all the big factories and stores with the railroad depots, they would
have the teamsters' union by the throat. Now and then there were rumors
and murmurs in the Board of Aldermen, and once there was a committee 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 committed, 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 that he treated himself to a
spree that night, and with the balance of his money he hired himself
a place in a tenement room, where he slept upon a big homemade straw
mattress along with four other workingmen. This was one dollar a week,
and for four more he got his food in a boardinghouse 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 all 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 collar button peddler, who had died
in the room next to him, and which the landlady was holding for her
rent; in the end, however, Jurgis 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 sunlight on weekdays. In the evenings there was no place
for him to go except a barroom; no place where there was light and
warmth, 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 pitiful mockery of it in the camaraderie of vice. On
Sundays the churches were open--but where was there a church in which an
ill-smelling workingman, with vermin crawling upo