The Jungle
The young fellow was so glad to see Jurgis that he almost hugged him.
“By God, if it isn’t ‘the Stinker’!” he cried. “And what is it—have you
been through a sausage machine?”
“No,” said Jurgis, “but I’ve been in a railroad wreck and a fight.” And
then, while some of the other prisoners gathered round he told his wild
story; most of them were incredulous, but Duane knew that Jurgis could
never have made up such a yarn as that.
“Hard luck, old man,” he said, when they were alone; “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 summer,
“hoboing it,” as the phrase was. “And you?” he asked finally. “Have you
been here ever since?”
“Lord, no!” 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, Jurgis?”
“I’ve no place to go,” said Jurgis, sadly.
“Neither have I,” replied the other, laughing lightly. “But we’ll 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 beach; there was new water, but the wave
looked just the same. He strolled 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 he 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 the future.
And so, when he was turned out of prison again, without a penny in his
pocket, he went straight to Jack Duane. He went full of humility and
gratitude; for Duane was a gentleman, and a man with a profession—and
it was remarkable that he should be willing to throw in his lot with a
humble workingman, one who had even been a beggar and a tramp. Jurgis
could not see what help he could be to him; but 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 get some. He explained his
plan—in fact he spent the day in laying bare to his friend the criminal
world of the city, and in showing 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 he would be safe if he were careful.
Here at “Papa” Hanson’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 room, and they had
some supper; and then about eleven o’clock at night they sallied forth
together, by a rear entrance to the place, Duane armed with a
slingshot. They came to a residence district, and he sprang up a
lamppost and blew out the light, and then the two dodged into the
shelter of an area step and hid in silence.
Pretty soon a man came by, a workingman—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 gone. Though half-frozen, they waited a full
quarter of an hour after that—and then again came footsteps, walking
briskly. Duane nudged Jurgis, 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
behind, 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 fall, 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, after feeling of the man’s fingers and in his
necktie, Duane whispered, “That’s all!” and they dragged him to the
area and dropped him in. Then Jurgis went one way and his friend the
other, walking briskly.
The latter arrived first, and Jurgis found him examining the “swag.”
There was a gold watch, for one thing, with a chain and locket; there
was a silver pencil, and a matchbox, and a handful of small change, and
finally a card-case. This last Duane opened feverishly—there were
letters and checks, and two theater-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!” 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 watch 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. He protested that it was too much, but the
other had agreed to divide even. That was a good haul, he said, better
than 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,
laughing—“until one day he read that he had left three thousand dollars
in a lower inside pocket of his party’s vest!”
There was a half-column account of the robbery—it was evident that a
gang was operating in the neighborhood, 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 had 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 half-frozen when found,
and would lose three fingers on his right hand. The enterprising
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 naturally 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, reflectively, “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.
Duane had already explained to Jurgis that if a man of their trade were
known he would have to work all the time to satisfy the demands of the
police. Therefore it would 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 weeks 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 “sporting houses” where the big crooks and “holdup 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 the people, a huge army of graft was necessary
for the purpose of effecting the transfer of power. Twice a year, in
the spring and fall elections, millions of dollars were furnished 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 reservoirs 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 leaders 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 newspaper
proprietors and editors by advertisements. The rank and file, however,
were either foisted upon the city, or else lived off the population
directly. There was the police department, and the fire and water
departments, and the whole balance of the civil list, from the meanest
office boy to the head of a city department; and for the horde who
could find no room in these, there was the world of vice and crime,
there was license to seduce, to swindle 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
poolroom 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 goods, the seller of adulterated milk, of
stale fruit and diseased meat, the proprietor of unsanitary tenements,
the fake doctor and the usurer, the beggar and the “pushcart 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, the politician would open his
headquarters in his saloon. “Hinkydink” or “Bathhouse John,” or others
of that ilk, were proprietors of the most notorious dives in Chicago,
and also the “gray 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 holdup men who kept the whole city in
terror. On election day all these powers of vice and crime were one