policeman
in sight, would approach every likely-looking person who passed him,
telling his woeful story and pleading for a nickel or a dime. Then when
he got one, he would dart round the corner and return to his base to get
warm; and his victim, seeing him do this, would go away, vowing that he
would never give a cent to a beggar again. The victim never paused to
ask where else Jurgis could have gone under the circumstances--where
he, the victim, would have gone. At the saloon Jurgis could not only get
more food and better food than he could buy in any restaurant for the
same money, but a drink in the 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 saloon, too, he felt at home. Part of
the saloon-keeper's business was to offer a home and refreshments to
beggars in exchange for the proceeds of their foragings; and was there
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 successful beggar. He
was just out of the hospital, and desperately 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
counterfeit. Jurgis, as a beggar, was simply a blundering amateur in
competition with organized and scientific professionalism. He 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 would have scorned. He was pale and shivering--but
they were made up with cosmetics, and had studied the art of chattering
their 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 professional
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 both their arms bound tightly to
their sides, and padded stumps in their sleeves, and a sick child hired
to carry a cup for them. There wer