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    The Jungle
    The Jungle
    The Jungle
    Ebook533 pages12 hours

    The Jungle

    By Upton Sinclair

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    An ardent activist, champion of political reform, novelist, and progressive journalist, Upton Sinclair is perhaps best known today for The Jungle — his devastating exposé of the meat-packing industry. A protest novel he privately published in 1906, the book was a shocking revelation of intolerable labor practices and unsanitary working conditions in the Chicago stockyards. It quickly became a bestseller, arousing public sentiment and resulting in such federal legislation as the Pure Food and Drug Act.|The brutally grim story of a Slavic family who emigrates to America, The Jungle tells of their rapid and inexorable descent into numbing poverty, moral degradation, and social and economic despair. Vulnerable and isolated, the family of Jurgis Rudkus struggles — unsuccessfully — to survive in an urban jungle.
    A powerful view of turn-of-the-century poverty, graft, and corruption, this fiercely realistic American classic is still required reading in many history and literature classes. It will continue to haunt readers long after they've finished the last page.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateMar 12, 2012
    ISBN9780486111537
    Author

    Upton Sinclair

    Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, activist, and politician whose novel The Jungle (1906) led to the passage of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Born into an impoverished family in Baltimore, Maryland, Sinclair entered City College of New York five days before his fourteenth birthday. He wrote dime novels and articles for pulp magazines to pay for his tuition, and continued his writing career as a graduate student at Columbia University. To research The Jungle, he spent seven weeks working undercover in Chicago’s meatpacking plants. The book received great critical and commercial success, and Sinclair used the proceeds to start a utopian community in New Jersey. In 1915, he moved to California, where he founded the state’s ACLU chapter and became an influential political figure, running for governor as the Democratic nominee in 1934. Sinclair wrote close to one hundred books during his lifetime, including Oil! (1927), the inspiration for the 2007 movie There Will Be Blood; Boston (1928), a documentary novel revolving around the Sacco and Vanzetti case; The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism, and the eleven novels in Pulitzer Prize–winning Lanny Budd series.

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    Reviews for The Jungle

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    • 3/5
      This is a shocking story about the meat packing industry. The things that ended up in the meat. It was also hard to hear what the workers went through and how this family struggled just to survive. How their food was filled with nasty things, how people swindled them. It was a hard life back then for immigrants. Very good book to learn a little bit about America's history.
    • 4/5
      An oldie but goodie. I noticed the condition of the characters much more than I did in the past. It is a sad story all areound of survival of the fittest.
    • 3/5
      As a novel, this book is less than perfect. The protagonist is more of a plot device than a character. In spite of that, I am glad I read this book as historical fiction, and as an important work that led to food safety reforms. The author was hoping for labour law reform, but his work nonetheless provides a chilling perspective into the food industry and it is not surprising that it created a push for reform. In my view, it is worth reading.
    • 2/5
      It is impossible for me to review this without appearing to be pissy. The work itself is barely literary. The Jungle explores and illustrates the conditions of the meatpacking industry. Its presence stirred outcry which led to much needed reforms. Despite the heroics of tackling the Beef Trust, Upton Sinclair saw little need in the actual artful. The protagonist exists only to conjoin the various pieces of reportage. There isn't much emotional depth afforded, the characters' motivations often appear skeptical. I was left shaking my head on many a turn, especially towards the end where entire speeches from the American Socialist party compete with esoteric findings of left-leaning social scientists from the era (around 1905).

      Despite these shortcomings as a novel, the opening half is often harrowing. Graphic descriptions of hellish work conditions, poor food quality and lack of social safety net reached towards a very personal conclusion: I am EVER so grateful that I didn't live 110 years ago and was forced to compete economically under those conditions.
    • 5/5
      This book could be called the prequel to Fast Food Nation. Written in 1906 it is ammazing to see how the poor and uneducated are used for fodder by the beef trust. One feels the struggles of Jurgis and his family. This is trily a classic that holds the reader even today.
    • 5/5
      I am so glad that I have read this book... but what a hard journey it was. I am a Health and Safety Professional and this book underscored why I am doing what I do for a living. The horrible conditions (not to mention the food quality and ethics issues (which fit right in to my Vegetarian leanings!!))... the horrible abuse of human labor for the sake of enriching the already too rich. A very eye-opening book. I wasn't sure I would be able to make it through to be honest. It was just very hard to read. Death, suffering, sadness, hopelessness. the book is a brilliant picture of the times - you can't not be changed by reading and listening to your heart as you read it. I plan to read it again someday... which is funny because I wasn't sure if I could finish it! But once I got past the horror, the message of the book rung true.
    • 3/5
      I didn't find it as disgusting as people have said but still interesting.
    • 5/5
      This is a great book, published in 1906, especially from the historian's perspective. It was a book that after it was written, completely changed the Chicago stockyards. It was written about a Luthanian family who worked there during the beginning of the 20th century. Not many authors can be credited with writing a book that changed laws (The Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) is a direct result of the publication of this book). You have to appreciate a book that had such a monumental impact on many people's lives. The stockyards in Chicago were so bad... and this book brought it to light, not just in Chicago but nationally as well. Last year (2006) it was it's 100th year anniversary. It's a GREAT book and I highly recommend it.
    • 5/5
      I decided to read this as one of those books I have heard of as classics, but I had never read. I anticipated that these books would be things to wade through. I could not have been more surprised. I didn't want to put it down. It was fascinating and if I had not known when it was written, I would have thought it was contemporary. I did think it ended rather abruptly, but I couldn't put it down.
    • 5/5
      Sinclair tries to enlist our sympathy and support for the socialist cause. But mostly what we bring away from this book is the horrifying conditions in the meatpacking industry, and the heart-rending plight of the immigrant worker. As he once said, he aimed for our hearts and got our stomachs instead.
    • 4/5
      If you want to read about happiness, Upton Sinclair probably isn't the author for you. The lesson taken away from the book was how food should be inspected by the government, but the lesson meant was the horrible working and living conditions people were forced to live in, and that something should be done about them.
    • 5/5
      Part family narrative, and part political discourse, Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle' has a clearly defined appeal to both these camps of interested readers, but if either camp is looking for a book devoted to their respective interest, they may be disappointed. This is not meant as a criticism, but rather praise for what Sinclair crafted in the telling of this story, which follows the horrors endured by an immigrant family coming to America for the 'working man's dream' only to be ground under the wheels of corporate greed, crooked politicians, and a careless capitalist society. Some readers may wish to distinguish the two different parts of the book, but considering Sinclair's goals in the crafting of this book, I think the different parts of this book should be understood as inseperable. There have been other books about the plight of immigrant workers, and yet other books about socialism and political commentary, but Sinclair's is different in that it is a very human tale. Without the emotional investment in the characters and their struggles as complete people, the latter stages of the book would not resonate as they do, and in hindsight, it is rather clear that the early parts of the book are to serve the latter, more political parts. And while in the United States we like to believe things have changed with our industrial regulations, whether or not one is to subscribe to this belief all one has to do to find the world Sinclair describes is look out to developing nations and the horrors many of their laborers endure in this current day. In that regard 'The Jungle' is still relevant, and remains a needed portrait of the experiences of people considered by larger economic forces to be 'expendable' labor. I for one did prefer the earlier, less political, stages of the book, as the message is relayed through the narrative events, and, in my opinion, most vividly when the main character, Jurgis, decides to work for the forces of corruption that had led to so much ruin in his life. When he sees the hollow, disgusting- although profitable- charade of that life, the book then moves into its final arc, which is overt political lecturing. Regardless of one's particular interest, this remains an important book, and an excellent exercise of prose.
    • 4/5
      Welp, that was cheerful.The story follows an immigrant man and his family trying to survive in the packing district of turn-of-the-century Chicago, and details the corruption and filth of the packing companies and the devastating lives the workers led. Fascinating and horrible. And important. And not, horrifyingly, without certain relevancies today. My one quibble: the ending gets bogged down in a description of socialism and then ends much too abruptly. Otherwise, a solid - if not happy - read.
    • 5/5
      Great classic novel about the struggle of European emigrants in the meat processing industry of early 20th century Chicago.
    • 3/5
      Well, second time to read the book, June 2016, first time was July 2010. 1001 reference book states "this is not the first muckraking novel, but one of the most influential novels. It was used politically by Roosevelt to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act. It states that this book is based on real incidents in 1904 stockyard worker's strike. It is a manifesto for social change." In this book, the United States is not the place for the immigrant. It is the tale of Jurgis Rudkus, an immigrant from Lithuania. When you read this stuff, you have to wonder why anyone would leave their homeland. This is a story of one failed dream after another. The other presents socialism as the beacon of hope. Perhaps, this book was a wake up call to the democrats and republican parties. I don't know but according to this book, the socialist made great strides. Anyway, I still dislike this book. I hate that business was so awful to people and I know that is the very reason's unions and socialism had such surges as they did but I just hate that people would be so greedy. But mostly, I dislike this book because it is such a lot of preaching. The story of the man and his family, if told in true Dickensian fashion, would have made a great story. I listened to the audio the second time and it was read well and made a good alternative to reading it for a second time.
    • 4/5
      The Jungle tells the story of Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who has come to the United States with his extended family to find work. When he finds himself in Chicago, he and his family get work in the Chicago Stockyards. They immediately begin to struggle to make ends meet. Faced with unfair labor practices, unsafe working conditions, and questionable treatment from con men, Jurgis works harder and harder to support the family. But hard work is not enough to overcome the conditions that Jurgis and his family face.I found myself on the edge of my seat as I read this book. The descriptions of the conditions faced by Jurgis and his family were appalling. Each time I thought that they had finally caught a break, another tragedy befell the family. Sinclair provides insight into the meat packing industry, labor practices, Chicago politics and socialism as Jurgis searches for a way to overcome the system. The story was most effective when this historical background was woven with the story of Jurgis and his family. However, near the end of the book, Sinclair began to rely more on straight description, as Jurgis observed the workings of the Socialist party. Despite a rather abrupt ending, Sinclair's style was very effective in bringing to light the conditions of the times.
    • 4/5
      I attempted reading this book when I was about fourteen years old, but soon gave it up. Now, having read it all the way through, I have a huge appreciation for this masterpiece. Sinclair wrote the truth, and unveiled a world of corruption and poverty plaguing 19th century society. It provoked President Roosevelt to create the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act, and brought forth new safety and health standards for the workforce that stood as a foundation for the ones we hold today. Sinclair's writing is centered around the character Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant with hopes of making it big in America. He, along with his family and the woman he plans on marrying, Ona, travel to Chicago, where it is said that fortunes are made. However, the evil of this society, with the all-powerful The Beef Trust and political machines, drive them into poverty and despair. The family, unaware of the ways of this capitalist America, gets kicked down at every opportunity. And as their savings from the Old Country dwindles, taken away by cruel, thieving agents who exploit their ignorance, their spirit and hope fade away as well. With the entire family working 16 hours a day and still not making enough to survive, they experience death, tragedy, unemployment, and desperation. The descriptions of the atrocities Sinclair describes are disturbing and, for me, were previously unimaginable. One finds no chance of hope or success in their struggle till finally, when Jurgis has absolutely nothing left for him, he discovers Socialism.This book has made a powerful impact on my view of the American workplace. I found myself enraptured by the vivid descriptions of the struggles of these immigrants, and feeling a great remorse for their losses. Although the ending of the novel is controversial among literary critics, I found it to be a suitable and solid close to the historical and truthful brilliance of Sinclair’s greatest work.
    • 3/5
      At the turn of the 20th century, muckraking was a new term for journalists who sought out corruption with the intent to expose. And there was a lot to be found. Most of their contributions have been forgotten, or go unnoticed. Time has passed and their words and works have stopped being relevant. Which is possibly what makes The Jungle so very special. On one level it is simply the story of an immigrant family trying to survive in a new country where they know nothing of the environment, the language, the customs, or the political and financial situations. All they know is they want a better life, a fuller life. Their innocence is heartbreaking as you follow these fictional characters along a path that was all too real for immigrants in Chicago at the time. On another level, this novel actually changed something, not necessarily what the author intended, with his clear and hammering message for socialism near the end. But it managed to be part of the cause of the forming of stricter regulations on food production. It got to people. In fact I think in some ways it still gets to people. And that is journalism and writing at its finest. Upton Sinclair managed to reveal the harsh and horrible realities of factories in the early 1900's, while immortalizing the strength and determination of men, women, and children who would and did do anything to survive in the some of the most disgusting and demeaning conditions imaginable.
    • 4/5
      Despite the anticlimactic lecture on the virtues of socialism, I found this story to be very compelling after the first 50 pages. Once I accepted that everything bad is going to happen to this family, the reading became more enjoyable. Even though I don't eat meat anyway, I didn't really find the meat factory narrative to be too surprising. The conditions were horrible to be sure, but I was more appalled at the amount of corruption and lack of help these people had in Chicago. I wished that Sinclair would have spent more time wrapping up the family drama and give that story some closure instead of spending the end of the book learning about socialism and plugging the socialist newspaper that published the serial story in the first place.
    • 3/5
      This book had three parts. The first is the heart-wrenching story of an immigrant family - coming with high hopes, working hard, living/working in deplorable conditions and getting taken advantage of by everyone. The second part occurs after the man leaves his family and tramps around - still a hard-scrabble life but as a single man, not quite as frustratingly helpless - a bit of a look at how society treats the homeless. The third being a multi-page lecture on socialism.It started strong and the family dynamics were compelling - their hopelessness was palpable. The conditions of working in the meat packing plants were truly horrific - nice to know that portion of the story led to government intervention. I thought it fizzled in "part two" and had to drag myself through the socialist rant at the end.Ever since reading, I have been trying to draw parallels between the immigrants of the early 1900s and the immigrant battles going on today. I think both groups come to America with dreams of living a better life. I think they both work hard for relatively low pay in physically demanding, blue collar jobs. The only difference I see now is the social programs in place that didn't exist in the early 1900s. In the book, free food comes from the shelter and medical treatment is a luxury they cannot afford. Government programs in place now provide food, shelter, medicine and education to all the people who want it - at the expense of those that they deem can afford it. I think this is what is causing the backlash against immigration. The labor is still cheap and plentiful. But by changing the role of charitable contributions to a government-enforced tax, we no longer appeal to the human desire to care for our fellow man. We now demand they pay. The result, as we've seen, is everyone trying to get/keep as big a piece of the pie as they can.
    • 3/5
      Amazing book about the hardships of the immigrant workforce in the Chicago meat factories of the early 20th century. A little dry in areas every once in awhile but didn't shy away from any shocking details that was a day to day event in the lives of so many immigrants at the time.
    • 3/5
      It's ironic that Sinclair's intention in writing "The Jungle", dedicated "To the Workingmen of America", was to shine a light on the difficult conditions of the proletarian and advance the cause of socialism. However, what really shocked Americans was not the oppression their fellow man was suffering to put meat on their plates, but what might be IN the meat on their plates. For as Jane Jacobs says in the introduction, this meant "telling about the revolting ingredients packed into America's breakfast sausages and pickled meats: flesh from tubercular cattle and hogs with cholera, floor sweepings, hapless rats, and unsalubrious chemicals to render the results cosmetically acceptable."Yum.It's certainly an important book, caused an uproar when it was published in 1906, and led to meat-packing regulations, but as fiction it's mediocre.Quotes:On marriage:"Marriage and prostitution were two sides of one shield, the predatory man's exploitation of the sex-pleasure. The difference between them was a difference 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. If she had no money, she was a proletarian, and sold herself for an existence."On religion:"Government oppressed the body of the wage-slave, but Religion oppressed his mind, and poisoned the stream of progress at its source. The workingman was to fix his hopes upon a future life, while his pockets were picked in this one; he was brought up to frugality, humility, obedience, - in short to al the pseudo-virtues of capitalism.""I have no doubt that in a hundred years the Vatican will be denying that it ever opposed Socialism, just as at present it denies that it ever tortured Galileo."
    • 5/5
      meticulously researched “fiction” about a Lithuanian family who immigrates to Chicago around 1900 and ends up working in the filthy meatpacking plants in the Yards. this is a hugely important book in the history of many movements including child labor, food safety, social justice, Socialism, labor unions, workers’ rights… and is an engaging, sympathetic story about one man, on top of it all. I keep coming back to it.
    • 2/5
      I don't generally review the "classic" titles I read, because who the hell am I? But I wanted to tackle this one. Bear in mind that I seldom, if ever, enjoy a novel with a Message. The Jungle, of course, is the famous muckraking novel that brought the horrific conditions of the Chicago stockyards to the public eye. Good for it.The protagonist is Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who personally faces every possible indignity that a worker could suffer under capitalism. The parade of horribles actually became funny after awhile: of course one of his relatives turns to whoring. Of course another is eaten by rats. Jurgis and the other characters are so thinly drawn, and the episodes so clearly crafted to make a point, that I felt no emotional involvement, not even outrage. Granted, if the book were telling me something I didn't already know, the outrage factor might have come into play, but I was reading it as a novel, not a report.I have never read a book that more clearly called out for one more chapter. The book ends with Jurgis, homeless, hungry and freezing, stumbling into a socialist meeting. He is an instant convert to the cause and is taken in by the kindly socialist owner of a hotel. The last 20 pages or so consist of a group of men debating various points of socialist theory, and Jurgis disappears from the narrative completely. But here's my ending, and it absolutely fits with the rhythm of the book. Throughout the novel, Jurgis plugs away against adversity and always thinks he has finally caught a break. Then the other shoe drops and life sucks once again. So, he falls in with these nice socialists and instead of a worldwide worker's revolution he encounters: Terror. Torture. The Gulags. Fooled again!
    • 5/5
      I have heard about this book for decades, and knew about its expose of the meatpacking industry. However, I only read it after chancing to come across it while searching for something else on my Kindle. After a few pages, I was hooked. The story of a family of Lithuanian Immigrants who come to Chicago and end up being consumed by the meatpacking industry and its corollaries, such as canning, is a masterpiece of melodrama. The scenes in the meatpacking plant are vivid and disgusting--but not so much that I didn't have sausage for dinner last night--and the mistreatment of the family, including its women and children, is described in excruciating detail. Perhaps it loses some of its effect because I was expecting it to be really awful (and it was), but what I found most engaging was Sinclair's writing. While occasionally given to a bit of bombast, especially when socialist politics enters the picture, he was an extremely talented writer. Some of the scenes in this book will stick in a reader's mind for ages. The book loses a bit of its intensity when the main character, Jurgis, who has reached the end of his rope is miraculously swept up in Chicago's Democratic Party machine and finds himself living the high life for a time. This gives the author a chance to depict the political corruption of Chicago close up, but the book becomes more and more of a tract rather than a novel. The final chapters, where Jurgis discovers the wonders of Socialism, are a bit reminiscent of EQUALITY, Edward Bellamy's sequel to Looking Backward, although only has one character speak for a few pages about the advantages of the new socialist society. In addition to its meandering conclusion, this book, which is otherwise sympathetic to the poor and downtrodden, uses revolting racial stereotypes to describe the black men who came to Chicago as strike breakers during the meatpackers strike.If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend you do so. It is, despite its flaws, a riveting read. And its main theme, the exploitation of the masses by the rich elite, is perennially relevant.
    • 3/5
      This book is the reason there should be an option for 6 starts. A tragic story of an immigrant who comes to America for a better life but is just used up and left to die, his heart and back broken as a consequence of the greedy factory owners. This book is amazing both for the way it handles big issues such as the corruption of factory owners and the small issues of the day to day life of an immigrant in the early 1900's. An amazing book that should be on everyone's list of books to read and in every school's curriculum.
    • 5/5
      I don't know that I have ever encountered a book that was so emotionally difficult to read. From the moment that I was introduced to Jurgis and Ona, I shared their plight, and even experienced nightmares about the deprivation which they experienced. Upton Sinclair based this book on factual accounts, and so it becomes much more than literature; it is a social commentary whose main purpose was to expose the ills of capitalism, and idealize socialism. While I didn't care for the end of the book, which was one extremely long speech about socialism, I was completely drawn into the story. I found myself wishing that I would have been able to do something to help Jurgis's family.
    • 2/5
      This book is good with regard to exposure of the evils of the meatpacking industry at the turn of the century. However, the author uses this for the purpose of making socialism the cure to all ills. The latter part of the book is socialistic dogma.
    • 5/5
      Every once in a while, you read a book that makes you look back and reevaluate your life. For me, that book is The Jungle.It was absolutely heart wrenching following Jurgis Rudkus, the main character, and his constant failed attempts to provide for his family. An immigrant from Lithuania, he came to America to strike it rich and marry Ona, the girl of his dreams. They, along with ten other members of their family, go to the stockyards of Chicago where they have heard that jobs are available for everyone.What they didn't know is they would have to work fourteen hour days under horrible conditions to make enough to barely survive.It's amazing how spoiled today's society is. I could never handle this type of work. The difference between now and a hundred years ago is staggering to behold. When reading The Jungle, it is obvious to the reader the luxuries available to them that were inconceivable back then. And the losses that Jurgis had to cope with! He survived as he watched member after member of his family die. You see him at his strongest, his weakest, his cruelest. You are there, pitying him when he is forced to sleep under cars in the dead of winter and you are there, cursing him as he allows himself get sucked into the system, making his living off of the misery of others when he becomes a boss at one of the stockyards. You see how the misery finally trumps even the strongest soul. Every man has a breaking point, a point where he will do anything to survive.Apart from being a real eye opener, Sinclair's prose is amazing. His descriptions of events and sights put you right in the middle of Chicago's stockyards. I didn't even notice when paragraphs went on for more than a page because I was so involved with every single sentence. The book opens with a wedding feast and you can smell the food and hear the laughter and music and see the couples dancing. When Jurgis first sees the inside of a stockyard, you are right there, witnessing the horrible sight. It's extremely powerful.I usually never give a book five stars because so few are really, truly good. However, I don't think I could give The Jungle anything but five stars. This book makes me wish there was an option for a sixth star.
    • 4/5
      The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, is the finest example of “muckraking” journalism produced in the 20th century and led to sweeping changes in the way food is prepared in America. Written in the form of a novel, featuring a Lithuanian immigrant, the story revolves around industrial practices in and around Chicago around the turn of the century, most particularly the Beef Trust and slaughterhouses of the area. As you can imagine, much of the prose is literally revolting, dealing with rats, excrement, garbage, filth, inhumane living conditions and all that entails. Judged strictly on the basis of the writing and the story itself, the novel is moderately entertaining for about three quarters of way, before turning into a propaganda piece for the Socialist party. At that point, it becomes virtually unreadable as dozens of pages are consumed with polemics issued by party hacks (akin to Atlas Shrugged on the other end of the political spectrum).Though perhaps lacking as a novel, the impact of the work cannot be ignored and must be viewed as a seminal effort in that regard.

    Book preview

    The Jungle - Upton Sinclair

    e9780486111537_cover.jpge9780486111537_i0001.jpg

    DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

    GENERAL EDITOR: PAUL NEGRI

    EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: JOSLYN T. PINE

    Copyright

    Note copyright © 2001 by Dover Publications, Inc.

    All rights reserved.

    Bibliographical Note

    This Dover edition, first published in 2001, is an unabridged republication of the standard text of the work originally published in 1906. A new introductory Note has been specially prepared for this reprint.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Sinclair, Upton, 1878–1968.

    The jungle / Upton Sinclair.

    p. cm.–(Dover thrift editions)

    9780486111537

    1. Lithuanian Americans—Fiction. 2. Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction. 3. Working class—Fiction. 4. Stockyards—Fiction. 5. Immigrants—Fiction. I. Title. II. Series.

    PS3537.I85 J85 2001b

    813’.52—dc21

    2001032352

    Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

    41923107

    www.doverpublications.com

    Table of Contents

    Title Page

    Copyright Page

    Note

    CHAPTER 1

    CHAPTER 2

    CHAPTER 3

    CHAPTER 4

    CHAPTER 5

    CHAPTER 6

    CHAPTER 7

    CHAPTER 8

    CHAPTER 9

    CHAPTER 10

    CHAPTER 11

    CHAPTER 12

    CHAPTER 13

    CHAPTER 14

    CHAPTER 15

    CHAPTER 16

    CHAPTER 17

    CHAPTER 18

    CHAPTER 19

    CHAPTER 20

    CHAPTER 21

    CHAPTER 22

    CHAPTER 23

    CHAPTER 24

    CHAPTER 25

    CHAPTER 26

    CHAPTER 27

    CHAPTER 28

    CHAPTER 29

    CHAPTER 30

    CHAPTER 31

    DOVER • THRIFT • EDITIONS

    Note

    I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit in the stomach.

    Upton Sinclair on The Jungle

    Upton Sinclair (1878–1968), novelist, essayist, and activist, and probably the best known and most effective representative of the muckraking school of American Realism, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, of an impoverished family of the Southern aristocracy. His father was a traveling salesman who, among other things, sold liquor, and whose alcoholism cast a dark shadow over Sinclair’s childhood. Drink encouraged the illusions of past grandeur that helped make the father a failure as a provider, thus exposing the son to the worse excesses of poverty, exacerbated by the fact that Sinclair often was sent away to live with wealthy relatives. Life experienced within the two extremes invoked in him an unusually keen sense of social injustice:

    Readers of my novels know that I have one favorite theme, the contrast between social classes; there are characters from both worlds, the rich and the poor, and the plots are contrived to carry you from one to the other. The explanation is that as far back as I can remember, my life was a series of Cinderella transformations; one night I would be sleeping on a vermin-ridden sofa in a lodginghouse, and the next night under silken coverlets in a fashionable home.

    When Upton was ten, the family moved to New York City, where he supplemented his public school education with a voracious appetite for reading that in fact made him largely self-educated, a manifestation of the extraordinary self-discipline that began in his youth and would mark all his endeavors throughout his long life. The young Sinclair also had a passion for religion, and one of his heroes was Jesus Christ. The other was the great English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose revolutionary fervor fired Sinclair’s political visions and his early ambition to become a poet.

    It was just five days before his fourteenth birthday in 1892 that Upton Sinclair started attending the City College of New York. Upon discovering that one of his classmates had published a story (unpaid) in a monthly magazine, Sinclair decided that he too would write and be published. He thereupon wrote a story and sold it to Argosy for twenty-five dollars, thus embarking on his career as a writer. By the age of seventeen, he was supporting both himself and his parents with his earnings. Writing so frequently also gave him the invaluable opportunity to constantly refine his gift as a storyteller, so that he eventually helped shape the literature of the American Realist tradition as the author of page-turners that were both instructive and entertaining.

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    At the end of the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution swept the nation with wide-ranging social, economic, and political changes. Technological advances led to the proliferation of factories and mass production, Americans moved from farms to the cities, and immigrants from all over the world crowded into urban tenements for opportunities they hoped would lead to a better life. The American Realist movement in literature was an outgrowth of these major shifts in people’s everyday lives. Some of its practitioners sought to preserve local color—especially prevalent in the works of regional writers—while others relentlessly documented the grim realities of the machine age, the breakdown in traditional values, and the dehumanization of the new urban poor. Unlike its predecessor Romanticism, which was largely the province of the upper classes who both created it and peopled it, Realism evolved as the voice of the common folk—for them, by them, and about them. Like the camera, it captured reality without the varnish of sentimentality, and broke ground for the literature of today and such genres as the nonfiction novel, the documentary novel, and investigative journalism. Upton Sinclair emerged as a writer of American Realism, and it was he who helped propel the muckraking school in particular into an historic role.

    Social Darwinism held sway over the attitudes of most Americans at the turn of the century, and included such notions as caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) and might makes right. The laws and regulations we take for granted today were unheard of in Sinclair’s day; and as a result, conditions like those described below were commonplace in the meatpacking industry, and had their equivalent in different businesses throughout the land.

    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 moldy and white—it would be doused with borax and glycerine, and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for home consumption. There would be meat 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 would 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 handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together. . . . [T]here were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit.

    FROM CHAPTER 14 OF THE JUNGLE

    Muckrakers were the novelists and journalists who exposed the corruption in big business and government, the authors of the literature of exposure and reform. In an age without the distractions of radio, television, movies, or computers, reading was the all-important form of entertainment, and writers could exert far more singular influence over a mass audience than is usual today. By 1902, Upton Sinclair was persuaded that Socialism was the proper vehicle for righting the ills of mankind, and he later combined that political vision with his intention to write a novel that would set forth the breaking of human hearts by a system which exploits the labor of men and women for profits. The result was The Jungle, published in 1906, a landmark work that exposed the terrible abuses of the so-called Beef Trust, and led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act later the same year. Upon the book’s publication, Upton Sinclair was catapulted into instantaneous fame and influence—the most important writer in America for the next four decades, whose legacy continues to this day.

    CHAPTER 1

    IT WAS FOUR o’clock when the ceremony was over and the carriages began to arrive. There had been a crowd following all the way, owing to the exuberance of Marija Berczynskas. The occasion rested heavily upon Marija’s broad shoulders—it was her task to see that all things went in due form, and after the best home traditions; and, flying wildly hither and thither, bowling every one out of the way, and scolding and exhorting all day with her tremendous 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 personage had developed a will 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 Lithuanian, which he did not understand, and then in Polish, which he did. Having the advantage 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, continuing 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, with the squeaking of two fiddles which vied with each other in intricate and altitudinous gymnastics. Seeing the throng, Marija abandoned precipitately the debate concerning the ancestors of her coachman, and, springing from the moving carriage, plunged in and proceeded to clear a way to the hall. Once within, she turned and began to push the other way, roaring, meantime, "Eik! Eik! Uzdaryk-duris!" in tones which made the orchestral uproar sound like fairy music.

    Z. Graiczunas, Pasilinksminimams darzas. Vynas. Sznapsas. Wines and Liquors. Union Headquarters—that was the way the signs ran. The reader, who perhaps has never held much converse 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 Chicago known as back of the yards. This information is definite and suited to the matter of fact; but how pitifully inadequate it would have seemed to one who understood that it was also the supreme hour of ecstasy in the life of one of God’s gentlest creatures, the scene of the wedding feast and the joy-transfiguration of little Ona Lukoszaite!

    She stood in the doorway, shepherded by Cousin 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 otherwise wan little face was flushed. She wore a muslin dress, 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 feverishly. 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 sixteen—and small for her age, a mere child; and she had just been married—and married to Jurgis,¹ of all men, to Jurgis Rudkus, he with the white flower in the buttonhole of his new black suit, he with the mighty shoulders and the giant hands.

    Ona was blue-eyed and fair, while Jurgis had great black eyes with beetling brows, and thick black hair that curled in waves about his ears—in short, they were one of those incongruous and impossible married couples with which Mother Nature so often wills to confound all prophets, before and after. Jurgis could take up a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound quarter of beef and carry it into a car without a stagger, or even a thought; and now he stood in a far corner, frightened as a hunted animal, and obliged to moisten his lips with his tongue each time before he could answer the congratulations of his friends.

    Gradually there was effected a separation between the spectators and the guests—a separation at least sufficiently complete for working purposes. There was no time during the festivities which ensued when there were not groups of onlookers in the doorways and the corners; and if any one of these onlookers came sufficiently close, or looked sufficiently hungry, a chair was offered him, and he was invited to the feast. It was one of the laws of the veselija that no one goes hungry; and, while a rule made in the forests of Lithuania is hard to apply in the stockyards district of Chicago, with its quarter of a million inhabitants, still they did their best, and the children who ran in from the street, and even 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 moved 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, save possibly alone the babies, of which there were present a number equal to the total possessed by all the guests invited. There was no other place for the babies to be, and so part of the preparations for the evening 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 older, and could reach the tables, marched about munching contentedly at meat bones and bologna sausages.

    The room is about thirty feet square, with whitewashed walls, bare save 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 doorway, and in the corner 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 corner are two tables, filling a third of the room and 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 sugar 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, toiling heroically to make some impression upon the hubbub; also the babies, similarly occupied, and an open window whence the populace imbibes the sights and sounds and odors.

    Suddenly some of the steam begins to advance, and, peering through it, you discern Aunt Elizabeth, Ona’s stepmother—Teta Elzbieta, as they call her—bearing aloft a great platter of stewed duck. Behind her is Kotrina, making her way cautiously, staggering beneath a similar burden; and half a minute later there appears old Grandmother Majauszkiene, with a big yellow bowl 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 back, the bar, where you may order all you please and do not have to pay for it. "Eiksz! Graicziau!" screams Marija Berczynskas, and falls to work herself—for there is more upon the stove inside that will be spoiled if it be not eaten.

    So, with laughter and shouts and endless badinage and merriment, the guests take their places. The young men, who for the most part have been huddled near the door, summon their resolution and advance; and the shrinking Jurgis is poked and scolded by the old folks until he consents to seat himself at the right hand of the bride. The two bridesmaids, whose insignia of office are paper wreaths, come next, and after them the rest of the guests, old and young, boys and girls. The spirit of the occasion takes hold of the stately bartender, who condescends to a plate of stewed duck; even the fat policeman—whose duty it will be, later in the evening, to break up the fights—draws up a chair to the foot of the table. And the children shout and the babies yell, and every one laughs and sings and chatters—while above all the deafening clamor Cousin Marija shouts orders to the musicians.

    The musicians—how shall one begin to describe them? All this time they have 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 wonderland, a little corner of the high mansions of the sky.

    The little person who leads 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 have been laid upon him. He plays like one possessed by a demon, by a whole horde of demons. You can feel them in the air round about him, capering frenetically; with their invisible feet they set the pace, and the hair of the leader of the orchestra rises on end, and his eyeballs start from their sockets, as he toils to keep up with them.

    Tamoszius Kuszleika is his name, and he has taught himself to play the violin by practicing all night, after working all day on the killing beds. He is in his shirt sleeves, with a vest figured with faded gold horseshoes, and a pink-striped 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 the ground. You wonder where he can have gotten them—or rather you would wonder, if the excitement of being in his presence left you time to think of such things.

    For he is an inspired man. Every inch of him is inspired—you might almost say inspired separately. He stamps with his feet, he tosses his head, he sways and swings to and fro; he has a wizened-up little face, irresistibly comical; and, when he executes a turn or a flourish, his brows knit and his lips work and his eyelids wink—the very ends of his necktie bristle out. And every now and then he turns upon his companions, nodding, signaling, beckoning frantically—with every inch of him appealing, imploring, in behalf of the muses and their call.

    For they are hardly worthy of 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 over-driven 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 his 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 nothing to him; no matter what happens in the treble, it is his task to saw out one long-drawn and lugubrious note after another, from four o’clock in the afternoon until nearly the same hour next morning, for his third of the total income of one dollar per hour.

    Before the feast has been five minutes under way, Tamoszius Kuszleika has risen in his excitement; a minute or two more and you see that he is beginning to edge over toward the tables. His nostrils are dilated and his breath comes fast—his demons are driving him. He nods and shakes his head at his companions, jerking at them with his violin, 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 instrument 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 will 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 squalor about them—it is out of this material that they have to build their lives, 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 snowclad hills. They behold home landscapes and childhood 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’ eyes, 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 possessed; some 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 edge in between the tables, making his way toward the head, where sits the bride. There is not a foot of space between the chairs of the guests, and Tamoszius is so short that he pokes them with his bow whenever he reaches over for the low notes; but still he presses in, and insists relentlessly that his companions must follow. During their progress, needless to say, the sounds of the cello are pretty well extinguished; 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 gazing with the same fearful eyes of wonder. Teta Elzbieta is all in a flutter, like a hummingbird; her sisters, too, keep running up behind her, whispering, breathless. But Ona seems scarcely to hear them—the music keeps calling, 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 her 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 magic wand above her, Ona’s cheeks are scarlet, and she looks as if she would have to get up and run away.

    In this crisis, however, she is saved by Marija Berczynskas, 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 know it, she has risen, and is proceeding to teach them. Marija is short, but powerful 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 shirtwaist, which is now rolled up at the sleeves, 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 her song, in a voice of which it is enough to say that it leaves no portion of the room vacant, the three musicians follow her, laboriously and note by note, but averaging one note behind; thus they toil through stanza after stanza of a lovesick swain’s lamentation:

    "Sudiev’ kvietkeli, tu brangiausis;

    Sudiev’ ir laime, man biednam,

    Matau—paskyre teip Aukszcziausis,

    Jog vargt ant svieto reik vienam!"

    When the song is over, it is time for the speech, and old Dede Antanas rises to his feet. Grandfather Anthony, Jurgis’ 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 then 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 holds himself by his chair and turns away his wan and battered face until it passes.

    Generally it is the custom for the speech at a veselija 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 delicatessen 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 showers congratulations and prophecies of happiness upon the bride and groom, proceeding to particulars which greatly delight the young men, but which cause Ona to blush more furiously than ever. Jokubas possesses what his wife complacently describes as "poetiszka vaidintuve"—a poetical imagination.

    Now a good many of the guests have finished, and, since there is no pretense 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 corner, 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 say—Broom! broom! broom!

    The company pairs off quickly, and the whole room is soon in motion. Apparently 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 the undisciplined joy of motion to express itself with their feet. Among these are Jokubas Szedvilas and his wife, Lucija, who together keep the delicatessen store, and consume nearly as much as they 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 gaily colored handkerchief, or a coat with large cuffs and fancy buttons. All these things are carefully avoided by the young, most of whom have learned to speak English and to affect the latest style of clothing. The girls wear ready-made dresses or shirtwaists, and some of them look quite pretty. Some of the young men you would take to be Americans, of the type of clerks, but for the fact that they wear their hats in the room. Each of these younger couples affects a style of its own in dancing. Some hold each other tightly, some at a cautious distance. Some hold their arms out stiffly, some drop them loosely at their sides. Some dance springily, some glide softly, some move with grave dignity. There are boisterous couples, who tear wildly about the room, knocking every one out of their way. There are nervous couples, whom these frighten, and who cry, "Nustok! Kas yra?" at them as they pass. Each couple is paired for the evening—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 shirtwaist, 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 grandes dames. Juozas is driving one of Durham’s wagons, and is making big wages. He affects a tough aspect, wearing his hat on one side and keeping a cigarette in his mouth all the evening. Then there is Jadvyga Marcinkus, who is also beautiful, but humble. Jadvyga likewise paints cans, but then she has an invalid mother and three little sisters to support by it, and so she does not spend her wages for shirtwaists. 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 dancing 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 all 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 dangerous trade, especially when you are on piecework and trying 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 fearful gash. And that would not be so bad, only for the deadly contagion. The cut may heal, but you never can tell. 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 weeks more of standing at the doors of the packing houses, at six o’clock on bitter winter mornings, with a foot of snow on the ground and more in the air. There are learned people who can tell you out of the statistics that beef-boners make forty cents an hour, but, perhaps, these people have never looked into a beef-boner’s hands.

    When Tamoszius and his companions stop for a rest, as perforce they must, now and then, the dancers halt where they are and wait patiently. They never seem to tire; and there is no place for them 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 two-step, but the majority go through an intricate series of motions, resembling more fancy skating than a dance. The climax of it is a furious prestissimo, 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 dazzling to look upon. But the sight of sights at this moment is Tamoszius 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 flying 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 included, and the revelers take a long breath and prepare for the great event of the evening, which is the acziavimas. The acziavimas is a ceremony which, once begun, will continue for three or four hours, and it involves one uninterrupted dance. The guests form a great ring, locking hands, and, when the music starts up, begin to move around in a circle. In the center stands the bride, and, one by one, the men step into the enclosure and dance with her. Each dances for several minutes—as long as he pleases; it is a very merry proceeding, with laughter and singing, and when the guest has finished, he finds himself face to face with Teta Elzbieta, who holds the hat. Into it he drops a sum of money—a dollar, or perhaps 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 guests, they will see that there is a neat sum left over for the bride and bridegroom to start life upon.

    Most fearful they are to contemplate, the expenses of this entertainment. They will certainly be over two hundred dollars, and maybe three hundred; and three hundred 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 Sunday morning—and who cannot earn three hundred dollars 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 places—and who do not make the half of three hundred dollars 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! (For obviously it is the same thing, whether you spend it at once for your own wedding, or in a long time, at the weddings of all your friends.)

    It is very imprudent, it is tragic—but, ah, it is so beautiful! Bit by bit these poor people have given up everything else; but to this they cling with all the power of their souls—they cannot give up the veselija! To do that would mean, not merely to be defeated, but to acknowledge defeat—and the difference 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 wings, and behold the sun; provided that once in his lifetime he might testify to the fact 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 swung round and round—when they were dizzy they swung the 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 they 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 policeman 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! 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 with rage. In vain the frightened Tamoszius would attempt to speak, to plead the limitations of the flesh; in vain would the puffing and breathless ponas Jokubas insist, in vain would Teta Elzbieta implore. "Szalin! Marija would scream. Palauk! isz kelio! What are you paid for, children of hell?" And so, in sheer terror, the orchestra would strike up again, and Marija would return to her place and take up her task.

    She bore all the burden of the festivities now. One 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 ring had now the shape of a pear, with Marija at the stem, pulling 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 doorknob, and slam would go the door! Once this procedure was the cause of a calamity of which Sebastijonas Szedvilas was the hapless victim. Little Sebastijonas, aged three, had been wandering 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 Sebastijonas in her arms and bid fair to smother him with kisses. There was a long rest for the orchestra, and plenty of refreshments, while 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 corner 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 therefore 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 crowds and fill themselves with a fine dinner, and then sneak off. One would throw another’s hat out of the window, and both would go out to get it, and neither could be seen again. Or now and then half a dozen of them would get together and march out openly, staring at you, and making fun of you to your face. Still others, worse yet, would crowd about the 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 musicians, five dollars at the church, and a blessing of the Virgin besides—and so on without an end! Worst of all was the frightful bill that was

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