 
thpt he treated himself to a spree that night, and witkt^ 



268 THE JXTNGLiS 

balanoe of his money he hired himself a place in a ten^ 
ment-room, where he slept upon a big home-made straw 
mattress along with four other working-men. This was 
one dollar a week, and for four more he got his food in a 
boarding-house near his work. This would leave him four 
dollars extra each week, an unthinkable sum for him. 
At the outset he had to pay for his digging tools, and also 
to buy a pair of heavy boots, since his shoes were falling 
to pieces, and a flannel shirt, since the one he had worn afi 
summer was in shreds. He spent a week meditating 
whether or not he should also buy an overcoat. There 
was one belonging to a Hebrew coUar-button pedler, who 
had died in the room next to him, and which the landlady 
was holding for her rent ; in the end, however, Jureis 
decided to do without it, as he was to be underground by 
day and in bed at night. 

This was an unfortunate decision, however, for it drove 
him more quickly than ever into the saloons. From now 
on Jurgis worked from seven o'clock until half-past five, 
with half an hour for dinner ; which meant that he never 
saw the sunlijeht on week-days. In the evenings there 
was no place for him to co except a bar-room ; no place 
where there was light and warmtn, where he could hear a 
little music or sit with a companion and talk. He had 
now no home to go to ; he had no affection left in his life 
— only the pitiml mockeir of it in the camaraderie of 
vice. On Sundays the churches were open — but where was 
there a church in which an ill-smelline working-man, with 
vermin crawling upon his neck, could sit without seeing 
people edge away and look annoyed f He had, of course, 
his comer in a close though unheated room, with a window 
opening upon a blank waU two feet away } and also he had 
the bare streets, with the winter gales sweeping through 
them} besides this he had only the saloons «— and, of 
course, he had to drink to stay in them. If he drank now 
and then he was free to make himself at home, to gamble 
with dice or a pack of gpreasy cards, to play at a dingy 
pool-table for money, or to look at a beidr-stained pink 
Mgporting paper.** with piotores of murderers and half 



THE JUNGLE 269 

naked women. It was for such pleasures as these that he 
spent his money ; and such was his life during the six 
weeks and a half tiiat he toiled for the merchants of 
Chicago, to enable them to break the grip of their 
teamsters' union. 

In a work thus carried out, not much thought was given 
to the welfare of the laborers. On an average, the tunnel- 
ling cost a life a day and several manglings ; it was seldom, 
however, that more than a dozen or two men heard of any 
one accident. The work was all done by the new boring- 
machinery, with as little blasting as possible; but there 
would be falling rocks and cm^ed supports and pre« 
mature explosions — and in addition all the dangers of 
railroading. So it was that one night, as Jurgis was on 
his way out with his gang, an engine and a loaded car 
dashed round one of the innumerable right-anfiple branches 
and struck him upon the shoulder, hurling nim against 
the concrete wall and knocking him senseless. 

When he opened his eyes again it was to the clanging 
of the bell of an ambulance. He was lying in it, covered 
by a blanket, and it was threading its way slowly through 
the holiday Hshopping crowds. They took him to the county 
hospital, where a young surgeon set his arm ; then he was 
wasned and laid upon a bed in a ward with a score or two 
more of maimed and mangled men. 

Jurgis spent his Christmas in this hospital, and it was 
the pleasantest Christmas he had had in America. Every 
year there were scandals and investigations in this institu« 
tion, the newspapers charging that doctors were allowed 
to try fantastic experiments upon the patients ; but Jurgis 
knew nothing of this — his only complaint was that they 
used to feed him upon tinned meat, which no man who 
had ever worked io^Packingtown would feed to his dog. 
JuTjB^ had often wondered just who ate the canned cornea 
beef and ^^ roast beef *' of the stockyards ; now he began 
to understand — that it was what you might call ^ graft- 
meat,'* put up to be sold to public officials and contractors, 
and eaten by soldiers and sailors, prisoners and inmates of 
institutions, ^ shanty-men ** and gangs of railroad laborers^ 



270 THE JUNGLE 

Jurgis was ready to leave the hospital at the end of two 
weeks. This did not mean that his arm was strong and 
that he was able to eo back to work, but simply tlutt he 
could get along wiuiout further attention, and that his 

Elace was needed for some one worse off than he. That 
e was utterly helpless, and had no means of keeping him- 
self alive in the meantime, was something which did not 
concern the hospital authorities, nor any one else in the 
city. 

As it chanced, he had been hurt on a Monday, and had 
just paid for his last week's board and his room rent, and 
spent nearly all the balance of his Saturday's pay. He 
had less than seventy-five cents in his pockets, and a 
dollar and a half due him for the day's work he had done 
before he was hurt. He might possibly have sued the 
company, and got some damages for his injuries, but he 
did not know this, and it was not the company's business 
to tell him. He went and got his pay and his tools, which 
he left in a pawnshop for fifty cent& Then he went to 
his landlady, who had rented his place and had no other 
for him ; and then to his boarcUng-house keeper, who 
looked him over and questioned him. As he must cer- 
tainly be helpless for a couple of months, and had boarded 
there only six weeks, she decided very quickly that it 
would not be worth the risk to keep him on trust. 

So Jurgis went out into the streets, in a most dreadful 
plight. It was bitterly cold, and a heavy snow was fall* 
mg, beating into his face. He had no overcoat, and no 
place to go, and two dollars and sixty-five cents in his 
pocket, with the certainty that he could not earn another 
cent for months. The snow meant no chance to him now} 
he must walk along tod see others shovelling, vigorous 
and active — and he with his left arm bound to his side I 
He could not hope to tide himself over by odd jobs of 
loading trucks ; he could not even sell newspapers or carry 
satchels, because he was now at the mercy of any rival. 
Words could not paint the terror that came o^^er him 
as he realized all this. He was like a wounded animal in 
the forest I he was forced to compete with his enemies 



\ 



THE JUNGLE 271 

apon unequal tenns. There would be no considera* 
tion for him because of his weakness — it was no one's 
business to help him in such distress, to make the fight 
the least bit easier for him. Even if he took to begging, 
he would be at a disadvantage, for reasons which he was 
to discover in good lime. 

In the beginning he could not think of anything except 
getting out of the awful cold. He went into one of the 
saloons he had been wont to frequent and bought a drink, 
and then stood by the fire shivering and waiting to be 
ordered out. According to an unwritten law, the buying 
a drink included the privilege of loafing for just so 
long ; then one had to buy another drink or move on. 
That Jurgis was an old customer entitled him to a some- 
what longer stop ; but then he had been away two weeks, 
and was evidently ** on the bum.** He might plead and 
tell his ^ hard-luck story,*' but that would not help him 
much; a saloon-keeper who was to be moved by such 
means would soon have his place jammed to the doors with 
^hoboes " on a day like this. 

So Jur^ went out into another place, and paid another 
nickel. He was so hungry this time that he could not 
resist the hot beef -stew, an indulgence which cut short his 
stay by a considerable time. When he was a&^in told to 
move on, he made his way to a ^^ tough'* phtce in the 
^ Levee" district, where now and then he had ^one with a 
certain rat-eyed Bohemian working-man of his acquaint- 
ance, seeking a woman. It was Jurgis*s vain hope that 
here the proprietor would let him remain as a ^^ sitter.'* 
In low-class places, in the dead of winter, saloon-keepers 
would often allow one or two forlorn-looking bums who 
came in covered with snow or soaked with rain to sit by 
the fire and look miserable to attract custom. A working- 
man would come in, feeling cheerful after his day's work 
was over, and it would trouble him to have to take his 
glass with such a sight under his nose ; and so he would 
call out : ^ Hello, Bub, what's the matter ? You look as 
if you'd been up against it I ** And then the other would 
begin to pour out some tale of misery, and the man would 



272 THE JUNGLB 

say, ** Come have aglaas, and maybe that*!! brace yoa np.^ 
And so they would drink together, and if the tramp was 
sufficiently wretched-lookiiig, or good enough at the ^gab|^ 
they might have two ; and if they were to disoover that 
they were from the same country, or had lived in the same 
city or worked at the same trade, they might sit down at 
a tietble and spend an hour or two in talk -^ and before 
they got through the saloon-keeper would have taken in 
a dollar. All of this might seem diabolical, but the saloon- 
keeper was in no wise to blame for it. He was in the same 
plight as the manufacturer who has to adulterate and 
misrepresent his product. If he does not, some one else 
will ; and the saloon-keeper, unless he is also an aldermau, 
is apt to be in debt to the big brewers, and on thi verge 
of being sold out. 

The market for ** sitters " was glutted that afternoon, 
however, and there was no place for Jurgis. In all ha 
had to spend six nickels in keeping a shelter over him 
that frightful day, and then it was just dark, and tbe 
station-houses would not open until midnight t At the 
last place, however, there was a bartender who knew him 
and liked him, and let him doze at one of the tables until 
the boss came back ; and also, as he was going out, the 
man gave him a tip, — on the next block there was m 
religious revival of some sort, with preaching and singing, 
and himdreds of hoboes would go there for the shelter 
and warmth. 

Jurgis went straightway, and saw a si|^ hung out, 
saying that the door would open at seven-thirty ; then he 
walked, or half ran, a block, and hid awhile in a doorway 
and then ran again, and so on until the hour. At the end 
he was all but frozen, and fought his way in with the rest 
of the throng (at the risk of having his arm broken again), 
and got close to the big stove. 

By eight o*olock the place was so crowded that the 
speaxers ought to have been flattered; the uales were 
iiUed halfway up, and at the door men were packed 
tight enoueh to walk upon. There were three elderly 
gentlemen in black upon the platform, and a young ladjp 



I 



THE JUNOLB 273 

who played the piano in front. lint liiej lang a hymn* 
and tnen one of the three, a tall, smoothHEinav en man, very 
thin, and wearing black speotaoles, began an address. 
Jorgis heard smatterinm of it, for the reason that terrot 
kept him awa^e««he knew that he snored abominablyt 
ana to have been put out just then would have been like 
a sentence of death to him. 

The evangelist was preaching «*sin and redemption,'' 
the infinite grace of God and His pardon for numan 
frailty. He was very much in earnest, and he meant 
well, but Jurgis, as he listened, found his soul filled with 
hatred. What did he know about sin and suffering— 
with his smooth, black coat and his neatly starched cofiar, 
his body warm, and his belly full, and money in his pocket 
— and lecturing men who were strufi^gling for their lives, 
men at the death-grapple with the demon powers of hun- 
(2:er and cold 1 — This, of course, was unfair ; but Jurgis 
ivlt that these men were out of touch with the life they 
discussed, that they were unfitted to solve its problems ; 
nay, they themselves were part of the problem — they 
were part of the order established that was crushing men 
down and beating them 1 They were of the triumphant 
and insolent possessors ; they had a hall, and a fire, and 
foo 1 and clothing and money, and so they might preach 
to hungrymen, and the hungry men must be humble and 
bsren I They were trying to save their souls — and who 
but a fool could fail to see that all that was the mattei 
with their souls was that they had not been able to get a 
decent existence for their bodies ? 

At eleven the meeting closed, and the desolate audience 
filed out into the snow, muttering curses up on the few 
traitors who had got repentance and gone upon the plat 
forin« It was yet an hour before the station-house would 
open, and Jurgis had no overcoat -— and waaweak from 9 
long illness. During that hour he nearly ]^rished. H« 
was obliged to run hard to keep his Uood moving at all 
-— and then he came back to the station-house and found 
• erowd blocking the street before the door I This wsa 



274 THE JXTNOLE 

in the month of January, 1904, when the coontry was on 
the verge of ^ hard times,** and the newspapers were re- 
porting the shutting down of factories every day «— it was 
estimated that a million and a half of men were thrown 
out of work before the spring. So all the hiding-places 
of the city were crowdeo, and before that station-house 
door men fought and tore each other like savage beasts. 
When at last the place was jammed and they shut the 
doors, half the crowd was still outside ; and Jurgis, with 
his helpless arm, was amons^ them. There was no choice 
then but to go to a lodging-house and spend another dime. 
It really broke his heart to do this, at half-past twelve 
o'clock, after he had wasted the night at the meeting 
and on the street. He would be turned out of the lodg- 
ing«house promptly at seven— -they had the shelves which 
served as bunks so contrived that they could be dropped, 
and any man who was slow about obejring orders could be 
tumbled to the floor. 

This was one day, and the cold spell lasted for fourteen 
of them. At the end of six days every cent of Jurgis's 
money was gone; and then he went out on the streets 
to beg for his life. 

He would begin as soon as the business of the city was 
moving. He would sally forth from a saloon, and, after 
making sure there was no policeman in sight, would ap- 
proach every likely-looking person who passed him, telling 
his woful story and pleading for a nickel or a dime. Then 
when he ^ot one, he would dart round the comer uid re- 
turn to his base to get warm ; and his victim, seeing him 
do this, would go away, vowing that he would never give 
s cent to a beggar again. The victim never paused to 
ask where else Jurgis could have gone under the circum- 
stances—where he, the victim, would have gone. At 
the saloon Jurgis could not only get more food and better 
food than he could buv in any restaurant for the same 
money, but a drink in tne bargain to warm him up. Also 
he could find a comfortable seat by a fire, and could chat 
with a companion until he was as warm as toast. At the 
•aloon« too, he felt at home. Part of the saloon-keeper's 




THE JUNGLE 275 

Imsiiiefls was to offer a home and refreshments to beggars 
in exchange for the proceeds of their f oragings ; and was 
tiiere any one else in the whole city who would do this — 
would the victim have done it himself ? 

Poor Jurgis might have been expected to make a suo- 
cessful be^^ar. He was just out oi the hospital, and des- 
perately sick-looking, and with a helpless arm ; also he 
had no overcoat, and shivered pitifully. But, alas, it 
was again the case of the honest merchant, who finds that 
the genuine and unadulterated article is driven to the 
wall by the artistic coimterfeit. Jurgis, as a beggar, 
was simply a blundering amateur in competition with 
organized and scientific professionalism. Ho was just out 
of the hospital — but the story was worn threadbare, and 
how could he prove it ? He had his arm in a sling — and 
it was a device a regular beggar's little boy womd have 
scorned. He was pale and shivering — but they were 
made up with cosmetics, and had 8tu£ed the art of chat- 
tering tneir teeth. As to his being without an overcoat, 
among them you would meet men you could swear had on 
nothing but a ragged linen duster and a pair of cotton 
trousers — so cleverly had they concealed the several suits 
of all-wool underwear beneath. Many of these profes* 
sional mendicants had comfortable homes, and families, 
and thousands of dollars in the bank ; some of them had 
retired upon their earnings, and gone into the business of 
fitting out and doctoring others, or working children at 
the trade. There were some who had boUi their arms 
bound tightly to their sides, and padded stumps in theit 
sleeves, and a sick child hired to carry a cup for them. 
There were some who had no legs, and pushed themselve* 
upon a wheeled platform — some who nad been favored 
with blindness, and were led by pretty little dogs. Somt 
less fortunate had mutilated themselves or burned them* 
selves, or had brought horrible sores upon themselves witb 
chemicals ; you might suddenly encounter upon the street 
a man holding out to you a finger rotting and discolored 
with gangrene — or one with livid scarlet wounds hall 
^scapra from their filthy bandages. These desperate ones 



276 



THE JUNOLB 



weie the dregs of the oity*a cesspools, wietobes who hid as 
night in the rain-soaked cellars of old ramshackle tene 
ments, in ^ stale-beer dives ^ and opinm joints, with aban- 
doned women in the last stages of the harlot^s progress — 
women who had been kept by Chinamen and turned awaj 
St last to die. Every day the police net would dra^ hun- 
dreds of them off the streets, and in the Detention Hospi* 
tal you might see them, herded together in a miniature 
inferno, with hideous, beastly faces, bloated and leprous 
with disease, lausfhin^, shouting, screaming in all stages 
of drunkenness, barking like dogs, ^bbering like apesi 
raving and tearing themselves in dehriom. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

Ijr the face of all his handicaps, Jurgis was obliged to 
make the price of a lodging, and of a drink every hour or 
two, under penalty of freezing to death. Day after day 
he roamed about in the arctic cold, his soul filled full of 
bitterness and despair. He saw the world of civilization 
then more plainly than ever he had seen it before ; a world 
in which nothing counted but brutal might, an order de* 
vised by those who possessed it for the subjugation of 
those who did not. He was one of the latter; and dl 
outdoors, all life, was to him one colossal prison, which 
he paced like a pent-up tiger, trying one bar after another, 
and finding them all beyond his power. He had lost in 
the fierce battle of greed, and so was doomed to be exter- 
minated ; and all society was busied to see that he did not 
escape the sentence. Everywhere that he turned were 
prison-bars, and hostile eyes following him ; the well-f ed« 
sleek policemen, from whose glances ne shrank, and who 
seemed to grip their clubs more tightly when they saw 
him ; the sfdoon-keepers, who never ceased to watch him 
while he was in their places, who were lealous of every 
moment he lingered after he had paid his money; the 
hurrying throngs upon the streets, who were deaf to his 
entreaties, oblivious of his very existence— and savage 
and contemptuous when he forced himself upon them. 
They had their own affairs, and there was no place for him 
among them. There was no place for him anywhere — 
every direction he turned his gaze, this fact was forced 
apon him. Evervthing was bmlt to express it to him : 
the residences, with their heavy walls and bolted doors, 
and basement-windowB barred with iron ; thagreafc 

277 



278 THE JUNGLE 

houses filled with the products of the whole world, and 
guarded by iron shutters and heavy gates ; the banks with 
their unthinkable billions of wesdth, all buried in safes 
and vaults of steeL 

And then one day there befell Jurgis the one adventure 
of his life. It was late at night, and he had failed to get 
the price of a lodging. Snow was falling, and he had been 
out so long that he was covered with it^ and was chilled 
to the bone. He was working among the theatre crowds^ 
flitting here and there, taking large chances with the 
police, in his desperation haS hoping to be arrested. 
When he saw a blue-coat start toward him, however, his 
heart failed him, and he dashed down a side street and 
fled a couple of blocks. When he stopped again he saw 
a man coming toward him, and placed himself in his 
path. 

^ Please, sir,** he began, in the usual formula, ^ will yoa 
give me the price of a lodging ? I've had a broken arm, 
and I can't work, and I've not a cent in my pocket. Vm an 
honest working-man, sir, and I never begged before. It's 
not my fault, sir — ** 

Jurgis usually went on until he was interrupted, but 
this man did not interrupt, and so at last he came to a 
breathless stop. The other had halted, and Jums sud- 
denly noticed that he stood a little unsteadily. ^ Whuzzal 
you say ? ** he queried suddenly, in a thick voice. 

Jurgis began again, speakmg more dowly and dia* 
kinctly ; before he was half through the otiier put out his 
hand and rested it upon his shoulder. ^ Poor ole chappie I ^ 
he said. ^Been up— hie— -up— against it, hey?*^ 

Then he lurched toward Jurgis, and the hand upon hit 
shoulder became an arm about his neck. ^ Up against it 
myself, ole sport,*' he said. ^ She's a hard ole world.** 

They were dose to a lamp post, and Jurgis got a glimpse 
of the other. He was a voung fellow— not much over 
eighteen, with a handsome boyish &ce. He wore a silk hat 
and a tkik soft overcoat with a fur collars and he smiled 
at Jurgis with benignant qrmpathy. ^ Vm hiurd up, tooi 



THE JUNGLE 279 

my goo' tten\^ he said. ^ Vre got cruel parentSi or Fd set 
jou up. Whuzzamatter whizyer ? ** 

"Tve been in the hospital.'* 

* Hospital I *' exclaimed the young fellow, still smiling 
sweetly, ^thass too bad I Same's my Aunt Polly— hio 
«^my Aunt Polly's in the hospital, too— ole auntie's been 
bavin' twins I Whuzzamatter whiz yaut** 

^ I've got a broken arm — ** Jurgis began. 

^So," said the other, symoathetically. ^That ain't so 
bad— YOU get over that. I wish somebody's break my 
«rm, ole chappie — - damfidon't I Then they's treat me 
better — hio — hole me up, ole sport t Whuzzit you 
womme do?" 

^ I'm hungry, sir," said Jurgis. 

** Hungry I Why don't you hassome supper ? " 

** I've got no money, sir. 

^ No money I Ho, ho — less be chums, ole boy —Jess 
like me ! No money, either, — a'most busted I Why 
don't you go home, then, same's me ? " 

^ I haven't any home," said Jurgis. 

^ No home I Stranger in the city, hey ? GKx>' Ood^ 
thass bad ! Better come home wiz me— > yes, by Harr^, 
thass the trick, youll come home an' hassome supper — hio 

— wiz me I Awful lonesome — nobody home t Guv'ner 
gone abroad— Bubby on'a honeymoon — Polly havin' 
twins — everr damn soul gone away I Nuff — hie— >nufl 
to drive a feller to drink, I say I Only ole Ham standin' 

Sr, passin' plates — damfican eat like that, no sir I The 
ub for me every time, my boy, I say. But then they 
won't lemme sleep there — guv'ner's orders, by Harrys- 
home every niffht, sir I Ever hear anythin' like that? 
* Every momin do ? ' I asked hinu * No, sir, every nighti 
or no allowance at all, sir.' Thass my guv'ner —* hie — 
hard as nails, hj Harry I Tole ole Ham to watch me, too 

— servants spyin' on me — whuzyer think that, my fren'? 
A nice, quiet -~ hio — good-hearted young feller uke me, 
an' his daddy oan't go to Europe— hup I — an' leave him 
in peace I Ain't that a shame, sir ? An' I gotter go home 
every evenin' an' miss all the fun, by Harry I Thasa 



280 THE JlTNaLB 

whuzzamatter iiow«— thass why Fm here I Hadda oome 
away an* leave Kitty — hio — left her cryin\ too — whujja 
think of that, ole sport? * Lemme ro, KittenB,* says I — 

* come early an* often —I go where outy — hie —-calls me. 
Farewell, farewell, my own true love — fare well, fare- 
we-hell, my-own-true-love 1 * ** 

This last was a son^, and the young gentleman^s voice 
rose mournful and waiUng, while he swung upon Jurg^'s 
neolu The latter was gLwcing about nervously, lest some 
one should approach. They were still alone, however. 

** But I came all right, all right,** continued the young- 
ster, aggressively. ^I can-— hie — I can have my own 
way when I want it, by Harry — Freddie Jones is a hard 
man to handle when he gets goin* I * No, sir,* says I, 

* by thunder, and I don't need anybody ^oin* home with 
me, either — whu jja take me for, hey ? Think I'm drunk, 
dontcha, hey ?— -I know you I But Fm no more drunk 
than you are^ Kittens,* says I to her. And then sinrs she, 

* Thass true, Freddie dear * (she's a smart one, is Kitty), 
^ but I*m stayin* in the flat, an* you*re goin* out into the 
oold, cold ni^ht I ' * Put it in a pome, lovely Kitty,* says 
L *No jokm*, Freddie, my boy,* says she. * Lemme 
call a cab now, like a good dear *«— but I can call my own 
cabs, dontcha fool vourself— I know what I'm a-doin', 
you bet I Say, my f ren*, whatcha say -^ willye come home 
an* see me, an* hayssome supper? Come *long like a good 
feller— »don*t be haughty! You're up against it, same 
as me, an' you can unnerstan* a f eUer ; your heart*B in ib» 
right place, by Harry —come 'long, ole chappie, an* well 
light up the house, an* have some fizz, an* we U raise hell, 
we will— » whoop-la t Slong's I'm inside the house I can 
do as I please — the guv*ner's own very orders, b'Ood I 
Hip! hipl** 

They had started down the street, arm in arm, the young 
man pushing Jurgia along, half dazed. Jurgis was try- 
ing to think what to do— «he knew he could not pass any 
crowded place with his new acquaintance without attract* 
ing attention and being stopped. It was onl^ because of 
the falling snow that pMple who passed here did not notice 
anything wrong. 



THE JUNGLB 281 



Siiddenly, ihfirefarei Jargis stopped. ^liitTeiyfar?*' 
te inqniiea. 

^ Not very," aaid the other. * Tired, are too^ though f 
Well, well ride — whatohasay? Good I Call a cab I** 

And then, gripping Jurgis tight with one hand, th« 
yonng fellow began searching his pockets with the other. 
^ Ton call, ole sporty an' I'll pay,** he suggested. ** Mow's 
that, hey ?•• 

And he puUed out from somewhere a big roll of bills. 
It was more money than Jurgis had ever seen in his life 
before, and he stared at it witii startled eves. 

^ Looks like a lot, hey? ** said Master Freddie, fumbling 
with it. ^Fool you, though, ole chappie — they're aU 
little ones I 111 be busted in one week more, sure thing — 
word of honor. An* not a cent more till the first— ^hio 

— guv'ner's orders — hie — not a cent, by Harry I Nuff 
to set a feller crazy, it is. I sent him a cable thii9 aTnoon 

— thass one reason more why Fm goin* home. * Hangin' 
on the verge of starvation,* I says— * for the honor of the 
family — » hio — sen' me some biead. Hunger will compel 
me to join you. — Freddie.* Thass what I wired him, oy 
Harry, an* I mean it — - 111 run away from school, b'GoOi 
if he don*t sen* me some." 

After this fashion the young gentleman continued to 
prattle on— and meantime Jurgis was trembling with 
•zcitemeiit. He might grab that wad of bills and be out 
of sight in the darkness oef ore the other could collect his 
wits. Should he do it? What better had he to hope foi^ 
if he waited longer ? But Jurris had never committed a 
crime in his life, and now he hesitated half a second too 
long. ^ Freddie ** got one bill loose, and then stuffed the 
rest back into his trousers* nocket. 

^ Here, ole man,** he saio, ^you take it.** He held it 
out fluttering. They were in front of a saloon; and by 
the light of w» window Jurgis saw that it was a hundreds 
dollar bill! 

^ToQ take it,** the other repeated. ••Pay the eabbie 
ao' keep the change-* I've got — hie-*- no head for bust* 
ml Oav*ner says so hiseslfi an' the guv'ner knows — 

If 



882 THB JUNOLB 



the ffaVner's got a head for business, yon bet I * AH ligbl^ 
gUTiier/ I torn him, * you run the show^ and 1*11 take the 
tickets I * An' so he set Aunt Polly to watch me— hie— 
an* now Polly's off in the hospital havin* twins, an* me out 
raisin* Cain I Hello, there I Hey I CallhunI** 

A cab was driving by ; and Jargis sprang and called, 
and it swung round to the curb. Master Freddie 
clambered in with some difiSculty, and Jur^ had started 
to follow, when the driver shouted : ^ Hi, there I Get 
eut<-«you I** 

Jurgis hesitated, and was half obeying ; but his com- 
panion broke out : ^ Whuzzat ? Whuzzamatter wiz yoUf 

hey?'* 
And the cabbie subsided, and Jurgis climbed in. Then 

Freddie gave a number on the Lake Shore Drive, and the 
carriaee started away. The youngster leaned back and 
snuggled up to Jurgnis, murmuring contentedly | in half 
a minute he was sound asleep. Jurgis sat shivermg, specu- 
lating as to whether he might not still be able to get ndld 
of the roll of bills. He was afraid to try to go through 
his companion*s pockets, however ; and besides, the cabim 
might be on the watch. He had the hundred saf e» and he 
would have to be content with tliat. 

At the end of half an hour or so the cab stopped. Thej 
were out on the water-front, and from the east a freemup 
gale was blowing off the ice-bound lake. ^Here we uer 
called the cabbie, and Jurgis awakened his companion. 

Master Freddie sat up with a start 

"« Hello I ** he said. «« Where are we ? Whu^iis? Wha 
are ^ou, hey ? Oh, yes, sure nuff t Mos* for^ you*— 
— *hio— ole diappie I Home, are we? Lessee^ Br-r-t 
— it*8 ooldt Yes— come *long— >we*re homf— be H 
ever so— hie—- humble I ** i 

Before them there loomed an enormous granit^ pQe, 



ftur back from the street, and occupying a wh^e falook. 
By the light of the driveway lamps Jmms ooulq see the* 
H had towersand huge gables, Uke a mecusBval cdstle. He 
thoDght that the yoDBg feUow must haT. made 4 mktato 






THE JUNGLE 28S 

-»it was inocmo^vable to him that any person oonld have 
a home like a hotel or the city halL But he followed in 
silence, and they went up the long flight of steps, arm in 
arm* 

*^ There's a button here, ole sport,** said Master Freddie. 
^ Hole my arm while I find her ! Steady^ now«- oh, yes, 
here she is I Saved I ** 

A bell rang, and in a few seconds the door was opened* 
A man in blue livery stood holding it, and gazing oef ore 
him, silent as a statue. 

They stood for a moment blinking in the light. Then 
Jurris felt his companion pullinff, and he stepped in, and 
the blue automaton closed the door. Jurgirs heart was 
beating wildly; it was a bold thing for him to do— > into 
what strange unearthly place he was venturing he had no 
idea. Aladdin entering his cave could not have been more 
excited. 

The place where he stood was dimly lighted ; but he 
could see a vast hall, with pillars &ding into the darkness 
above, and a great staircase opening at the far end of it. 
The floor was of tesselated marble, smooth as glass, and 
from the walls strange shapes loomed out, woven into huge 
portidres in rich, harmomous colors, or gleamine from 
paintings, wonderful and mysterious-looking in the half* 
tight, purplu and red and gcuden, like sunset glimmers in 
a shadowy forest. 

The man in livery had moved nlently toward them i 
Kaster Freddie took off his hat and handed it to him, and 
HbBSLf letting go of Jurgis*s anh, tried to get out of his 
overcoat. Aner two or three attempts he accomplished 
this, with the lackey*s help ; and meantime a second man 
had approached, a tall ana portly personage, solemn as an 
executioner. He bore straight down upon Jurgis, who 
shrank away nervously ; he seized him by the arm without 
a word, ana started toward the door with him. Then 
soddenly came Master Freddie's voice, ** Hamilton i My 
fren* will remain wiz me.** 

The man paused and half released Jurgis. **Come1onK; 
ale obappM^^ said the other, and Jurg^ started toward him 






284 THE JUNGLB 

^ Master Frederick I '' exclaimed the man. 

^^ See that the cabbie — hie — is paid," Vas the other's 
response ; and he linked his arm in Jurg^'s. Jurgis was 
about to say, *^ I have the money for him," but he restrained 
himself. The stout man in uniform signalled to Uie other, 
who went out to the cab, while he followed Jurgis and his 
young master. 

They went down the great hall, and then turned. Be^ 
fore them were two huge doors. 

^^ Hamilton," said Master Freddie. 

** Well, sir? " said the other. 

^ Whuzzamatter wizze dinin'-room doors ? ** 

^^ Nothing is the matter, sir.^ 

" Then why dontcha openum ? 

The man rolled them back ; another vista lost itself Id 
the darkness. ^^ Lights," commanded Master Freddie ; and 
the butler pressed a button, and a flood of brilliant in- 
candescence streamed from above, half blinding Jurgis. 
He stared; and little by little he made out the great 
apartment, with a domed ceiling from which the light 
poured, and walls that were one enormous painting — 
nymphs and dryads dancing in a flower-strewn glade — ^ 
Diana with her hounds and horses, dashing headlong 
through a mountain streamlet — a group of maidens bath- 
ing in a forest-pool — all life-size, and so real chat Jurgis 
thought that it was some work of enchantment, that he 
was in a dream-palace. Then his eye passed to the lone 
table in the centre of the hall, a table black as ebony, and 
gleaming with wrought silver and gold. In the centre of 
it was a huge carven bowl, with the glistening gleam of 
ferns and the red and purple of rare orchids, glowing from 
a light hidden somewhere in their midst. 

^This's the dinin'-room," observed Master Freddie. 
♦• How you like it, hey, ole sport ? " 

He always insisted on having an answer to his remarks, 
leaning over Jurgis and smilmg into his face. Jurgis 
liked it. 

^^ Rummy ole place to feed in all lone, though," wap 
Freddie's comment — ^rummy's helll Whuzya thinli; 



THE JUNGLE 28b 

hey? ** Then another idea occnrred to him and he went 
on, without waiting : ^ Maybe you never saw anything — 
hie — - like this 'fore 7 Hey, ole chappie ? *' 

** No," said Jurgis. 

•* Come from country, maybe — hey ? ** 

^ Tes,'' said Jurgis. 

^ Aha I I thosso I Liossa folks from country never saw 
such a place. Ouv'ner brings 'em — free show — hie 
— re^'lar circus I Go home tell folks about it. Ole 
man Jones's place— Jones the packer — beef-trust man. 
Made it all out of hogs, too, damn ole scoundrel. Now we 
see where our pennies go — rebates, an' private-car lines 
— hie — by Harry I Bully place, though — worth seein' t 
Ever hear of Jones the packer, hey, ole chappie 7 " 

Jurgis had started involuntarily ; the other, whose sharp 
eyes missed nothing, demanded: ^ Whuzzamatter, heyr 
Heard of him?" 

And Jurgis managed to stammer out : ^ I have worked 
for him in the yards." 

^ What I " cried Master Freddie, with a yell. «« Tou/ 
In the yards? Ho, hoi Why^ say, thass good I Shake 
hands on it, ole man «— by Harry I Ou v'ner ought to be 
here — glad to see you. Great fren's with the men, guv'* 
ner — labor an' capital, commun'ty 'f int'rests, an' all that 
«— hie I Funny things happen in this world, don't they, 
ole man? Hamilton, lemme interduce you — fren' the 
family— ole fren' the guv'ner's — works in the yards. 
Come to spend the night wiz me, Hamilton — have a hot 

time. My fren', Mr. whuzya name, ole chappie ? Tell 

us your name." 

^ Rudkus — Jurgis Rudkus." 

^ My fren', Mr. Rudnose, Hamilton — shake ban's." 

The stately butler bowed his head, but made not a 
sound; and suddenly Master Freddie pointed an eager 



finger at him. ^^ I know whuzzamatter wiz you, Hamilton 
— lay vou a dollar I knowl You think — hio — you 
think I'm drunk ! Hey, now? 



And the butler again bowed his head. ** Yes, sir," he 
said, at which Master Freddie hung tightly upon Jurgis's 



286 THE JXTKGLE 

neck and went into a fit of laughter, ^Hamilton, you 
damn ole scoundrel," he roared, " I'll 'scharge you for im- 
pudence, you see 'f I don't t Ho, ho, ho I I'm drunk I 
Ho, ho 1 " 

The two waited until his fit had spent itself, to see 
what new whim would seize him. ^* Whatcha wanta do ? " 
he queried suddenly, ^^ Wanta see the place, ole chappie ? 
Wamme play the guv'ner — show you roun'? State 
parlors — Looee Cans — Looee Sez — chairs cost three 
thousand apiece. Tea-room — Maryanntnet — picture of 
shepherds dancing — Ruysdael — twenty- three thousan'I 
BaJl-room — balcony pillars — hie — imported — special ship 
—-sixty-eight thousan* I Ceilin' painted in Rome — ^whuz- 
zat feller's name, Hamilton— Mattatoni ? Macaroni ? Then 
this place — silver bowl — Benvenuto Cellini — rummy 
ole Dago I An' the organ — thirty thousan* dollars, sir 

— starter up, Hamilton, let Mr. Rednose hear it. No 

— never mind — clean forgot — savs he's hung^, Hamil- 
ton — less have some supper. Only — hie — don't less 
have it here — come up to my place, ole sport — nice 
an* cosy. This way — steady now, don't slip on the floor. 
Hamilton, we'll have a cole spread, an' some fizz— don't 
leave out the fizz, by Harry. We'll have some of the 
eighteen-thirty Madeira. Hear me, sir ? " 

^^ Tes, sir," said the butler, ^^ but. Master Frederick, your 
&ther left orders — " 

And Master Frederick drew himself up to a stately 
height. ^ My father's orders were left to me — hio — an* 
not te you," he said. Then, clasping Jurgis tightly by 
the neck, he staggered out of the room ; on the way an- 
other idea occurred to him, and he asked: ^^Any — hio 
— cable message for me, Hamilton ? " 

^ No, sir," said the butler. 

^Guv'ner must be travellin\ An* how*8 the twinsb 
Hamilton?" 

**They are doine well, sir." 

^ Oood I ** said Master Freddie ; and added fervently : 
^Ood bless *em, the little lambs I " 

They went up the great staircase, one stop at a timei 



THE JUNGLE 287 

at the top of it there gleamed at them out of the shadows 
the figure of a nymph crouching by a fountain, a figure 
ravishingly beautiful, the flesh warm and glowing with the 
hues of Ufe. Above was a huge court, with domed roof, 
the various apartments opening into it. The butler had 
paused below but a few minutes to eive orders, and then 
loUowed them; now he pressed a outton, and the hall 
blazed with light. He opened a door before them, and 
then pressed another button, as they staggered into the 
apartment. 

It was fitted up as a study. In the centre was a mahog* 
any table, covered with books, and smokers' implements ; 
tiie walls were decorated with college trophies and colors, -« 
flags, posters, photographs and knickknacks — tennis-rack* 
ets, canoe-paddles, golf-dubs, and polo-sticks. An enor« 
mous moose head, with horns six feet across, faced a 
buffalo head on the opposite wall, while bear and tiger 
skins covered the polished floor. There were louneing« 
chairs and sofas, window-seats covered with soft cushiona 
of fantastic designs; there was one comer fitted in Persian 
fashion, with a huge canopy and a jewelled lamp beneath. 
Beyond, a door opened upon a bedroom, and beyond that 
was a swimming pool of the purest marble, that had cost 
about forty thousand dollars. 

Master Freddie stood for a moment or two, gazing about 
ium ; then out of the next room a dog emerged, a mon« 
atrous bulldog, the most hideous object that Jurgis had 
ever laid eyes upon. He yawned, opening a mouth like 
a dragon^s ; and ne came toward the voung man, wagging 
his tuL ^ Hello, Dewey I *^ cried his master. ^ Been 
havin' a snooze, ole boy ? Well, well — hello there, whuzza* 
matter?*' ^The doe was snarling at Jurgis.) ^Why^ 
Dewey — this* my tren\ Mr. Rednose— ole fren* the 

Eiv'ner's I Mr. Itednose, Admiral Dewev ; shake ban's -^ 
0. Ain't he a daisy, though — blue ribbon at the New 
Tork show— eighQr*five hui ired at a clip I How's thati 
hw?" 

The speaker sank into one of the big arm-chairs, and 
Admiral Dewey crouched beneath it i ne did not snaA 



288 THE JUNGLE 

again, but he never took his eyes off JnigisL He \ras 
perfectly sober, was the Admiral. 

The butler had closed the door, and he stood by it» 
watching Jurgis every second. Now there came footsteps 
outside, and, as he opened the door a man in livery entered, 
carrying a folding-table, and behind him two men with 
covered trays. They stood like statues while tJie first 
spread the table and set out the contents of the trays upom 
it. There were cold pates, and thin slices of meat, tiny 
bread and butter sandwiches with the crust cut off, a bowl 
of sliced peaches and cream (in January), little &ncy cakes, 
pink and green and yellow and white, and half a dozea 
ice-cold bottles of wine. 

*^ Thass the stuff for you I '' cried Master Freddie, ex* 
nltantly, as he spied them. ^Come long, ole chappisi 
move up.** 

And he seated himself at the table ; the waiter pulled a 
cork, and he took the bottle and poured three gmsses of 
its contents in succession down his throat. Then he gave 
a long-drawn sigh, and cried again to Jurgis to seat hi» 
self. 

The butler held the chair at the opposite side of the 
table, and Jurgis thought it was to keep him out of it ; 
but finally he understood that it was the other's intentiom 
to put it under him, and so he sat down, cautiously and 
mistrustingly. Master Freddie perceived that the attends 
ants embarrassed him, and he remarked, with a nod te 
them, " You may go." 

They went, aU save the butler. 

•* You may go too, Hamilton," he said. 

•♦Master Frederick — " the man began. 

** Go I " cried the youngster, angrily. •* Damn yoi, 
don't you hear me ? " 

The man went out and closed the door $ Jurgis, whe 
was as sharp as he, observed that he took the key out of 
the lock, in order that he might peer through the key* 
hole. 

Master Frederick turned to the table again. **Now»" 
he saidt ••go for it." 



IHB JUNGLE 289 

JnrgiB gAzed at him doubtingly. ** Bat ! ** cried the 
ether. ^^ Pile in, ole chappie I *' 

^ Don't you want anything ? ** Jorgis asked. 

** Ain't hungry,'* was the reply — ** only thirsty. Kitty 
and me had some candy — you go on." 

So Jurgis began, without further parley. Ho ate as 
with two shovels, his fork in one hand and his knife in the 
other ; when he once eot started his wolf-hunger eot the 
better of him, and he md not stop for breath until he had 
cleared every plate. ^ Gee whiz I " said the other, who 
kad been watching him in wonder. 

Then he held Juigis the bottle. ^^ Lessee you drink 
now," he said ; and Jurgis took the bottle and turned it 
Hp to his mouth, and a wonderful unearthly liquid ecstasy 
poured down his throat, tickling every nerve of him, 
thrilling him with joy. He drai:^ the very last drop of 
it, and then he ^ve vent to a lone-drawn *^ Ah I " 

^ Good stuff, hey ? " said Fredme, sympathetically ; he « 
kad leaned back in the big chair, putting his arm behind 
kis head and gazing at Jurgis. 

And Jurgis gazed back at him. He was clad in spotless 
evening-dress, was Freddie, and looked very handsome — 
Ue was a beautiful boy, with light golden hair and the 
head of an Antinous. He smiled at Jurgis confidingly, 
and then started talking again, with his blissful insoueianee. 
This time he talked for ten minutes at a stretch, and in the 
course of the speech he told Jurgis all of his family history. 
His big brother Charlie was in love with the guileless 
ataiden who played the part of *^ Little Bright-Eyes" in. 
<*Hie Kaliph of Eamskatka." He had been on the verge 
•f marrying her once, only " the guv'ner " had sworn to 
disinherit him, and had presented him with a sum that 
would stagger the imagination, and that had staggered 
the virtue of "Little Bright-Eyes." Now Charhe had 
got leave from coUe^e, and had gone away in his auto- 
mobile on the next best thing to a honeymoon. "The 
guv'ner" had made threats to disinherit another of his 
children also, sister Gwendolen, who had married an 
Italian marquis with a string of titles and a duelling 



290 THE JX7NGLB 



record* They lived in Ids chateau, or rather had, until hi 
had taken to fixing the breakfast-dishes at her ; then she 
had cabled for help, and the old gentleman had gone over 
to find out what were his Grace's terms. So they had left 
Freddie all alone, and he with less than two thousand 
dollars in his pocket. Freddie was up in arms and meant 
serious business, as they would find in the end — if theis 
was no other way of bringing them to terms he would 
have his *^ Kittens** wire that die was about to marry him, 
and see what happened then. 

So the cheerful youngster rattled on, until he was tired 
•ut. He smiled ms sweetest smile at Jurgis, and then ha 
dosed his eyes, sleepily. Then he opened them affain, and 
smiled once more, ana finally closed them and forgot to 
open them. 

For several minutes Jurgis sat perfectly motionlesBi 
watching him, and revelling in the strange sensations el 
the champagne. Once he stirred, and the dog growled ; 
after that he sat almost holding his breath — until after a 
while the door of the room opened softly, and the butler 
•ame in. 

He walked toward Junis upon tiptoe, scowling at himi 
and Jurgis rose up, and retreated, scowling back. So 
until he was against the wall, and then the butler came 
close, and pointed toward the door. ^ Get out of here I ** 
he whispered. 

Jurgis hesitated, giving a glance at Freddie, who was 

snoring softly. ** If you do, you son of a " hissed 

the butler, ^ 111 mash in your face for you before you get 
out of here I '* 

And Ju^ris wavered but an instant more. He saw 
^Admiral Dewey ** coming up behind the man and grovd« 
ing softly, to back up his threats. Then he surrendered 
and started toward the door. 

They went out without a sound, and down the great 
echoing staircase, and through the dark halL At the 
front door he paused, and the butler strode close ti 
him« 



THE JDNQUn «n 

*HoId up yma hands,'* he snarled. JnTgis tool a step 
tiaok, clinoMn^ his one well fist. 

» What for ? " he cried ; and then nnderstanding that 
the fellow proposed to searoh him, he answered, *'ril see 
yon in hell first." 

** Do 70a want to go to jail ? " demanded the bntleft 
menaoingly. ** I'll have the police — " 

** Have em I ** roared Jurgis, with fierce passion. *'Bat 
yoQ won't pat your hands on me till you do 1 I haven't 
tonched anything in yonr damned house, and Fll not bar* 
you touch me I " 

So the butler, who was terrified lest his young mastet 
should waken, trtepped suddenly to the door, and opened 
it. "Get out of herat" he said; and then as Jurgis passed 
through the opening, he gave him a ferocious kick that sent 
him down the great stone steps at a nut, and landed bin 
iprairling in tlw anow at the bottom. 



CHAPTER XXY 

JiTBGiB got iipi» wild with rage; but the dow was ehnt 
and the great eaisrtle was dark and impregnable. Then the 
icy teeth of the blast bit into him, and he turned and went 
away at a nuu 

When he stopped again it was because he was coming 
to frequented streets and did not wish to attract attention. 
In spite of tliat last humiliation, his heart was thumping 
fast with triumph. He had come out ahead on tiiat aeali 
He put his hana into his trousers* pocket evei^ now and 
then, to make sure that the precious hundred-doUar bill was 
still there. 

Tet he was in a plight — a curious and even dreadful 
plight, when he came to realize it. He had not a single 
cent but that one bill I And he had to find some shelter 
that night — he had to change iti 

Jurgis spent half an hour walking and debating the 
problem, xhere was no one he could go to for help — he 
nad to manage it all alone. To get it changed in a lodff- 
ing-house would be to take his life in his hands — he would 
almost certainly be robbed, and perhaps murdered, before 
morning. He might go to some hotel or railroad-depot 
and ask to have it changed ; but what would they think, 
seeing a ^^ bum *' like him with a hundred dollars? He 
woulg probably be arrested if he tried it ; and what story 
could he tell ? On the morrow Freddie Jones would die* 
cover his loss, and there would be a hunt for him, and he 
would lose his money. The only other plan he could think 
of was to try in a sidoon. He might pay them to change 
tt| if it could not be done otherwise- 



THE JUNGLE 293 

He began peering into places as he walked ; he passed 
several as being too crowded — then finally, chancing upon 
one where the bartender was all alone, he gripped his hands 
in sudden resolution and went in. 

^^Can you change me a hundred-dollar bill?*' he 
demanded. 

The bartender was a big, husky fellow, with the jaw of 
a prize fighter, and a three weeks' stubble of hair upon it. 
He stared at Jurgis. ^What's that youse say?" he 
demanded. 

^^ I said, could you change me a hundred-dollar biU? *' 

** Where'd youse get it ? " he inquired incredulously. 

** Never mind," said Jur^ ; " I've got it, and I want 
it changed. I'll pay you if you'll do it." 

The other stared at him hard. ^^Lemme see it," he 
said. 

^^Will you change it/" Jurgis demanded, gripping it 
tightW in his pocket. 

*• ifow the hell can I know if it's good or not? '* retorted 
the bartender. " Whatcher take me for, hey ? " 

Then Jurgis slowly and warilv approached him; he 
took out the bill, and fumbled it for a moment, while the 
man stared at him with hostile eyes across the counter. 
Then finally he handed it over. 

The other took it, and began to examine it ; he smoothed 
it between his fingers, and he held it up to the light ; he 
turned it over, and upside down, and edgeways. It was 
new and rather stiff, and that made him dubious. Jurgis 
was watching him like a cat all the time. 

^ Humph, he said, finally, and gazed at the strangei; 
'sizing him up — a ragged, iU-smelling tramp, with no over- 
coat and one arm in a sline — and a hundred-dollar billt 
Want to buy anything?" he demanded. 

^ Yes," said Jurgis, ^^ I'll take a glass of beer." 

"All right," said the other, '* I'll change it." And he 
put the biU in his pocket, and poured Jurgis out a glass of 
Deer, and set it on the counter. Then he turned to the 
cash-register, and punched up five cents, and began to 
pull money out of the drawer. Finally, he faced Jur^a^ 



S94 THE JUNGLE 

counting it out — two dimes* a quarter, and fifty cents. 
** There," he said. 

For a second Jorgis waited, expecting to see him torn 
again. ^^ My ninety-nine dollars, he said. 

^ What ninety-nine dollars? '* demanded the bartender. 

^ My change I ** he cried — ^ the rest of my hnn- 
dredr 

** Go on,** said the bartender, ** you*re nutty 1 ** 

And Jurgis stared at him with wild eyes. For an 
instant horror reigned in him — black, paralyzing, awful 
horror, clutching him at the heart ; and then came rage, 
in surging, blinoine floods — he screamed aloud, and seiMd 
tiie glass and hurled it at the other's head. The man 
ducked, and it missed him by half an inch; he rose 
again and faced Jurgis, who was vaulting over the bar 
with his one well arm, and dealt him a smashing blow in 
the face, hurling him backward upon the floor. Then, as 
Jurgis scramble to his feet again and started round the 
•ounter after him, he shouted at the top of his voice, ^Hdp 1 
helpl** 

Jurgis seized a bottle off the coxmter as he ran ; and as 
the bartender made a leap he hurled the missile at him with 
all his force. It just grazed his head, and shivered into a 
thousand pieces against the post of the door. Then Jurris 
started back, rushing at the man again in the middle of we 
room. This time, in his blind frenzy, he came without a 
bottle, and that was all the bartender wanted — he met 
him halfway and floored him with a sledge-hammer drive 
between the eyes. An instant later the screen-doors flew 
open, and two men rushed in — just as Jurgis was getting 
to his feet aeain, foaming at the mouth with rage, and try* 
ing to tear ^is broken arm out of its bandages. 

*^Look out I** shouted the bartender. ^^He*s got a 
knife I '* Then, seeing that the two were disposed to ioin 
in the frav, he made another rush at Jurgis, and knocked 
aside Iiis feeble defence and sent him tumbling again; and 
the three flung themselves upon him, rolling and kicking 
about the place. 

A second later a policeman dashed in, and the bartender 






THE JTJSOfLE 296 

yelled once moxe — ^ Look out for his knife I ** Jurgis 
had fought himself half to his knees, when the policeman 
made a leap at him, and cracked him across the face with 
his dub. Though the blow staggered him, the wild beast 
frenzy still blazed in him, and he fi;ot to his feet, lunging 
into the air. Then again the dub descended, full upon 
his head, and he dropped like a log to the floor. 

The policeman crouched over him, clutching his stick, 
wailing for him to try to rise again ; and meantime the 
barkeeper ffot up, and put his hand to his head. ^ Christ ! ^ 
hd said, ^ I thought I was done for that time. Did he cu* 
me?** 

^ Don't see anything, Jake,** said the policeman. 
•* What's the matter with him?'* 

M Just crazy drunk,** said the other. ** A lame duck, too 
— but he *most got me under the bar. Touse had better 
eall the wa^on, Billy.** 

^ No,** said the officer. ^ He*s got no more fi^t in him, 
I guess — and he*s only got a block to go.** He twisted 
his hand in Jurgis's collar and jerked at him. ^ Git up here, 
you I *' he commanded. 

But Jurgis did not move, and the bartender went behind 
the bar, and, after stowing the hundred-dollar bill away in 
a safe hiding-place, came and poured a glass of water oyer 
Jurgis. Then, as the latter beean to moan feebly, the 
policeman got him to his feet and dragged him out of the 
place. The station-house was just around the comer, 
and so in a few minutes Jurgis was in a cell. 

He spent half the night lying unconscious, and the 
balance moaning in torment, with a blinding headache 
and a racking tmrst. Now and then he criea aloud for 
a drink of water, but there was no one to hear him. There 
were others in that same station-house with split heads and 
a f eyer ; there were hundreds of them in the great city, 
and tens of thousands of them in the great land, and there 
was no one to hear any of them. 

In the morning Jurgis was eiyen a cup of water and a 
piece of bread, and then hustled into a patrol wagon and 



S96 THE JXTNGLS 

driyen to the nearest police-court. He sat in the pen witi 
a score of others until his turn came. 

The bartender — who proved to be a well-known bruiset 
— • was called to the stand. He took the oath and told hia 
story. The prisoner had come into his saloon after mid- 
night, fighting drunk, and had ordered a glass of beer and 
tendered a dollar bill in payment. He had been given 
ninety-five cents' change, and had demanded ninety-nine 
dollars more, and before the plaintiff could even answer 
had hurled the glass at him and then attacked him with 
a bottle of bitters, and nearly wrecked the place. 

Then the prisoner was sworn — a forlorn object, haggard 
and unshorn, with an arm done up in a filthy bandage, a 
cheek and head cut and bloody, and one eye purplish black 
and entirely closed. ^* What have you to say for your* 
self ? '' queried the magistrate. 

^^ Your Honor," said Jureis, ^* I went into his place and 
asked the man if he could change me a hundred-dollar 
bill. And he said he would if I bought a drink. I 
gave him the bill and then he wouldn't give me the 
change.'* 

The magistrate was staring at him in perplexity* ^Tou 
gave him a hundred-dollar bill I '' he ezclauned. 

** Yes, your Honor,'* said Jurgis. 

** Where did you get it ? " 

^ A man gave it to me, your Honor. ** 

^ A man? What man, and what for?** 

^A young man I met upon the street, your Honoi; 
I had been begging. '* 

There was a titter in the court-room ; the officer who 
was holding Jurgis put up his hand to hide a smile, and 
the magistrate smiled without trying to hide it. ^ It's 
true, your Honor I " cried Jurgis, passionately. 

^ X ou had been drinking as well as begging last nigh^ 
had you not ? " inquired the magistrate. 

** No, your Honor — " protested Jurgis. •* I • 

*^ You had not had anything to drink? ** 

•* Why, yes, your Honor, I had — '* 

** What did you have ? " 



ft 



THE JUNGLE 29? 

*^I had a battle of something — I don*t know what it 
was — something that burned — " 

There was again a laugh round the court-room, stopping 
suddenly as the magistrate looked up and frowned. ^^ Have 
you ever been arrested before ? " he asked abruptly. 

The question took Jurgis aback. ^I — I — '* he 
stammered. 

^ Tell me the truth* now I " commanded the other* 
sternly. 

** Yes, your Honor,** said Jurgis. 

^ How often ? '' 

•*Only once, your Honor.** 

••Whatfor?'^ 

^For knocking down my boss, your flonon I was 
working in the stockyards, and he — '* 

^ I see," said his Honor ; ^^ I guess that will do. You 
ought to stop drinking if you can't control yourself. Ten 
days and costs. Next case." 

Jurgis gave vent to a cry of dismay, cut off suddenly 
by the poUceman, who seized him by tiie collar. He was 
jerked out of the way, into a room with the convicted 
prisoners, where he sat and wept like a child in his impo- 
tent rage. It seemed monstrous to him that policemen 
and juc^es should esteem his word as nothing in compari- 
son wit£ the bartender's ; poor Jurgis could not know 
that the owner of the saloon paid five dollars each week to 
the policeman alone for Sunday privileges and general 
&vors — nor that the pugilist bartender was one of the 
most trusted henchmen of the Democratic leader of the 
district, and had helped only a few months before to hustle 
out a record-breaking vote as a testimonial to the magis- 
trate, who had been made the target of odious kid-gloved 
reformers. 

Jurgis was driven out to the Bridewell for the second time- 
In his tumbling around he had hurt his arm i^ain, and so 
oould not work, but had to be attended by the physician. 
Also his head and his eye had to be tied up — and so he 
was a pretty-looking object when, the second day after 

20 



S96 THE JXTNOLE 



arrival, he went ont into the exeroiae-coort and enooiuh 
tered — Jack Duane I 

The younfi^ fellow was so glad to see Jur^is that he al- 
most hugged him. *^Bj Qod^ if it isn't *ue Stinker M** 
he cried. ^And what is it — have you been tlirougha 
sausage-machine ? ** 

^ No," said Jurcris, ^ but IVe been in a railroad wreck 
and a fi^ht." And then, while some of the other prisoners 
gatherea round, he told his wild story; most of them 
were incredulous, but Duane knew that J urgis could never 
have made up such a yam as that. 

^^Hard luck, old man," he said, when they were alone i 
^ but maybe it's taught you a lesson." 

*^ I've learned some things since I saw you last,** said 
Jurgis, mournfully. Then he explained how he had spent 
the last sununer, ^hoboing it," as the phrase was. ^ And 
you?" he asked, finally. ^^Have you been here ever 
since?" 

^ Lord, no I " said the other. ** I only came in the day 
before yesterday. It's the second time they've sent me 
up on a trumped-up charge *- I've had hard luck and can't 
pay them what they want. Why don't you quit Chicago 
with me, Jur^ ? " 

^ I've no pUce to eo," said Jurgis, sadly. 

*^ Neither have I,'^ replied the other, laughing lightly. 
— « **' But well wait till we get out and see." 

In the Bridewell Jurgis met few who had been there the 
last time, but he met scores of others, old and young, of 
exactly the same sort. It was like breakers upon a b^ch ; 
there was new wator, but the wave looked just the same. 
He stroUed about and talked with them, and the biggest 
of them told tales of their prowess, while those who were 
weaker, or younger and inexperienced, gathered round and 
listened in admiring silence. The last time he was there, 
Jurgis had thought of little but his family ; but now be 
was free to listen to these men, and to realize that he was 
one of them, — that their point of view was his point of 
view, and that the way they kept themselves alive in the 
world was the way he meant to do it in future. 



THE JUNGLE 209 

I 

And 80, when he was turned out of prison again, with- 
out a penny in his pocket, he went straight to Jack Duane. 
He went lull of humility and gratitude ; for Duane was 
a gentleman, and a man with a profession — and it was re- 
markable that he should be willing to throw in his lot with 
a humble working-man, one who had even been a beegar 
and a tramp. Jurgis could not see what help he could be 
to him ; he did not understand that a man like himself — 
who could be trusted to stand by any one who was kind to 
him — was as rare among criminals as among any other 
class of men. 

The address Jurgis had was a garret-room in the Ghetto 
district, the home of a pretty little French girl, Duane*s 
mistress, who sewed all day, and eked out her living by 
prostitution. He had gone elsewhere, she told Jurgis — 
he was afraid to stay there now, on account of the police. 
The new address was a cellar dive, whose proprietor said 
that he had never heard of Duane ; but after he had put 
Jurgis through a catechism he showed him a back stairs 
which led to a ^ fence'' in the rear of a pawnbroker's 
shop, and thence to a number of assignation-rooms, in one 
of which Duane was hiding. 

Duane was glad to see him ; he was without a cent of 
Money, he said, and had been waiting for Jurgis to help him 

£t some. He explained his plan — in fact he spent the 
y in layinfi^ bare to his friend the criminal world of the 
city, and in crowing him how he might earn himself a living 
in it. That winter he would have a hard time, on account 
of his arm, and because of an unwonted fit of activity of 
the police ; but so long as he was unknown to them ho 
would be safe if he were careful. Here at ^^ Papa " Han* 
son's (so they called the old man who kept the dive) he 
might rest at ease, for ^^ Papa " Hanson was ** square " — 
would stand by him so long as he paid, and gave him an 
hour's notice if there were to be a police raid. Also 
Rosensteg, the pawnbroker, would buy anything he had 
for a third of its value, and guarantee to keep it hidden 
for a year. 

There was an oil stove in the little cupboard of a iqoisk 



800 THE JUNGLE 

and the J had some sapper ; and then about eleven o^dook 
at night they sallied forth together, bj a rear entrance to 
the place, Duane armed with a slung-shot. They came 
to a residence district, and he sprang up a lamp post and 
blew out the light, and then the two dodged into the 
ikhelter of an area-step and hid in silence. 

Pretty soon a man came by, a working-man — and they 
let him go. Then after a long interval came the heavy 
tread of a policeman, and they held their breath till he 
was eone* Though half frozen, they waited a full quar 
ter of an hour after that — and then again came f ootsteps, 
walking briskly. Duane nudged Jur^s, and the instant 
the man had passed they rose up. Duane stole out as 
silently as a shadow, and a second later Jurgis heard a 
thud and a stifled cry. He was only a couple of feet be- 
hind, and he leaped to stop the man's mouth, while Duane 
held him fast by the arms, as they had agreed. But the 
man was limp and showed a tendency to f dl, and so Jurgis 
had only to hold him by the collar, while the other, with 
swift fingers, went through his pockets, — ripping open, 
first his overcoat, and then his coat, and then his vest, 
searching inside and outside, and transferring the contents 
into his own pockets. At last, aft«r feeling of the man's 
finders and in his neck-tie, Duane whispered, ^^ That's all I *' 
ana they dragged him to the area and dropped him in. 
Then Jurgis went one way and his friend the other, walk- 
ing briskly. 

The latter arrived first, and Jurgis found him examin 
ing the ^ swag." There was a gold watch, for one thing, 
with a chain and locket ; there was a silver pencil, and a 
match-box, and a handful of small change, and finally a 
card-case. This last Duane opened f everiwly — there were 
letters and checks, and two theatre-tickets, and at last, in 
the back part, a wad of bills. He counted them — there 
was a twenty, five tens, four fives, and three ones. Duane 
drew a long breath. ^^ That lets us out I " he said. 

After further examination, they burned the card-case 
and its contents, all but the bills, and likewise the picture 
of a little girl in the locket. Then Duane took the walich 



THE JUNGLE SOi 

and trinkets downstairs, and came back with sixteen 
dollars. ^ The old scoundrel said the case was filled,'' he 
said. ^ It*s a lie, but he knows I want the money.'' 

They divided up the spoils, and Jurgis got as his share 
fifty-five dollars and some change. lie protested that it 
was too much, but the other had agreed to divide even* 
That was a good haul, he said, better than the average. 

When they got up in the morning, Jurgis was sent 
out to buy a paper ; one of the pleasures of committing 
a crime was the reading about it afterward. ^* I had a 
pal that always did it," Duane remarked, lauehing—- 
*^ until one day he read that he had left three ^ousand 
dollars in a lower inside pocket of his party's vest 1 *' 

There was a half -column account of the robbery — it 
was evident that a gang ivas operating in the neighbor- 
hood, said the paper, for it was the third within a week, 
and the police were apparently powerless. The victim 
was an insurance agent, and he nad lost a hundred and 
ten dollars that did not belong to him. He had chanced 
to have his name marked on his shirt, otherwise he would 
not have been identified yet. His assailant had hit him 
too hard, and he was suffering from concussion of the 
brain; and also he had been hadf -frozen when found, and 
would lose three fingers of his right hand. The enter- 
prising newspaper reporter had taken all this information 
to his family, and told how they had received it. 

Since it was Jurgis's first experience, these details natu- 
rallv caused him some worriment ; but the other laughed 
coolly — it was the way of the game, and there was no 
helping it. Before long Jurgis would think no more of 
it than they did in the yards of knocking out a bullock. 
^ It's a case of us or the other fellow, and I say the other 
fellow every time," he observed. 

^ Still," said Jurgis, refiectively, ^^ he never did us any 
harm." 

^^He was doing it to somebody as hard as he could, 
you can be sure of that," said his friend. 

Doane had already explained to Jurgis that if a man of 



802 THE JUNGLE 

their trade were known he would have to work all the 
time to satisfy the demands of the police. Therefore it 
woiQd be better for Jurgis to stay in hiding and never be 
seen in public with his paL But Jurgis soon got very 
tired of staying in hiding. In a couple of weeu he was 
feeling strong and beginning to use his arm, and then he 
could not stand it any longer. Duane, who had done a 
job of some sort by himself, and made a truce with the 
powers, brought over Marie, his little French girl, to share 
with him ; but even that did not avail for long, and in 
the end he had to give up arguing, and take Jurgis 
out and introduce him to the saloons and ^^sportii^- 
houses'' where the big crooks and ^hold-up men** hung 
out. 

And so Jurgis got a glimpse of the high-class criminal 
world of Chicago. The city, which was owned by an 
oligarchy of business men, being nominally ruled by tha 
people, a huge army of graft was necessary for the pur* 
pose of effecting the transfer of power. Twice a year, ia 
the spring and fall elections, milUons of dollars were fur- 
nished by the business men and expended by this army; 
meetings were held and clever speakers were hired, bands 
played and rockets sizzled, tons of documents and reso 
voirs of drinks were distributed, and tens of thousands of 
votes were bought for cash. And this army of graft had, 
of course, to be maintained the year round. The leaden 
and organizers were maintained by the business men 
directly, — aldermen and legislators by means of bribes, 
party officials out of the campaign funds, lobbyists and 
corporation lawyers in the form of salaries, contractors by 
means of jobs, labor union leaders by subsidies, and news* 
paper proprietors and editors by advertisements. The 
rank and file, however, were either foisted upon the city, 
or else lived off the populace directly. There was tiie 
police department, and the fire and water departments, 
and the whole balance of the civil Ust, from the meanest 
office-boy to the head of a city department ; and for ths 
horde who could find no room in these, there was the 
world of vice and crime, there was license to seduce, to 



THE JUNGLE 808 

•windle and plunder and prey. The law forbade Sunday 
drinking ; and this had delivered the saloon-keepers into 
the hands of the police, and made an alliance between them 
necessary. The law forbade prostitution; and this had 
brought the ^^madames" into the combination. It was the 
same with the gambling-house keeper and the pool-room 
man, and the same with any other man or woman who had 
a means of getting ** graft, and was willing to pay over a 
share of it : the green-goods man and the highwayman, the 
pickpocket and the sneak-thief, and the receiver of stolen 
eoods, the seller of adulterated milk, of stale fruit and 
diseased meat, the proprietor of unsanitary tenements, the 
&ke-doctor and the usurer, the beggar and the ^ push-cart 
man,'' the prize-fighter and the professional slugger, the 
race-track ^ tout," the procurer, the white-slave agent, and 
the expert seducer of young girls. All of these agencies 
of corruption were banded together, and leagued in blood 
brotherhood with the politician and the police; more often 
than not they were one and the same person, — the police 
captain would own the brothel he pretended to raid, and 
the politician would open his headquarters in his saloon. 
^Hinkydink^ or ^Bath-house John," or others of that 
ilk, were proprietors of the most notorious dives in Chi- 
cago, and also the ^^ grav wolves " of the city council, who 
gave away the streets of the city to the business men ; and 
those who patronized their places were the gamblers and 
prize-fighters who set the law at defiance, and the burglars 
and hoM-up men who kept the whole city in terror. On 
election day all these powers of vice and crime were one 
power ; they could tell within one per cent what the vot^ 
of their district would be, and they could change it at an 
hour's notice. 

A month ago Jurgis had all but perished of starvation 
upon the streets ; and now suddeidy, as by the gift of 
a magic key, he had entered into a world where money 
and ffll the good things of life came freely. He was 
introduced by his friend to an Irishman named ** Buck " 
Halloran, who was a political ^^ worker " and on the inside 
of things. This man talked with Jurgis for a while^ and 



904 THE JXTNOLE 

then told him that he had a little plan by which a man 
who looked like a working-man might make some easy 
money ; but it was a private affair, and had to be kept 
quiet. Jurs^ expressed himself as agreeable, and the 
other took him wat afternoon (it was Saturday) to a 
place where city laborers were bein^ paid off. llie pay* 
master sat in a little booth, with a pile of envelopes before 
him, and two policemen standing by. Jurgis went, ac- 
cording to directions, and gave the name of ^^Midiael 
O'Flaherty,'' and received an envelope, which he tocdc 
around the comer and delivered to Halloran, who was 
waiting for him in a saloon. Then he went again, and 
gave tne name of ^ Johann Schmidt," and a third time, and 
gave the name of ^* Serge Reminitsky.'' Halloran bad 
quite a list of imaginary working-men, and Jurg^ got 
an envelope for each one. For this work he received five 
dollars, and was told that he might have it every week, 
so long as he kept quiet. As Jurgis was excellent at 
keeping quiet, he soon won the trust of ^ Buck '' Halloran, 
and was introduced to others as a man who could be 
depended upon. 

This acquaintance was useful to him in another way, 
also ; before long Jurgis made his discovery of the mean* 
ing of ^ pull,^ and just why his boss, Connor, and also the 
pugilist bartender, had been able to send him to iaiL 
One night there was given a ball, the *^ benefit '* of ^ One- 
eyed Larry,** a lame man who played the violin in one of 
the big ^lugh-class** houses of prostitution on Clark Street, 
and was a wa^ and a popular character on the ^^ Levee.** 
This ball was held in a bie dance-hall, and was one of the 
occasions when tbe city s powers of debauchery gave 
themselves up to madness. Jurgis attended and got naif 
insane with cuink, and began quarrelling over a girl ; his 
arm was pretty strong by then, and he set to work to clean 
out the place, and ended in a cell in the police-station. 
The police-station being crowded to the doors, and stink* 
ing with ^ bums,** Jurgis did not relish 8ta3ring there te 
sleep off his liouor, and sent for Halloran, who called up 
the district leaaer and had Jurgis bailed out by telephone 



THB JUKGLB 305 

ai four o'dodk in the morning. When he was arraigned 
that same morning, the district leader had abeady seen the 
clerk of the court and explained that Jurgis Rudkns was 
a (iecent fellow, who had been indiscreet ; and so Jurgis 
wa^ fined ten dollars and the fine was ^suspended" — 
which meant that he did not haye to pay it, and never 
would have to pay it, unless somebody cnose to bring it up 
against him in the future. 

Among the people Jurgis lived with now money was 
valued according to an entirely different standard from 
thai of the people of Packingtown ; yet, stranee as it may 
seem, he dia a great deal less drinldng than he had as a 
workinff-man. He had not the same provocations of 
exhaustion and hopelessness ; he had now something to 
work for, to struggle for. He soon found that if he kept 
his wits about him, he would come upon new opportunities ; 
aurl being naturallv an active man, ne not only kept sober 
himself, but helpea to steady his friend, who was a good 
deal fonder of both wine and women than he. 

One thing led to another. In the saloon where Jurgis 
met ^ Buck ** Halloran he was sitting late one night with 
Ducine, when a ^ country customer^' (a buyer for an out-of« 
town merchant) came in, a little more than half ^* piped. ** 
There was no one else in the place but the bartender, 
and as the man went out again Jurgis and Duane followed 
hiia ; he went round the comer, and in a dark place made 
by a combination of the elevated railroad and an unrented 
railding, Jurgis leaped forward and shoved a revolver 
vnder ms nose, while Duane, with his hat pulled over his 
evesy went through the man's pockets with lightning fingers. 
They got his watch and his *^ wad," and were round the 
eomer again and into the saloon before he could shout more 
than once. The bartender, to whom they had tipped the 
wink, had the cellar-door open for them, and they vanished^ 
making their way by a secret entrance to a brothel next 
door. From the roof of this there was access to three 
similar places beyond. By means of these passages the 
customers of any one place could be gotten out of the way* 
in case a falling out with the police chanced to lead to «^ 



806 ZEE JUNGLE 

raid ; and also it was neeessary to have a way of getting 
a girl out of reach in case of an emergency* Thousand^ 
of them came to Chicago answering advertisements for 
^ servants ** and ^ factory hands," and found themselves 
trapped by fake employment agencies, and locked up in a 
bawdy-house. It was generally enough to take all their 
clothes away from them ; but sometimes they would have 
to be ^* doped ** and kept prisoners for weeks ; and mean- 
time their parents might oe telegraphing the police, and 
even coming on to see why nothing was done* Occasion* 
ally there was no wav of satisfving them but to let them 
search the place to wnich the girl had been traced* 

For his help in this little job, the bartender received 
twenty out of the hundred and thirty odd dollars that the 
pair secured ; and naturally this put them on friendly 
terms with him, and a few oays later he introduced them 
to a little ^^ sheeny ** named Ooldberffer, one of the ^ run- 
ners*' of the ^ sporting-house ** wnere they had been 
hidden* After a few drmks Ooldberger began, with some 
hesitation, to narrate how he had had a quarrel over his 
best girl with a professional ** card-sharp, ' who had hit 
him in the jaw. The fellow was a stranger in Chicago, 
and if he was found some night with his head cracked 
there would be no one to care very much. Jurgis, whe 
bv this time would cheerf ullv have cracked the neads of 
all the eamblers in Chicago, inquired what would be com* 
ing to him ; at which the Jew became still more confi- 
dential, and said that he had some tips on the New Orleans 
races, which he got direct from the police captain of the 
district, whom he had got out of a bad scrape, and wht 
^ stood in " with a big svndicate of horse owners* Duane 
took all this in at once, but Jurgis had to have the whole 
race-track situation explained to him before he realized tibe 
importance of such an opportunity* 

There was the gigantic Racing Trust. It owned tne 
legislatures in evenr state in which it did business ; it 
even owned some of the big newspapers* and made publio 
opinion— there was no power in the land that could 
oppose it unless» perhaps, it were the Pool-room Trust 



THB JUNGLE 807 

It built magnificent racing parka all over the country, and 
by means of enormous purses it lured the people to come, 
and then it organized a gigantic shell-game, whereby it 
plundered them of hundreds of millions of dollars every 
year. Horse-racing had once been a sport, but nowadays 
it was a business ; a horse could be ^^ doped " and doctored, 
undertrained or overtrained ; it could be made to fall at 
any moment — or its gait could be broken bv lashing it 
with the whip, which all the spectators would take to be 
a desperate effort to keep it in the lead. There were 
scores of such tricks ; and sometimes it was the owners 
who played them and made fortunes, sometimes it was the 

{*ockey8 and trainers, sometimes it was outsiders, who 
>ribed them — but most of the time it was the chiefs of 
the trust. Now, for instance, they were having winter* 
racing in New Orleans, and a syndicate was laying out 
each day's programme in advance, and its agents in iSl the 
Northern cities were ^^ milking" the pool-rooms. The 
word came by long-distance telephone in a cipher code, 
just a little while before each race ; and any man who 
oould get the secret had as good as a fortune. If Jurgis did 
not bdieve it, he could try it, said the little Jew — let 
them meet at a certain house on the morrow and make a 
test. Jurgis was willing, and so was Duane, and so they 
went to one of the high-class pool-rooms where brokers 
and merchants gambled (with society women in a private 
room\ and they put up ten dollars each upon a horse 
callea ^^ Black Beldame," a six to one shot, and won. For 
a secret like that they would have done a good many slug- 

S'ngs — but the next day Goldberger informed them that 
e offending gambler had got wind of what was coming 
to him, and had skipped the town. 

There were ups and downs at the business ; but there 
was always a living, inside of a jail, if not out of it. Earlj 
m April the city elections were due, and that meant pros- 
perity for all the powers of graft. Jurgis, hanging round 
in dives and gambling-houses and brotibels, met with the 
heelers of bow parties, and from their conversation he 



808 THE JUNGLE 

came to understand all the ins and outs of the game, and to 
hear of a number of ways in which he could make himself 
useful about election time. ^Buok*' Halloran was a 
^ Democrat,'' and so Jur^is became a Democrat also ; but 
he was not a bitter one — uie Republicans were good fellows, 
too, and were to have a pile of money in this next campaign. 
At the last election the Republicans had paid four dolkrs 
a vote to the Democrats' three ; and ^ Buck " Halloran sat 
one night playing cards with Jurgis and another man, who 
told how Halloran had been chared with the job of voting 
a ^ bunch " of thirty-seven newly landed Italians, and how 
he, the narrator, had met the Republican worker who was 
after the very dame gang, and how the three had effected 
a bargain, whereby the Italians were to vote half and 
half, for a glass of beer apiece, while the balance of the 
fund went to the conspirators ! 

Not long after this, Jurgis, wearyuig of the risks and 
vicissitudes of miscellaneous crime, was moved to give up 
the career for that of a politician. Just at this time there 
was a tremendous uproar being raised concerning the 
alliance between the criminals and the police. For the 
criminal graft was one in which the business men had no 
direct part — it was what is called a ^* side-line," carried 
by thie police. ^^ Wide-open '' gambling and debaucheiT 
made the city pleasing to ^^ trade,'' but burglaries and hold* 
aps did not. One night it chanced that while Jack Duane 
was drilling a safe in a clothing store he was caught red* 
handed by the night-watchman, and turned over to a 
policeman, who chanced to know him well, and who took 
the responsibility of letting him make his escape. Such a 
howl from the newspapers followed this that Duane was 
slated for a sacrifice, and barely got out of town in time. 

And just at that juncture it happened that Jurgis was 
introduced to a man named Harper whom he recognized as 
the night-watchman at Brown's, who had been instrumental 
in making him an American citizen, the first year of his 
arrival at the yards. The other was interested in the 
coincidence, but did not remember Jurgis — he had han- 
dled too many ^ green ones " in his time, he said. He sat id 



THE JUNGLE 309 

a danoe-hall with Jurgis and Halloran until one or two in 
the morning, exchang^g experiences. He had a long 
story to tell of his quarrel with the superintendent of his 
department, and how he was now a plain working-man, 
and a good union man as well. It was not until some 
months afterward that Jurgis understood that the quarrel 
with the superintendent had been prearranged, and that 
Harper was in reality drawing a salary of twenty dollars 
a week from the packers for an inside report of his union's 
secret proceedings. The yards were seething with agita- 
tion just then, said the man, speaking as a unionist. The 
eople of Packingtown had borne about all that they would 
ar, and it looked as if a strike might begpin any week. 
After this talk the man made inquiries concerning Jurgis, 
and a couple of days later he came to him with an interest- 
ing proposition. He was not absolutely certain, he said, 
but he thought that he could get him a regular salary if 
he would come to Packingtown and do as he was told, and 
keep his mouth shut. Harper — ^^ Bush '* Harper, he was 
called—- was a right-hand man of Mike Scully, the Demo* 
cratic boss of the stockyards ; and in the coming election 
there was a peculiar situation. There had come to Scully 
a proposition to nominate a certain rich brewer who lived 
upon a swell boulevard that skirted the district, and who 
coveted the big badge and the ^ honorable ** of an alder* 
man. The brewer was a Jew, and had no brains, but he 
was harmless, and would put up a rare campaign fund* 
BcuUy had accepted the offer, and then gone to the Re- 
publicans with a proposition. He was not sure that he 
could manage the ^^ sheeny," and he did not mean to take 
any chances with his district; let the Republicans nomi« 
nate a certain obscure but amiable friend of Scully's, who 
was now setting ten-pins in the cellar of an Ashland Ave* 
nue saloon, and he, Scully, would elect him with the 
^sheeny's" money, and the Republicans might have the 
glory, which was more than they would get otherwise. 
In return for this the Republicans would asree to put up 
no candidate the following year, when Scully himself 
came up for reSlection as tm other alderman from, tb^ 



810 THE JUNGLE 

ward. To this the Republicana had assented at once ; but 
the hell of it was — so Harper explained— >that the Repub- 
licans were all of them fools — a man had to be a fool to 
be a Republican in the stockyards, where Scully was kins. 
And they didn't know how to work, and of course it 
would not do for the Democratic workers, the noble red* 
skins of the War- Whoop League, to support the Repub- 
lican openly. The difficulty would not have been so great 
except for another fact — there had been a curious develop- 
ment in stockyards politics in the last year or two, a new 
party having leaped into being. They were the Socialists; 
and it was a devil of a mess, said ^^ Bush *' Harper. The 
one image which the word ^^ Socialist'' brought to Jurgis 
was of poor little Tamoszius Kuszleika, who had called hmi- 
self one, and would go out with a couple of other men and 
a soap-box, and shout himself hoarse on a street comer Sat- 
urday niehts. Tamoszius had tried to explain to Jurgis what 
it was eSl about, but Jurgis, who was not of an imagina- 
tive turn, had never quite got it straight ; at present he 
was content with his companion's explanation thiekt the So- 
cialists were the enemies of American institutions — could 
not be bought, and would not combine or make any sort 
of a ^^ dicker.*' Mike Scully was very much worried over 
the opportunity which his last deal gave to them — the 
stockyards Democrats were furious at the idea of a rich 
capitalist for their candidate, and while they were changing 
they might possibly conclude that a Socialist firebrand was 
preferable to a Republican bum. And so ri^ht here was a 
diance for Jurs^s to make himself a place m the world, 
explained ^^ Bow " Harper ; he had been a union man, and 
he was known in the yards as a working-man; he must 
have hundreds of acquaintances, and as he had never talked 
politics with them he might come out as a Republican now 
without exciting the least suspicion. There were barrels of 
monev for the use of those who could deliver the goods; 
and Jurgis might count upon Mike Scully, who had never 

Jet gone back on a friend. Just what could he do? 
ureis asked, in some perplexity, and the other explained 
in oetaiL To begin with, he would have to go to the 



THE JXTNGLE 811 

jrardfl and work, and he mightn^t relish that ; but he 
would have what he earned, as well as the rest that came to 
him. He would get aotive in the union again, and per- 
haps try to get an office, as he. Harper, had ; he would tell 
all his f rienos the eood points of Doyle, the Republican 
nominee, and the Bad ones of the ^^ sheeny " ; and then 
Scully would furnish a meeting-place, and he would start 
the ^^ Toung Men's Republican Association,*' or something 
of that sort, and have the rich brewer's best beer bytho 
hogshead, and fireworks and speeches, just like the War- 
Whoop League. Surely Jurgis must know hundreds of 
men who would like that sort of fun ; and there would be 
the regular Republican leaders and workers to help him 
out, and they would deUver a big enough majority o» 
election day. 

When he had heard all this explanation to the end, 
Jurgis demanded : ^ But how can i get a job in Packing- 
town ? I'm blacklisted." 

At which '' Bush " Harper laughed. ^ 111 attend to thaft 
all right," he said. 

And the other replied, ^It's a go, then; I'm your 
man." 

So Jurgis went out to the stockyards again, and was 
introducea to the political lord of the district, the boss oi 
Chicago's mayor. It was Scully who owned the brick- 
yards and the dump and the ice pond — though Jurffia 
did not know it. It was Scully who was to blame for we 
nnpaved street in which Jurgis's child had been drowned; it 
was Scully who had put into office the magistrate who had 
first sent Jurgis to jail ; it was Scully who was principal 
stockholder in the company which had sold him the ram* 
shackle tenement, and then robbed him of it. But Jurgis 
knew none of these things — any more than he knew that 
Scully was but a tool and puppet of the packers. To him 
Scully was a mighty power^ the ^ biggest " man he had 
ever met. 

He was a little, dried-up Irishman, whose hands shookc 
fie had a brief talk with nis visitor, watching him with 
his rat-like eyes, and making up his mind about him; and 



SIS IHB JUNGIiB 

lihen he gave him a note to Mr. HarmoQ, one of tlie head 
mana^eiB of Durham's : — 

^ The bearer, Jurgis Rudkus, is a particular friend of 
mine, and I would like you to find him a good place, for 
important reasons. He was once indiscreet, but you will 
perhaps be so good as to overlook that." 

Mr. Harmon looked up inquiringly when he read thi& 
^ What does he mean by ^ indiscreet '? " he asked. 

^ I was blacklisted, sir,** said Jurgis. 

At which the other frowned. ^Blacklisted ? ** he said. 
•• How do you mean ? ** 

And Jurgis turned red with embarrassment. He had 
forgotten that a blacklist did not exist. ^ I — that is — 
I had difficulty in getting a place," he stammered. 

** What was the matter?" 

^I got into a quarrel with a foreman — not my own 
boss, sir — and struck him." 

^ I see," said the other, and meditated for a few mo 
ments. ^^ What do you wish to do ? " he asked. 

^Anything, sir," said Jurgis — ^only I had a brokon 
arm this winter, and so 1 have to be careful." 

^ How would it suit you to be a night-watchman ? " 

*^ That wouldn^t do, sir. I have to be among the men 
at night." 

^ I see — politics. Well, would it suit you to trim hogs?* 

•* Yes, sir," said Jurgis. 

And Mr. Harmon called a time-keeper and said, *^Take 
this man to Pat Murphy and tell him to find room for him 
somehow." 

And so Jurgis marched into the hog-kiUing room, a 
place where, in the days ^ne by, he had come begginff 
for a job. Now he walked jauntily, and smiled to himself 
seeing the frown that came 'to the boss's face as the time- 
keeper said, ^ Mr. Harmon says to put this man on." It 
would overcrowd his department and spoil the record he 
was trying to make — but he said not a word «zoqit 
-All right." 

And 80 Juigis became a woridng^man oooe morei and 



THE JUITGLB 818 

staraigfatway he sought out his old friandsv and joined the 
onion, and began to " root " for *♦ Scotty *' Doyle. Doyle 
had done him a good turn onoe, he explained, and was 
really a bully chap ; Doyle was a working-man himself, 
and would represent the working-men — why did they 
want to vote for a millionnaire ^ sheeny,*' and what the 
hell had Mike Scully ever done for them that they should 
back his candidates all the time ? And meantime Scully 
had given Jur^ a note to the Republican leader of tiie 
ward, and he nad gone there and met the crowd he was 
to work with. Already they had hired a big hall, witli 
some of the brewer's money, and every ms^ht Jurgis 
brought in a dozen new memliers of the ^^ Doyle Republi- 
ean Association." Pretty soon they had a nand opening 
night; and there was a brass band, which marched 
tlm>ugh the streets, and fireworks and bombs and red 
lights in front of the hall ; and there was an enormous 
crowd, with two overflow meetings — so that the pale and 
trembling candidate had to recite three times over the 
little speech which one of ScuUv's henchmen had written, 
and which he had been a month learning by heart. Beet 
of all, the famous and eloquent Senator Spareshanks, presi- 
dential candidate, rode out in an automobile to discuss 
the sacred privileges of American citizenship, and protec- 
tion and prosperity for the American working-man. His 
inspiriting address was quoted to the extent of half a 
column in all the morning newspapers, which also said 
that it could be stated upon excellent authorit|r that the 
unexpected popularity developed by Doyle, the Kepublican 
candidate for alderman, was giving great anxiety to Mr. 
Scully, the chairman of the Democratic City Committee^ 
The chairman was still more worried when the monster 
torchUfi^it procession came off, with the members of the 
Dovle Kepublican Association all in red capes and hats, 
and free beer for every voter in the ward — the best beer 
ever given away in a ^litical campaign, as the 'vdiole dec* 
torate testified. Durmg tnis parade, and at innumerable 
cart-tedl meetings as well, Jurgis labored tirelessly. He 
did not make any speeches — there were lawyers and 



11 



814 THE JUKGLE 

other experts for that— bathe helped to mana|^e things t 
distributing notices and posting placards and bringing 
out the crowds ; and when iiie show was on he attended 
to the fireworks and the beer. Thus in the course of the 
campaign he handled many hundreds of dollars of the 
Hebrew brewer's money, administering it with naive and 
touching fidelity. Toward the end, however, he learned 
that he was regarded with hatred by the rest of the 
^^boys,'' because he compelled them either to make a 
poorer showing than he or to do without their share of 
the pie. After that Jurgis did his best to please them, 
and to make up for the time he had lost before he dis- 
covered the extra bun^-holes of the campaign-barrel. 

He pleased Mike Sciuly, also. On election morning he 
was out at four o'clock, ^^ getting out the vote" ; he nad 
a two-horse carriage to ride in, and he went from house to 
house for his friends, and escorted them in triumph to the 
polls. He voted half a dozen times himself, and voted 
some of his friends as often; he brought bunch after 
bunch of the newest foreigners — Lithuanians, Poles, Bo* 
hemians, Slovaks — and when he had put them through 
the mill he turned them over to another man to take to 
the next polling-place. When Jurgis first set out, the 
captain of the precinct gave him a hundred dollars, and 
three times in the course of the day he came for another 
hundred, and not more than twenty-five out of each lot 
got stuck in his own pocket. The balance all went for 
actual votes, and on a day of Democratic landslides they 
elected ** Scotty " Doyle, the ex-ten-pin setter, by nearly 
a thousand plurality — and beginning at five o'clock ui 
the afternoon, and ending at three the next momin?, 
Jurgis treated himself to a most unholy and horrible 
"jag." Nearly every one else in Packingtown did the 
same, however, for fliere was universal exultation over 
this triumph of popular government, this crushing defeat 
of an arrogant plutocrat by the power of the common 
people. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

1 the elections Jut^ stayed on in Pftckin^wn 
aad kept his job. The agitation to break up the polioe 
nroteotion of criminala was continuing, and it eeemed to 
him best to " la; low" for the present. He had nearly thres 
hundred dollars in the bank, and might have considered 
himself entitled to s vacation ; but he had an easy job, 
and force of habit kept him at it. Besides, Mike Scully, 
vhom he consulted, advised him that something might 
•• turn up " before long. 

Juxgis got himself a place in a boarding-house with 
Bome congenial friends. He had already inquired of 
Aniele, and learned that Elzhieta and her family had gontt 
down-town, and so he gave no further thought to tnem. 
He went with a new set, now, young unmarried fellows 
who were *' sporty." Jurgis had long ago cast off his 
fertilizer clothing, and since going into politics he had 
donned a linen collar and a greasv red necKtie. He had 
some reason for thinking of his dress, for he wae making 
about eleven dollars a week, and two-thirda of it he might 
spend upon his pleasures without ever touching nb 



Sometimes he would ride down-town with a party of 
friends to the cheap theatres and the mnuo halls and 
other haunts with which they were familiar. Many d 
the salooni* in Packingtown had pool-tables, and some 
of them bowling-alleya, by means of which he could spend 
his evenings in petty gambling. Also, there were cards 
and dice. One time Jurgis got into a game on a Saturday 
night and won prodigiously, and becaose he was a man at 
spirit he stayed in with the rest and the game continued 
until late Snndaj afternoon, and by th%t time he was** ant.'* 
SIB 



S16 THE JUNOLB 

over twenty dollars. On Saturday nights, also, a umber 
of balls were generally given in Packingtown ; each man 
would bring his ^^ girl " with him, paying half a dollar for 
a ticket, and seveial dollars additional for drinks in the 
course of the festivities, which continued until three or 
four o'clock in the morning, unless broken up by fighting. 
During all this time the same man and woman would 
dance together, half -stupefied with sensuality and drink. 

Before long Jurgis discovered what Scully had meant 
by something ^Huming up." In May the agreement be* 
tween the packers and the unions expired, and a new agree- 
ment had to be signed. Negotiations were going on, and 
the yards were fun of talk of a strike. The old scale had 
dealt with the wages of the skilled men only ; and of the 
members of the Meat Workers' Union about two-thirds 
were unskilled men. In Chicago these latter were receiv- 
ing, for the most part, eighteen and a half cents an hout, 
and the unions wished to make this the general wage f oi 
the next year. It was not nearly so lar^ a wage as it 
seemed — in the course of the negotiations the union 
officers examined time-checks to the amount of ten thou- 
sand dollars, and they found that the highest wages paid 
had been fourteen dollars a week, the lowest two dollars 
and five cents, and the average of the whole, six dollars 
and sixty-five cents. And six dollars and sixty-five cents 
was hardly too much for a man to keep a family on. Con- 
sidering tiie fact that the price of dressed meat had in- 
creased nearly fifty per cent in the last five years, while 
the price of ^ beef on the hoof ^ had decreased as mueh, it 
would have seemed that the packers ought to be able to 
pay it ; but the packers were unwilling to pay it — they 
rejected the union demand, and to show what their pur- 
pose was, a week or two after the agreement expired they 
put down the wages of about a thousand men to sixteen 
and a half cents, and it was said that old man Jones had 
vowed he would put them to fifteen before he got through. 
There were a million and a half of men in the country 
iOoUng for work, a hundred thousand of them right in 



THE JUNGLE SIT 

CUcago I and were the packers to let the nnion stewards 
inarch into their places and bind them to a contract that 
wonld lose them several thousand dollars a day for a year? 
Not mnch t 

All this w^ in June $ and before long the question was 
submitted to a referendum in the unions, and the decision 
was for a strike. It was the same in all the packing^house 
cities ; and suddenly the newspapers and public woke up 
to face the grewsome spectacle of a meat famine. All sorts 
of pleas for a reconsioeration were made, but the packers 
were obdurate ; and all the while they were reducing 
wages, and heading off shipments of cattle, and rushing 
in wagon-loads of mattresses and cots. So the men boiled 
over, and one nieht telegrams went out from the union 
headquarters to iQl the big packing centres,— * to St. Paul, 
South Omaha, Sioux City, St. Joseph, Kansas City, East 
St. Louis, and New York, — and the next day at noon be- 
tween fifty and sixty thousand men drew off their work* 
ing clothes and marched out of the factories, and the great 
•• Beef Strike '* was on. 

Jurgis went to his dinner, and afterward he walked 
over to see Mike Scully, who lived in a fine house, upon a 
street which had been decently paved and lighted for his 
especial benefit. Scully had TOne into semi-retirement, 
and looked nervous and worried. *^What do you want?*' 
he demanded, when he saw Jurgis. 

^ I came to see if maybe you could get me a place during 
the strike,** the other replied. 

And Scully knit his brows and eyed him narrowly. In 
that morning's papers Jurgis had read a fierce denuncia* 
lion of the packers by Scully, who had declared that if 
they did not treat their people better the city authorities 
would end the matter by tearing down their plants. 
Now, therefore, Jur&fis was not a little taken aback when 
the other demanded suddenly, *^ See here, Rudkus, why 
don't you stick by your job ? ** 

Jurgis started. ^ Work as a scab 7 " he cried. 

** Why not ?•• demanded Scully. ••What's that to you?" 



818 THE JUNGLE 

*^ But — but — ** stammered Jurgis. He had somehow 
taken it for granted that he should so out with his union 

^ The packers need good men, and need them bad,** con- 
tinued the other, ^and they'll treat a man right that 
stands by them. Why don't you take your chimoe and 
fix yourself?" 

^ But," said Jurgis, ^ how could I ever be of any use 
to you — in politics ? " 

*^ Tou couldn't be it anyhow,*' said Scully, abruptly. 

** Why not? " asked Jurgis. 

*^ Hell, man I '* cried t£e other. ^ Don*t you know 
you're a Republican ? And do you think I'm always going 
to elect Republicans ? My brewer has found out already 
how we served him, and there is the deuce to pay.** 

Jurgis looked dumfounded. He had never thought of 
that aspect of it before. ^ I could be a Democrat," he said. 

^^ Yes,'* responded the other, ^ but not right away ; a 
man can't change his politics every day. A^d besides, I 
don't need you — there'd be nothing for you to do. And 
it's a long time to election day, anyhow ; and what are 
you going to do meantime ? " 

^ 1 thought I could count on you,** began Jurgis. 

** Yes," responded Scully, *• so you could — I never yel 
went back on a friend. 6ut is it fair to leave the loo I 
eot you and come to me for another ? I have had a nun- 
area fellows after me to-day, and what can I do ? I've put 
seventeen men on the city pay-roll to clean streets this one 
week, and do you think I can keep that up forever ? It 
wouldn't do for me to tell other men what i tell you, but 
you've been on the inside, and you ought to have sense 
enough to see for yourself. What have you to gain by a 
strike ? " 

^^ I hadn't thought," said Jurgis. 

*♦ Exactly," said Scully, " but you*d better. Take my 
word for it, the strike will be over in a few days, and the 
men will be beaten ; and meantime what you get out of it 
will belong to you. Do you see ?" 

And Jurgis sai^. He went back to the yards, and into 
the work-room. The men had left a long line of hogs io 



THE JT7N0LB 819 

Tarlotui sta^ of preparation, and the foreman was direct- 
ing the feeble efforts of a score or two of clerks and stenog* 
raphers and office-boys to finish up the job and get them 
into the chillin?-rooms. Jurgis went straight up to him 
and announceOi ^^I have come back to work, Mr. 
Murphy.** 

The boss's face lighted up. **(jood man!** he cried* 
** Come ahead 1 *' 

*^ Just a moment,** said Jurgis, checking his enthusiasm. 
** I think I ought to get a little more wages.*' 

**Yes," replied the other, "of course. What do you 
want?** 

Jurgis had debated on the way. His nerve almost 
failed him now, but he clenched his hands. " I think I 
ought to have three dollars a day,*' he said. 

" All right,** said the other, promptly ; and before the 
day was out our friend discoverea that the clerks and 
stenographers and office-boys were getting five dollars a 
day, and then he coidd have kicked himself I 

So Jurgis became one of the new " American heroes,'' a 
man whose virtues merited comparison with those of the 
martyrs of Lexington and Valley Forge. The resem* 
blance was not complete, of course, for Jurgis was gener* 
ously paid and comfortably clad, and was provided with 
a spring-cot and a mattress and three substantial meals a 
day; also he was perfectly at ease, and safe from all peril of 
life and limb, save only in the case that a desire for beer 
should lead iiim to venture outside of the stockyards 
gates. And even in the exercise of this privilege he was 
not left unprotected ; a good part of the inadequate police 
force of Chicago was suddenly diverted from its work of 
hunting criminals, and rushed out to serve him. 

The police, and the strikers also, were determined that 
there should be no violence ; but there was another party 
interested which was minded to the contrary — and that 
was the press. On the first day of his life as a strike- 
breaker Jurgis quit work early, and in a spirit of bravado 
he challenged three men of his acquaintance to go outside 



S30 THE JUNOLE 

and get a drink. They accepted, and went throngh the big 
Halsted Street gate, where several policemen were watch- 
ing, and also some union pickets, scanning sharply those who 
pused in and out. Jurgis and his companions went south 
on Halsted Street, past the hotel, and then suddenly half 
a dozen men started across the street toward them and 
proceeded to argue with them concerning *the error of their 
ways. As the arguments were not taken in the proper 
spirit, they went on to threats ; and suddenly one of them 
jerked off the hat of one of the four and flung it over tiie 
fence. The man started after it, and then, as a cry of 
^ Scab I ** was raised and a dozen people came running out 
of saloons and doorways, a second man's heart failed him 
and he followed. Jurgis and the fourth stayed long enough 
to give themselves the satisfaction of a quick exchanm of 
' blows, and then they, too, took to their heels and fled back 
of the hotel and into the yards again. Meantime, of course, 
policemen were coming on a run, and as a crowd gathered 
other police got excited and sent in a riot-calL Jurgis 
knew nothing of this, but went badk to ^^ Packers* Ave- 
nue,** and in front of the ^ Central Time-Station '* he saw 
one of his companions, breathless and wild with excite- 
ment, narrating to an ever growing throng how the foui 
had been attached and surrounded by a howling mob, and 
had been nearlv torn to pieces. While he stood listening, 
smiling cynically, several dapper young men stood by witii 
note-lMOKS in their hands, and it was not more than two 
hours later that Jurgis saw newsboys running about with 
armfuls of newspapers, printed in red and Mack letters 
six inches high : — 

VIOLENCE m THE YARDS I STRIKE-BREAKERS 8UBr 

ROUNDED BY FRENZIED MOB I 

If he had been able to buy all of the newspapers of the 
United States the next morning, he might have discovered 
that his beer-huntin? exploit was being perused by some 
two score millions of people, and had served as a text for 
editorials in half the staid and solemn business men*8 ne w» 
papers in the land. 



I 



THE JUNOLB 821 

Jtugis was to see more of this as time passed For the 
present, his work being over, he was free to ride into the 
city, by a railroad direct from the yards, or else to spend 
the night in a room where cots had been laid in rows. 
He chpse the latter, but to his regret, for all night long 
mnffs of strike-breakers kept arriving. As very few ot 
the oetter class of working-men could he got for such wosk, 
these specimens of the new American hero contained an 
assortment of the criminals and thugs of the city, besides 
negroes and the lowest foreigners — Greeks, Roumanians, 
Sicilians, and Slovaks. They had been attracted more by 
the prospect of disorder than b^ the big wages ; and they 
made the night hideous with sing^g and carousing, and 
only went to sleep when the time came for them to get up 
to work. 

In the morning before Jurgis had finished his breakfast, 
^ Pat ^ Murphy ordered him to one of the superintendents, 
who questionea him as to his experience in the work of 
the kUling-robm. His heart began to thump with excite- 
ment, for he divined instantly that his hour had come — 
tliat he was to be a boss t 

Some of the foremen were union members, and many 
who were not had gone out with the men. It was in the 
killing department that tiie packers had been left most in 
the lurch, and precisely here that they coidd least afford 
it: the smoking and cimning and salting of meat mi^ht 
wait, and all the by-producte might be wasted — but 
fresh meats must be had, or the restauranto and hotels and 
brown-stone houses woidd feel the pinch, and then ^ public 
opinion '* woidd take a startling turn. 

An opportunity such as this would not come twice to a 
man ; and Jurgis seized it. Tea, he knew the work, the 
whole of it, and he could teach it to others. But if he 
took the job and gave satisfaction he would expect to keep 
it — they would not turn him off at the end of the strike r 
To which the superintendent replied that he might safely 
trust Durham's for that— they proposed to teach these 
miions a lesson, and most of all those foremen who had 
gone back on them. Jurgis would receive five doUars a 



822 THE JUNOLB 



day daring the strike, and twenty-five a week after it ww 
settled. 

So our friend got a pair of ^* slaughter-pen " boots and 
^ jeans,*^ and flung himself at his task. It was a weird 
sight, there on the killing-beds — a throng of stupid black 
negroes, and foreigners who could not understand a word 
that was said to them, mixed with pale-faced, hollow* 
chested bookkeepers and clerks, hajf-faintine for the 
tropical heat ana the sickening stench of fresh blood — 
and all struggling to dress a dozen or two of cattle in the 
same place where, twenty-four hours ago, the old killing* 
gang nad been speeding, with their marrellous preoisiooi 
turning out four hundred carcasses every hour I 

The negroes and the ^ toughs '* from the Levee did not 
want to work, and every few minutes some of them would 
feel obliged to retire and recuperate. In a couple of davM 
Durham and Company had electric fans up to codl off ma 
rooms for them, and even couches for them to rest on ; and 
meantime they could go out and find a shady corner and 
take a ^ snooze,'' and as there was no place for any one in 
particular, and no system, it might be hours before theii 
boss dispovered them. As for the poor office employees, 
they did their best, moved to it by terror ; thirty of Uiem 
had been ^^ fired *' in a bunch that first morning for refus- 
ing to serve, besides a number of women clerks and 
typewriters who had declined to act as waitresses. 

It was such a force as this that Jurgis had to organize. 
He did his best, fiying here and there, placing them in 
rows and showinc^ tnem the tricks ; he haa never given an 
order in his life before, bilt he had taken enough of them 
to know, and he soon fell into the spirit of it, and roared 
and stormed like any old stager. He had not the most 
tractable pupils, however. ^ See hyar, boss,*' a big black 
^buck'' would begin, ** ef you doan' like de way Ah does 
dis job, you kin git somebody else to do it." Then a crowd 
would gather and listen, muttering threats. After the first 
meal nearly all the steel knives had been missing, and now 
every negro had one, ground to a fine point, hiaden in his 
boots. 



THE JUNOLB SSS 

There was no bringing order out of such a chaos, Jurgis 
soon discovered ; ana he fell in with the spirit of the thing 
— there was no reason why he should wear himself out 
with shouting. If hides and guts were slashed and ren- 
dered useless there was no way of tracing it to any one i 
and if a man lay off and forgot to come back there was 
nothing to be gained by seeking him, for all the rest would 
quit in the meantime. Eyerything went, during the strike* 
and the packers paid. Before long Jurgis found that the 
custom of resting had suggested to some alert minds the 
possibility of registering at more than one place and earn- 
ing more than one five dollars a day. When he caught a 
man at this he ^ fired ** him, but it chanced to be in a quiet 
comer, and the man tendered him a ten-dollar bill and a 
wink, and he took them. Of course, before long this cus- 
tom spread, and Jurgis was soon making quite a good 
income from it. 

In the face of handicaps such as these the packers 
counted themselves lucky if they could kill off the cattle 
that had been crippled in transit and the hogs that had 
developed disease. Frequently, in the course of a two or 
three oays* trip, in hot weather and without water, some 
hog would develop cholera, and die ; and the rost would 
attack him before he had ceased kicldng, and when the car 
was opened there would be nothing of him left but the 
bones. If all the hogs in this car-load were not killed at 
once, they would soon be down with the dread disease, and 
tiiere would be nothing to do but make them into lard. 
It was the same with cattle that were gored and dying, or 
were limping with broken bones stuck through their flesh 
— they must be killed, even if brokers ana buyers and 
superintendents had to take off their coats and help drive 
and cut and skin them. And meantime, agents of the 
packers were gathering gfangs of negroes in the country 
districts of the far South, promising them five dollars a day 
and board, and being careful not to mention there was a 
strike ; already car-loads of them were on the way, with 
special rates from the railroads, and all traffic ordered out 
of the way. Many towns and cities were taking advantage 



8M THE JXT^OLB 



of the chanoe to dear oat their jailB and work-hooees -— ii 
Detroit the magistrates would release every man who 
acpreed to leaye town within twenty-f oar hoars, and a^pnti 
of the packers were in the conrt-rooms to ship them right. 
And meantime train-loads of scmplies were ooming in for 
thdr accommodation, including oieer and whiskey, so that 
they might not be tempted to gp outside. They hired 
thhrty young girls in Cincinnati to ^pack fruit,** and 



when they arriyed put them at work canning corned-beef, 
and put cots for them to sleep in a public haUway, through 
whicm the men passed* As the gangs came in day and 
night, under the escort of squads of police, they stowed 
them away in miased work-rooms and rtore-roomfl, «id in 
the carnaheds, crowded so closely together that the cots 
touched. In some places they would use the same room 
for eating and sleeping, and at night the men would put 
their cots upon the tables, to keep away from the sw a r mB 
of rats. 

But with all their best efforts, the packers were demor- 
alized. Ninety per cent of the men had walked out ; and 
they faced the task of completely remaking their labor 
force — and with the price of meat up thirty per cent, and 
the public clamoring for a settlement. They made an 
offer to submit the whole question at issue to arbitration; 
and at the end of ten days the unions accepted it, and the 
strike was called off. It was agreed that aU the men were 
to be reemployed within forty-fiye days, and that there 
was to be ^ no discrimination against union men.** 

This was an anxious time for Jurgis. U the men 
were taken back ^ without discrimination,^ he would lose 
his present place. He sought out the superintendent, who 
smiled grindy and bade him ^ wait and see.** Durham*! 
strike-breakers were few of them leaying. 

Whether or not the ^ settlement ** was simply a trick o( 
the packers to gain time, or whether they really expected 
to break the strike and cripple the unions by the plan, can' 
not be said ; but that night there went out from the offioe 
of Durham and Company a telegram to all the big packii^ 
oentres, ^^ Employ no union leaders-** And in the *" — 



THE JUKGLE 326 

ing, when the twenty thonsand men thronged into the 
yards, with their dinner-pails and working-clothes, Jurgis 
stood near the door of the hog-trimming room, where he 
had worked before the strike, and saw a throng of eager 
meQ, with a score or two of policemen watching them ; and 
he saw a superintendent come out and walk down the line, 
and pick out man after man that pleased him ; and one 
after another came, and there were some men up near the 
head of the line who were never picked — they being the 
union stewards and delegates, and the men Jurgis had 
heard making speeches at the meetings. Each time, of 
course, there were louder murmurings and anj;rier looks. 
Over where the cattle-butchers were waiting, tfurgis heard 
shouts and saw a crowd, and he hurried there. One big 
batcher, who was president of the Packing Trades Council 
had been passed over five times, and the men were wild 
with rage ; they had appointed a committee of three to 
go in and see the superintendent, and the committee had 
made three attempts, and each time the police had clubbed 
them back from the door. Then there were yells and hoots, 
continuing until at last the superintendent came to the 
door. ^ We all go back or none of us do I *' cried a hun« 
dred yoices. And the other shook his fist at them, and 
shouted, ^Tou went out of here like cattle, and like 
cattle youll come back I ^ 

Then suddenly the big butcher president leaped upon 
a pile of stones and yelled : ^ It*s off, boys. Well all of 
us quit again I ^ And so the cattle-butchers declared a new 
steike on the spot ; and gathering their members from the 
other plants, where the same trick had been played, they 
marched down Packers* Avenue, which was tibironged with 
a dense mass of workers, cheerine wildly. Men who had 
already eot to work on the kiUing-beds dropped their 
tools and joined them ; some galloped here and there on 
horseback, shouting the tidings, and within half an hour 
the whole of Paokingtown was on stril^e again, and beside 
Haelf with fury. 

There was q[«ite a different tone in Paokingtown aftttt 



128 THE JUNGLE 

this — the place was a seething caldron of passion, and Aa 
*^8C^b*' who yentured into it fared badly. There were 
one or two of these incidents each day, the newspapers 
detailing them, and always blaming them upon the unions. 
Tet ten years before, when there were no unions in Pack* 
ingtown, there was a strike, and national troops had to be 
caUed, and there were pitched battles fought at night, by 
the light of blazing freight-trains. Paclangtown was al- 
ways a centre of violence ; in ** Whiskey r oint,** where 
there were a hundred saloons and one jp^lue-factory, there 
was always fighting, and always more of it in hot weather. 
Any one who had ^ikken the trouble to consult Uie station- 
house blotter would have found that there was less vio- 
lence that summer than ever before — and this while 
^enty thousand men were out of work, and with nothing 
to do all day but brood upon bitter wrongs. There was 
no one to picture the battle the union leaders were fight- 
ing — to hold this huge army in rank, to keep it from 
strasfgling and pillaging, to cheer and encourage and 
guide a hundrea thousand people, of a dozen dmerent 
tongues, through six long weeks of hunger and disap- 
pointment and despair. 

Meantime the packers had set themselves definitely to 
the task of making a new labor force. A thousand or 
two of strike-breakers were brought in every night, and 
distributed among the various plants. Some of them were 
experienced workers, — butohers, salesmen, and managers 
from the packers* branch stores, and a few union men 
who had deserted from other cities ; but the vast major- 
ity were ^ green *' negroes from the cotton districts of ihe 
far South, and they were herded into the packing-plants 
like sheep. There was a law forbidding the use of build- 
ings as lodging-houses unless they were licensed for the 
purpose, and provided with proper windows, stairways, 
and fire-escapes; but here, in a ** paint-room,*' reached 
only by an enclosed ** chute," a room without a single 
window and only one door, a hundred men were crowdted 
upon mattresses on the fioor. Up on the third story of ibB 
^nog-house ^ of Jones's was a store-room, without a win- 



THE JUNGLE 89 

dow, into which they crowded seven hundred men, sleep- 
ing upon the bare springs of cots, and with a second shift 
to use them by day* And when the clamor of the public 
led to an investigation into these conditions, and the mayor 
of the city was forced to order the enforcement of the law, 
the packers got a judge to issue an injunction forbidding 
him to do it r 

Just at this time the mayor was boasting that he had 
put an end to gambling and prize-fighting in the city; 
But here a swarm of professional gamblers had leagued 
themselves with the police to fleece the strike-breakers ; 
and any night, in the big open space in front of Brown's, 
one might see brawny negroes stripped to the waist and 
pounding each other for money, while a howling throng 
of three or four thousand surged about, men and women, 
voung white girls from the country rubbing elbows with 
big buck negroes with daggers in their boots, while rows 
at woolly heads peered down from everv window of the 
surrounding factories. The ancestors of these black people 
bad been savages in Africa ; and since then they had been 
diattel slaves, or had been held down by a community 
ruled by the traditions of slavery. Now for the first time 
they were free, — free to gpratify every passion, free to 
wreck themselves. They were wanted to break a strike, 
and when it was broken they would be shipped away, and 
their present masters would never see them again ; and so 
whiskey and women were brought in by the car-load and 
aold to them, and heU was let loose in uie yards. Every 
night there were stabbings and shootings ; it was said that 
the packers had blank permits, which enabled them to ship 
dead bodies from the city without troubling the authori- 
ties. They lodged men and women on the same floor ; and 
with the night there began a saturnalia of debauchery — 
scenes such as never before had been witnessed in America. 
And as the women were the dregs from the brothels of 
Chicago, and the men were for the most part ignorant 
country negroes, the nameless diseases of vice were soon 
rife ; and uiis where food was being handled which was 
tent oat to eveiy oomer of the civilized world. 



838 THE JUNGLE 

The ** Union Stockyards " were never a pleasant place ; 
but now they were not only a collection of slaughter- 
houses, but also the camping-place of an army of fifteen ox 
twenty thousand human beasts. All day long the blazing 
midsummer sun beat down upon that square mile of 
abominations : upon tens of thousands of cattle crowded 
into pens whose wooden floors stank and steamed conta- 
gion ; upon bare, blistering, cinder-strewn railroad-tracks, 
and huge blocks of dingy meat-factories, whose labyrinthine 
passages defied a breatn of fresh air to penetrate them ; 
and there were not merely rivers of hot blood, and car- 
loads of mobt flesh, and renderine-yats and soap-caldrons, 
glue-factories and fertilizer tan^s, that smelt like the 
craters of heU — there were also tons of garbage festering 
in the sun, and the greasy laundry of the workers hung 
out to dry, and dining-rooms littered with food and blaci 
with flies, and toUet-rooms that were open sewers. 

And then at night, when this throng poured out into 
the streets to play — fighting, gambling, drinking and 
carousing, cursing and screaming, laughing and singing, 
playing banjoes and dancing I They were worked in the 
yards all the seven days of the wecK, and they had their 
prize-fights and crap-games on Sunday nights as well; but 
then around the comer one might see a bonfire blazing, 
and an old, gray-headed negress, lean and witchlike, her 
hair flying ^d and her eyes blazing, yelling and chanting 
of the fires of perdition and the blood of the ^ Lamb, 
while men and women lay down upon the g^und and 
moaned and screamed in convulsions of terror and remorse. 

Such were the stockyards during the strike ; while the 
onions watched in sullen despair, and the country clamored 
like a greedy child for its food, and the packers went 
grimly on their way. E2ach day they added new workers, 
and could be more stem with the old ones — could put 
ihem on piece-work, and dismiss them if they did not keep 
up the pace. Jurgis was now one of their agents in this 
process ; and he could feel the change day by day, like 
the slow starting up of a huge machine. He had gotten 
nsed to being a master of men; and because of the stifling 



THE JUNGLE 880 

heat and the stenoh, and the fact that he was a ^soab** 
and knew it and despised himself, he was drinking, and 
developine a villainous temper, and he stormed and cnrs^ 
and raged at his men, and drove them antil they were 
ready to drop with exhaustion. 

Then one day late in August, a superintendent ran into 
the place and shouted to Jur^is and his gang to drop 
their work and come. They followed him outside, to 
where, in the midst of a dense throng, they saw several 
two-horse trucks waiting, and three patrol-wagon loads of 
police. Jurgis and his men sprang upon one of the trucks, 
and the driver yelled to the crowd, and they went thunder- 
ing away at a gallop. Some steers had just escaped from 
the yards, and the strikers had got hold of them, and there 
would be the chance of a scrap! 

They went out at the AshLmd Avenue gate, and over 
fn the direction of the ^ dump.*' There was a yell as soon 
as they were sighted, men ana women rushing out of houses 
and saloons as they galloped by. There were eight or ten 
policemen on the truck, however, and there was no dis* 
turbance until they came to a place where the street was 
blocked with a dense throng. Those on the flying truck 
yelled a warning and the crowd scattered peU-mell, dis- 
closing one of the steers lying in its blood. There were 
a good many cattle-butchers about just then, with nothing 
much to do, and hungry children at nome ; and so some one 
had knocked out the steer — and as a first-dass man can 
kill and dress one in a couple of minutes, there were a 
good many steaks and roasts already missing. This called 
for punishment, of course ; and the police proceeded to ad- 
minister it by leaping from the trucK and cracking at every 
head thev saw. There were yells of rage and pain, and 
the terrined people fled into houses and stores, or scattered 
helter-skelter down the street. Jurgis and his gang joined 
in the sport, every man siufipling out his victim, and striv- 
ing to bring him to bay ana punch him. If he fled into 
a house his pursuer would smash in the flimsy door and 
follow him up the stairs, hitting every one who came 

it 



8S0 THE JUNGLE 

within reach, and finally dragging his squealing qnarry 
from under a bed or a pUe of old oTotbes in a closet 

Jurgis and two policemen chased some men into a bar> 
room. One of them took shelter behind the bar, where a 
policeman cornered him and proceeded to whack him over 
the back and shoulders, until he lay down and g^ye a 
chance at his head. The others leaped a fence in the rear, 
balking the second policeman, who was fat ; and as he came 
back, furious and cursing, a big Polish woman, the owner 
of the saloon, rushed in screaming, and received a poke in 
the stomach that doubled her up on the floor. Meantime 
Jurgis, who was of a practical temper, was helping himself 
at the bar ; and the first policeman, who had laid out his 
man, joined him, handing out several more bottles, and 
filling his pockets besides, and then, as he started to leave, 
cleaning off all the balance with a sweep of his club. The 
din of the glass crashing to the floor brought the fat Po- 
lish woman to her feet again, but another policeman came 
np behind her and put his knee into her back and his 
hands over her eyes — and then called to his companion, 
who went back and broke open the cash-drawer and filled 
his pockets with the contents. Then the three went out- 
side, and the man who was holdinc^ the woman gave her a 
shove and dashed out himself. The gang having already 
got the carcass on to the truck, the party set out at a trot, 
Followed by screams and curses, and a shower of bricks 
and stones from unseen enemies. These bricks and stones 
would figure in the accounts of the ^^ riot " which would 
be sent out to a few thousand newspapers within an hour 
or two ; but the episode of the cash-drawer would ne^er 
be mentioned again, save only in the heart-breaking legends 
of Packing^own. 

It was late in the afternoon when they got back, and 

they dressed out the remainder of the steer, and a couple 
of others that had been killed, and then knocked off lor 
the day. Jurgis went down-town to supper, with three 
friends who had been on the other trucKs, and they ex- 
changed reminiscences on the way. Afterward they 



THE JUNGLE 331 

drifted into a roulette-parlor, and Jur^is, who was never 
lucky at gambling, dropped about mteen dollars. To 
console himself he had to drink a good deal, and he went 
back to Packingtown about two o'clock in the morning, 
very much the worse for his excursion, and, it must be 
oomessed, entirely deserving the calamity that was in store 
for him. 

As he was going to the place where he slept, he met a 
painted-cheeked woman in a greasy ^kimono,'' and she 
put her arm about his waist to steady him ; they turned 
into a dark room they were passing — but scarcely had 
they taken two steps before suddenly a door swung open, 
and a man entered, carrying a lantern. ^ Who's there ? ** 
he called sharply. And Jurgis started to mutter some 
reply ; but at the same instant the man raised his light, 
which flashed in his face, so that it was possible to recog- 
nize him. Jurgis stood stricken dumb, and his heart gave 
a leap like a mad thing. The man was Connor I 

Connor, the boss of the loading gang I The man who 
had seduced his wife — who had sent him to prison, and 
wrecked his home, and ruined his life t He stood t^ere, 
staring, with the light shining full upon him. 

Jurgis had often thought of Connor since coming back 
to Packing^wn, but it mid been as of something far off, 
that no longer concerned him. Now, however, when he 
saw him, alive and in the flesh, the same thing happened 
to him that had happened before — a flood of rage boiled 
up in him, a blind frenzy seized him. And he flung him- 
aelf at the man, and smote him between the eyes — and 
then, as he fell, seized him by the throat and began to 
pound his head upon the stones. 

The woman began screaming, and people came rushing 
in. The lantern had been upset and extinguished, and it 
was so dark they could not see a thing ; but they could 
hear Jurgis panting, and hear the thumping of his victim's 
skull, and tiiey ruusihed there and tried to piull him ofi. 
Precisely as before, Jurgis came away with a piece of his 
enemy's flesh between his teeth ; and, as before, he went 
on fighting with those who had interfered with hinu 



882 THE JUKGLE 

until a polioeman had oome and beaten him into insenai- 
bilitj. 

And so Jurgis spent the balance of the night in the 
stockyards station-house. This time, however, he had 
money in his pocket, and when he came to his senses he 
could get something to drink, and also a messenger to 
take word of his plight to ^^ Bush" Harper. Harper did 
not appear, however, until after the prisoner, feeling 
very weak and ill, had been haled into court and re- 
manded at five hundred dollars' bail to await the result of 
his victim's injuries. Jurgis was wild about this, because 
a different magistrate had chanced to be on the bench, 
and he had stated that he had never been arrested before, 
and also that he had been attacked first — and if only 
some one had been there to speak a good word for him, 
he could have been let off at once. 

But Harper explained that he had been down-town, and 
had not got the message. ** What's happened to you ? " 
he asked. 

•' I've been doin^ a feUow up,*' said Jurgis, " and I've 
got to get five hundred dollars' bail." 

**I can arrange that all right,*' said the other — 
** though it may cost you a few dollars, of course. But 
what was the trouble?" 

** It was a man that did me a mean trick once," an- 
swered Jurgis. 

^^Whoishe?" 

^He's a foreman in Brown's— or used to be. ESs 
name's Connor." 

And the other gave a start. ^ Connor 1 " he criedi 
«* Not Phil Connor I " 

** Yes," said Jurgis, ** that's the fellow. Why ? " 

** Grood God I " exclaimed the other^ ^ then you're in for 
it, old man I J can't help you I " 

**Not help me I Why not?" 

^ Why, lie's one of Scully's bigffest men— he*8 a mem- 
ber of the War- Whoop League, andUiey talked of sending 
him to the legislature I Pnil Oonnor I Great heavens I^ 



THE JITNGLB 888 

Jnigis sat drunb with dismay. 

*» Why, he can send you to Joliet, if he wants to t ^ de- 
dared the other. 

^ Can't I have Scolly get me off before he finds ont 
about it ? " asked Jurgis, at length. 

*^ But Scully's out of town,*' the other answered. ^ I 
don't even know where he is — he*s run away to dodge 
the strike.** 

That was a pretty mess, indeed. Poor Jurgis sat half* 
dazed. His pull liad run up against a bigger pull^ and 
he was down and out I ^But \niat am I going to do ?'* 
he asked, weakly. 

** How should I know ? " said the other. ** I shouldn't 
even dare to get bail for you — why, I might ruin myself 
for life!" 

Again there was silence. ^ Can't you do it for me,** 
Jurgis asked, *^ and pretend that you didn't know who I'd 
hit?" 

^* But what good would that do you when you came to 
stand trial?" asked Harper. Then he sat buried in 
thought for a minute or two. ^^ There's nothing — unless 
it's this," he said. *^ I could haye your bail reduced ; and 
then if you had the money you coiild pay it and skip." 

^How much will it be?" Jur^ asked, after he had 
had this explained more in detail. 

** I don't know," said the other. " How much do you 
own?" 

^ I'ye got about three hundred dollars," was the answer. 

•*Well," was Harper's reply, "I'm not sure, but I'll 
try and ^et you off for that. I'll take the risk for friend- 
ship's sake — for I'd hate to see you sent to state's prison 
for a year or two." 

And so finally Jurgis ripped out his bank-book — which 
was sewed up in his trousers — and signed an order, 
which ** Bush " Harper wrote, for all the money to be paid 
out. Then the latter went and got it, and hurried to the 
court, and explained to the magistrate that Jurgb was a 
decent feUow and a friend of Scully's, who had been at- 
tacked by a strike-breaker. So the bail was reduced to 



«tt 



THE JXTNGLB 



three hundred dollars, and Harper went on it himself ; he 
did not tell this to Jurgis, however — nor did he tell him 
that when the time for trial came it would be an easy 
matter for him to aroid the forfeiting of the bail, and 
pocket the three hundred dollars as his reward for the risk 
of offending Mike Scully ! All that he told Jurgis was that 
he was now free, and that the best thing he could do was 
to clear out as quickly as possible ; and so Jurgis, over- 
whelmed with gratitude and relief, took the dollar and 
fourteen cents that was left him out of all his bank 
account, and put it with the two dollars and a quarter 
Uiat was left from his last night's celebration, and boarded 
a street-car and got off at the other end of Chicago. 



4 



1 CHAPTER XXVn 



^ PoOB Jurgis was now an oatcast and a tramp onoe 

i more. He was crippled — he was as literally crippled as 

I any wild animal which has lost its claws, or been torn out 

1 of its shell. He had been shorn, at one cut, of all those 

^ mysterious weapons whereby he had been able to make a 

' liying easUy and to escape tne consequences of his actions. 

i He could no longer command a job when he wanted it ; 

i he could no longer steal with impunity — he must take 

^ his chances with the common herd. Nay worse, he dared 

I not mingle with the herd — he must hide by himself, for 

i he was one marked out for destruction. His old com- 

: panions would betray him, for the sake of the influence 

i they would gain thereby ; and he would be made to suffer, 

4 not merely for the offence he had committed, but for 

\ others which would be laid at his door, just as had been 

* done for some poor deyil on the occasion of that assault 

.; npon the " country customer " by him and Duane. 

^ And also he lal)ored under another handicap now. He 

I bad acquired new standards of liying, which were not 

'I easily to be altered. When he had been out of work be« 

4 fore, he had been content if he could sleep in a doorway 

or under a tnick out of the rain, and if he could get fifteen 

cents a day for saloon lunches. But now he desired all 

l^ sorts of oUier things, and suffered because he had to do 

4 without them. He must haye a drink now and then, a 

I drink for its own sake, and apart from the food that came 

' with it. The craying for it was strong enough to master 

I eyery other consideration — he would haye it, though it 

' were his last nickel and he had to stanre the balance of 

I the day in consequence. 

j m 



386 THE JUNGLE 

Jnrgis beoame onoe more a besieger of faetory gatea. 
But never ainoe he had been in Ohioago had he atood leai 
chanoe of getting a job than just then. For one thing, 
there was the economic crisis, the million or two of men 
who had been out of work in the spring and summer, and 
were not yet all back, by any means. And then there 
was the strike, with seventy thousand men and women all 
over the country idle for a couple of months— twenty 
thousand in Chicago, and many of them now seeking won 
throughout the city. It did not remedy matters that a 
few days later the strike was given up and about half the 
strikers went back to work ; for everv one taken on, 
there was a ^* scab '' who gave up and fled. The ten or 
fifteen thousand ^^ green *' negroes, foreigners, and criminals 
were now being turned loose to shift for themselves. 
Evenrwhere Jurgis went he kept meeting them, and he 
was m an affony of fear least some one of them should 
know that ne was ^^ wanted.'* He would have left 
Chicago, only by the time he had realized his danger he 
was abnost penniless ; and it would be better to go to jail 
than to be caught out in the country in the winter-time. 

At the end of about ten days Jurgis had only a few 
pennies left ; and he had not yet found a job — not even 
a day's work at anything, not a chanoe to carrv a satchel. 
Onoe again, as when he had oome out of the hospital, he 
was bound hand and foot, and facing the grisly phantom 
of starvation. Raw, naked terror possessed him, a madden- 
ing passion that would never leave him, and that wore him 
down more quickly than the actual want of food. He was 
going to die of hunger I The fiend reached out its oealj 
arms for him-^it touched him, its breath came into hia 
face; and he would cry out for the awfulness of it, he 
would wake up in the night, shuddering, and bathed in 
perspiration, and start up and flee. He would walk, beg- 
ging for work, until he was exhausted ; he could not remain 
still — he would wander on, gaunt and haggard, gadng 
about him with restless eyes. Everywhere he went, from 
one end of the vast city to the other, Uiere were hundreds ol 
others like him s everywhere was the sight of plent)^ -^ 



THE JTTKGLB 337 

and the meroileas hand of autiiority waving them awaj. 
There is one kind of prison where the man is behind barsi 
and everything that he desires is outside ; and there is 
another kind where the things are behind the bars, and 
the man is outside. 

When he was down to his last quarter, Jurgis learned 
that before the bakeshops closed at night they sold out 
what was left at half price, and after that he would go 
and get two loaves of stale bread for a nickel, and break 
them up and stuff his pockets with them, munching a bit 
from time to time. He would not spend a psnny save for 
this ; and, after two or three days more, he even became 
sparing of the bread, and would stop and peer into the ash- 
barrels as he walked along the streets, and now and then 
rake out a bit of something, shake it free from dust, and 
count himself just so many minutes further from the 
end. 

So for several days he had been going about, ravenous 
all the time, and growing weaker and weaker ; and tiien 
ene morning he had a hideous experience, that almost 
broke his h^rt. He was passing down a street lined with 
warehouses, and a boss offered mm a job, and then, after 
he had started to work, turned him off because he was not 
strong enough. And he stood by and saw another man 
put into his place, and then picked up his coat, and walked 
off, doing aK that he could to keep from breaking down 
and crying like a baby. He was lost 1 He was doomed I 
There was no hope for him ! But then, with a sudden 
rush, his fear gave place to rage. He fell to cursing. He 
would come back there after dark, and he would show 
that scoundrel whether he was good for anything or not! 

He was still muttering this when suddenly, at the cor* 
ner, he came upon a green-grocery, with a tray fuU of 
cabbages in front of it. Jurgis, after one swift glance 
about him, stooped and seized the biggest of them, and 
darted round the corner with it. There was ia hue and 
ery, and a score of men and boys started in chase of him ; 
but he came to an alley, and then to another branchLu% 




THE JXTNGLB 

off from it and leading him into another street, where he 
fell into a walk, and slipped hb cabbas^ under his coat 
and went off unsuspected in the crowa. When he had 
gotten a safe distance away he sat down and deyoured 
half the cabbage raw, stowing the balance away in his 
pockets till the next day. 

Just about this time one of the Chicago newspapers, 
which made much of the ^common people," opened a 
*^ free-soup kitchen " for the benefit of the unemployed. 
Some people said that they did this for the sake of the 
advertising it gaye them, and some others said that their 
motiye was a fear lest all their readers should be starved 
off ; but whatever the reason, the soup was thick and hot, 
and there was a bowl for every man, all night long. 
When Jurgis heard of this, from a fellow ^^hobo,** he 
vowed that he would have half a dozen bowls before 
morning ; but, as it proved, he was lucky to get one, tor 
there was a line of men two blocks long before the stand, 
and there was just as long a line when the place was finally 
closed up. 

This depot was within the danger-line for Jurffi8->«ia 
the ^ Levee ** district, where he was known ; but he went 
there, all the same, for he was desperate, and b^^inning 
to think of even the Bridewell as a place of refuge. So 
&r the weather' had been fair, and he had slept out every 
night in a vacant lot ; but now there fell suddenly a shadow 
of the advancinj? winter, a chill wind from the north and t 
driving storm of rain. That day Jurgis bought two drinks 
for the sake of the shelter, and at nifi^it he spent his last 
two pennies in a ^ stale-beer dive.*' This was a place kepi 
by a negro, who went out and drew off the old dregs ci 
beer that lay in barrels set outside of the saloons ; and idfter 
he had doctored it with chemicals to make it ^ fizz,** he 
sold it for two cents a can, the purchase of a can including 
the privilege of sleeping the night through upon the floor, 
with a mass of degrade! outcasts, men and women. 

All these horrors afiSicted Jurgis all the more cruelly, 
because he was always contrasting ^em with the oppor- 
tunities he had lost. For instance, just now it was election 



THE JUNOLB 330 

time again — within five or six weeks the TOtera of the 
country would select a President; and he heard the 
wretches with whom he associated iUscussing it, and saw 
the streets of the city decorated with placard and banners 
— and what words could describe the pangs of grief and 
despair that shot through him ? 

For instance, there was a night during this cold spell. 
He had begged all day, for his very life, and found not a 
soul to hem him, until toward evening he saw an old 
lady getting off a street-car and helped her down with her 
umbrellas and bundles, and then told her his ^ hard-luck 
story,** and after answering all her suspicious questions 
satisfactorily, was taken to a restaurant and saw a quarter 
paid down for a meal. And so he had soup and bread, 
and boiled beef and potatoes and beans, and pie and 
coffee, and came out with his skin stuffed tight as a foot- 
ball. And then, through the rain and the darkness, far 
down tiie street he saw red lights flaring and heurd the 
thumping of a bass-drum ; and his heart gaye a leap, and 
he made for the place on the run — knowing without the 
asking that it meant a political meeting. 

The campaign had so far been characterized by what 
the newspapers termed ^ apathy.** For some reason the 
people refused to get excited oyer the struggle, and it was 
almost impossible to get them to come to meetingpB, or to 
make any noise when they did come. Those which had 
been held in Chicago so far had proven most dismal 
failures, and to-night, the speaker being no less a person- 
age than a candidate for the vice-presiaency of the nation, 
the pohtical managers had been trembling with anxiety. 
But a merciful Providence had sent this storm of cold rain 
«-and now all it was necessary to do was to set off a few 
fireworks, and thump awhile on a drum, and all the home-^ 
less wretches from a mile around would pour in and fill 
the hall I And then on the morrow the newspapers would 
have a chance to report the tremendous ovation, and to add 
that it had been no ^silk-stocking** audience, either, proving 
dearly that the high-tariff sentiments of the disting^uishea 
eandioate were pleasing to the wage-earners of the natioiu 



810 THE JUNGLB 

So Jnr^ f oand himgelf in a laige hall, daboratelj dao* 
orated with flags and hunting; and after the chiunniyi 
had made his little speech, and Ihe orator of the eyening 
rose up, amid an uproar from the band— only fancy tbfl 
emotions of Jurgis upon making the discovery that the 
personage was none otiier than me famous and eloquent 
Senator Spareshanks, who had addressed the *^ Doyle Re- 
publican Association** at the stockyards, and helped to 
elect Mike Scully's ten-pin setter to the Chicago Board ot 
Aldermen I 

In truth, the sight of the senator almost brought the tean 
into Jurgis's eyes. What agony it was to him to look back 
upon those golden hours, when he, too, had a place beneath 
the shadow of the plum tree I When he, too, had been of 
the elect, through whom the country is governed — when 
he had had a bun^ in the campaign-barrel for his own! 
And this was anouier election in which the Republicans 
had all the money ; and but for that one hideous accident 
he might have had a Shaw of it, instead of being where he 
wasi 

The eloquent senator was explaining the system of Pro* 
tection ; an ingenious device wnereby Vie working-man per* 
mitted the manufacturer to charge him higher prices, in 
order that he might receive higher wages ; thus taking his 
money out of his pocket with one han£ and putting a part 
of it back with the other. To the senator this unique 
arrangement had somehow become identified with the 
higher verities of the universe. It was because of it that 
Columbia was the gem of the ocean ; and all her future 
triumphs, her power and good repute among the nationSt 
depended upon the zeal and fidekty with which each citi» 
zen held up the hands of those who were toiling to main- 
tain it. The name of this heroic company was ^the 
Grand Old Partjr**— 

And here the band began to play, and Jur^ sat up with 
a violent start. Singular as it may seem, Jurgis was making 
a desperate effort to understand what the senator was say- 
ing— > to comprehend the extent of American prospeiitjt 



THE JUNGLE 341 

Hm enonnoas ezpanflion of American commerce, and tiie 
Republic's future in the Pacific and in South America, and 
wherever else the oppressed were groaning. The reason 
for it was that he wanted to keep awake. He knew that 
if he allowed himself to fall asleep he would begin to snore 
loudly; and so he must listen — he must be interested! 
But he had eaten such a big dinner, and he was so ex- 
hausted, and the hall was so warm, and his seat was so com. 
fortable I The senator's eaunt form began to grow dim 
and hazy, to tower before him and dance about, with figures 
of exports and imports. Once his neighbor gave mm a 
savage poke in the ribs, and he sat up with a start and 
tried to look innocent ; but then he was at it again, and 
men began to stare at him with annoyance, and to call out 
in vexation. Finallv one of them called a policeman, who 
came and grabbed Jurgis by the collar, ana jerked him to 
his feet, bewildered and terrified. Some of the audience 
turned to see the commotion, and Senator Spareshanks 
&ltered in his speech; but a voice shouted cheerily: 
^ We're just firing a bum I Gro ahead, old sport I ** And so 
the crowd roared, and the senator smiled genially, and went 
on ; and in a few seconds poor Jurgis found himself landed 
out in the rain, with a kick and a string of curses. 

He ffot into the shelter of a doorway and took stock of 
himself. He was not hurt, and he was not arrested — more 
than he had any right to expect. He swore at himself and 
luck for a while, and then turned his thoughts to prao- 
1 matters. He had no money, and no place to sbep ; 
he must begin begging again. 

He went out, hunchmg his shoulders together and shivep* 
ing at the touch of the icy rain. Comine down the street 
toward him was a lady, well-dressed, and protected by an 
umbrella ; and he turned and walked beside her. *^ Please, 
ma'am,*' he began, ^ could you lend me the price of a night's 
lodgmg ? I'm a poor working-man — ^ 

'Dien, suddenly, he stopped short. Br the light of a 
street lamp he bad ol^ught sight of the lady's face. He 
knew her. 

U was Alena Jasaityte* who had been the belle of his 



342 THE JXJKQLS 

wedding-f e«8t I Alena Jasaiiyte, who had looked so beaih 
tif ul, and danoed with ftuch a queenly air, with Jaoeai 
Raczius, the teamster I Jurgis had only seen her once or 
twice afterward, for Juozas had thrown her over for an* 
other girl, and Alena had gone away from PackingtowD, 
no one knew where. And now he niet her here I 

She was as much surprised as he was. ^Jurgis Rudkus ^ "* 
she gasped. ^ And what in the world is the matter witb 
you?" 

^ I — Fve had hard luck,** he stammered. ^ Fm out of 
work, and I've no home and no money. And you, Alena 
— are you married?** 

^^ No,** she answered, ^ I*m not married, but Tve got a 
good place.** 

They stood staring at each other for a few moments 
longer. Finally Alena spoke again. ^* Jurgis,** she said, 
^I*a help you if I could, upon my word I would, but it 
happens tliat I*ye come out without my purse, and I hon* 
esuy hayen*t a penny with me. I can do something better 
for you, though — I can tell you how to get help. I can 
tell you where Marija is.** 

Jurgis gave a start. ^ Marija I ** he gasped. 

^ Tes,** said Alena ; ** and she'll help you. She*8 ffot a 
place, and 8he*s doing well; she*ll be glaa to eee you.* 

It was not much more than a year since Jurgis had left 
Packingtown, feeling like one escaped from jail ; and it 
had been from Manja and Elzbieta that he was esoaping 
But now, at the mere mention of them, his whole beinff 
cried out with joy. He wanted to see them ; he wantea 
to CO home I They would help him — they would be kind 
to him. In a flash he had thought oyer the situation. He 
had a eood excuse for runnino^ away — his g^ef at the 
death of his son ; and also he had a good excuse for not 
returning — the fact that they had left rackingtown. ^ All 
right,** he said, "I*U go.** 

So she gaye him a number on Clark Street, adding* 
^ There*s no need to giye you my address, because Mariji 
knows it.** And Jurgis set out, without further ada 

He found a laige brown-stone house of aristocnitio a|^ 



THE JUNGLE 348 

pearanoe, and rang the basement bell. A young colored 
girl oame to the door, opening it about an inch, and gazing 
at him BuspioiouBlj. 

** What do yoxk want?'* she demanded. 

^Does Marija Berczynskas live here?" he inquired. 

•* I dunnoy" said the girl. ** What you want wid her ?'* 

^ I want to see her/' said he ; she's a relative of mine.'* 

The ^1 hesitated a moment. Then she opened the door 
and said, '' Come in.'* Jurgis oame and stood in the hall, 
and she continued : '' I'll go see. What's yo' name ?" 

''Tell her it's Jurgis/' he answered, and the girl went 
upstairs. She came back at the end of a minute or two, 
and rej)lied, '' Dey ain't no sich person here." 

Jurgis's heart went down intoms boots. '' I was told 
this was where she lived 1" he cried. 

But the ffirl only shook her head. '' De lady says dey 
ain't no sich person here/' she said. 

And he stood for a moment, hesitating, helpless with 
dismay. Then he turned to go to the door. At the same 
instant, however, there came a knock upon it, and the girl 
went to open it. Jurgis heard the shuffling of feet, and 
then heard her give a cry ; and the next moment she 
sprang back, and past him, her eyes shining white with 
torror, and boundra up the stairw^, screaming at the top 
of her lungs ** Pclioe I PoUoe I We're pinched /" 

Jurgis stood for a second, bewildered. Then, seeing 
blue-coatod forms rushing upon him, he sprang after the 
negress. Her cries had been the signal for a wild uproar 
above; the house was full of people, and as he entered the 
hallway he saw them rushing hither and thither, crying 
and screaming with alarm. There were men and women 
the latter clad for the most part in wrappers, the former in 
all stages of dSshainlle. At one siae Jurgis caught a 
glimpse of a big apartment with plush-covered chairs, and 
tables covered with trays and glasses. There were play- 
ing-cards scattered all over the floor— one of the tables 
had been upset, and bottles of wine were rolling about, 
their contents running out upon the carpet. There was a 



BU THE JUNGLE 

young girl who had feinted, and two men who were m^ 
porting her; and there were a dozen others crowding 
toward the front-door* 

Suddenly, howevert there came a series of resounding 
blows upon it, causing the crowd to giye back. At the 
same instant a stout woman, with painted cheeks and dia- 
monds in her ears, came running down the stairs, panting 
breathlessly : *^ To the rear t Quick I ** 

She led the way to a back staircase, Jurgis following; 
in the kitchen she pressed a spring, and a cupboard gave 
way and opened, disclosing a dark passageway. ** Go m I ** 
she cried to the crowd, wnich now amounted to twenty or 
thirty, and they began to pass through* Scarcely had the 
last one disappeared, howeyer, before there were cries from 
in front, ana then the panicHStricken throng poured out 
again, exclaiming : ^^ They're there too I We^ trapped I ^ 

*^ Upstairs I '* cried the woman, and there was another 
rush of the mob, women and men cursing and screaming 
and fighting to be first. One flight, two, mree — and then 
there was a ladder to the roof, with a crowd packed at the 
foot of it, and one man at the top, straining and struggling 
to lift the trap-door. It was not to be stirred, howeyer, 
and when the woman shouted up to unhook it, he answered: 
*^ It's already unhooked. There^s somebody sitting on it I "* 

And a moment later came a yoice from downstairs: 
^ Ton might as well quit, you people. We mean busincni, 
this time. 

So the crowd subsided ; and a few moments later seyeraJ 
policemen came up, staring here and there, and leering ai 
their yictims. Of the lattor the men were for the most 
part frightened and sheepish-looking* The women took it 
as a joke, as if they were used to it— though if they had 
been pale, one could not haye told, for the paint on their 
cheeks. One Uack-eyed youn? girl perchea herself upon 
the top of the balustrade, and oegan to kick with her slip- 
pered foot at the helmets of the policemen, until one oi 
them caught her by the ankle and pulled her down. Ote 
the floor below four or flye other ^Is sat upon trunks in 
the hall, making fun of the {UNXsesaion which filed by them 



THB JUNGLE 84B 

Thi&r were noisy and hilarious, and had eyidentl]^ been 
drinking; one of tiiem, who wore a bright red lamono^ 
diouted and screamed in a yoice that drowned out all the 
other sounds in the hall — and JurgLs took a glance at hex^ 
and then gave a start, and a cnr, ** Marija I ** 

She heard him, and fflanced around ; then she shrank 
back and half sprang to her feet in amazement, ^ Jurgis I ^ 
Ae gasped. 

For a second or two they stood staring at each othe& 
*How did you come here? Marija exclaimed. 

^I came to see joUf^ he answered. 

••When?** 

••Justnow,** 

••But how did you know— who told you I was here?** 

^ Alena Jasaityte. I met her on the street.** 

Again there was a silence, while they eazed at each other, 
rhe rest of the crowd was watching them, and so Marija 
got up and came closer to him. ••And youf Juigis 
asked. ••Ton live here?" 

•• Yes,** said Marija, •• I live here.** 

Then suddenly came a hail from below: ••Oet your 
dothes on now, girls, and come along. You*d best begin« 
or youll be sorry — it*s raining outside.** 

•• Br-r-r I ** shivered some one, and the women got up and 
entered the various doors which lined the hallwav. 

••Come,** said Marija, and took Jurgis into her room, 
which was a tiny place about eight by six, with a cot and 
a chair and a diessingnstand and some dresses hanging be* 
kind the door. There were clothes scattered about on the 
floor, and hopeless confusion everywhere,— boxes of rouge 
and bottles of perfume mixed witn hats and soiled disher 
en the dresser, and a pair of slippers and a dock and a 
whiskey bottle on a chair. 

Marija had nothing on but a kimono and a pair of stock* 
fags ; yet she proceeded to dress before Jurgis, and witk^ 
aut even taking the trouble to dose the door. He had by 
tfus time divined what sort of a nlace he was in; and m 
had seen a great deal of the worla since he had left home, 
and was not easy to shock— and yet it gave him a painful 

23 



84fr THE JXTNGLB 

ttftrt that Mftrija should do this* They had always beea 
decent people at home, and it seemed to him that the mem* 
017 of old times ou^ht to haye ruled her* But then he 
laughed at himself for a f ooL What was he, to be pre- 
tending to decency t 

^ How long haye you been liying here 7 ^ he asked* 

^ Nearly a year,** she answered* 

•* Why did jrou come ?'* 

^I had to hye,** she sidd; ^and I couldn't see the chil* 
dren stanre*** 

He paused for a moment, watching her. **Yoa were 
out of work? '* he asked, finally* 

*^I got sick,** she replied, ^and after that I had do 
money. And then Stanisloyas died — ** 

^ Stanisloyas dead I *' 

^ Yes,** said Marija, ^ I f oigoL Tou didn*t know about 
It*** 

•'Howdidhedie?*' 

^ Rats killed him,** she answered* 

Jurgis gaye a gasp. ^^ JBote killed him I ** 

^ Yes,** said the other; she was bending oyer, lacing her 
shoes as she spoke* ^^ He was working in an oil tactoij^ 
at least he was hiied by the men to get their beer. He 
used to carry cans on a long pole ; and he*d drink a little 
out of each can, and one day he drank too much, and fell 
asleep in a comer, and got locked up in the place all night 
When they found him the rats had killed him and eatei 
him nearly all up*** 

Jurgis sat, frozen with horror. Marija went on laoiDg 
ap her shoes. There was a long silence* 

Suddenly a bi^ policeman came to the doon ^ Hurxy 
op, there,'* he said. 

^ As quick as I can,** said Marija, and she stood up and 
began putting on her corsets with feyerish haste. 

^ Are the rest of the people aliye ? ** asked Juzgis* finally* 

«* Yes,** she said. 

••Where are they?** 

^ They liye not far from here. They're all right 

^ They are working ? ** he inquired. 



THE JUNGLE 847 

** Ekbieta k,'* said Marija, ^ when she oan. I take care 
of them most of the time — I'm making plenty of money 
now." 

Jurgis was silent for a moment. ^* Do they know you 
live here — how you live ? " he asked. 

«« Elzbieta knows," answered Marija. ^' I couldn't lie to 
her. And maybe the children have found out by this 
time. It's nothing to be ashamed of — we can't help 

^^ And Tamoszius ? " he asked. *^ Does he know ? " 

Marija shrugged her shoulders. ^^How do I know?" 
she said. ^^ I haven't seen him for over a year. He got 
blood-poisoning and lost one finger, and couldn't play the 
violin any more ; and then he went away." 

Marija was standing in front of the glass fastening her 
dress. Jurgis sat staring at her. He could hardly believe 
that she was the same woman he had known in the old 
days J she was so quiet — so hard! It struck fear to his 
heart to watch her. 

Then suddenly she gave a glance at him. ** You look 
as if you had been having a rough time of it yourself/* 
she said. 

**I have," he answered. ^'I haven't a cent in my 
pockets, and nothing to do." 

" Where have you been? " 

^ All over. I ve been hoboing it. Then I went back 
to the yards — just before the strike." He paused for a 
moment, hesitating. ^^ I asked for you," he added. ** I 
found you had gone away, no one knew where. Perhaps 

Jou think I did you a dirty trick, running away as I did, 
lari ja — " 

" No," she answered, " I don't blame you. We never 
have — any of us. You did your best — the job was too 
much for us." She paused a moment, then added : *^ We 
were too ignorant — that was the trouble. We didn't 
stand any chance. If I'd known what I know now 
we'd have won out." 

** You'd have come here?" said Jurgis. 

*^ Yes," she answered ; ^* but that's not what 1 meant 



848 THE JUNGLE 

I meant you — how differentlj you would hare behayed** 
about Ona." 

Jurgis was silent ; he had never thought of that aspect 
of it. 

^^ When people are starving,'* the other continued, ^ and 
they have anything with a price, they ought to sell it, I 
say. I guess you realize it now when it's too late. Ona 
could have taken care of us all, in the beginning." Marija 
spoke without emotion, as one who hM come to regud 
things from the business point of view. 

'^1 — yes, I guess so, Jur^ris answered hesitatingly. 
He did not add that he had paid three hundred dollars, and 
a foreman's job, for the satisfaction of knocking down 
*^ Phil " Connor a second time. 

The policeman came to the door again just then. ^^ Coma 
on, now," he said. " Lively I " 

^^ All right," said Marija, reachine for her hat, which was 
big enough to be a drum-major's, ana full of ostrich feathers. 
She went out into the hall and Jurgis followed, the police- 
man remaining to look under the bed and behind the door. 

«^ What's going to come of this ? " Jurgis asked, as they 
started down the steps. 

*^ The raid, you mean ? Oh, nothing — it happens to us 
every now ana then« The madame's naving some sort of 
time with the police ; I don't know what it is, but mavbe 
they'll come to terms before morning. Anyhow, they 
won't do anything to you. They always let the men off. 

^ Mavbe so," he responded, *^ but not me — Fm afraid 
Fm in for it." 

" How do you mean ? " 

^ I'm wanted by the police," he said, lowering his voice, 
though of course their conversation was in Lithuanian. 
^ They'll send me up for a year or two, Fm afraid." 

'«HfeUI " said Marija. ''That's too bad. FU see if I 
can't get you off." 

Downstairs, where the greater part of the prisoners were 
now massed, she sought out the stout personaee with the 
diamond earrings, and had a few whispered words with her. 
The latter then approached the police sergeant who was in 



THE JUNGLE 849 

charge of the raid. ^ Billj/' she said, pointing to Jurgis, 
*^ there's a fellow who came in to see his sister. He'd just 

fot in the door when jou Knocked. Ton aren't taking 
oboes, are you?" 

The sergeant laughed as he looked at Jurgis. ^^ Sorry/' 
he said, ^^ out the orders are every one but the servants." 

So Jurris slunk in among the rest of the men, who kept 
dodging hehind each other like sheep tiiat have smelt 
a wolf. There were old men and young men, college boys 
and gray beards old enough to be uieir grandfathers; some 
of them wore evening-dress — there was no one among 
them save Jurgis who showed any signs of poverty. 

When the round-up was completed, the doors were 
opened and the party marched out. Three patrol-wagons 
were drawn up at the curb, and the whole neio^hbornood 
had turned out to see the sport ; there was mucn chafBng, 
and a universal craning of necks. The women stared 
about them with defiant eves, or lauc^hed and joked, while 
the men kept their heads bowed, and their hats pulled over 
their faces. They were crowded into the patrol-wagons as 
if into street-cars, and then off they went amid a din of 
cheers. At the station-house Jurjods gave a Polish name 
and was put into a cell with haS a dozen others; and 
while these sat and talked in whispers, he lay down in a 
comer and gave himself up to his thoughts. 

Jurgis had looked into the deepest reaches of the social 

Eit, and grown used to the sights in them. Tet when 
e had thought of all humanity as vile and hideous, he had 
somehow always excepted his own family, that he had 
loved; and now this sudden horrible discovery — Marija 
a whore, and Elzbieta and the children living off her 
shame I Jurgis might argue with himself all he chose, tiiat 
he had done worse, and was a fool for caring — but still 
he could not eet over the shock of that sudden un- 
veiling, he coula not help being sunk in grief because of it. 
The depths of him were trouoled and shaken, memories 
were stirred in him that had been sleeping so long he had 
counted them dead. Memories of the old life — his old 
hopes and his old yearnings, his old dreams of decency and 



880 THE JUNGLE 

independence I He saw Ona again, lie heard her gentle 
voice pleading with him. He saw little Antanas, whom 
he had meant to make a man. He saw his tremhling old 
father, who had blessed them all with his wonderful love. 
He Uyed again through that day of horror when he had 
discovered Ona's shame — Grod, now he had suffered, what 
a madman he had been I How dreadful it had all seemed 
to him ; and now, to-day, he had sat and listened, and half 
agreed when Marija told him he had been a fool I Tes — 
told him that he ought to have sold his wife's honor and 
lived by it I — And then there was Stanislovas and his 
awful fate — that brief story which Marija had narrated so 
calmly, with such dull indifference I The poor little fellow, 
with bis frost-bitten fingers and his terror of the snow — 
his wailing voice rang in Jurg^'s ears, as he lay there in 
the darkness, until the sweat started on his forehead. Now 
and then he would quiver with a sudden spasm of horror, 
at the picture of little Stanislovas shut up in the deserted 
building and fighting for his life with the rats I 

All these emotions had become strangers to the soul of 
Jurgis ; it was so long since they had troubled him that ht 
had ceased to think they might ever trouble him again. 
Helpless, trapped, as he was, ^niat good did they do him-^ 
why should he ever have allowed them to torment himf 
It had been the task of his recent life to fight them down, 
to crush them out of him ; never in his life would he havft 
suffered from them again, save that they had caught hixa 
unawares, and overwhelmed him before he could protect 
himself. He heard the old voices of his soul, he saw it» 
old ghosts beckoning to him, stretching out their arms td 
him f But they were far-off and shadowy, and the 
between them was black and bottomless ; they would 
away into the mists of the past once mere. Their voices 
would die, and never again would he hear them — and se 
the last faint spark of manhood in his soul would flickei 

9Ut. 




CHAPTER XXVm 

After breakfast Jurgis was driven to the court, which 

fts crowded with the prisoneis and those who had come 
^ut of cariosity or in the hope of recognizing one of the 
men and getting a case for blackmail, llie men were called 
mp first, and reprimanded in a bunch, and then dismissed ; 
but Jurgis, to his terror, was called separately, as being a 
Mspicious-looking case. It was in this very same court 
that he had been tried, that time when his sentence had 
been ** suspended " ; it was the same judge, and the same 
derk. The latter now stared at Jurgis, as if he half thought 
that he knew him ; but the judge had no suspicions — just 
then his thoughts were upon a telephone message he was 
aKpecting from a friend of the police captain of the dis- 
trict, teUmc^ what disposition he should make of the case 
•f ^ Polly Simpon, as the *^ madame " of the house was 
known. Me^time, he listened to the story of how Jurgis 
had been looking for his sister, and advised him dryly to 
keep his sister in a better place ; then he let him go, and 
proceeded to fine each of the girls five dollars, which fines 
were paid in a bunch from a wad of bills which Madame 
Polly extracted from her stocking. 

Jurgis waited outside and walked home with Marija. 
The police had left the house, and already there were a few 
visitors; by evening the place would dq running arain, 
ezactlv as if nothing had happened. Meantime, Marija 
took Jurgis upstairs to her room, and they sat and talked. 
By davlifi^ht, Jurgis was able to observe that the color on 
her cheeKS was not the old natural one of abounding 
health ; her complexion was in reality a parchment yellow, 
and there were mack rings under her eyes. 

** Have you been sick ? " he asked. 

Ml 



S62 THE JUNGLE 

""Sick?'' she said. «'HeUI" (Marija had learned to 
scatter her oonyersation with as many oaths as a lonffdior^ 
man or a mule driver.) ^^ How can I ever be anything bat 
sick, at this life ? *' 

She fell silent for a moment, staring.ahead of her gloom- 
ily. ^* It's morphine," she said, at last. ^* I seem to take 
more of it every day." 

"^ What's that for? " he asked. 

^ It's the way of it ; I don't know why. If it isn't that, 
it's diink. If tbe girls didn't booze they couldn't stand it 
any time at all. And the madame always gives them dope 
when they first come, and they learn to Uke it ; or else thej 
take it for headaches and such things, and get the habit 
that wa^. I've eot it, I know ; I've tried to quit, but I 
never will while I'm here." 

^ How long are vou goin^ to stay? " he asked. 

** I don't know," she said. ^* Always, I guess. What 
else could I do?" 

** Don't vou save any money ? " . 

^ Save I said Marija. ^^ Good Lord, no I I get enough, 
I suppose, but it all goes. I get a half share, two dollan 
and a half for each customer, and sometimes I make twenty- 
five or thirtv dollars a night, and you'd think I ought to 
save something out of that I But then I am charged for 
my room and my meals — and such prices as you never 
heard of ; and then for extras, and drinKs — for eveiything 
I get, and some I don't. Mv laundry bill is nearly twenty 
dollars each week alone — think of that I Yet wnat can I 
do ? I either have to stand it or quit, and it would be the 
same anywhere else. It's all I can do to save the fifteei 
dollars I give Elzfaieta each week, so the children can go to 
school." 

Marija sat brooding in silence for a while ; then, seeing 
that Jurgis was interested, she went on : ^^ That's tiie way 
they keep the girls — they let them run up debts, so they 
can t fi^t away. A young girl comes from abroad, and she 
doesn^ know a wora of English, and she gets into a place 
like this, and when she wants to m the madame shows her 
that she is a couple of hundred dollars in debt, and takes 



THE JITNGLB 358 

aD her clothes away, and threatens to have her arrested If 
Ae doesn't stay and do as she's told. So she stays, and 
die longer she stays, the more in debt she gets. Often, 
too, they are girls that didn't know what they were coming 
to, that had mred out for housework. Did you notice that 
little French girl with the yellow hair^ that stood next to 
me in the court ?^ 

Jurffis answered in the aflSrmatiye. 

^ WeU, she came to America about a year ago. She 
was a store^erk, and she hired herself to a man to be sent 
here te work in a factory. There were six of them, all to* 
gether, and they were Drought to a house just down the 
street from here, and this girl was put into a room alone, 
and they gave her some dope in her food, and when she 
oame to she found that she nad been ruined. She cried, 
and screamed, and tore her hair, but she had nothing but a 
wrapper, and couldn't get away,and they kept her hall insen* 
nUe with drugs all the time, until she gave up. She 
never got outside of that place for ten months, and then 
they sent her away, because she didn't suiL I guess they'll 
put her out of here, too — she's getting to have crazy nt8» 
from drinking absinthe. Only one of the girls that came 
out with her got away, and she jumped out of a second* 
story window one night. There was a great fuss about 
that— -maybe you heturd of it.** 

"^I did," said Jurgis, **! heard of it afterward." (It 
fcad happened in the place where he and Duane had taken 
refuge from their ^ countiy customer.** The girl had be* 
come insane, fortunately for the police.) 

^ There's lots of money in it," said Marija — ^ they get as 
much as forty dollars a head for girls, and they bring them 
from all oyer. There are seyenteen in this place, and nine 
different countries among them. In some places you might 
find eyen more. We have half a dozen French girls — I 
suppose it's because the madame speaks the language. 
French girls are bad, too, the worst of all, except for we 
Japanese. There's a place next door that's full of Japanese 
women, but I wouldn t liye in the same house with one of 
them." 



354 THE JUNGLE 

Marija paused for a moment or two, and then ahi 
added: ^^Most of the women here are prettr decent-- 
yon'd be surprised. I used to think they did it becansi 
they liked to ; but fancy a woman selling heiself to every 
kind of man that comes, old or young, olack or white -« 
and doing it because she likes to I '* 

^ Some of them say they do,'* said Jurgis* 

^ I know,*' said she ; ^* they say anythmg. They're b\ 
and they know they can't get out. But they didn't like h 
when they began — you'd find out — it's always misexyt 
There's a little Jewish girl here who used to run errandi 
for a milliner, and got sick and lost her place ; and she 
was four days on the streets without a moulhfid of f oocL 
and then she went to a place just around the comer and 
offered herself, and they maae her give up her clothes 
before they would give ner a bite to eat I " 

Marija sat for a minute or two, brooding nombrely. 
^Tell me about yourself, Jurgis," she said, suddenly. 
••Where have you been?" 

So he told her the loujp^ story of his adventures since his 
flight from home ; his life as a tramp, and his work in tin 
freight tunnels, and the accident; and then of Jack Duane* 
and of his political career in the stockyards, and his down- 
fall and subsequent failures. Marija listened with sym- 
pathy ; it was easy to believe the tale of his late starvationy 
tor ms &ce showed it alL ^ Tou found me just in the 
nick of time," she said. ^ I'll stand by you — FU hdp yo« 
till you can get some work." 

••I don't WLB to let you — "he began. 

•* Why not? Because Tm here? '^ 

^ No, not that," he said. *^ But I went off and left yon — ^ 

••Nonsense I" said Marija. ••Don't think about it. I 
don't blame you." 

••You must be hungry," she said, after a minute or 
two. •• Tou stay here to lunch — I'll have something «p 
in the room." 

She pressed a button, and a colored woman came to the 
door and took her order. •• It's nice to have somebody te 
wait on you," she observedt with a laugh, as die lay Irnxk 
aa the bed. 



THE JUKOLB MB 

Am ih« prison breakfast had not been liberal, Jurgis had 
a good appetite, and they had a little feast together, talk- 
ing meanwhile of Elzbieta and the children and old times. 
Shortly before they were through, there came another 
colored girl, with the message that the ** madame ** wanted 
Mania— > ^^ Lithuanian Mary," as they called her here. 

^ That means you have to go,** she said to Jurgis. 

So he got up, and she ^ve him the new address of the 
family, a tenement over in the Ghetto district. ^ Tou go 
there,** she said. ** They'll be glad to see you.** 

But Jur^ stood hesitating. 

^ I — I aon*t like to,'* he said. ^ Honest, Marija, why 
don*t you just give me a little money and let me look for 
work first ? '* 

** How do you need money ? ** was her reply. ** All vou 
want is something to eat and a place to sleep, isn*t it? 

** Yes,*' he said ; ^^ but then I don't like to go there after 
I left them — and while I have nothing to do, and while 
you — you — '* 

^ Gro on I *' said Marija, giving him a push. ^ What are 
you talking? — I won't give you money, she added, as she 
followed him to the door, ^* l)eoau8e youll drink it up, and 
do yourself harm. Here's a quarter for you now, and go 
along, and they'll be so glad to have you back, you won't 
have time to feel ashamed. (}ood-by I ** 

So Jurffis went out, and walked down the street to think 
it over. He decided that he would first tiy to get work, 
and so he put in the rest of the day wandering here and 
there among factories and warehouses without success. 
Then, when it was nearly dark, he concluded to go home, 
and set out ; but he came to a restaurant, and went in and 
spent his quarter for a meal ; and when he came out he 
<manged his mind «— • the night was pleasant, and he would 
deep somewhere outside, and put in the morrow hunting, 
and so have one more chance of a job. So he started away 
again, when suddenly he chanced to look about him, and 
found that he was vralking down the same street and past 
the same hall where he had listened to the political speech 



tn THE JUNOLB 

the night before. There was no red fire and no band non^ 
but there was a ugn out, announcing a meeting, and a 
stream of people pourinfi^ in through the entrance. In a 
flash Jurffis had decidea tliat he would chance it once 
more, ana sit down and rest while making up his mind 
what to do. There was no one taking tickets, so it must 
be a free show ftfi^* 

He entered. There were no decorations in the hall tUs 
time ; but there was a uite a crowd upon the platform, and 
idmost every seat in tne place was filled. He took one of 
tbe last, feur in the rear, and straightway forgot all about 
his surroundings. Would Elzbieta think that he had come 
to sponge o£F her, or would she understand that he meant 
to get to work again and do his share ? Would she be 
decent to him, or would she scold him? If only he could 

Et some sort of a job before he went— if that last boss 
d only been willing to try himi 

— Then suddenly Jurgis looked up. A tremendous roar 
bad burst from the throats of the crowd, which by this 
time had packed the haU to the very doors. Men and 
women were standing up, waving hanuerchiefB, shouting, 
yelling. Evidently the speaker had arrived, thought 
Jurgis; what fools they were making of themselves! 
What were they expecting to get out of it anyhow — 
what nad they to do with elections, with governing the 
country ? Jursns had been behind the scenes in politics. 

He went bacl: to his thoughts, but with one further htit 
to reckon with— -tliat he was caught here. The haU was 
now filled to the doors $ and after the meeting it would be 
too late for him to go home, so he would have to make the 
best of it outside, rerhaps it would be better to eo home 
in the morning, anyway, for the children would be at 
school, and he and Elzbieta could have a quiet explanation. 
She always had been a reasonable person $ and he really 
did mean to do right. He would manage to persuade her 
of it — and besides, Marija was willing, and Marija was 
furnishing the money. If EkUeta were ugly, he would 
tell her that in so many words. 

So Jurgis went on meditating; until finally, when lit 



THE JXTNGLE SOT 

had been an honr or two in the hall, there began to pre* 
pare itself a repetition of the dismaj catastrophe of the 
night before. Speaking had been going on all the timet 
and the audience was dappine its hands and shoutinsi 
thrilling with excitement ; and little bj little the sounaa 
were beginning to blur in Jurgb's ears, and his thoughts 
were beginning to run together, and his head to wobble 
and no£ He caught himseU many times, as usual, and 
made desperate resolutions ; but the hall was hot and close* 
and his long walk and his dinner were too much for him 
-» in the end his head sank forward and he went off again* 

And then again some one nudged him, and he sat up 
with his old terrified start I He mkd been snoring again, 
of course I And now what ? He fixed his eyes ahead of 
him, with painful intensity, staring at the platfoi*m as if 
nothing else ever had interested him, or ever could inters 
est him, all his life. He imagined the angry exclamations, 
the hostile glances; he imaged the policeman striding 
toward him— reac hing for his neck.— Or was he to have 
one more chance? TVere they going to let him idone this 
time ? He sat trembling, waiting — » 

And then suddenly came a voice in his ear, a woman*8 
voice, gentle and sweet, ^ If you would try to listen, com* 
rade, perhaps you would be interested.** 

Jurgis was more startled by that than he would have 
been bv the touch of a poUceman. He still kept his eyes 
fixed anead, and did not stir ; but his heart gave a ereat 
leap. Comrade I Who was it that called him ^ comrade '' ? 

He waited long, long; and at last, when he was sure 
that he was no longer watched, he stole a glance out of the 
comer of his eves at the woman who sat Mside him. She 
was young and beautiful ; she wore fine clothes, and was 
what is cflSled a ^ lady.** And she called him ^ comrade ** ^ 

He turned a little, carefully, so that he could see het 
better ; then he began to watch her, fascinated. She had 
apparently forgotten all about him, and was lookinjo; 
toward the platform. A man was speakinff there — Jums 
heard his voice vaguely ; but all his thougnts were for this 
woman's face. A feeling of alarm stole over him as be 



868 THE JXTNaiil 

•tared at her. It made his flesh creep. What was the 
matter with her, what could be going on, to affect any one 
like that? She sat as one turned to stone, her hands 
denched tififhUj in her lap, so tightly that he could see the 
cords stanmng out in her wrists. There was a look of 
excitement upon her face, of tense effort, as of one strug* 
eling mightily, or witnessing a struggle. There was a 
mint quivering of her nostrils ; and now and then she 
would moisten her lips with feverish haste. Her bosom 
rose and fell as she breathed, and her excitement seemed 
to mount higher and higher, and then to sink away again, 
like a boat tossing upon ocean surges. What was it? 
What was the matter? It must be something that the 
man was sayine, up there on the platform. Wnat sort of 
a man was he r And what sort of a tiling was this, any* 
how? — So all at once it occurred to Jurgis to look at 
the speaker. 

It was like coming suddenly upon some wild sight of 
nature, — a mountain forest lashed by a tempest, a ship 
tossed about upon a stormy sea. Jurgis had an unpleasant 
sensation, a sense of confusion, of oisorder, of wild and 
meaningless uproar. The man was tall and gaunt, as 
haggard as his auditor himself; a thin black beard cov^ 
ered half of his face, and one could see only two Uack 
hollows where the eyes were. He was speaking rapidly, 
in great excitement ; he used many gestures — as he spoke 
he moved here and there upon the stage, reaching with 
his long arms as if to seize each person in his aumenoe* 
His voice was deep, like an organ ; it was some time, how^ 
ever, before Jur^fis thought of the voice — he was too 
much occupied with his eyes to think of what the man was 
saying. But suddenly it seemed as if the speaker had begun 
pointing straight at him, as if he had singled him out par* 
ticularly for ms remarks ; and so Jurgis became suddenly 
aware of the voice, trembling, vibrant with emotion, witA 
pain and longing, with a burden of things unutterable, not 
to be compassea by words. To hear it was to be suddenly 
arrested, to be gripped, transfixed. 

^Tou listen to tiiese things,** the man was saying, ^ and 



THE JUNGLE 359 

jon say^ * Tee, they axe tame, but they have been that way 
always.* Or you say, * Maybe it will come, but not in 
my tune -^ it will not help me.* And so you letum to 
your daily round of toU, you go back to be ground up for 

K'ofits in the world-wide mill of economic might I To toil 
ng hours for another^s advantage ; to live m mean and 
squalid homes, to work in dangerous and unhealthful 
plaoes ; to wrestle with the spectres of hunger and priya- 
tion, to take your chances of accident, disease, and death. 
And each day the struggle becomes fiercer, the pace more 
cruel ; each day you haye to toil a little harder, and feel 
the iron hand of circumstance close upon you a little 
tighter* Months pass, years maybe -—and then you come 
again ; and again 1 am nere to plead with you, to know if 
want and misery have yet done their work with you, if in« 
justice and oppression haye yet opened your eyes I I shall 
fitill be waiting — there is nothing else that I can do. 
There is no wilderness where I can hide from these things, 
there is no haven where I can escape them; though I 
travel to the ends of the earth, I find the same accursed 
system, '— - 1 find that all the fair and noble impulses of 
humanity, the dreams of poets and the agonies of martyrs, 
are shackled and bound in the service of organized and 
nredatoiy Greed t And therefore I cannot rest, I cannot 
DO silent; therefore I cast aside comfort and happiness, 
health and good repute —and go out into the world and 

2f out the piun of my spirit! Therefore I am not to be 
enced hv poverty and sickness, not by hatred and oblo- 
qujr, by threats and ridicule— not by prison and perse* 
oution, if they should come — not by any power that is 
upon tiie earth or above the earth, that was, or iE^ or ever 
can be created. If I &il to-night, I can only try to-morrow ; 
knowing that the fault must be mine — that if once tha 
vision of m^ soul were spoken upon earth, if once the 
anguish of its defeat were utterea in human speech, it 
would break the stoutest barriers of prejudice, it would 
shake the most sluggish soul to action I It would abash 
the most cynical, it would terrify the most selfish ; and the 
voice of mockery would be silenced, and fraud and faLse* 



360 THE JXTNGLE 

hood would slink back into their dens, and the truth would 
stand forth alone I For I speak with the voice of the 
millions who are voiceless I Of them that are oppressed 
and have no comforter I Of the disinherited of life, for 
whom there is no respite and no deliverance, to whom the 
world is a prison, a dungeon of torture, a tomb I With 
the voice of the little child who toils to-night in a South- 
em cotton-mill, staggering with exhaustion, numb with 
agony, and knowing no nope but the grave I Of the 
mother who sews by candle-Ught in her tenement-garreti 
weary and weeping, smitten with the mortal hunger of het 
babes I Of the man who lies upon a bed of rags, wrestling 
In his last sickness and leaving his loved ones to perish I 
Of the young girl who, somewhere at this moment, is walk* 
ing the streets of this horrible city, beaten and starving, 
and making her choice between the brothel and the lake I 
With the voice of those, whoever and wherever they may 
be, who are caught beneath the wheels of the juggernaut 
of Greed I With the voice of humanity, calling for deliv« 
trance I Of the everlasting soul of Man, arising from the 
dust; breaking its way out of its prison — rending the 
bands of oppression and ignorance — groping its way to 
the lightl**^ 

The speaker paused. There was an instant of silencei 
while men cau^t their breaths, and then like a single 
sound there came a cry from a thousand people. — Through 
tt all Jurgis sat still, motionless and ri^d, his eyes fixed 
upon the speaker ; he was trembling, smitten with wondeXi 

Suddenly the man raised his hands, and silence fell, and 
he began again. 

*^ I plead with you,** he said, ** whoever you mav be, pro- 
vided that you care about the truth ; but most of all I plead 
with workmg-men, with those to whom the evils I portray 
are not mere matters of sentiment, to be dallied and tojrec 
with, and then perhaps put aside and forgotten— to whoa 
they are the grim ana relentless realities of the daily grind, 
the chains upon their limbs, the lash upon their backs, the 
iron in their souls. To you, workinff>-men ! To you, the 
toilers, who have made this land, and have no voice in iti 



THE JUNGLB 881 

eonndls t To you, whose lot it is to sow that others may 
reap, to labor and obey, and ask no more than the wages of 
a beast of burden, the food and shelter to keep you alive 
from day to day. It is to you that I come with my mes- 
sage of salvation, it is to you that I appeal. I know how 
much it is to ask of you — I know, for 1 have been in your 

Elace, I have lived your life, and there is no man before me 
ere to-night who knows it better. I have known what it 
is to be a street-waif, a boot-black, living upon a crust of 
bread and sleeping in cellar stairways and under empty 
wagons. I have £iown what it is to dare and to aspire, to 
drcttun mighty dreams and to see them perish — - to see all 
the fair flowers of my spirit trampled into the mire bv the 
wild beast powers of life. I know what is the price tnat a 
working-man pays for knowledge — I have paid for it with 
food and sleep, with agony of body and mind, with health, 
almost with life itself ; and so, when I come to you with a 
story of hope and freedom, with the vision of a new earth 
to be created, of a new labor to be dared, I am not sur- 
prised that I find you sordid and material, sluggish and in- 
credulous. That I do not despair is because I know also 
the forces that are driving behmd you — because I know 
the raging lash of poverty, the sting of contempt and maa* 
tership, * the insolence of office ana tiie spurns.* Because 
I feel sure that ii> the crowd that has come to me to-night, 
no matter how many may be dull and heedless, no matter 
how many may have come out of idle curiosity, or in order 
to ridicule — there will be some one man whom pain and 
suffering have made desperate, whom some chance visiom 
of wrong and horror has startled and shocked into atten* 
tion. And to him mv words will come like a sudden flask 
of lightning to one who travels in darkness — revealing the 
way before him, the perils and the obstacles — solvmg all 
problems, making all difficulties clear t The scales will fall 
m>m his eyes, the shackles will be torn from his limbs^ — he 
will leap up with a cry of thankfulness, he will stride forth a 
free man at last I A man delivered from his self -created 
elaveryl A man who will never more be trapped — ^whoa 
no blandishments wiUcajole^whomno threats willfrigfatenj 

w 



Mt THK JUKGLS 

wlio from to-night on will move forward, and not badkwaidi 
who will study and understand, who will gird on his sword 
and take his pkoe in the arm^ of his comrades and brothers. 
Who will carry the good tidings to others, as I have carried 
them to him— *the priceless ^ft of liberty and light that 
is neither mine nor nis, bat is the heritage of the sonl of 
man I Working-men^ worki^-men — conurades I open yoor 
eyes and look about you I You have Uyed so long in the 
toil and heat that your senses are dulled, ]^ur souls 
are numbed ; but reaUze once in your lives tms world iB 
which you dwell — tear off the rags of its customs and 
oonventions — behold it as it is, in all its hideous nakednessi 
Realize it, realize it/ Realize that out upon the plains d 
Manchuria to-ni^ht two hostile armies are facing each othei 
— that now, while we are seated here, a miUion humaii 
beinps may be hurled at each other^s throats, striving witb 
tbe nuy oi maniacs to tear each other to pieces I And this 
IB the twentieth century, nineteen hundred years sinee 
tbe Prince of Peace was bom on earth I Nineteen hun* 
dred years that his words have been preached as divine, and 
here two armies of men are rending and tearing each other 
Mke the wild beasts of the forest I Philosophers haye 
reasoned, prophets have denounced, poets have wept and 
nJeaded — and still this hideous Monster roams at large I 
We have schools and colleges, newspapers and books ; we 
have searched the heavens and the earth, we have weighed 
and probed and reasoned-— and all to equip men to deetrof 
each other I We call it War, and pass it oy — but do not 
put me off with platitudes and conventions*^ come witii 
me, come with me — realize it/ See the bodies of men 
pierced by bullets, blown into pieces by bursting shells! 
Hear the crunching of the bayonet, plunged into human 
flesh ; hear the eroans and shrieks of agony, see the fac«8 
of men crazed by pain, turned into fiencis by fmxy and 
hate I Put your htuid upon that piece of flesh -— it is hot 
and quivering — just now it was a part of a man! This 
blood is still steamine — it was driven by a human heart! 
Almighty Gk)d I and Uiis eoes on — it is systematio, oigan- 
ized, premeditated I And we know it, and rearf of it, and 



THB JUNGLE MS 

Cake it for granted; onr papers tell of it, and the preesee 
we not stopped — our churcnes know of it, and do not close 
their doors — the people behold it, and do not rise up in 
horror and revolution f 

** Or perhaps Manchuria is too far away for you — come 
home with me then, come here to Chicago. Here in this 
city to-night ten thousand women are shut up in foul pens, 
and driven by hunger to sell their bodies to live. And 
we know it, we make it a jest I And these women are 
made in the imaee of your mothers, they may be your 
sisters, your daughters ; the child whom you left at home 
to-night, whose laughing eyes will ereet you in the morn* 
ing — that fate may be waiting for her! To-night in 
Chicago there are ten thousand men, homeless and 
wretched, willing to work and begging for a chance, yet 
starving, and fronting in terror the awful winter cold I 
To-night in Chicago there are a hundred thousand children 
wearing out their strength and blasting their lives in the 
^ort to earn their br6ad I There are a hundred thousand 
mothers who are living in misery and squalor, struggling 
to earn enough to fera their little ones I There are a 
hundred thousand old people, cast off and helpless, waiting 
for death to take them from their torments I There are a 
million people, men and women and children, who share 
the curse of the wage-slave ; who toil every hour they can 
stand and see, for just enough to keep them alive ; who are 
condemned till the end of their oays to monotony and 
weariness, to hunger and misery, to heat and cold, to dirt 
and disease, to iraorance and drunkenness and vice I And 
then turn over uie page with me, and gaze upon the other 
side of the picture. There are a thousand — ten thousand^ 
maybe — wno are the masters of these slaves, who own 
their toil. They do nothing to earn what they receive, 
they do not even have to ask for it — it comes to them of 
itself, their only care is to dispose of it. They live in 
palaces, they riot in luxury and extravagance — such as no 
words can describe, as makes the imagination reel and 
stagmr, makes the soul grow sick and &unt. They spend 
hundreds of dollars far a pair of shoes, a handkerchief, a 



•84 THE JUKOLB 

garter ; they spend millions for horses and aatomobiles and 
yachts, for paJiaoes and banauets, for little shiny stones 
with which to deck their bodies. Their life is a contest 
among themselyes for supremacy in ostentation and reck- 
lessness, in the destroying of useful and necessary things, 
in the wasting of the Ibmt and the lives of their fellow- 
creatures, the toil and anguish of the nations, the sweat 
and tears and blood of the human race I It is all theirs — 
it comes to them ; just as all the springs pour into stream- 
lets, and the streamlets into rivers, and the rivers into the 
ocean — so, automatically and inevitably, all the wealth 
of society comes to them. The &rmer tiUs the soil^ 
the miner digs in the earth, the weaver tends the loom, 
the mason carves the stone ; the clever man invents, the 
shrewd man directs, the wise man studies, the inspired man 
sings — and all the result, the products of the labor of brain 
and muscle, are gathered into one stupendous stream and 
poured into their laps I The whole of society is in their 
grip, the whole labor of the world lies at their mercy — 
and like fierce wolves they rend and destroy, like ravening 
vultures they devour and tear I The whole power of man- 
kind belongs to Uiem, forever and beyond recall — do what 
it can, strive as it will, humanity lives for them and dies 
for them I They own not merely the labor^of society, they 
have bought the governments ; and evervwhere they use 
their rapM and stolen power to intrench themselves in 
their privileges, to dig wider and deeper the channels 
tiirou^ which the river of profits flows to them t — And 
you, working-men, working-men I You have been brought 
up to it, you plod on like heasts of burden, thinking only 
of the day and its pain — yet is there a man among you 
who can believe that such a system will continue forever 
— is there a man here in this audience to*night so hardened 
and debased that he dare rise up before me and say that ha 
believes it can continue forever ; that the product of the 
labor of society, the means of existence of the human race, 
will always bdong to idlers and parasites, to be spent for 
the gratification of vanity and lust — to be spent for any 
purpose whatever, to be at the disposal of any individuiil 



THE JUNQLE 885 

whatever — that somehow, somewhen, the labor of 
humanity will not belong to humanity, to be used for the 
purposes of humanity, to be controlled by the will of 
humanity? And if this is ever to be, how is it to be — 
what power is there that will bring it about? Will it be 
the task of your masters, do you think — will they write 
the charter of your liberties? Will they forge you the 
•word of your deliyerance, vnH they marshal jou tne army 
and lead it to ike fray ? Will their wealth be spent for 
the purpose— will they build colleges and churches to 
teach you, will they print papers to herald your progress, 
and organize political parties to guide and carry on the 
struggle ? Can you not see that the task is your task -^ 
TOUTS to dream, yours to resolye, yours to execute ? That 
if eyer it is carried out, it will be in the face of eyery ob- 
stacle that wealth and mastership can oppose — in the &ce 
of ridicule and slander, of hatred and persecution, of the 
bludgeon and the jail? That it will be by the power of 

S>ur naked bosoms, opposed to the ra^ of oppression! 
y the ffrim and bitter teaching of Umd ana merciless 
amictionl By the painful gropings of the untutored mind, 
by the feeble stammerings of the uncultured yoice I By 
tne sad and lonely hunger of the spirit ; by seeldng and 



striving and yearning, t)y heartache and despairing, by 
a^ny and sweat of Inood I It will be by money paid for 
with hunger, by knowledge stolen from sleep, by tnoughts 
communicated under the shadow of the g^ows I It will 
be a movement beginning in the far-off past, a thing ob- 
scure and unhonored, a ttiing easy to ridicule, easy to do- 
ipbe ; a thing unlovely, wearing the aspect of vengeance 
and hate -— but to you, the working-man, the wage-slave, 
calling with a yoice insistent, imperious — with a voice 
that you cannot escape, wherever upon the earth you may 
be I With the yoice of all your wrongs, with the voice of 
all your desires ; with the voice of your duty and your 
hope — of everything in the world that is worth while to 
you I The voice of me poor, demanding that poverty shfJl 
cease t The yoice of the oppressed, pronouncing the doom 
of oppression I The voice of power, wrought out of suffer* 



M8 THE JUNGLE 

ing — of resolution, crushed out of weakness — of joy and 
oourage, born in the bottomless pit of anguish and despair f 
The voice of Labor, despised and outraged; a mightr 
giant, lyine prostrate — mountainous, colossal, but blindec^ 
bound, and ignorant of his strength. And now a dr^un 
of resistance haunts him, hope mttling with fear; until 
suddenly he stirs, and a fetter snaps — and a thrill shoots 
through him, to the farthest ends of his huge body, and in 
a flash the dream becomes an act I He starts, he uf ts him' 
self ; and the bands are shattered, the burdens roll off him ; 
he rises — towering, gigantic; he springs to his feet, he 
shouts in his new-torn exultation — 

And the speaker's voice broke suddenly, with the stress 
of his feelings ; he stood with his arms stretched out above 
him, and the power of his vision seemed to lift him from 
the floor. The audience came to its feet with a yell : men 
waved their arms, laughing aloud in their excitement. 
And Jurgis was with uiem, he was shouting to tear his 
throat ; shoutinc^ because he could not help it, because the 
stress of his feeung was more than he could bear. It was 
not merely the man's words, the torrent of his eloquence. 
It was his presence, it was his voice : a voice with strange 
intonations that rang through the chambers of the soul like 
the clanging of a bell — t£at gripped the listener like a 
mighty hand about his body, that shook him and startled 
Ul Jth sadden fright, with a sense of things not of earth, 
of mysteries never spoken before,'of presences of awe and 
terror! There was an unfolding of vistas before him, a 
breaking of the ground beneath him, an upheaving, a stir- 
ring, a toembling ; he felt himself suddenlv a mere man no 
longer — there were powers vrithin him undreamed of, there 
were demon forces contending, age-long wonders struggling 
to be born ; and he sat oppressed with pain and joy, while a 
tingling stole down into nis finger-tips, and his breath came 
hard and fast The sentences oi this man were to Jurgis like 
the crashing of thunder in his soul; a flood of emotion sur^d 
up in him — all his old hopes and longings, his old gne& 
and rages and despairs. All that he had ever felt in his 
whole life beemed to come back to him at once, and 



I 



THE JUiraLB 887 

we new emotion^ lutrdlj to be deBoribed. TbAt be should 
have suffered siioh oppressiooa and saoh horrors was bad 
enongh ; bat that ha should have been ornshed and baatcB 
by them, that ha should have sabmitted, and forgotten, 
and lived in peace — ah, truly that was a thing not to be 
pot into words, a thing not to be borne by a human cre»- 
tare, a thing of terror and madness I " What," asks the 
prophet, *' is die murder of them that kill the body, to the 
murder of them that kill the soal ? " And Jurgis was a 
man whose soul had been murdered, who had ceased to 
hope and to struegle — who had made terms with degra- 
dmon and despair; and now, suddenly, in one awful con- 
Tnhdon, the Uack and hideous fiict was made plain to him I 
There was a falling in of all the pillars of his soul, the skpr 
seemed to split wove him — he stood there, with ha 
clenched hands upraised, his eyes bloodshot, and the Teina 
standing out purple in his face, roaring in the voice of a 
wild beast, frantic, incoherent, maniacu. And when he 
oould shout no more he still stood there, gaspiiur, and 
whispering hoanely to himself: "By Godl By Goal By 
Godl" 



Tmi ma bad ffone back to a aeas upon (be {datfonn^ 
nd Jmgis lealisea tbat his speeob was OTer. Theai^^iiBa 
«ODtiiiaed for aeyeial minntea; and then some one started 
a Bongi and the crowd took it np^ and the phu)e shook with 
it. ^iTffis had never heard it, and he oomd not make oat 
the words, but the wQd and wonderful spirit of it seised 
«pon him — it was the Ifarseillaise I As stanza after 
stanza of it thundered forth, he sat with his hands clasped, 
trsmbline in eveiy nerve. He had never been so stined 
in his life — it was a miracle that had been wrought in 
him. He could not think at all, he was stunned; vet he 
knew that in the unAty upheaval that had taken plaoe in 
Us soul, a new man had been bom. He had been torn out 
ef the jaws of destruction, he had been delivered from the 
tfiraldom of despair ; the whole world had been changed 
for him— he was free, he was freel Even if he were to 
suffer as he had before, even if he were to bee and starve, 
nothine would be the same to him ; he would understand 
it, and Dear it. Eb would no longer be the sport of ciroum* 
stances, he would be a man, with a will and a purpose ; he 
would have something to fight for, somethinfl^ to die f or^ if 
need be I Here were men who would show him and heb 
him ; and he would have friends and allies, he would dww 
in the sight of justice, and walk arm in arm with power. 

The audience subsided again, and Jnrgis sat badr. The 
chairman of the meeting came forward and benn to speak 
His voice sounded thin and futile after the o&r's, and to 
Jurffis it seemed a profanation. Why should any one else 
spefJc, after that miraculous man — why should they not 
ill sit in silencef The chairman was explaining tna( r 

368 



THE JUNGLE 8C9 

oolleotion would now be taken up to defray the expenses 
of the meeting, and for the benefit of the campaign fund ot 
die party. Jurgis heard ; but he had not a penny to givOt 
and so ms thoughts went elsewhere again* 

He kept his eyes fixed on the orator, who sat in an arm- 
chair, his head leaning on his hand and his attitude indi 
catinp^ exhaustion. But suddenly he stood u^ again, and 
Jurns heard the chairman of the meeting sa^ng that the 
spefJcer would now answer any questions which the audi* 
enoe might care to put to him. The man came f orward« 
and some one — a woman — arose and asked about some 

J pinion the speaker had expressed concerning Tolstoi, 
urgis had never heard of Tolstoi, and did not care any- 
thing about him. Why should any one want to ask sack 
questions, after an address like that? The thing was not 
to talk, but to do ; the thing was to get hold of others and 
rouse them, to organize them and prepare for the fight I 

But still the £scussion went on, in ordinary conversa* 
tional tones, and it brought Jums back to the eyeryday 
world. A few minutes ago he hadf elt like seizing the hfuia 
of the beautiful lady by his side, and kissing it; he had 
felt like flinginff his arms about the neck of the man om 
the other side of him. And now he began to realize again 
that he was a ^hobo,*' — that he was ragged and dirty,and 
•melt bad, and had no place to sleep that nightl 

And so, at last, when the meeting broke up, and the 
audience started to leaye, poor Jurgis was in an affony of 
imcertainty. He had not thought of leaving — he had 
thoufl^ht that the vision mast bst forever, ttiat he had 
found comrades and brothers. But now he would go out^ 
and the thing would fade away, and he would never be 
able to find it again I He sat in his seat, frightened and 
wondering ; but others in the same row wanted to get out, 
and so he had to stand up and move along. As he was 
swept down the aisle he looked from one person to 
another, wistfully ; they were all excitedly discussing the 
address — but there was nobody who offered to discuss it 
with him. He was near enough to the door to feel the 
night air, when desperation aeiMd him« He knew nothing 



fro CHS JUNGLB 

at all about that SMeoh he had heard, not eyen Obib name 
of the orator; ana he was to go away — no, no, it was 
preposterous, he must speak to some one; he must find 
that man himself and tell him. He would not despise 
him, tramp as he wast 

So he stepped into an empty row of seats and watched, 
and when the crowd had ttunned out, he started toward 
the platform. The speaker was gone; but there was a 
stage-door that stood open, with people passing in and 
Qxxti and no one on guarcL Jurgis summoned up nis cour- 
age and went in, and down a hallway, and to the door of 
a room where manj people were crowded. No one paid 
any attention to lum, and he pushed in, and in a comer 
he saw the man he sought. The orator sat in a chair, 
with his shoulders sunk toother and his eyes half closed ; 
his face was ghastly pale, iSmost greenish in hue, and one 
arm lay limp at his side. A big man with spectacles on 
stood near mm, and kept pushing back the crowd, sayine, 
^ Stand away a little, please ; can*t you see the comrado 
it worn out r ** 

So Juims stood watching, while five or ten minutdi 
Mssed. Now and then the man would look up, and ad- 
dress a word or two to those who were near him ; and, at 
last, on one of these occasions, his glance rested on Juigis. 
There seemed to be a slight hint of inquiry about it, and 
a sudden impulse seized the other. He stepped forward. 

^I wanted to tluuik you, sir I** he began, m breathless 
haste. ^I oould not go away without telling you how 
much — how glad I am I heard you. I — I didn't know 
anything about it all-^*' 

^[^r% man wiUi llie speotades, who had moved away, 
tame back at this moment. *^The comrade is too tired 
lo talk to any one—'* he began; but the other held up 
his hand. 

^Wait,** he said. ^He has something to say to me.** 
And then he looked into Juigis's face. ^You want to 
know more about Socialism? he asked. 

Jur^ started. ^I— I — ^ he stammered. ^It it 
Bodalismf I didn't know. I want to know about what 



THE JUNGLE Wl 

yon spoke of — I want to help. I have been through al 
that.'- 

** Where do you live ? " asked the other. 

** I have no home," said Jurgis, ** I am out of work.** 

** You are a foreigner, are you not? '* 

** Lithuanian, sir. 

The man thought for a moment, and then turned to his 
friend. **Who la there, Walters?*' he asked. ** There 
"s Ostrinski — but he is a Pole — " 

*^ Ostrinski speaks Lithuanian,*' said the other. 

^ All right, tnen ; would you mind seeing if he has gone 
yet ? •' 

The other started away, and the speaker looked at Jup- 
gia again. He had deep, black eyes, and a face full of 

fentleness and pain. *^You must excuse me, comrade,'* 
e said. **I am just tired out — I have spoken every 
day for the last month. I will introduce you to some one 
who will be able to help you as well as I could — " 

The messenger had had to go no further than the door ; 
he came back, followed by a man whom he introduced to 
Jurgis as ^* Comrade Ostrinski.** Comrade Ostrinski was 
a liSle man, scarcely up to Jurgis's shoulder, wizened and 
wrinkled, very ugly, and slightly lame. He had on a 
(ong-tailed black coa^ worn green at the seams and the 
buttonholes ; his eyes must mtve been weak, for he wore 

green spectacles, that fi^ave him a grotesque appearance, 
ut his hand clasp was hearty, and he spoke in Lithuanian, 
which warmed Jurgis to him. 

*^You want to know about Socialism?" he said* 
^ Surely. Let us go out and take a stroll, where we can 
be quiet and talk some.'* 

And so Jurgis bade farewell to the master wizard, and 
went out. Ostrinski asked where he lived, offering to 
walk in that direction; and so he had to explain once 
more that he was without a home. At the other's request 
he told his story ; how he had come to America, and what 
had happened to him in the stockyards, and how his family 
had been broken up, and how he had become a wanderer. 
So much the little man heard, and then he pressed Jurgis's 



872 THB JTJNGLB 

arm tightly. ** Ton have been throngh the mill, com- 
rade 1" he said. '* We will make a fighter oat of you I" 

Then Ostrinski in torn explained his oiroumstanoee. 
He would have asked Jurgis to his home — but he had 
only two rooms, and had no bed to offer. He would have 
giyen up his own bed, but his wife was ilL Later on, 
when he understood that otherwise Jurgis would hsTeto 
sleep in a hallway, he offered him his kitchen-floor, a 
chance which the other was only too glad to accept 
^ Perhaps to-morrow we can do better," said Ostrinski 
" We try not to let a comrade starre." 

Ostrinski's home was in the Ghetto district^ where he 
had two rooms in the basement of a tenement There was 
a baby crying as they entered, and he closed the door 
leading into the bedroom. He had three young children, 
he explained, and a baby had just come. He drew up two 
chairs near the kitchen stoTC, adding that Jurgis must ex- 
cuse theidisorder of the place,since at such a time one's do- 
mestic arrangements were upset Half of the kitchen was 
giyen up to a work-bench, which was piled with clothing, 
and Ostrinski explained that he was a ** pants-finisher. 
He brought great bundles of clothing here to his home^ 
where he ana his wife worked on them. He made a living 
at it, but it was getting harder all the time, because his 
eyes were failing. What would come when they gave out 
he could not tell ; there had been no saying anything— 
a man could barely keep alive by twelve or fourteen hounf 
work a day. The finishing of pants did not take much 
skill, and anybody could learn it, and so the pay was for- 
ever getting less. That was the competitive wase system; 
and if Jurgis wanted to understand what Sociaiism was, 
it was there he had best be^in. The workers were de- 
pendent upon a job to exist from day to day, and so 
they bid against each other, and no man could get more 
than the lowest man would consent to work for. And 
thus the mass of the people were always in a life-and- 
death struggle with poverty. That was ** competition," 
so far as it concerned the wage-earner, the man who 
had only his labor to sell; to those on top, the exploiters, 



THE JUNGLE 878 

U appeared yery differently, of coarse — there were few 
of them, and they could combine and dominate, and 
their power would be unbreakable. And so all over the 
world two classes were forming, with an nnbridged chasm 
between . them, — the capitalist class, with its enormous 
fortunes, and the proletariat, bound into slavery by un- 
seen chains. The latter were a thousand to one in num- 
bers, but they were ignorant and helpless, and they would 
remain at the mercy of their exploiters until they were 
organized — until they had become *^ class-conscious." It 
was a slow and weary process, but it would go on — it 
was like the movement of a glacier, once it was started 
it could never be stopped. Every Socialist did his share, 
and lived upon the vision of the ^^ good time coming," — 
when the working-class should go to the polls and seize 
the powers of government, and put an end to private prop- 
erty in the means of production. No matter how poor a 
man was, or how much he suffered, he could never be 
really unhappy while he knew of that future ; even if he 
did not live to see it himself, his children woidd, and, to a 
Socialist, the victory of his class was his victory. A^s^ he 
had always the progress to encourage him ; here in cui 
cago, for instance, the movement was erowing by leaps 
and bounds. Chicago was the industrial centre of the 
country, and nowhere else were the unions so strong ; but 
their organizations did the workers little good, for the 
employers were organized, also ; and so the strikes gener- 
ally f aUed, and as last as the unions were broken up the 
men were cominfi^ over to the Socialists. 

Ostiinski explained the organization of the jparfr, the 
machinery by which the proletariat was educatmg itself. 
There were " locals " in every hift city and town, and they 
were being organized rapidly in tne smaller places ; a local 
bad anywhere from six to a thousand members, and there 
were fourteen hundred of them in all, with a total of about 
twenty-five thousand members, who paid dues to support 
the organization. ^^ Local Cook County," as the city or- 
ganization was called, had eighty branch locals, and it 
alone was spending several t housand dollars in tJie cam' 



874 THE JUNGLE 

paign. It puUiflhed a weekly in English, and one mA ia 
Bohemian and German ; also there was a monthly published 
in Chicago, and a cooperative publishing house, that issued 
a million and a half of Socialist books and pamphlets eveiy 
year. All this was the growth of the last few years — 
there had been almost nothing of it when Ostrinski first 
eame to Chicago. 

Ostrinski was a Pole, about fifty years of ace. He had 
lived in Silesia, a member of a despised and persecuted 
race, and had taken part in the proletarian movement in the 
early seventies, when Bismarck, having conquered France, 
had turned his policy of blood and iron upon the ^ Inter- 
nationaL** Ostrinski himself had twice oeen in {ail, but 
he had been young then, and had not cared. He had had 
more of his share of the fi^^ht, though, for lust when Sodat 
ism had broken idl its barriers and become the great political 
force of the empire, he had come to America, ana begun 
all over again. In America every one had laufi^hed at the 
mere idea of Socialism then — in America all men were 
&ee. As if political liberty made wage-slavery any tiie 
more tolerable t said Ostrinski. 

The little tailor sat tilted back in his stiff kitchen-chair, 
with his feet stretched out upon the empty stove, and 
speaking in low whispers, so as not to waken those in the 
next room. To Jurgis he seemed a scarcely less wonder* 
ful person than the speaker at the meeting ; he was poor, 
the lowest of the low, huneer-driven and miserable — and 
yet how much he knew, now much he had dared and 
achieved, what a hero he had been I There were others 
like him, too — thousands like him, and all of them work* 
ing-men t That all this wonderful machinery of proereas 
hM been created by his fellows — Jurgis could not beuevo 
it, it seemed too good to be true. 

That was always the way, said Ostrinski; when a 
man was first converted to Socialism he was like a orasy 
person, — he could not understand how others could fail to 
see it, and he expected to convert all the world the fiisl 
week. After a while he would realize how hard a task it 
was ; and then it would be fortunate that other new bands 



THE JXTNOLB 375 

kept coming, to saye him from settUng down into a mti 
Just now Juigis would haye plenty ot chance to vent his 
excitement, for a presidential campaigp was on, and eveiy* 
body was talking politics. Ostnnski would take him to 
the next meeting of the branch-local, and introduce him« 
and he might join the party. The dues were five cents a 
week, but any one who could not afford this might be ex« 
oused from paying. The Socialist party was a really demo- 
cratic political organization— it was controlled absolutely 
by its own membership, and had no bosses. All of these 
inings Ostiinski explained, as also the principles of the 
party. Tou might say that there was really but one 
Socialist principle — - that of ^ no compromise,** which waa 
the essence of the proletarian moTcment all over the 
world* When a Socialist was elected to office he voted 
with old party legislators for any measure that was likely 
to be of nelp to the working^lass, but he never forgot 
that these concessions, whatever they might be, were 
trifles compared with the great purpose, — - tneorg^iizing 
of the worfeng-cla ss for th e levpfu^ra. So far, the rule in 
America hadoeen that one Socialist made another Socialist 
once every two years ; and if they should maintain the 
same rate they would carry the country in 1912 — though 
not all of them expected to succeed as quickly as that. 

The Socialists were organized in every civUized nation ; 
it v^as an international political party, said Ostrinski, the 
greatest the world had ever known. It numbered thirty 
millions of adherents, and it cast eight million votes, it 
had started its first newspaper in Japan, and elected its first 
deputy in Argentina ; in France it named members of cab» 
inets, and in Italy and Australia it held the balance of 
power and turned out ministries. In Germany, where its 
vote was more than a third of the total vote of the empiret 
all other parties and powers had united to fight it. It 
would not do. Ostrinski explained, for the proletariat ol 
one nation to achieve the victory for that nation would be 
crushed by the military power of the others; and so the 
Socialist movement was a world movement,an organization 
of all mankind to aAM)lish lib«grty and f raterni^. It was 



876 THE JUNGLE 



the new religion of humanity— -or you might say it was 
the fulfilment of the old religion, since it implied but the 
literal application of all the teachings of Christ. 

Until long after midnight Jurgis sat lost in the oonver- 
sation of his new acquaintance. It was a most wonderful 
#xperieAce to him — an almost supernatural experience. 
It was like encountering an inhabitant of the f ourtn dimen- 
sion of space, a being who was free from all one's own 
limitations. For four years, now, Jurgis had been wander- 
ing and blundering in the depths of a wilderness; and here, 
suddenly, a hand reached down and seized him, and lifted 
him out of it, and set him upon a mountain-top, from 
which he could survey it all, — could see the paths from 
which he had wandered, the morasses into which he had 
stumbled, the hidinff-places of the beasts of prey that had 
fallen upon him. There were his Packingtown experi- 
ences, for instance— what was there about Packingtown 
that Ostrinski could not explaini ^ To Jurgis the packers 
had been equivalent to fate ; Ostrinski showed him that 
tbe^ were the Beef Trust. They were a gigantic combi- 
nation of capital, which had crushed all opposition, and 
overthrown the laws of the land, and was preying upon the 

feople. Jurgis recollected how, when he nad first come to 
ackingtown, he had stood and watched the hog-killing, 
and thought how cruel and savage it was, and come away 
congratulating himself that he was not a hog; now his new 
I acquaintance showed him that a hog was just what be had 
J been — one of the packers' hogs. What they wanted from 
^ a hog was all the profits that could be got out of him; and 
that was what they wanted from the worKing-man,and also 
that was what they wanted from the public. What the hog 
thought of it, and what he suffered, were not considered 
and no more was it with labor, and no more with the pur- 
chaser of meat That was true everywhere in the world, 
but it was especially true in Packingtown; there seemed 
to be something about the work of slaughtering that tended 
to ruthlessness and ferocity — it was literally the fact that 
in the methods of the packers a hundred human lives did 



THE JUNGLE 377 

not balance a penny of profit. When Jnrgis had made 
himself familiar with the Socialist literatore, as he would 
yerj quickly, he would get glimpses of the Beef Trust 
from £ul sorts of aspects, and he would find it eveiywhere 
the same; it was the incarnation of blind and insensate 
Greed. It was a monster devouring with a thousand 
mouths, trampling with a thousand hoofs; it was the 
Great Butcher — it was the spirit of Capitalism made flesh. 
Upon the ocean of commerce it sailed as a pirate ship ; it 
ha!l hoisted the black flag and declared war upon civiliza- 
tioa Bribeiy and corruption were its everyday methods. 
In Chicago the city government was simply one of its 
branch-omces ; it stole billions of gallons of city water 
openly, it dictated to the courts the sentences of disorderly 
strikers, it forbade the mayor to enforce the building laws 
against it. In the national capital it had power to prevent 
inspection of its product, and to falsify government 
reports ; it violated the rebate laws, and when an investi- 
gation was threatened it burned its books and sent its 
criminal agents out of the country. In the commercial 
world it was a Juggernaut car ; it wiped out thousands of 
businesses every year, it drove men to madness and suicide. 
It had forced the price of cattle so low as to destroy the 
stock-raising hidustry, an occupation upon which whole 
states existed; it had ruined thousands of butchers who 
had refused to handle its products. It divided the coun- 
try into districts, and fixed the price of meat in all of 
them ; and it owned all the refrigerator cars, and levied an 
enormous tribute upon all poultiy and eggs and fruit and 
vegetables. With the mmions of dollars a week that 
poured in upon it, it was reaching out for the control of 
other interests, railroads and trolley lines, gas and electric 
lieht franchises — it already owned the feather and the 
^in business of the counUy. The people were tremen. 
aously stirred up over its encroachments, out nobody had 
any remedy to suggest; it was the task of Socialists to 
teach and organize them, and prepare them for the time / 
when they were to seize the huge machine called the Bee^ I 
Trust, and use it to pcoduoe food for human beings an^ ' 

25 



878 



THE jm^GLB 



not to heap up fortanes for a band of pirates.— It was 
long after midnight when Jorgis lay down npon the floor of 
Ostrinski's kitchen ; and yet it was an hour before he could 
get to sleep, for the glory of that joytui vision of the 
people of Packingtown marching in and taking poflseeiiaD 
of tae Union StockyanisI 



^ 



CHAPTER XXX 

J'UBOis had breakfast with Ostrinski and hia family, and 
then he went home to Elzbieta. He was no longer shj 
about it — when he want in, instead of eaying all the things 
he had been planning to say, he started to t«ll Elzhleta 
about the levolntion I At first she thought he was out of 
his mind, and it was hours before she could really feel 
oertun that he was himself. When, however, she had 
satisfied herself that be was sane upon all subjects except 
politics, she troubled herself no further about it. Jui^na 
was destined to find that Elzbiflta*s armor was absolntolv 
impervious to Socialism. Her soul had been baked hard in 
the fire of adversity, and there was no altering it now ; 
life to her was the hunt for daily bread, and ideas existed 
for her only as they bore apon that. All that interested 
her in regard to this new frenzy which had seized hold of 
her son-in-law was whether or not it had a tendenov to 
make him sober and industrioos ; and when she found he 
intended to look for work and to contribute his share to the 
family fund, she gave him full rein to convince her of any> 
thing. A wonderfullr wise litt'c woman was Elzbieta] 
■he could think as quickly as a hunted rabbit, and in half 
an hour she bad cnoeen her life-attitude to the Socialist 
movement She agreed in everything with Jurg^ except 
the need of his paymg his dues ; and she would even go to 
• meeting with nim now and tiien, and sit and plan her 
next day s dinner amid the storm. 

For a week after he became a couvert Jurgis continued 
to wander about all day, looking for work ; ontil at last 
be met with, a strange fortune. He was passing one ol 



8B0 THE JUNGLE 

Chicago^s innamerable small hotels, and after some hesitai 
tion he concluded to go in. A man he took for the pro- 
prietor was standing in the lobby, and he went up to mm 
and tackled him for a job. 

'* What can you do ? '* the man asked. 

** Anything, sir," said Jurgis, and added quickly : " Fye 
heen out of work for a long time, sir. Fm an honest man, 
and I'm strong and willing -4 '* 

The other was eying him narrowly. *^Do jrou drink?** 
he asked. 

" No, sir," said Jurgis. 

^ Well, I've been employing a man as a porter, and he 
drinks. IVe dischai^d him seven times now, and IVe 
about made up my mind that's enough. Would you be a 
porter?" 

" Yes, sir." 

*^ It's hard work. You'll have to clean floors and wash 
spittoons and fill lamps and handle trunks — " 

** I'm willing, sir." 

^ All right. I'll pay you thirty a month and board, and 
you can begin now, if you feel like it. You can put on the 
other fellow's rig." 

And so Jurgis fell to work, and toiled like a Trojan till 
night. Then he went and told Elzbieta, and also, late as 
it was, he paid a visit to Ostrinski to let him know of his 
good fortune. Here he received a great surprise, for when 
he was describing the location of the hotel tbtrinski inter- 
rupted suddenly, ^^ Not Hinds's I " 

^ Yes," said Jureis, *^ that's the name." 

To which the ower rephed, ^^ Then you've got the best 
boss in Chicago — he's a state organizer of our party, and 
one of our best-known speakers ! 

So the next morning Jurgis went to his employer and 
told him ; and the man seized him by the hand and shook 
IV. *^By Jove I" he cried, ^Hhat lets me out. I didn't 
sleep all last night because I had discharged a good Social- 

So, after that, Jurgis was knovm to his oboes'* as ^Com- 
rade Jurgis," and in return he was expected to call hini 



THE JT7KGLE 881 

** Comrade Hinds.** ^ Tommy *' Hiiids, as he was known to 
his intimates, was a squat little man, with broad shoulders 
and a florid face, decorated with gray side-whiskers. He 
was the kindest-hearted man that ever lived, and the 
liveliest — inexhaustible in his enthusiasm, and talking 
Socialism all day and all night. He was a great fellow to 
jolly along a crowd, and would keep a meeting in an 
uproar ; when once he got really waked up, the torrent 
of his eloquence could be compared with nothing save 
Ni^^ara. 

Tommy Hinds had begun life as a blacksmith's helper, 
and had run away to join the Union army, where he had 
made his first acquaintance with ** graft," in the shape of 
rotten muskets and shoddy blankets. To a musket that 
broke in a crisis he always attributed the death of his only 
brother, and upon worthless blankets he blamed all the 
agonies of his own old aee. Whenever it rained, the 
rneumatism would get into his joints, and then he would 
screw up his face and mutter: ^^ Capitalism, my boy, Capi- 
talism I ^JEcrasez VlmfdmeT^ He had one unfailing 
remedy for all the evils of this world, and he preached it 
to every one ; no matter whether the person's trouble was 
failure in business, or djrspepsia, or a quarrelsome mother* 
in-law, a twinkle would come into his eyes and he would 
say, ^ You know what to do about it — vote the Socialist 
ticket ! '• 

Tommy Hinds had set out upon the trail of the Octopus 
as soon as the war was over. He had gone into business, 
and found himself in competition with the fortunes of those 
who had been stealing while he had been fighting. The 
city government was m their hands and the railro^ls were 
in league with them, and honest business was driven to the 
wall ; and so Hinds had put all his savings into Chicago 
real estate, and set out single-handed to dam the river of 
graft. He had been a reform member of the city council, 
he had been a Greenbacker, a Labor Unionist, a Populist, 
a Bryanite — and after thirty years of fighting, the year 
1896 had served to convince him that the power of concen- 
trated wealth could never be controlled, unt could only be 



SS3 THE JXTNGLB 

destroyed. He had paUished a pamphlet about it, and set 
out to organize a party of his own, when a stray Socialist 
leaflet had revealed to him that others had been iJiead of 
him. Now for eight years he had been fighting for the 
party, anywhere, everywhere — whether it was a 6. A. R 
reunion, or a hotel-keepers' convention, or an Afro-Ameri- 
can business-men's banquet, or a Bible society picnic. 
Tommy ELinds would manage to get himself invited to 
explain the relations of Socialism to the subject in hand. 
After that he would start off upon a tour of his own, end- 
ing at some place between New York and Oregon ; and 
when he came back from there, he would go out to organize 
new locals for the state committee ; and finally he would 
come home to rest — and talk Socialism in Chicaga 
Hinds's hotel wad a very hot-bed of the propaganda ; all 
the employees were party men, and if thev were not when 
they came, they were quite certain to be Defore they went 
away. The proprietor would get into a discussion with 
some one in the lobby, and as the conversation grew ani- 
mated, others would gather about to listen, until finally every 
one in the place would be crowded into a group, and a 
regular debate would be under way. This went on every 
night — when Tommy Hinds was not there to do it, his 
clerk did it ; and when his clerk was away campaigning, the 
assistant attended to it, while Mrs. Hinds sat behind the 
desk and did the work. The clerk was an old crony of 
the proprietor's, an awkward, raw-boned ciant of a man, 
with a lean, sallow face, a broad mouth, and whiskers under 
his chin, the very type and body of a prairie farmer. He 
had been that all his life — he liad fought the railroads in 
Kansas for fifty years, a Graneer,a Farmers' Alliance man, 
a ** middle-of-die-road " Popmist. Finally, Tommy Hinds 
bad revealed to him the wonderful idea of using the trusts 
instead of destroying them, and he had sold his farm and 
come to ChicaTO. 

That was Amos Struver ; and then there was Harrj 
Adams, the assistant clerk, a pale, scholarly-looking man, 
who came from Massachusetts, of Pilgrim stock. Adams 
had been a cotton operative in Fall River, and the conr 



THE JUNGLE S88 

tinned depression in the industnr had worn him and his 
family ont, and he had emigrated to South Carolina. In 
Massachnsetts the percentage of white illiteracy is eight- 
tenths of one per cent, while in South Carolina it is 
thirteen and six-tenths per cent; also in South Carolina 
there is a property qualincation for voters— and for these 
and other reasons child4abor is the rule, and so the cotton 
mills were driving those of Massachusetts out of the busi- 
ness. Adams did not know this, he only knew that the 
Southern mills were running ; but when he got there he 
found that if he was to live, all his family would have to 
work, and from six o'clock at night to six o'clock in the 
morning. So he had set to work to organize the mill* 
hands, after the fashion in Massachusetts, and had been 
dischar^d ; but he had gotten other work, and stuck at it, 
and at last there had been a strike for shorter hours, and 
Harrv Adams had attempted to address a street meetinet 
whicn was the end of him. In the states of the far Souw 
the labor of convicts is leased to contractors, and when 
there are not convicts enough they have to be supplied. 
Harry Adams was sent up by a judge who was a cousin of 
the mill-owner with whose business he had interfered; and 
though the life had nearly killed him, he had been wise 
enough not to murmur, and at the end of his term he and 
his familv had left the state of South Carolina — hell's 
back yard, as he called it. He had no money for car-fare, 
but it was harvest-time, and they walked one day and 
worked the next ; and so Adams got at last to Chics^, 
and joined the Socialist party. He was a studious man, 
reserved, and nothing of an orator ; but he always had a 
pile of books under his desk in the hotel, and articles from 
nis pen were beginning to attract attention in the party 
press. 

Contrary to what one"^ would have expected, all this 
radicalism did not hurt the hotel business; the radicals 
flocked to it, and the commercial travellers all found it 
diverting. Of late, also, the hotel Jiad become a favorite 
stopping-place for Western cattlemen. Now that the Beef 
Trust had adopted the trick of raising prices to induco 



S84 THE JUNGLE 

enormotui shipments of cattle, and then dropping them 
again and Bcooping in all they needed, a stock-raiser was 
very apt to find himself in Chicam without money enough 
to pa^ nis freight Ull ; and so he had to go to a cheap hotel, 
and it was no drawback to him if there was an agitator 
talking in the lobby. These Western fellows were just 
*^meat" for Tommy Hinds — he would get a dozen of 
them around him and paint little pictures of ^the Sys- 
tem/' Of course, it was not a week before he had heard 
Jurgis's stoiy, and after that he would not have let his 
new porter go for the world. ^* See here,** he would say, in 
the middle of an argument, ^* IVe got a fellow right nere 
in my place who's worked there and seen every bit of it I " 
And then Jurgis would drop his work, whatever it was, 
and come, and the other would say, ** Comrade Jurgis, lust 
tell these gentlemen what you saw on the killing-beds." 
At first this request caused poor Jurgis the most ^ute 
agony, and it was like pulling teeth to get him to talk ; 
but gradually he found out what was wanted, and in the 
end he learned to stand up and speak his piece with enthu- 
siasm. His employer would sit by and encourage him with 
exclamations and shakes of the head ; when Jur^ would 
give the formula for ^^ potted ham," or tell about the 
condemned hogs that were dropped into the ^^ destructors " 
at the top and immediately taken out again at the bottom, to 
be shipped into another state and made into lard. Tommy 
Hinds would bang his knee and cry, ^^Do you think a 
man could make up a thing like that out of his head ? " 
And then the hotel-keeper would go on to show how 
the Socialists had the only real remedy for such evils, how 
they alone " meant business " with the Beef Trust. And 
when, in answer to this, the victim would say that the 
whole country was getting stirred up, that the newspapers 
were full of denunciations of it, and the government tak- 
ing action against it, Tommy Hinds had a knock-out blow 
all ready. "Yes," he would say, " all that is true — but 
what do you suppose is the reason for it? Are you foolish 
enough to believe that it's done for the public? There are 
other trusts in the country just as Ulegid and eztortionata 



THE JUNGLE «8S 

M the Beef Trust: theie is the CSoal Trust* that freezf^ 
the poor in winter—- there is the Steel Trust, that doubles 
the price of every nail in your shoes -— there is the Oil 
Trost, tibat keeps yon from reading at night — and why do 
you suppose it ib that all the fury of the press and the 
goyemment is directed against the Beef Trust r' And when 
to this the victim would reply that there was clamor enough 
over the Oil Trust, the other would continue : *^ Ten years 
ago Henry D. Llo^d told all the truth about the Standtuxl 
Oil Company in his * Wealth versus Commonwealth * ; and 
the book was allowed to die, and yon hardly ever heaSr of 
it. And now, at last, two magazines have uie courage to 
tackle * Standard Oil* again, and what happens? The 
newspapers ridicule the authors, the churches defend the 
criminals, and the government — does nothing. And now, 
why is it all so dif^rent with the Beef Trust ? '* 

Here the other would generally admit that he was 
^ stuck '' ; and Tommy Hinds would explain to him, and it 
was fun to see his eyes open. ** If you were a Socialist," 
the hotel-keeper would say, ** yon would understand that 
the power which really goYems the United States to-day 
is the Railroad Trust, ft is the Railroad Trust that runF 
your state government, wherever you live, and that run 
the United States Senate. And all of the trusts that 
have named are railroad trusts — save only the Bee. 
Trust! The Beef Trust has defied the railroads —- it is 
plundering them day by day throufi^h the Private Car ; and 
so the public is roused to fury, and the papers clamor for 
action, and the government goes on the war-path I And 
you poor common people watch and applaud the job, and 
think it's all done for you, and never dream tliat it is 
really the grand climax of the century-long battle of com« 
mercial competition,— * the final death-grapple between the 
chiefs of the Beef Trust and * Standard Oil,' for the prize 
of the mastery and ownership of the United States of 
America I " 

Such was the new home in which Jurgis lived and 
worked, and in which his education was completed. Per- 



386 THE JUNGLE 

haps yoQ would imagine that he did not do much work 
there, but that would be a great mistake. He would have 
out off one hand for Tommy Hinds ; and to keep Hinds's 
hotel a thing of beauty was nis joy in life. That he had a 
score of Socialist arguments chasing through his brain in 
the meantime did not interfere with this ; on the contrary, 
Jurgis scrubbed the spittoons and polished the baiubsters ui 
the more yehemently because at the same time he was 
wrestling inwardly with an imaginary recalcitrant. It 
would M pleasant to record that he swore off drinking 
immediately, and all the rest of his bad habits with it ; but 
that would hardly be exact. These reyolutionists were 
not angels; they were men, and men who had come up 
from the social pit, and with the mire of it smeared oyer 
them. Some of them drank, and some of them swore, and 
some of them ate pie with their kniyes ; there was only one 
difference between them and all the rest of the populace — 
that they were men with a hope,^th a cause to fight for 
and suffer for. There came times to Jurgis when the yision 
seemed far^ff and pale, and a glass of b^r loomed large in 
comparison; but if the glass led to another glass, and to toe 
many g^lasses, he had something to spur him to remorse and 
resolution on the morrow. It was so eyidently a wicked 
thing to spend one's pennies for drink, when the workings 
class was wandering in darkness, and waiting to be de- 
liyered ; the price of a glass of beer would buy fifty copies 
of a leaflet, and one could hand these out to the unre^ner- 
ate, and then get drunk upon the thought of the good that 
was being accomplished. That was the way the moyement 
had been made, and it was the only way it would progress ; 
it ayailed nothing to know of it, without fighting for it^ 
it was a thine for all, not for a few I A corollary of this 
proposition of course was, that any one who refused to re* 
ceiye the new gospel was personally responsible for keep* 
ing Jurgis from ms hearth desire ; and this, alas, maoe 
him uncomfortable as an acquaintance. He met some 
neighbors with whom Elzbieta had made friends in her 
neighborhood, and he set out to make Socialists of them 
by wholesale, and seyeral times he all bat got into a fighti 




THE JTJXGLE 387 

ItwuBnsop^nfallyolmoDfl to JaigisT TtwHssoin- / 

eomprehensible now a man oonld fail to aee it t Here were I 
all die opportunities of the ooontiy, the land, and the boUtt- \ 
ingB npoQ the land, the railroads, the mines, the factories, \ 
and the stores, all in the hands of a few private indlTiduals, \ 
called capitaliste, for whom the people were obliged to 
work for wages. The whole balance of what the people 
produced went to heap up the fortunes of these capitalists, 
to heap, and heap again, and yet ^ain — and that in spite of 
the fact that ther* and every one about them, lived in un> 
thinkable luxury! And was it not plain that if the people 
cat off the share of those who merely "owned," the snare of 
those who worked would be much ereater? That was as 
plain as two and two makes four; and it was the whole of it, 
absolutely the whole of it; and yet there were people who 
oould not see it, who would argue about everything else is 
the world. They would tell yon that governments ooold 
not manage things as economically as private individoala { 
ibay would repeat and repeat that, and think tihey were 
saying something I They could not see that " economical ** 
management by masters meant simply that they, the people, 
were worked harder and ground closer and paid less' 
They were wage-earners and servants, at the mercy of ex- 
ploiters whose one thought was to get as much out of them 
as possible; and they were taking an interest in the process, 
were anxious lest it should not be done thoroughly enough I 
Was it not honestly a trial to listen to an argomeat such 
as that? 

And yet there were things even worse. Toa would 
begin talking to some roor devil who had worked in one 
shop for the last thirty years, and had never been able to 
save a penny; who left home every morning at six o'clock, 
to go and tend a machine, and come back at night too tired 
to take his clothes off; who had never had a week's vaca- 
tion ID his life, had never travelled, never had an adventure, 
never le.irQed anything, never hoped anything — ^ and when 
you started to tell him about Socialism he would snifE and 
say. "I m not interested in that — I'm an indiridoalist 1 " 
And th&u be would go on to tell you that Socialism wai 



888 THE JUNGLE 

^^ PatemaliBm,'' and that if it ever had its way the world 
would stop progressing. It was enough to make a mule 
laugh, to hear arguments like that; and yet it was no 
laughing matter, as you found out — for how many mil- 
lions of such poor deluded wretches there were, whose lives 
had been so stunted by Capitalism that they no longer 
knew what freedom wasl And they really thought that it 
was *^ IndividualiBm " for tens of thousands of them to herd 
together and obey the orders of a steel magnate, and pro- 
duce hundreds oi millions of dollars of wealtn for him, and 
then let him give them libraries ; while for them to take 
the industry, and run it to suit themselves, and build their 
own libraries — that would have been " Paternalism " I 

Sometimes the a^ony of such things as this was almost more 
than Jurgis could bear ; yet there was no way of escape from 
it, there was nothing to do but to di^ away at the oase of 
this mountain of ignorance and prejudice. I ou must keep 
at the poor fellow ; you must hold your temper, and argue 
with him, and watch for your chance to stick an idea or two 
into his head. And the rest of the time you must sharpen 
up your weapons, — ^you must think out new replies to 
his objections, and provide yourself with new racts to 
prove to him the folly of his ways. 

So Jur^s acquired the reading habit. He would carry 
in his pod^et a tract or a pamphlet which some one had 
loaned him, and whenever he had an idle moment dur- 
ing the day he would j^lod through a paragraph, and 
then think about it while he worked. Also ne read 
the newspapers, and asked questions about them. One of 
the other porters at Hinds's was a sharp little Irishman, who 
knew everything that Jurgis wanted to know ; and while 
they were busy he would explain to him the geography of 
America, and its history, its constitution and its laws ; also 
he gave him an idea of the business system of the country, 
the great railroads and corporations, and who owned them, 
and the labor unions, and the big strikes, and the men who 
had led them. Then at night, wnen he could get off, Jur- 
gis would attend the Socialist meetings. During rhe cam- 
paign one was not dependent upon the street-comc^r affairs. 



THE JUNGLE 889 

where the weather and the quality of the orator were equally 
uncertain ; there were hall meetings every night, and one 
could hear speakers of national prominence. These dis- 
cussed the political situation from every point of view, 
and all that troubled Jur^is was the impossibility of carry- 
ing off but a small part oi the treasures they offered him. 

There was a man who was known in the party as the 
^ Little Giant. ^ The Lord had used up so much material 
in the making of his head that there had not been enough 
to complete bis legs ; but he got about on the platform, 
and when he shook his raven whiskers the pillars of Capi- 
talism rocked. He had written a veritable encyclopsedia 
upon the subject, a book that was nearly as big as himself. 
— And then there was a young author, who came from 
California, and had been a salmon-fisher, an oyster-pirate, 
a longshoreman, a sailor; who had tramped the country 
and been sent to jail, had lived in the Wlutechapel slums, 
and been to the Klondike in search of gold. All these 
things he pictured in his books, and because he was a man 
of genius ne forced the world to hear him. Now he was 
famous, but wherever he went he still preached the gospel 
of the poor. — And then there was one who was Known 
as the ^^millionnaire Socialist.'* He had made a fortune in 
bu3ine'», and spent nearly all of it in building up a maga- 
zine, which the post-office department had tried to suppress, 
and had driven to Canada. He was a quiet-mannered man, 
whom you would have taken for anything in the world 
but a Socialist asdtator. His speech was simple and in- 
formal — he could not understand why any one should get 
excited about these things. It was a process of economic 
evolution, he said, and he exhibited its laws and methods. 
Life was a struggle for existence, and the strong overcame 
the weak, and in turn were overcome by the strongest. 
Those who lost in the struggle were generally exterminated; 
but now and then they had been known to save themselves 
by combination — wmch was a new and higher kind of 
strength. It was so that the gregarious animals had over- 
come the predaceous ; it was so, in human history, that 
the people had mastered the kings. The workers were 



890 THE JUNGLE 

simply the citizens of industry, and the Socialist moyement 
was the expression of their wiXL to survive. The inevita- 
bility of the revolution depended upon this fact, that they 
had no choice but to unite or bo exterminated ; this fact, 
grim and inexorable, depended upon no human will, it was 
uie law of the economic process, of which the editor showed 
the details with the most marvellous precision. I 

And later on came the evening of the great meeting ot 
the campaign, when Juigis heard the two standard-beaxeis 
of his party. Ten years before there had been in Chicago 
a strike of a hundred and fifty thousand railroad employees, 
and thugs had been hired by the railroads to conmiit 
violence, and the President of the United States had sent 
in troops to break the strike, by flinging the officers of the 
union mto jail without trial. The president of the unioD 
came out of his cell a ruined man ; but also he C€une out a 
Socialist; and now for just ten years he had been travelling 
up and down the country, standing face to face with the 
people, and pleading with them for justice. He was a man 
of electric presence, tall and gaunt, with a face worn thin 
by strufi^gle and suffering. The fury of outraged manhood 
gleamed in it — and the tears of suffering little children 

E leaded in his voice. When he spoke he paced the stajge, 
the and eager, like a panther. He leanea over, reaching 
out for his audience ; he pointed into their souls with an 
insistent finger. His voice was husky from much speaking, 
but the CTcat auditorium was as still as death, and eveiy 
one heara him. 

And then, as Jurgis came out from this meeting, some 
one nanded him a paper which he carried home with him 
and read; and so he became acquainted with the ** Appeal 
to Reason.'* About twelve years previously a Colorado 
real-estate speculator had made up his mind that it was 
wrong to gamble in the necessities of life of human beings ; !j 
and so he had retired and begun the publication of a 
Socialist weekly. There had come a time when he had to 
set his own type, but he had held on and won out, and now 
his publication was an institution. It used a car-load of 
paper every week, and the mail-trains would be houis 



/s 



THE JUNGLE S91 

loading npat the depotof the little Kansas town. It was a 
four-page weekly, which sold for less than half a cent a 
copy ; its regular subscription list was a quarter of a mill- 
ion, and it went to eveiy cross-roads D06tK)ffice in America. 

The ** Appeal'' was a *^ propamnda " paper. It had a 
manner all its own, — it was fuU of ginger and spice, of 
Western slang and hustle. It collected news of the doim^ 
of tiie ^* plutes,'* and served it up for the benefit of the 
** American working-mule.'' It would have columns of 
the deadly parallel, — the million dollars' worth of diamonds, 
or the fancy pet-poodle establishment of a society dame, 
beside the &te of Mrs. Murphy of San Francisco, who had 
starved to death on the streets, or of John Robinson, just 
out of the hospital, who had hanged himself in New York 
because he could not find work. It collected the stories 
of graft and miseiy from the daily press, and made little 
pungent paragraph out of them. *^ Three banks of Bung- 
town, South Dakota, failed, and more savings c^ the 
workers swallowed up 1 " ** The mayor of Sandy Creek, 
Oklahoma, has skipped with a hundred thousand dollars. 
That's the kind of rulers the old partyites give you I'' 
*^ The president of the Florida Flying Machine Company 
is in jail for bigamy. He was a prominent opponent of So« 
ciaUsm, which he said would break up the nome I " The 
"Appeal" had what it called its "Army," about thirty 
thousand of the faithful, who did things for it ; and it was 
always exhorting the " Army " to keep its dander up, and 
occasionally encouraging it with a prize competition, for 
anything from a jrold watch to a private yacht or an eighty* 
acre &rm. Its office helpers were all known to the " Anny " 
by quamt titles— "Inky Ike," "the Bald-headed Man," 
"the Red-headed Girl," "the Bulldog," "the Office 
Ooat," and "the One Hoss." 

But sometimes, again, the "Appeal" would be desperately 
serious. It sent a correspondent to Colorado, and printed 
pages describing the overthrow of American institutions 
m that state. In a certain city of the countnr it had over 
forty of its " Army " in the he^quarters of tne Telegraph 
Trust, and no message of importance to Socialists ever 



982 SHE JUSGLB 

went diroogfa fhst a copy of it did not go to liie^AppeiL* 
It would pnnt great broadsides dmiiig the campaign ; one 
copy that came to Jmro was a manifesto addzessed to 
stnbng working-men, of which neail j a million copies had 
been £Btribatea in liie industrial centres, whereTsr the 
employers' associations had been canying oat their ^open 
shop" program. ^Yoa have lost the strike I" it was 
headed. ^ And now what are yon going to do about it?" 
It was what is called an ^incendiary" appeal, — it was 
written by a man into whose soul the iron had entered. 
When this edition appeared, twenty thousand copies weie 
sent to the stockyaras district; and they were tt^en out 
and stowed away in the rear of a little cigar^tore, and 
every eyeninc^, and on Sundays, the members of the Pack* 
ingtown locak would get armfuls and distribute them on 
the streets and in the houses. The people of Packii^f- 
town had lost their strike, if ever a people had, and so 
they read these papers gladly, and twenty thousand were 
hardly enough to go round. Jurgis had resolved not to 
go near his old home again, but vmen he heuxi of this it 
was too much for him, and every night for a week he 
would get on the car and ride out to the stocl^ards, and 
help to undo his work of the previous year, when he had 
sent Mike Scully's ten-pin setter to the city Board of 
Aldermen. 

It was quite marvellous to see what a difference twelve 
months had made in Packingtown — the eyes of the people 
were getting opened I The Socialists were literally sweep- 
ing everything before them that election, and Scully and 
the Cook County machine were at their wits' end for an 
^ issue." At the very dose of the campaign ihej be- 
thought themselves of the fact that the strike had been 
broken by negroes, and so they sent for a South Carolina 
fire-eater, the ^* jpitehfork senator," as he was called, a 
man who took on his coat when he talked to working-men, 
and damned and swore like a Hessian. This meeting they 
advertised extensively, and the Socialisto advertised it too 
— with the result that about a thousand of them were 
on hand that evening. The ^pitchfork senator** stood 



THE JUNGLE 



898 



their fofiillade of questioDB for about an hour, and then 
went home in disgust, and the balance of the meeting was 
a Btrictlj party affair. Jurgis, who had insisted upon com- 
ing, had the time of his life that night ; he danced about and 
waved his arms in his excitement — and at the very climax 
he broke loose from his friends, and got out into the aisle, 
and proceeded to make a speech himself! The senator 
had been denying that the Democratic party was corrupt ; 
it was always the Republicans who bought the votes, he 
said, — ^and here was Jurgis shouting furiously, '^ It^s a lie ! 
It's a lie I " After which he went on to tell them how he 
knew it — that he knew it because he had bought them 
himself I And he would have told the '^pitchfork senator '' 
all his experiences, had not Harry Adams and a friend 
grabbed mm about the neck and shoved him into a seat 



26 



Ou 



CHAPTER XXXI 

Okb of the fiiBt things that Juigis had done after he 

it a job was to go and see Marija. She came down into 
__e basement of the house to meet him, and he stood br 
the door with his hat in his hand, saying, ** I'ye got work 
now, and so you can leave here.^ 

But Marija only shook her head. There was nothing 
else for her to do, she said, and nobody to employ her. 
She oonld not keep her past a secret — girls haa tried it, 
and they were always found out. There were thousands 
of men who came to tins place, and sooner or later she 
would meet one of them. ^ And besides," Marija added, 
^I can't do anything, Tm no good — I take dope. What 
could you do with me ? " 

** Can't you stop ? '* Jurais cried. 

*^ No,'* she answered, ^^ rll neyer stop. What's the use 
of talking about it — 111 stay here tiU I die, I sniess. It's 
all I'm fit for." And that was all that he could get her to 
say — there was no use trying. When he tola her he 
would not let Elzlneta take ner money, she answered indif* 
ferently: ""Thenitll be wasted here— that's all." Her 
eyelids looked heayy and her &ce was red and swollen ; he 
saw that he was annoying her, that she only wanted hi^ to 
go away. So he went, disappointed and sad. 

Poor Jurgis was not yeiy happy in his home-life. 
Elzbieta was sick a good deal now, and the boys were wild 
and unruly, and yery much the worse for their life upon 
the streets. But he stuck by the family neyertheless, for 
they reminded him of his old happiness ; and when things 
went wrong he could solace himself with a plunge into 
the SocialiBt moyemant. Since his life had been caught 



THE JUNGLE S9S 

up into the onrrent of this c^at stream, things whioh 
had before been the whole of life to him came to seem of 
relatively slight importance ; his interests were elsewhere, 
in the world of ideas. His oiitward life was commonplace 
and uninteresting; he was just a hotel-porter, and ex- 
pected to remain one while he lived; but meantime, in 
the realm of thought, his life was a perpetual adventure. 
There was so much to know — so many wonders to be dis* 
covered I Never in all his life did Jurgis forget the day 
before election, when there came a telephone message from a 
friend of Harry Adams, asking him to bring Jurgis to see 
him that night ; and Jurgis went, and met one of me minds 
of the movement. 

The invitation was from a man named Fisher, a Chicago 
millionnaire who had given up his life to settiement-woK, 
and had a little home in the heart of the city's slums. He 
did not belong to the party, but he was in sympathy with 
it; and he said that he was to have as ms guest that 
night the editor of a big Eastern magazine, who wrote 
^ntinst Socialism, but really did not Know what it was. 
'&ie millionnaire suggested that Adams brine Jurgis along, 
and then start up the subject of ^ pure food, in which md 
editor was interested. 

Young Fisher's home was a little twoHBtory brick house, 
dingy and weather-beaten outside, but attractive within. 
The room that Jurgis saw was half lined with books, and 
upon the walls were many pictures, dimly visible in the 
soft, yellow light ; it was a cold, rainy night, so a log-fire 
was crackling in the open hearth. Seven or eight people 
were gathered about it when Adams and his friend arrived, 
and Jureis saw to his dismay that three of them were 
ladies. He had never talked to people of this sort before, 
and he fell into an agony of embarrassment. He stood in 
the doorway clutching nis hat tightly in his hands, and 
made a deep bow to each of the persons as he was intro- 
duced ; then, when he was asked to have a seat, he took a 
chair in a dark comer, and sat down upon the edge of it^ 
and wiped the perspiration off his forehead with his sleevOb 
He was terrifiea lest they should expect him to talk. 



896 THE JXTNGLE 

There was the host himself, a tall, athletic joong man, 
clad in evening dress, as also was the editor, a dyspeptio- 
looking gentleman named Maynard. There was the 
formers irail young wife, and also an elderly lady, who 
taught kindergarten in the settlement, and a young college 
student, a beautiful girl with an intense and earnest &ce. 
She only spoke once or twice while Jurgis was there — the 
rest of the time she sat by the table in the centre of the 
room, resting her chin in her hands and drinking in 
the conversation. There were two other men, whom young 
Fisher had introduced to Jurgis as Mr. Lucas and Mr. 
Schliemann ; he heard them address Adams as ^* Comrade,** 
and so he knew that they were Socialists. 

The one called Lucas was a mild and meek-looking little 
gentleman of clerical aspect; he had been an itinerant 
evangelist, it transpired, and had seen the light and be- 
come a prophet of the new dispensation. He travelled dl 
over the country, living like the apostles of old, upon 
hospitality, and preaching upon street-comers when there 
was no hall. The other man had been in the midst of h 
discussion with the editor when Adams and Juigis came 
in ; and at the suggestion of the host they resumed it after 
the interruption. Jurg^ was soon sitting spellbound, 
thinking that here was surely the strangest man that had 
ever lived in the world. 

Nicholas Schliemann was a Swede, a tall, gaunt person, 
with hairy hands and bristling yellow beara; he was a 
university man, and had been a professor of philosophy — 
until, as he said, he had found that he was selling his cnar- 
acter as well as his time. Instead he had come to America, 
where he lived in a garret-room in this slum district, and 
made volcanic energy take the place of fire. He studied 
the composition of &>od-8tufFs, and knew exactly how many 
proteids and carbohydrates his bodv needed; and bv 
scientific chewing he said that he tripled the value of au 
he ate, so that it cost him eleven cents a day. About the 
first of July he would leave Chicago for ms vacation, on 
foot I and when he struck the harvest-fields he would set 
to work for two dollars and a half a day, and oome home 



THE JUNGLE 897 

'/hen he had another yearns supply — a hundred and 
iwenty-five dollars. That was the nearest approach to in- 
dependence a man could make ^^ under capitalism/' he ex* 
plained ; he would never marry, for no sane man would 
allow himself to fall in love until after the revolution. 

He sat in a big arm-chair, with his legs crossed, and his 
head so far in the shadow that one saw only two glowing 
lights, reflected from the fire on the hearth. He spoke 
simply, and utterlv without emotion ; with the manner of 
a teacher setting forth to a group of scholars an axiom in 
geometry, he would enunciate such propositions as made 
we hair of an ordinary person rise on end. And when the 
auditor had asserted his non-comprehension, he would pro- 
ceed to elucidate by some new proposition, yet more appall- 
ing. To Jurgis the Herr Dr. Schliemann assumed the 
proportions of a thunder-storm or an earthquake. And yet, 
strange as it might seem, there was a subtle bond between 
them, and he could follow the argument nearly all the 
time. He was carried over the dimcult places in spite of 
himself; and he went plunging away in mad career— a 
very Mazeppa-ride upon the wild horse Speculation. 

Nicholas Schliemann was familiar with all the universe, 
and with man as a small part of it. He understood human 
institutions, and blew them about like soap-bubbles. It 
was surprising that so much destructiveness could be con. 
tained in one human mind. Was it government? The 
purpose of government was the guarding of property-rights, 
the perpetuation of ancient force and modem fraud. Or 
was it marriage? Marriage and prostitution were two 
sides of one shield, the precbtory man's exploitation of the 
sex-pleasure. The difference between them was a differ* 
ence of class. If a woman had money she might dictate 
her own terms : equality, a life-contract, and the legitimacy 
—that is, the property-rights — of her children. Ii she had 
no money, she was a proletarian, and sold herself for jan ^ 
existence. And then the subject became Religion, which was 
the Arch-fiend's deadliest weapon. Government oppressed 
the body of the wagenslave, out Religion oppressed hk 



mind, and poisoned the stream of progress at its source 



I 



400 THE JXTNGLB 

and Lovet That dreadful night when he lay in the Oarden 
of Gethsemane and writhed in agony until ne sweat blood 
—do you think that he saw anything worse than he might 
see to-night upon the plains of A^tnchuria, where men 
march out with a jewelled imam of him before them, to do 
wholesale murder for the benem of foul monsters of sen- 
suality and cruelty? Do you not know that if he were in 
St. Petersburg now, he would take the whip with which 
he drove out the bankers from his temple — 

Here the speaker paused an instant for breath. ^No, 
comrade," said the other, dryl^, ^* for he was a practical 
man. He would take pretty little imitation-lemons, such 
as are now being shipped into Russia, handy for carrying 
in the pockets, and strong enough to blow a whole temple 
out of sight.'* 

Lucas waited until the company had stopped laughing 
over this ; then he began again : *^ But look at it from the 
point of view of practical politics, comrade. Here is an 
nistorical figure wnom ail men reverence and love, whom 
some regard as divine ; and who was one of us — who lived 
our life, and taught our doctrine. And now shall we leave 
him in the hands of his enemies — shall we allow them to 
stifle and stultify his example ? We have his words, which 
no one can deny; and shall we not quote them to the 
people, and prove to them what he was, and what he taughti 
and what he did? No, nO|— a tJiousand times not — we 
shall use his authority to turn out the knaves and slug- 
gards from his ministry, and we shall yet rouse the people 
to action 1 — ** 

Lucas halted again; and the other stretched out his 
hand to a paper on the table. ^ Here, comrade,'* he said, 
with a laugh, ^* here is a place for you to begin. A bishop 
whose wife has just been robbed of fifty thousand dollars' 
^^ worth of diamonds I And a most unctuous and oilv of 
bishops I An eminent and scholarly bishop t A philan« 
thropist and friend of labor bishop— -a Civic Federation 
decoy-duck for the chloroforming of the wage-working* 
man I** 

To this little passage of arms the rest of the company sa* 



THE JTTNOLB 401 

as speotators* Bat now Mr. Maynaid, the editor, took oo« 
casion to remark, somewhat naively, that he had always 
understood that Socialists had a cut-and-dried programme 
for the future of ciyilization; whereas here were two active 
members of the party, who, from what he could make out, 
were agreed about nothing at alL Would the two, for his 
enlightenment, try to ascertain just what they had in com- 
mon, and why they belonged to the same party ? This 
resulted, after much debating, in the formulatinfi^ of two . 
carefully worded propositions s First, that a Socialist be* 
Ueves in the common ownership and democratic manage* 
ment of the means of producing the necessities of life ; andf 
second, that a socialist believes that the means by which 
this is to be brought about is the dass^^nscious political 
organization of the wage-earners. Thus far they were at 
one; but no farther. To Lucas, the religious zealot, 
the co()perative commonwealth was the New Jerusalem, 
the kingdom of Heaven, which is ^ within you/' To the 
other. Socialism was simply a necessary step toward a 
far-distant goal, a step to be tolerated with impatience. 
Schliemann called himself a ** philosophic anarchist*'; and 
he explained that an anarchist was one who believed that 
the end of human existence was the free development of 
every personality, unrestricted by laws save those of its 
own being. Since the same kind of matoh would light 
every one^s fire and the same-shaped loaf of bread would 
fill ever^ one's stomach, it would be perfectly feasible to 
submit industry to the control of a majority vote. There ^ 
was only one earth, and the quantity of material thines "^ 
was limited. Of intellectual and moral things, on the 
other hand, there was no limit, and one could have more 
without another's having less ; hence ^ Communism in 
material production, anarchism in intellectual," was the 
formula of modern proletarian thought. As soon as the \\ 
birth-agony was over, and the wounds of society had been u 
healed, there would be esteblished a simple system whereby i i 
each man was credited with his labor and debited witih his 
purchases ; and after that the processes of production, ex- 
change, and consumption would go on automatically, and 



402 THE JXTNOIS 

without our being conscious of them, any more (ban a man 
isoonscious of the oeating of his heart. Aiid then, explained 
Schliemann, society womd break up into independent, self* 
governing communities of mutually congenial persons i 
examples of which at present were clubs, cnurches, and po- 
litical parties. After the revolution, all the intellectiud, 
artistic, and spiritual activities of men would be cared for 
by such ^^ free associations '^ ; romantic novelists would be 
supported by those who liked to read romantic novels, and 
impressionist painters would be supported by those who 
liked to look at impressionist pictures — and the same with 
preachers and scientists, editors and actors and musicians. 
if any one wanted to work or paint or prav, and could find 
no one to maintain him, he could support himself by wort 
inff part of the time. That was the case at present, the 
omy difference being that the competitive wam-eystem 
compelled a man to work all the time to live, while, after 
the abolition of privilege and exploitation, any one would 
be able to support himself by an hour^s work a day. Also 
the artist's audience of the present was a small minority 
of people, all debased and vulgarized by the effort it had 
cost them to win in the commercial battle; of the intellec- 
tual and artistic activities which would result when the 
whole of mankind was set free from the nightmare of com- 
petition, we could at present form no conception what 
ever. 

And then the editor wanted to know upon what ground 
Dr. Schliemann asserted that it might be possible for a society 
to exist upon an hour's toil by each of its members. ^ Just 
what,*' answered the other, ^ would be the productive 
capacitg^ of society if the present resources of science were 
utdizeo, we have no means of ascertaining; but we may be 
sure it would exceed anything that would sound reasonable 
to minds inured to the ferocious barbarities of Capitalism. 
After the triumph of the intemationid proletariat, war 
would of course be inconceivable ; and who can figure the 
cost of war to humanity — not merely the value of the 
lives and the material tliat it destroys, not merely the cost 
of keeping millions of men in idxeness, of arming and 



IVV JUNQLE 40S 

aqtdpping them for battle and parade, but the drain 
upon the vital energies of society by the war-attitnde and 
the war-terror, the brutality and ignorance, the drunken- 
ness, prostitution, and crime it entails, the industrial impo 
tence and the moral deadness? Do you think that it 
would be too much to say that two hours of the working 
time of every efficient member of a community goes to 
feed the red fiend of war ? ** 

And then Schliemann went on to outline some of the || 
wastes of competition : the losses of industrial warfare ; H 
the' ceaseless worry and friction ; the vices — such as drink, 
for instanoe, the use of which had nearly doubled in twenty 
years, as a consequence of the intensification of the eco- 
nomic struggle ; the idle and unproductive members of the 
community, the frivolous rich and the pauperized poor; 
the law and the whole machinery of repression ; the wastes 
of social ostentation, the milliners and tailors, the hair- 
dressers, dancing masters, chefs and lackers. ^^ Tou under« 
stand," he said, ^^ that in a society dominated by the fact 
of commercial competition, money is necessarily the test 
of prowess, and wastefulness the sole criterion of power. 
So we have, at the present moment, a society with, say, 
thirty per cent of the population occupied in producing 
useless articles, and one per cent occupied in destroying 
them. And this is not all ; for the servants and panders 
of the parasites are also parasites, the milliners and the 
jewellers and the lackeys have also to be supported by the 
aseful members of the community. And Dear in mind 
jlso that tins monstrous disease affects not merely the 
idlers and their menials, its poison penetrates the whole 
social body. Beneath the hundred thousand women of 
the elite are a million middle-class women, miserable 
because they are not of the ^lite, and trying to appear of 
it in public; and beneath them, in turn, are five million 
farmers' wives reading ^fashion papers* and trimming 
bonnets, and shop-girls and serving-maids selling them- 
selves into brothels for cheap jewellery and imitation seal« 
skin robes. And then consider uiat, added to this 
competition in display, you have, like oil on the flames, a 



404 



THE JUNGLE 



J 



whole BjBtem of competition in eelling I Yon have mann* 
£Eu;tareP8 contriving tens of thoneands of catchpenny 
devices, storekeepers displaying them, and newspapers and 
magazines filled np with advertisements of them I" 

^^ And don't forget the wastes of fraad," pnt in young 
Fisher. 

^^When one comes to the nltra-modem profession <^ 
advertising," responded Schliemann, — ^^ the science of p«p> 
suading people to bny what they do not want, — ^he is in 
the very centre of the ghastly chamel-honse of capitalist 
destmctiveness, and he scarcely knows which of a dozen 
horrors to point oat first* Bat consider the waste in time 
and ene^y incidental to makinj^ ten thonsand varieties of 
a thing for purposes of ostentation and snobbishness, whore 
one variety would do for use! Consider all the waste 
incidental to the manufacture of cheap qualities of goods, 
of goods made to sell and deceive the ignorant; consider 
the wastes of adulteration, — the shoddy clothing, the 
cotton blankets, the unstable tenements, the ground-cork 
life-preservers, the adulterated milk, the analine soda-water, 
the potato-flour sausages — ^ 

"Ind consider the moral aspects of the thing,'' put in 
the ex-preacher. 

" Precisely,'' said Schliemann; "the low knavery and the 
ferocious cruelty incidental to them, the plotting and the 
lying and the bribing, the blustering and bragging, 
tne screaming ^otism, the hurrying and worrying. Of 
course, imitata on and adulterati on are the essence of com- 
peti^ioif-~jl3Li^gre-bat-«totfae r iorm of the g hig^en o bu y^ 
n u, tfarf sefa^pestm l tik e lr and s uft in jhedeare s t? ^Tgovem- 
"ment ofliciai has ^at e d ihirtT theiiation suners a loss of a 
billion and a quarter dollars a year through adulterated 
foods; which means, of course, not only materials wasted 
that might have been useful outside of tne human stomach, 
but doctors and nurses for people who would otherwise 
have been well, and undertakers for the whole human race 
ten or twenty years before the proper time. Then again, 
consider the waste of time and energy reouired to sell 
these things in a dozen stores, where one would do. There 



THE JIJNOLE 405 

are a million or two of business firms in the country, and 
five or ten times as many clerks ; and consider the hand- 
ling and rehandling, the accounting and reaccounting, the 

{>lanning and worrying, the balancing of petty profit and 
OSS. Consider the whole machinery of the civil law made 
necessaiT by these processes; the libraries of ponderous 
tomes, the courts ana juries to interpret them, the lawyers 
studying to circumvent them, the pettifogging and ohi« 
caneiy, the hatreds and lies I Consider me wastes 
incidental to the blind and haphazard production of com* 
modities, — the factories closed, the worsers idle, the goods 
spoiling in storage; consider the activities of the stock- 
manipijJator, the paralyzing of whole industries, the over- 
stimulation of others, lor speculative purposes ; the assign- 
ments and bank-failures, the crises and panics, the deserted 
towns and the starving populations I Consider the ener- 
gies wasted in the seeKing of markets, the sterile trades, 
such as drummer^ solicitor, bill-poster, advertising a^ent* 
Consider the wastes incidental to the crowding into cities, 
made necessary by competition and by monopoly railroad* 
rates ; consider the slums, die bad air, the disease and the 
waste of vital energies ; consider the office-buildings, the 
waste of time and material in the pilii^ of story upon story, 
and the burrowing underground! Then take the whole 
business of instirance, the enormous mass of administrative 
and clerical labor it involves, and all utter waste — " 
^ I do not follow that," said the editor. 
^The Cooperative Commonwealth is a universal auto* A 
matic insurance company and savings-bank for aU its mem- ) / 
bers. Capital being the property of all, injuiy to it is 
shared by all and made up by all. The bank is the uni- 
versal government credit-account, tht ledger in which 
eveiy individual's earnings and spendings are balanced 
There is also a universal government bulletin, in which are 
liste,d and precisely described everything which the com 
monwealth has for sale. As no one m^es any profit by 
the sale, there is no longer any stimulus to extravagance 
and no misrepresentation ; no cheating, no adulteration or 
imitation, no oribery or 'grafting.* '* 



406 THE JUKOLB 

** How is tlie price of an article detenninedf ** 

^ The price is Uie labor it has cost to make and deliTer 
it, and it is determined hy the first principles of arithmetic. 
The million workers in the nation's wheat-fields have 
worked a hundred days each, and the total product of the 
labor is a lullion bushels, so the yalue of a bushel of wheat 
is the tenth nart of a fkrm labor-day. If we employ an 
arbitrary symool, and pay, say, fiye doUais a day for farm- 
work, then the cost of a bushel of wheat is fifty cents.'* 

** You say ' for farm-work,' " said Mr. Maynard. ** Then 
labor is not to be paid alike ?" 

^ Manifestly not, since some work is easy and some hard, 
and we should haye millions of rural mail-carriers, and no 
coal-miners. Of course the wages may be left the same, 
and the hours yaried; one or we other will haye to be 
yaried continually, according as a greater or less number 
of workers is neeaed in any particmar industry. That is 
precisely what is done at present, except that the transfer 
of the workers is accomplished bUndly and imperfectly, hj 
rumors and adyertisements, instead of instantly and com- 
pletely, by a uniyersal goyemment bulletin." 

^ How about those occupations in which time is difficult 
to calculate? What is the labor cost of a book? " 

^ Obyiously it is the labor cost of the paper, printing, and 
binding of it — about a fifth of its present cost." 

**And the author?" 

^I haye already said that the state could not control in. 
tellectual production. The state might say that it had 
taken a year to write the book, and the author might say it 
had taken thirty. Goethe said that eyery ban mot of his had 
cost a purse of gold. What I outline here is a national 
or rather international, system for the providing of the 
material needs of men. Since a man has intellectual needs 
also, he will work lon^r, earn more, and provide for them 
to his own taste and m his own way. I live on the same 
earth as the majority, I wear the same kind of shoes and 
sleep in the same kind of bed ; but I do not think the same 
kind of thoughts, and I do not wish to pay for such think- 
ers as the majority selects. I wish suon things to be left 



THE JUNGLE 40r 

to £ree effort, as at present. If people want to listen to a 
certain pieacher, they get together and contribute what 
they please, and pay for a choroh and support the preacher, 
and wen listen to him ; I, who do not want to listen to 
him, stay away, and it costs me nothing. In the same way 
there are magazines about Egyptian coins, and Catholic 
saints, and flying machines, ana athletic records, and I 
know nothing arout any of them. On the other hand, if 
wagCHBlayery were abolished, and I could earn some spare 
money without paying tribute to an exploiting capitalisti 
then there would be a magazine for the purpose of inter- 
preting and popularizing the eospel bf Friedrich Nietzsche, 
the prophet of Evolution, ana also of Horace Fletcher, the 
inventor of ihe noble science of clean eating ; and inciden* 
tally, perhaps, for the discouraging of long skirts, and the 
scientLKc breeding of men and women, and the establishing 
of divorce by mutual consent.'* 

Dr. Schliemann paused for a moment. ^That was a 
lecture," he said with a laugh, ^and yet I am only 
beguni*' 

^ What else is there ? '* asked Maynard. 

^ I have pointed out some of the negative wastes of 
competition, answered the other. ^^I have hardly men- i 
tioned the positive economies of cooperation. Allowing 
five to a family, there are fifteen million families in thip 
country ; and at least ten million of these live separately, 
the domestic drudge being either the wife or a wage-slave. 
Now set aside the modem system of pneumatic house-clean* 
ing, and the economies of coopei*ative cooking ; and con* 
sider one single item^ the washing of dishes. Surely it is 
moderate to say that the dish-washing for a family of five 
takes half an hour a day ; with ten hours as a day's work, 
it takes, therefore, half a million able-bodied persons-^ 
mostly women — to do the dish-washing of the country. 
And note that this is most filthy and deadening and brutal- 
izing work; that it is a cause of ansemia, nervousness, 
ugliness, and ill-temper ; of prostitution, suicide, and insan* 
ity; of drunken husbands and degenerate children — for 
all of which things the community has naturally to pay. 



410 THE JUNGLE 

mption ; aBd mie of the oonseqaenoes of eivic adminisiim. 
tion by iffnorant and vicious politioiana, is that preventable 
diseases lill off half our population. And even if science 
weie allowed to try, it could do little, because the maiority 
of human beings are not yet human beings at all, but simply 
machines for me creatii4r of wealth for others. They are 
penned up in filthy houses and left to rot and stew in 
misery, and the conditions of their life make them ill faster 
than all the doctors in the world could heal them , and so, 
of course, they remain as centres of contagion, poisoning 
the lives of aU of us, and making happiness impossible for 
even the most selfish. For this reason I would seriously 
maintain that all the medical and surgical discoveries that 
science can make in the future will be of less importance 
than the application of the knowled^ we already possess, 
when the disinherited of the earth have estaUished their 
right to a human existence.'* 

And here the Herr Doctor relapsed into silence again. 
Jurgis had noticed that the beautiful young girl who sat 
by the centre-table was listening with someming of the 
same look that he himself had worn, the time when he had 
first discovered Socialism. Jurgis would have liked to talk 
to her, he felt sure that she would have understood lum. 
Later on in the evening, when the group broke up, he 
heard Mrs. Fisher say to her, in a low voice, ^^ I woncUr if 
Mr. Maynard will still write the same things about Social- 
ism ; " to which she answered, ^^ I don't know — but if he 
does we shall kno^ that he is a knave I " 



And only a few hours after this came election day — when 
the Ion? campai^ was over, and the whole country seemed 
to stand still and hold its breath, awaiting the issue. Jur- 
gis and the rest of the staff of Hinds's Hotel could hardly 
stop to finish their dinner, before they hurried off to the 
big hall which the party had hired for that evening. 

But already there were people waiting, and already the 
telegraph instrument on the stage had Begun clickinfr off 



THE JX7NGLB 411 

the retiiiM. When the final aooounts were made up, the 
Sociidist vote proved to be over four hundred thousand — 
an increase of something like three hundred and fifty per 
cent in four years. And that was doing well; but the party 
was dependent for its early returns upon messages from 
the loccds, and naturally those locals which had teen most 
successful were the ones which felt most like reporting ; 
and so that night every one in the hall believed that the 
vote was going to be six, or seven, or even ei^ht hundred 
thousand. Just such an incredible increase had actually 
been made in Chicago, and in the state ; the vote of tbie 
city had been 6700 in 1900, and now it was 47,000 ; that 
of Illinois had been 9600, and now it was 69,000 1 So, as 
the evening waxed, and the crowd piled in, the meeting 
was a sight to be seen. Bulletins would be read, and the 
people would shout themselves hoarse ; and then some one 
would make a speech, and there would be more shouting ; 
and then a brief sUence, and more bulletins. There womd 
come messages from the secretaries of neighboring states, 
reporting their achievements; the vote of Indiana md gone 
from 2300 to 12,000; of Wisconsin from 7000 to 28,000; of 
Ohio from 4800 to 86,000 1 There were telegrams to the 
national office from enthusiastic individuals in littie towns 
which had made amazing and unprecedented increases in a 
single year : Benedict, Kansas, bom 26 to 260 ; Hender- 
son, Kentucky, from 19 to 111 ; Holland, Michigan, from 
14 to 208 ; Cleo, Oklahoma, from to 104 ; Martin's 
Ferry, Ohio, from to 296 — and many more of the 
same kind. There were literally hundreds of such towns ; 
there would be reports from half a dozen of them in a 
single batch of telegrams. And the men who read the 
despatches off to the audience were old campaigners, who 
had been to the places and helped to make the vote, and 
could make appropriate comments : Quincy, Illinois, from 
189 to 881 — that was where the mayor had arrested a 
Socialist speaker I Crawford County, Kansas, from 285 to 
1975; that was the home of the ^^ Appeal to Reason 'M 
Battle Creek, Michigan, from 4261 to 10,184; that was the 
answer of labor to the Citizens' Alliance Movement I 



y 

< 



412 ; THE JXJNGLE 

And then there were official retoms from the varions 

Sioincts and wards of the city^ itself I Whether it was a 
tory district or one of the ^^ silk-stocking " wards seemed 
to make no particular difference in the increase ; but one 
of the things which surprised the party leaders most was 
the tremendous vote that came rolling in from the stock- 
yards. Packingtown comprised three wards of the city, 
and the vote in the spring of 1903 had been five hundred, 
and in the fall of the same year, sixteen hundred. Now, 
only a year later, it was over sixty-three hundred — and 
the Democratic vote only eighty-eight hundred I There 
were other wards in which the Democratic vote had been 
actually surpassed, and in two districts, members of the 
state legislature had been elected. Thus Chicago now led 
the country; it had set a new standard for tte party, it 
had shown the working-men the way I 

— So spoke an orator upon the platform ; and two thou- 
sand pairs of eyes were fixed upon him, and two thousand 
voices were cheering his every sentence. The orator had 
been the head of the city's relief bureau in the stockyards, 
until the sight of misery and corruption had made him 
sick. He was young, hung^ry-looking, full of fire ; and as 
he swung his long arms and beat up the crowd, to Jurgis 
he seemed the very spirit of the revolution. ^ Oiganize I 
Organize I Organize! — that was his cry. He was afraid 
of this tremenaous vote, which his JP&rty had not expected, 
and which it had not earned. ^ These men are not So- 
cialists I '' he cried. *^ This election will pass, and the ex- 
citement will die, and people will forget about it ; and if 
you forget about it, too, if you sink back and rest upon 
your oars, we shall lose this vote that we have polled to- 
day, and our enemies will laugh us to scorn I It rests with 
you to take your resolution — now, in the flush of victory, 
to find these men who have voted for us, and bring them 
to our meetings, and organize them and bind them to us I 
We shall not find all our campaigns as easy as this one. 
Everywhere in the country to-night the old party politi- 
cians are studying this vote, and setting their sails by it ; 
and nowhere will they be quicker or more canning than 




THE JUNGLE 418 

here in onr own oit j> Fifty thouEand Sor ialist votes in 
Chicago means a manioipal-ownerahip iOemocracy in 
the Bpiing 1 And then they will fool the voters once more, 
and all the powers of plunder and corruption will be swept 
into ofGce agtunl But whatever they may do when ther 
get in, then is one thing tiiey will not do, and that will 
be the thing for which uey were elected I They will not 
give the people of our city municipal ownership — they 
will not mean to do it, they will not try to do it; all th^ 
they will do is give our party in Chicago the greatest 
opportunity that Las ever come to Socialism in America I 
Wq shall have the sham reformers self -stultified and self- 
convicted; we shall have the radical Democracy left with* 
out a lie with which to cover its nakedness I And then 
will begin the rush that will never be checked, the tide 
that wiU never turn till it has reached its flood — Uiat will 
be irresistible, overwhelming — the rallying of the out- 
raged working-men of Chicago to our standard 1 And we 
shall oiganize them, we shall drill them, we shall marshal 
them for the victory I We shall bear down the opposition, 
we shall sweep it before us — and Chicago will oe ouist 
aueagovnUitounl CHICAGO WILL BE OUBSl" 



Mammonart 

An Essay in Economic Interpretation 



"^jyf AMMONART* studies the artists from a point of view entirely 
new; asldng how they get their living, and what they do for 
it; taming their pockets inside out, seeing what is in them and 
where it comes from. 

'^I^AMMONAR'F* puts to painters, sculptors, poets, novelists, 
dramatists and composers the question already put to priests 
and preachers, editors and journalists, college pres idents and pro- 
fessors, school superintendents and teachers: WHO OWNS TOU, 
AND WHY? 

'^I^AMMONAR'F* examines art and literature as instruments of 
propaganda and repression, employed by ruling classes of the 
community; or as weapons of attack, employed by new classes 
rising into power. 

'^jyjAMMONAR'F* challenges the great ones now honored by criti- 
cal authority and asks to what extent they are servants of 
ruling-class prestige and instruments of ruling-class safety. 

**]y{AMMONART* asserts that mankind is today under the spell 
of utterly false conceptions of what art is and should be; of 
utterly vicious and perverted standards of beauty and dignity in 
all the arts. 

''jyiAMMONART* is a history of culture, and also a battle- 
cry. 



E. HALDEHAIT- JULIUS teleprraphi: "This is resl constructive criti- 
cism. My heartiest congratulstions." 

GEORGE STERLING writes: "You msv not know everything, son. 
but you csn sure turn out interesting stuff t^' 

400 pages^ cloth $2.00; paper $1.00 
UPTON SINCLAIR, Pasadena, Cal. 



A New Novel by Upton Sinclair 



100% 



THE STORY OF A PATRIOT 

WOULD you like to go behind the scenes and see 
the "invisible government" of your country sav- 
ing you from the Bolsheviks and the Reds ? Would you 
like to meet the secret agents and provocateurs of ''Big 
Business/' to know what they look like, how they talk and 
what they are doing to make the world safe for democ- 
racy? Several of these gentlemen have been haunting 
the home of Upton Sinclair during the past three years 
and he has had the idea of turning the tables and investi- 
gating the investigators. He has put one of them, Peter 
Gudge by name, into a book, together with Peter's lady- 
' loves, and his wife, and his boss and a whole group of his 
fellow-agents and their employers. 

The hero of this book is a red-blooded, 100% Ameri- 
can, a "he-man" and no mollycoddle. He begins with 
the Mooney case, and goes through half a dozen big cases 
of which you have heard. His story is a fact-story of 
America from 1916 to 1920, and will make a bigger sen- 
sation than "The Jungle." Albert Rhys Williams, author 
of "Lenin" and "In the Qaws of the German Eagle," 
read the MS. and wrote : 

"This is the first novel of yours that I have read through 
with real interest. It is your most timely work, and is bound to 
make a sensation. I venture that you will have even more 
trouble than you had with The Brass Check* — in getting the 
books printed fast enough." 

Single copy, 60c postpaid; three copies, $1.50; ten 
copies, $4.50. By freight or express, collect, 25 copies 
at 40c per copy; 100 copies at o8c; 500 copies at 36c; 
1,000 copies at 35c. Single copy, cloth, $1.20 postpaid; 
three copies, $3.00 ; ten copies, $9.00. By freight or ex- 
press, collect, 25 copies at 80c per copy; 100 copies at 
/6c ; 500 copies at 72c ; 1,000 copies at /Oc. 

UPTON SINCLAIR - Pasadena, Gaiiforaia 



A book which has been absolutely boycotted by the literary 

reviews of America, 

THE PROFITS 
OF RELIGION 

By Upton Sinclaix' 

A STUDY of Supematuralism as a Source of Income and a 
Shield to Privilege; the first examination in any language 
of institutionalized religion from the economic point of 
view. "Has the labour as well as the merit of breaking virgin 
soil/' writes Joseph McCabe. The book has had practically no 
advertising and only two or three reviews in radical publications; 
yet forty thousand copies have been sold in the first year. 

From the Rev, John Haynes Holmes: "I must confess that it has lurly 
made me writhe to read these pages, not because they are untrue or un- 
fair, but on the contrary, because I know them to be the real facts. I 
love the church as I love my home, and therefore it is no pleasant expe- 
rience to be made to face such a storr as this which ^rou nave told. It 
had to be done, however, and I am glaa you have done it, for my interest 
in the church, after all, is more or less incidental, whereas my interest in 
religion is a fundamental thing. . . . Let me repeat again that I feel 
that you have done us all a service in the writing of this book. Our 
thurches today, like those of ancient Palestine, are the abode of Phariseea 
and scribes. It is as spiritual and helpful a thing now aa it was in 
Jesus' day for that fact to be revealed." 

From Luther Burbank: "No one has ever told Hhe truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth' more faithfully than Upton Sinclair in 
'The Pro£u of Religion.' " 

From Louis Untermeyer: "I«et me add my quavering alto to the chorus 
of applause of 'The Profits of Religion.' It is something more than a 
book— it is a Work!" 




UPTON SINCLAIR 



Pasadena, California 



The Brass Check 

A Study of American JournaliMm 
Who owns the press and why? 

WHEN you read your daily paper^ are you reading 
facta or propaganda? And whose propaganda? 

Who furnishes the raw material for your tiioughts about 
life? Is it honest material? 

No man can ask more important questions than these; 
and here for the first time the questions are answered in 
a book. 

The first edition of this book^ 28^000 copies^ was sold 
out two weeks after publication. Paper could not be ob- 
tained for printing, and a carload of brown wrapping 
paper was used. The printings to date amount to 144^000 
Copies. The book is being published in Great Britain and 
colonies^ and in translations in Germany, France, Holland, 
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Hungary and Japan. 

HERMANN BESSEMER, in the "Neues Joumal/' Vienna: 

"Upton Sinclair deals with names, only with names, with 
balances, with flgrures, with documents, a truly stunningTt 
gigantic fact-material. His book is an armored military train 
which with rushing pistons roars through the Jungle of 
American monster-lies, whistling, roaring, shooting, chop- 
ping off with Berserker rage the oDScene heads of these evils. 
A breath-taking, clutching, frightful book." 

From the p<utor of the Community Church, New York: 

"I am writing to thank you for sending me a copy of your 
new book, 'The Brass Check.' Although it arrived only a few 
days ago, I have already read it through, every word, and 
have loaned it to one of my colleagues for reading. The book 
Is tremendous. I have never read a more strongly consistent 
argument or one so formidably buttressed by facts. You have 
proved your case to the handle. I again take satisfaction in 
saluting you not only as a great novelist, but as the ablest 
pamphleteer in America today. I am already passing around 
the word In my church and taking orders for the oook." — 
John Haynes Efolmes. 

440 p«|r**< 8lBgl« oop7, paper, 60o povtmdd; tliz«e oopie«, 91.50; 

{•a oopias, 94.50. Biiglm copy, doxh, 91.20 postpaid; 

ttof copies, 93*00; ten oopiee, 99*00 

UPTON SINCLAIR, Pasadena, CaL 



IH 






OTHER BOOKS BY 
UPTON SINCLAIR 

KING COAL: a Novel of the Colorado coal coun- 
try. Cloth, $1.20 postpaid. 

'Clear, convincing, complete." — Lincoln Steffens. 

1 wish that every word of it could be burned deep 
into the heart of every American." — ^Adolph <jermer. 

THE CRY FOR JUSTICE: an Anthology of the 
Literature of Social Protest, with an Introduction by 
Jack London, who calls it "this humanist Holy-book." 
Thirty-two illustrations, 891 pages, $2.00 postpaid. 

"It should rank with the very noblest works of all 
time. You could scarcely have improved on its contents 
— ^it is remarkable in variety and scope. Buoyant, but 
never blatant, powerful and passionate, it has the spirit 
of a challenge and a battle cry." — Louis Untermeyer. 

"You have marvelously covered the whole ground. 
The result is a book that radicals of every shade have 
long been waiting for. You have made one that every 
student of the world's thought— economic, philosophic, 
artistic — ^has to have." — Reginald Wright KauflFman. 

SYLVIA : a Novel of the Far South. Price $1.20 
postpaid. 

SYLVIA'S MARRIAGE: a sequel. Price $1.20 
postpaid. 

DAMAGED GOODS : a Novel made from the play 
by Brieux. Cloth, $1.20 ; paper, 60 cents postpaid. 

PLAYS OF PROTEST : four dramas. Price $1.20 
postpaid. 

The above prices postpaid. 

UPTON SINCLAIR - Pasadena, 



JIMMIE HIGGINS 



<< T IMMIE HIGGINS" is the feUow who does the hard work 

I in the job of waking up the workers. Jimmie hates war — 

all war — and fights against it with heart and souL But 

f war comes, and Jimmie is drawn into it, whether he will or no. 

He has many adventures — strikes, jails, munitions explosions, 

draft-boards, army-camps, submarines and battles. **J\mmie 

Higgins Goes to War" at last, and when he does he holds back 

the German army and wins the battle of "Chatty Terry." But 

then they send him into Russia to fight the Bolsheviki, and there 

"Jimmie Higgins Votes for Democracy." 

• 

A picture of the American working-dass movement during 
four years of world-war; all wings of the movement, all the 
various tendencies and clashing impulses are portrayed. Qoth, 
$1.20 postpaid. 

Prom "Tkg Candidal^: I have Juit fiaished readinf the irtt instmll- 
meat of "Jimmie Hinint** and I am delighted with it it ia the besianinff 
of a great atoiy, a etory that win be translated into many laaguagei and 
be read hy eager and interested millioas all over the world. I feel that 
vour art will lend itself readilr to "Jimmie Higgins," and that you will 
De at TOur best in placing this dear little comrade where he belongs in th« 
Socialist movement. The opening story of your chapter proves that you 
know him intimately. So do I and I love him with all my heart, even 
as you do. He has done more for me than I sliall ever be able to do for 
him. Almost anyone can be "The Candidate," and almost anyone will do 
for a speaker, but it takes the rarest of qualities to produce a "Jimmie 
Higgins." You are painting a superb portrait of our "Jimmie" and I con- 
gratulate yott. l^GBjis V. Dbbs. 

From Mrs. Jack Xjmdon: Jimmie Higgina is immense. He is real, and 
so are the other character!. I'm sure you rather fancr Comrade Dr. 
Service I The beginning of the narrative is delicious with an irresistible 
loving humor; and as a change comes over it and the Big Medicine begins 
to work, one realizes by the light of 1918, what you have undertaken to 
accomplish. The sure touch of your genius ia here, Upton Sinclair, and 
I wish Jack London might read and enjoy. Csakmiait London. 

Prom a Socialist Artist: Jimmie Higgins^ start is a master portrayal of 
that character. I have been out so long on these lecture tours that I can 
appreciate the picture. I am waiting to see how the story develops. It 
surts better than "Kiag CoaL" Ryan Waxjoa. 



Price, doth, $1.20 postpaid 



UPTON SINCLAIR, Pasadena,