an all-consuming passion with these
people, whose spirit a thousand years of bondage have not availed to
daunt. It breaks out in strikes, when to strike is to hunger and die.
Not until I stood by a striking cloak-maker whose last cent was gone,
with not a crust in the house to feed seven hungry mouths, yet who had
voted vehemently in the meeting that day to keep up the strike to the
bitter end,--bitter indeed, nor far distant,--and heard him at sunset
recite the prayer of his fathers: "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God,
King of the world, that thou hast redeemed us as thou didst redeem our
fathers, hast delivered us from bondage to liberty, and from servile
dependence to redemption!"--not until then did I know what of
sacrifice the word might mean, and how utterly we of another day had
forgotten. But for once shop and tenement are left behind. Whatever
other days may have in store, this is their day of play, when all may
rejoice.

The bridegroom, a cloak-presser in a hired dress suit, sits alone and
ill at ease at one end of the hall, sipping whiskey with a fine air of
indifference, but glancing apprehensively toward the crowd of women
in the opposite corner that surround the bride, a pale little
shop-girl with a pleading, winsome face. From somewhere unexpectedly
appears a big man in an ill-fitting coat and skullcap, flanked on
either side by a fiddler, who scrapes away and away, accompanying the
improvisator in a plaintive minor key as he halts before the bride and
intones his lay. With many a shrug of stooping shoulders and queer
excited gesture, he drones, in the harsh, guttural Yiddish of Hester
Street, his story of life's joys and sorrows, its struggles and
victories in the land of promise. The women listen, nodding and
swaying their bodies sympathetically. He works himself into a frenzy,
in which the fiddlers vainly try to keep up with him. He turns and
digs the laggard angrily in the side without losing the metre. The
climax comes. The bride bursts into hysterical sobs, while the women
wipe their eyes. A plate, heretofore concealed under his coat, is
whisked out. He has conquered; the inevitable collection is taken up.

The tuneful procession moves upon the bridegroom. An Essex Street girl
in the crowd, watching them go, says disdainfully: "None of this
humbug when I get married." It is the straining of young America at
the fetters of tradition. Ten minutes later, when, between double
files of women holding can