Chapter V: Part 5

I know universities where the students are not instructed in the sciences and other branches of learning, and where degrees of a different kind are conferred on the students; a university where other objects than theology, medicine, law and the sciences and arts are taught.

Burglary, blackmailing, safe-blowing, murder and other applied sciences and arts are taught there.

The professors are incomparably superior to the ones in the colleges; they are men with great experience and they impart their knowledge to their pupils without charging fees. They do it for love.

In the underworld the Reformatory is called "the university." And one who knew, one day remarked to me: "If they (meaning the good citizens) had wanted to create a school where crime should be taught they could not have done better than by fixing up a Reformatory. They get a real training there, pass through a sound apprenticeship and are masters of their particular branch when they come out."

CLIPPING WINGS OF LITTLE BIRDS

"And where does she go every day?"

"In town."

"Does she stay out late at night?"

"I don't know."

"Do men come often to the house?"

"Sometimes."

"Is she sometimes drunk? I mean, does she use whisky? Is there whisky in the house?"

"Not that I know of."

"Does she smoke cigarettes?"

"No."

"Is she visiting the moving picture houses?"

"No--never."

To whom are these questions put? To the children of the poor. The "she" referred to is the mother, and the child is often not older than eight years, and sometimes younger. And who puts the questions? The investigators, of course.

On the information of a neighbour that Mrs. S. "eats meat every day and goes to the moving pictures," a widow's pension was cut off and she was submitted to the test.

A few days later, when the mattress and broken chairs were on the street the woman was in the office crying, tearing her hair and beating her heart. She begged the Manager, she begged the investigator--"Pity--pity--have pity on me and my children." But they turned a deaf ear. When the poor woman got beyond control the janitor was called to help and he made it short. He put her out.

For more than an hour she sat outside on the steps. Then suddenly she got up and disappeared. A half hour after she was back again, but not alone. She had brought her three children--a little boy of five and two girls, one seven and the other nine years old. She wanted to go in, but the janitor, acting on the orders given, did not let her pass the door. When she once had put her foot between sill and door he simply beat her off. Her screams and cries could have melted a heart of stone, but not that of a janitor of a charity institution. They are picked men, of a special brand.

I spoke to the investigator and tried to convince her that the test had gone far enough, but she was not satisfied.

"That woman," she said, "is acting--acting her part. I am not going to be taken in. No, she would not fool me."

Then suddenly she ran out and through the open door I saw how she literally tore away the three children from their mother's hands and when the mother wanted to follow her little ones the door was slammed and caught the fingers of the unfortunate woman. She screamed, the children screeched and all the other applicants ran to the door, wailing, crying--but the investigator ordered them all away. Only the janitor finally took pity and brought a wet towel to wrap around the injured hand. However, she was not let in. The investigator dragged the three little ones away to her room.

I don't know why I was under the impression of seeing a wolf carrying away three little chicks to his den.

She brought them to her room and when she saw me coming she slammed the door and remained alone with them. From outside I heard the children crying and the questioning intonation of their torturer. She changed her tactics every minute. First she was sweet and promising, then loud and menacing, then again persuading, convincing, suddenly threatening, intimidating--a real Scarpia in petticoats.

Meanwhile the mother stood outside, a wet towel on her arm, crying and beating with her head the heavy closed door. It was the hour when the "committee" was going home. An automobile stopped at the door and the Manager majestically descended the broad stone steps, seated himself comfortably on the cushioned seat, buttoned his coat and beckoned to the driver. A few seconds later he was enveloped in a cloud of dust.

After all, why not speak simply? From where all that money? Even if it is only from the salary, does it not prove that he is getting too much? Isn't that money destined to pay for other things than gasoline, and a liveried chauffeur? Has any one of those that bequeathed a certain amount of money to an institution written in his will that a proportion of the money shall go for gasoline, liveried chauffeurs and high salaries? Of course, a certain amount of money is necessary for expenses, but is there no reason to feel that there is "something rotten in Denmark" when A Little Mothers' Association gives out a report that around eighty per cent. of the total amount of money was spent on office work, salaries and investigators and only twenty per cent. went to the poor? The reason they give is that they prefer to spend fifty dollars on investigating before giving five dollars, for fear of giving to the undeserving, and that the large amount of money spent on salaries, etc., shows the good and thorough work of the institution. Then why not be consistent and spend the whole amount the same way? It will show still better work, greater efficiency. Why not put up a sign: "This institution is founded with the object not to give charity," or call it "The Society to Prevent Pauperisation of the Poor." But this does not pay. No fool will give money for such a purpose. I foresee a day when the poor will protest that their names and qualifications should not be used to obtain money under false pretences--a day when the poor will elect from _whom_ they want to receive charity.

But to come back to the wolf. After a quarter of an hour another young woman, usually at work at the desk, quit her chair and went into the room. She was all excited, as one might be before the curtain rises on the scene when the villain is killed. She moved around on her chair, bit her nails, squeezed her fingers, broke nibs--the wolf smelling a rabbit. She at last could not resist temptation, so she entered the room. And then I heard both their voices. Another investigator appeared. She was the oldest in the place, and reputed to be a marvel. (She afterwards obtained a position in the Juvenile Court--"the right place for the right woman.")

"What's the matter in there?" she asked the office boy.

"Clipping wings of little birds," he answered laconically.

It was the first time I had ever heard a sentence which so well characterised the work.

The old "maman" hardly had patience to throw off her coat when she rushed into the fray. After a short lull during which the three conferred probably, the old cove took charge of one of the little ones, and went into another room.

The whole thing lasted more than an hour and was given up as unsuccessful. The children were thrust out to the mother. She was ordered to come to-morrow.

The three women seated themselves together and the younger one, thinking of the great exploits of the police detectives, Sherlock Holmes stories, remarked:

"A regular third degree."

The janitor, very interested in charity affairs, asked: "Did you sweat them?"

The old "maman" thought deeply for a few moments then she exclaimed with feeling:

"Come to think of it, they refused my candy! Isn't that a sign that they had enough of it, that they get candy every day?"

"Of course," joined the two, "it certainly is so--children to refuse candy! Who ever heard of it?"

"When are they coming to-morrow?"

"In the morning."

"Well, I will try to help you in this affair. I don't think they are deserving."

As she went to write her report she kept on saying:

"A nice bunch--a nice bunch."

Presently the office boy approached, chewing gum.

"Confessed, condemned to the electric chair?" he asked.

THE ORPHAN HOME

I was ushered into the private room of the superintendent of the Orphan Home. After a few moments' introductory talk he brought me down to the kitchen--a large, spacious room with all the modern cooking paraphernalia. The cook presided over the stove, on which were a dozen pots. Three pale little girls were peeling potatoes.

From there we went to the dressmaking room, where half a dozen girls under the supervision of an expert were making dresses, shirts, sheets and all the other linen of the house. Though it was a beautiful spring day they had to use gas light, the room was so dark. The superintendent noticing my gaze fixed on the burning light, explained:

"It is not too dark here, but you can't make them understand that artificial light is bad for the eyes. It's a pity to waste money on gas, but you can't do everything just right."

From the dressmaking room he led me to the dining room, which was a very large, light room, with one big white marble table in the centre. Little girls were busy setting the table for the noon meal. Soon the bell rang and a hundred pair of tripping feet followed the call to lunch. In a few moments they were all sitting around the table. A big cauldron of soup was brought and the bowls filled with the steaming food. A hundred little mouths munched and chattered and whispered, the older girls supervising the younger ones, the stronger ones often getting the slice of bread belonging to the weaker.

One of the "old ones" approached the superintendent and told him: "Clara Morris does not eat."

"Why?" he asked.

"She cries, sir," the girl answered.

"Bring her to my office," he ordered.

Then he turned to me and explained: "The new ones don't assimilate readily. There is especial difficulty in the matter of food. Their taste has been spoiled with spicy food and they can't eat the simple, wholesome food we give them here. The first few days they don't eat at all, but when they get good and hungry they fall to it like the rest. And they eat--oh! they eat. If you could see the bills for food for a month you would gasp. A fortune is spent. The fruit bill alone is above three hundred dollars a month. They get all the fruits of the season, but they would prefer pickles and sour tomatoes. I tell you for some of them it's lucky their parents died. I shudder to think what would have become of them." As he was speaking the office girl called him to the telephone. I went straight to the child who refused to eat and asked her why she refused the food. It was the child of an applicant and she knew me.

"I can't eat it--it tastes bad. See for yourself."

I took a spoonful of the supposed lentil soup and tasted. It smelt and tasted like dishwater. Of lentils it had only the colour and the name. Then I tasted the meat and the pudding, and understood why they had to be hungry for a few days before they could touch it. I looked at the faces of the children. All ghastly pale, with bent shoulders and fallen-in chests and toothpick legs--only the eyes were living, the feverish, longing eyes of the people of woe.

The children ate the bread, some chewed a bone, alternating with a bite from a quarter of an apple, the fruit of the season, and as an extra treat, because I was there, two dates were given to each. Once in a while a little tragedy would happen. A big one would take away a slice of bread from a small one, and the protests of the robbed were stilled with threats and pinches.

"When is your happiest time here?" I asked one of the girls.

"Every six weeks," she answered.

"Why so?"

"Because then I am in the kitchen for two days and can eat as much as I want."

Soon the superintendent came again, and as he insisted on my visiting the classes while at work he invited me to lunch with his family. I was introduced to the lady of the house--who in turn introduced me to their daughter, a young Miss of twenty, with round, healthy body and rosy cheeks and stupid eyes. Mr. Marcel talked all the time, explaining to me how ungrateful the children of the poor are. I was seated directly opposite him at table and had an opportunity of studying him at close range. For the first time I remarked his gluttonous lips and round, protruding belly. He followed every plate with his eyes and ceremoniously pushed his sleeves back before he carved, as though officiating at a holy rite. The more he ate the more he wanted, and seeing such a luncheon and the fruit at the table I quite believed that "The fruit bill alone was three hundred dollars a month."

I turned to the girl and asked:

"How do you like living here?"

"It's nice."

"She is practically born here," the mother explained.

"Then you went to school here," I asked.

"Oh, no--no--" all three, father, mother and daughter protested in chorus. "We would not place our child with _them_," the mother said indignantly, while the father, who was so shocked that he stopped eating his pudding, said:

"One is willing to sacrifice his own life, but one has no right to do so with one's child."

After luncheon Mr. Marcel delivered himself of the following lecture.

"That's the big mistake of the people outside. They don't seem to realise that in an orphan home you have the scum of the population. The very fact that their parents died young and poor is a proof of the bad root they grow from. Most of the time the father or mother or both have been drunkards, sick and idle. Idleness is a disease and an hereditary one. Why are they poor? because they are degenerates. A healthy man is never poor. Why are they sick? Because they are careless and dirty. Why do they die young if it is not because they are degenerates and careless and dirty? We get their children. They all have bad habits, bad characters, are insolent and indolent, and they all long for the street, the free street. This desire for the free street is terrible. We have here a splendid garden--have a look through the window, sir--a splendid garden is it not? It's my greatest pleasure! They want the gutter. We have a tremendous work to do, and I am happy to be partially successful. We break them of their evil habits, curb their insolence and teach them order and submission, order and submission, order and submission," he repeated.

The heavy meal soon told on the gentleman and his speech lost its clarity and his tongue stuck in his mouth. He was soon dozing in his chair and I was saved from the awkward position by Mrs. Marcel who gave me the freedom of the place, while explaining that Mr. Marcel was working very hard and was always tired at that hour.

I went down to the garden. There wasn't a child there. One of the teachers sat on a bench reading a paper.

"Excuse me, madame, but why don't the children use the garden?"

"They are not allowed, sir."

I soon saw them pass out from the refectory to the classroom, like little mourners coming from the cemetery where their parents were buried. There are one hundred children, all girls, between the ages of seven and fourteen. _In five hours' time I did not hear one laugh, did not see one smile._ All have but one hope. To reach the age of fourteen and then be placed. It matters not where nor to what work! The main thing is to get out of the "box" as the children call it. But only six out of ten reach the age of fourteen. The hospital is the anteroom of the grave.

When I spoke of the great proportion of sick among the children and of the pallor of all, the superintendent explained:

"You must not forget that these are not normal children. They are the offspring of degenerates--of the poor."

In all the world, in all the charitable institutions, poverty is a crime. Thus are the children, the orphans, treated like little would-be criminals and every move is regarded with suspicion. Not half of the money given for their food is spent on food and not a half that is given for their clothing is spent for them. The whole institution is a shame and the man who thought he was performing a good deed when he left a bequest to shelter the children of the poor is cursed instead of being blessed.

And the devil sits on the stove and says: "This is the best place that man ever built for me."

This was a model Orphan Home. I have since visited other places and found everywhere the same situation, with little variations. The conditions in a Paris house are no better than those in Chicago, and the children are not more unhappy in Montreal than in Berlin. The children of the poor, the orphans, are everywhere little criminals that Mr. Levy, Monsieur Albert, Mr. Marcel or Herr Grun has to "tame and teach submission." The wish of all the children is to get rid in some way of the "box." (This word is used by all the orphans all over the world to designate their home. It is characteristic and shows how suffering is international and conveys to all the same designation of a certain evil.) The girls by getting married or becoming servants. Oh! They don't intend to stay married to the man the institution procures for them. Generally it is an old widower who applies for one, to "make happy a poor orphan." She will not stay with him and her vow is worth nothing--is a subterfuge to escape. And if she goes as a servant it is also only to get out into the world where she will soon fall a victim to the first snare, on account of her inexperience and broken spirit, and her fear of returning to the "box."

Never has the orphan house been described as well as Marguerite Audoux has done it in her "Marie Claire." There, too, you see what the children miss--bread and love--and that what they most want is freedom. The day one of the girls goes away all the others are sad--sad to live between those four walls. The friendship of the cook is one's greatest asset. One can get an extra piece of meat or an apple or a slice of bread. All the while tens of thousands of dollars are given, gardens are made where the children must not enter and food is prepared which the children do not eat. Holidays are celebrated and the children are tortured to learn some platitude which they must recite to please the ladies and gentlemen who come to honour the house with their presence. But down in their souls the children hate the whole game. They are not fooled--they know. And one girl confided to me the following:

"There are busts in clay and marble and paintings of all that have started and contributed to this institution. In the centre hall is a white stone plate with the names engraved in gold. Well, every morning I walk up to each and every one and tell him my opinion of his deed. I can hardly keep my fist back from the bust of the one who founded this 'box.' And to the plate, that plate with names engraved in gold--morning and night I say, 'Damn you all.' It's my prayer."

This voices the feeling of all the children.

My visit to the Orphan Asylum was due to the following fact.

Mrs. D., a widow, had two children, two girls, one seven and one ten. When her husband died she placed both children in the Orphan Home. After a few months the younger one died there and Mrs. D. took the other one home. All the charitable institutions did their utmost to get the child back to the institution, but in vain. The mother maintained that the death of her child was due to the negligence of the people in charge there. She said this openly, although she needed assistance. The child, too, would not return, and whenever the name of the institution was mentioned would cling to the mother's apron. The office was afraid that the reputation of the institution would be damaged and so they used every effort to combat the mother's decision. The whole officialdom was very nice and gentle to the widow. Help was freely given, and they even spoke of buying her a candy store, on condition that she free herself of the child. When this course did not produce the desired effect the Manager explained to her that the child would stand in the way of her remarriage, that she was young and had a right to live, etc., etc. When he wanted, the silken gentleman knew how to use unctuous language. But the mother instinct was stronger than the desire for money, for happiness--stronger than hunger.

Finally supplies were cut off. It was expected that hunger, "King Hunger," would settle everything. And "King Hunger" did settle it. Two months later two lines in a newspaper spoke about his success. She was found dead with her child lying near her. The gas-jet was open and the coroner is investigating whether it was an accident or suicide.

I give only the outlines of this miserable affair. It did not go as smoothly as it appears on paper. The visits of the mother, the change of tactics, the cries of the child whenever some one approached her. The horror of it all! And the talk of the people at the office. From the Manager to the janitor--cold-blooded murderers. And the threats and taunts and insults. And to-day, when I look back at it all, I think of my visit to this and all the other orphan houses, and I am of the opinion that this mother did not do a bad thing. She had more courage than many others. If they all knew, as this mother did, and if they all were as sincere and truthful to their children, Death would always be preferable to the wreck of what remains. Then, and only then, would the eyes of the world be opened. Then would everything be clear--clear--that no man could with one hand ruin health and spirit, through factory and workshop and adulterated food, dark and dirty tenement houses and Wall Street speculation, and with another hand give donations of a few dollars to palliate the evil he had created.

Or is this perhaps a new interpretation of Christ's words: "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth"?

WHY THEY GIVE

Among the chief contributors to a charitable institution are two gentlemen manufacturers. One a Mr. W., the other a Mr. M. D.

In the clothing factory of Mr. W. about four hundred workers, men, women and children, are employed. There the lowest wages are paid and a task system, combined with subcontracting and piece work, compels the workers to start at five in the morning, and if you pass at midnight you will still see the lights burning and hear the heavy rolling of the machines.

In the Summer of 1913 the manufacturer took a trip to Europe, and when he returned in September he found a considerable financial depression. His men were employed only part of the time; many were discharged altogether. The average pay of the men was three dollars to four dollars per week, the women and girls one dollar and one dollar and fifty cents. The Jewish holy days approached and as all the workingmen, as well as their employers, were Jews, they were naturally very much worried how the holy days were to be kept. Two weeks before the Day of Atonement Mr. W. called into his office a few of his men and delivered himself of the following:

"Boys, the holy days are coming. I am a Jew, a good Jew, and thought that you all must be very anxious to get some more money in your pay envelopes so that you may buy clothes for your women and children, and I have decided to see that you all have plenty of work during the following weeks."

The men cheered Mr. W.

"But," he continued, "on one condition, by reducing your prices fifteen per cent. Times are hard. I have had enormous expenses. The holy days are approaching. I have no doubt that all of you are good Jews and would not want to shame your faith, so I hope that all is agreeable to you and you can start to-morrow under the new condition."

Naturally the men refused and assembled in the halls of their union. The leaders of that organisation could not believe that Mr. W. had said what the men reported, though they knew the gentleman very well, and they went to the manufacturer to get an explanation. I was then the Secretary of a Tailor's Union. The result of the conference was that Mr. W. repeated what he had said to his men and added that he saw that this was the best opportunity to cut wages.

"They are all Jews--they will need money for the holy days, so they have to submit. It's my best chance."

It so happened that the men kept well together and did not return to work. They struck. Winter set in very early that cursed year, but the men and women stood hunger and cold rather than submit to such conditions. Weeks and weeks passed and Mr. W. made no effort to settle with his men. We knew he had plenty of work. We knew he was sending work to be done in the country places at ridiculously low prices. Still we knew that there was work he could not send out. None of the men returned to work; none of the other tailors worked there. We watched, and one day we got hold of a newly arrived immigrant with a letter in his hand.

"Where are you going?" one of the pickets asked him, and innocently the man showed his letter. A letter from the charity organisation to the manufacturer in which he was told that the man had just come over, "and will, let us hope, prove to be of the right kind."

The original is in the safe of Local 209 of the United Garment Workers of America.

And then we learned that daily the institution sent men to break the strike, to help the manufacturer who contributed a certain sum yearly to charity because it costs less to do this than to use a strike-breakers' agency. With the help of these institutions the men were beaten. For thirty weeks through the cruel winter of 1913 they remained on strike. When the temperature descended to thirty below zero men, women and children stood naked and hungry. Illness killed them by the dozen. Some of the young girls went on the streets, and the charity institution sent the incoming and ignorant immigrants to the manufacturer, who worked them SIXTEEN hours a day for five dollars or six dollars a week.

"Men, what are you doing?" I asked the managers of the institution. "You are supposed to _help the poor_, the suffering, and not the manufacturers."

"Yes," I was answered, "but this institution exists through the bounty of the _rich_ and they are the first to be considered."

"Then this is a strike-breaking agency?"

"Call it what you will."

Then we went to the manufacturer.

"Have you no heart? You know that the cost of living is going up. How can you reduce wages?"

The answer was: "First I am a business man, and as such I must try to reduce the cost of production. I saw my opportunity. As to the high cost of living, I am convinced that the chief reason for this is the high cost of production, and in reducing the wages of the men I lower the cost of production." Of course with such brutes discussion is useless. But his parting words are interesting:

"Believe me, sir, I suffer to see my men in misery. You know I am a heavy contributor to charity."

It was too much for me.

One more point in regard to the outcome of the strike. A certain influential man of the city succeeded in bringing about a settlement through arbitration. The workers selected two men, the manufacturer another two and the editor of a Jewish newspaper presided. Mr. W. as well as the workers agreed to submit to whatever the arbitration committee should decide. On the third day a settlement was reached and the men sent back to work, but when they arrived at the shops hired toughs and detectives cruelly assaulted the starved tailors. Many were carried to hospitals and others were arrested. The manufacturer himself denied that he had ever agreed to submit to an arbitration committee, though he had given his signature to a typewritten agreement.

Mr. M. D., the other gentleman manufacturer mentioned, is one of the richest men in the country. He is a cigar manufacturer. For a long time he was the president of a charitable organisation and is a heavy contributor to every form of charity.

In the teeth of winter, 1914, he reduced the wages of his workingmen twenty-five per cent. None of the English papers said a word, not a word in the Jewish one, because the gentleman took the precaution to be a shareholder in the publication. The result? A few more dead; a few more on the street; a few more in the hospital; a few more dollars to charity.

And that splendid gentleman, Mr. G., who put eight dollars in Amy's pay envelope, a girl seventeen years old, and when Amy returned the money, saying that only three dollars and sixty cents was due her he said: "Well, well, for the rest of the money I want a kiss," and he took it, and Amy is on the street now.

And Mr. G.? Ye poor of the land don't forget him in your daily prayers. He helps the widow and the orphan.

In a controversy about white slavery I maintained that the chief reason was the low wages paid to the girls, and this gentleman had the audacity to state publicly that the real reason was the _high wage_ ($3) paid to them; that they get used to luxury. A week after his statement a girl found in a house of ill fame and brought before the Judge frankly stated that she could not live on $3 per week and that this was the chief reason for her downfall. Did Mr. G. not himself pay $4.40 (the difference between $3.60 and $8.00) for a kiss? But that's why they give money to charities. To be shielded, to be helped in case of a strike, to procure a talisman.

THE KITCHEN

There was no work to be had anywhere in the winter of 1913-14. The C. P. R. and G. T. R. had discharged men by the hundreds. Factories had shut down, stores closed. Hundreds, nay, thousands, were starving. What had happened? A financial depression! Over-valuation, speculation and other explanations could not still the hunger of the poor and their families. The cost of living and rent went up, and nature seemed to help the rich. What a winter!

Some good-hearted men started a campaign for a kitchen where the hungry could get a complete meal for 5 cents. No sooner was the campaign started and the necessary fund covered, the kitchen well started, when hundreds of men and women went there to satisfy their hunger. Naturally enough, among the chief contributors were the same Mr. W. and Mr. M. D. as well as other manufacturers. My suspicions were aroused. I found there men, newly arrived immigrants, that an Immigrants' Aid Society had sent to work at certain places. They naturally displaced other better paid men, and ridiculously low wages were paid.

"And how do you live on two or three dollars per week?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't spend it all," I was answered. "I send a portion of my wages home to my wife and children to Russia," said one.

"How do you live, then?"

"We eat at the Folks' Kitchen," was the answer.

And there and then I found that nine men out of every ten eating there were employed by one of the other of the manufacturers who contributed to the fund of the kitchen. Any wonder the project immediately materialised? And not only have they given money but the rich send their wives and daughters to serve the poor.

In investigating the cases of those that applied for clothes for their children, the charities eliminated those whose fathers or mothers were on strike at the factories of W. or M. D.--"Fortunate he who can know the causes of things."

I took this kitchen as a sample. Those in other cities, cosmopolitan centres, are the same. Take the Baron de Rothschild kitchen in Paris. Aside from the fact that the food given there is rotten, that the potatoes served are alcoholised, the bread green with mould and the meat unspeakably odorous, aside from all this, a swarm of little sweatshop keepers are continually around the kitchen where they engage cheap labour.

Cheap! Ye gods. I have tried it myself. They paid me 20 cents a day for fourteen hours' work in an umbrella and cane factory. I worked there a full week and was not the only one. Next to my bench, in front and across, all over, newly arrived men and boys were polishing the sticks, rubbing them so hard that the hands bled. A brother of the manufacturer was watching and driving.

"Come on, come on."

Then in the evening they all ran to the kitchen to get their meal. When they found out I was not green, I was immediately discharged. They wanted only ignorant men, newly arrived men.

Down in the painting room they employed girls. It was more a house of prostitution than a working room. The poor ignorant girls, harvested from the kitchen, were debauched while they painted canes and polished handles.

So many of these sweatshops grew around the kitchen that rent rose in the neighbourhood. Still a bookbinding concern found it convenient to abandon a lease of years and move the whole factory to where it was nearer the blessed spot. More than half of the men working around never received more than one dollar per day and when they went on strike it was an easy matter to fill their places with the people of the dung hill.

In my presence a prospective manufacturer, discussing the merits of different localities for his plant, was willing to pay $80 per month more for one site than the other because it was in the neighbourhood of the kitchen. He would have cheaper labour. He did underbid all the other contractors and prospered and is an influential member of organised charity to-day.

The small manufacturer advises his men where to get cheap meals. At the kitchen. Cheap kitchens for the poor? Cheap kitchens are _for the rich_. Kitchens! A place where the spiders spread their web to catch the hungry flies--to suck their blood.

CHOCOLATE

Investigating in Paris (France) the conditions of charity institutions I was struck by one particularly funny custom which prevailed in one of them. After the applicant had been tortured and questioned until he would prefer death to a renewal of the ordeal he was given as many packages of chocolates as he had children, chocolate of the best kind, also a certain amount of meat and bread tickets. On the back of each ticket was written the stores where he could exchange it for meat or bread.

One of the investigators, having told me that "they" sold these tickets, especially the meat tickets, I decided to find out the reason for this. I stationed myself in a butcher's shop around the Place de la Bastile, whose name and address was on the back of a ticket. Until 10 A. M. I had not seen a single ticket coming and I was already drawing certain conclusions when I saw a woman coming in. She laid down on the table five francs' worth of tickets and got two francs in exchange. Then another and another one came and all received forty per cent. of the value. Why?

The next day I obtained a few tickets myself, and going into another butcher shop whose address was also marked on the back of the ticket I ordered four pounds of meat. Politely the man served me, and when he had tied up the parcel nicely, I tendered him the tickets. The man got red with rage and brusquely snatched the parcel, put his meat back on the nails, then, still without speaking a word, only looking daggers at me, he proceeded to scrape together all the spoiled pieces and bones he could find. This he weighed, and wrapping it up in a piece of dirty paper he handed it to me with the remark: "That's good enough for you."

"But, sir," I said, "you get paid for meat and not for scraps and bones."

"Clear out, clear out, you pauper," he yelled. "What impudence--what impudence." And to a new customer who had just come in he explained, "These paupers are getting impossible to deal with."

He pushed me out and I had to get rid of my parcel at the gutter. The odour of it was sickening. But then I understood why they were exchanging tickets for forty per cent. of the face value. With the money thus obtained they could get a piece of meat elsewhere--a piece of meat that was eatable.

These tickets are paid to the butcher less ten per cent. every first of the month. Why are tickets given instead of money for meat, for bread? There must be a reason. There must be some one interested. They are quite abundantly given. Very little ready cash. Blankets, shoes, aprons, meat tickets, bread tickets. Then think of the little consideration shown the feelings of the poor. Why advertise him as a pauper everywhere, at the butcher's and baker's?

As to the chocolate, I learned that a certain rich lady had bequeathed a certain amount of money specially for this purpose, namely, that chocolate of a certain brand should be given to the children of the poor. The good old lady must have loved sweetmeats herself very much and she evidently thought that there was no greater misfortune than to miss the sweet bite. Bless her poor soul!

OUT OF THEIR CLUTCHES

During the Lawrence strike, in the winter of 1911-12, the striking weavers deemed it proper to send away their children to comrades in other places. The men and women understood that the children should be kept away from the carnage then going on.

Arrangements were soon completed and the children sent away to New York in charge of a few reliable people. But on the second transport the charities took a hand in the proceedings and compelled the Mayor and the Sheriff to stop the exodus. The pretext was that the children were being taken away from their mothers, to whom they belonged, and who should take care of them. To intimidate the workers a few of the parents were arrested and kept under lock and key "to show an example."

No human being could forget the spectacle when the poor little ones arrived. Pale, haggard, starved, cold, naked, with shoes torn, bareheaded, they passed along Fifth Avenue. The ladies and gentlemen lined themselves on the edge of the sidewalk. A woman kept a pet dog in her arms and when she saw a little girl shivering she cuddled the animal to her body.

Could any one forget the first meal the children had. It looked as though they would eat up the spoons and forks. They were afterwards distributed to those who applied for them, to keep them until the strike was over.

It looks very reasonable, does it not? Not to organised charity. They, who insult and torture, got busy and investigated and reported to the Gerry Society. Got the papers busy on the subject and made life miserable for every one who had a Lawrence child. Were they afraid that the workers had wakened up to their own misery? Were they afraid organised charity was going out of business? Were they afraid to lose the fat positions, or was it simply the mania for investigating? Simply the desire to augment the quantity of records? The most pressing local cases were put aside. Everybody was employed getting the children of Lawrence into the clutches of organised charity. They met with very little success, but to me, who knew them thoroughly, their cant of "protect the children," was disgusting.

One of the boys was found alone in a working-man's home. The investigator got busy with so many questions and insinuations (he was Italian and the people keeping him were Jews) that the poor boy ran away, fearing his life was in danger. The Jews needed his blood! He wandered aimlessly on the street. A policeman noticed him, brought him to the station, the reporters got a story:

"The child ran away because he was ill treated." He was ill treated by the investigator who poisoned his soul. They wanted the children of the Lawrence strikers in their clutches, in the clutches of charity. Thank God, they were saved.

"THE HOME"

The husband dead and she left with four small children, the woman had to apply to charity. An investigator was sent and she found the family on the verge of starvation. As she was speaking to the applicant an old man, with grey beard and bent shoulders, came in.

"Who is he?"

"My father," the widow answered.

Further questions brought out the fact that the old man had lived in his daughter's house since his wife died; that he was too weak and old to earn his living and consequently fed on his daughter's fare. The investigator insinuated that the old man would have to be placed in a "Home." The widow cried and vowed that she would never part with her father, and the children surrounded their grandfather as though he was in actual danger of his life. The result was to be foreseen. A week's hunger brought the widow to the office, where she agreed to part with her father, so that her children might live.

The old man took no active part in the controversy concerning his future. Apathetic, he would sit near the open window and read the Psalms. He said no word when his daughter announced to him what the outcome was. A few minutes later he asked: "When am I to go?" Then he packed his belongings, the "Tefilin" prayer books, and was ready.

Thus are the people of woe ready to wander. He has been in many lands and many a time he has had to leave his abode, go from east to west, north to south.

That very night he slept in the "Home."

Home! the most horrible word for the poor. Home! The whole world calls home the place where one lives. For the poor, the old ones who cannot work any longer, "the Home" is the place where they die. It's the place that stamps them, brands them as eternal paupers. It's the crowning glory of a life of work, manual work. I know you will say: "What else could we do with the poor, incapable of earning their living?" But now come with me down to a few "homes." Don't become ecstatic over the beauty of the lawn in front of the house, nor admire the cleanliness of the kitchen. Come down to look at the men. Do you see this old man there? The one with flowing white beard and bushy eyebrows? That old Jew has made chairs and tables all his life, has made your chair, too, and his neighbour there--the one with trembling hands--he has worked on coats and overcoats, enough for thousands. Look at his hands now. They tremble. Look at your coat. The seam is straight, you want a straight seam. He is here now, in a Home. Look at them all. They have worked all their lives long.

"Come here, old man. What is your trade?"

"A furrier."

"Old man, what is your trade?"

"A tinsmith."

"And yours? and yours? and yours?"

"Tailor, dressmaker, machinist"--every trade is represented.

The veterans of industry. The temple of Invalids.

The widow's father lived there only two months. I saw him buried in the cold ground. An old man from the Home stood near the grave.

"I wish to be buried right here," he said.

"Why?"

"I got used to him--we were neighbours. His bed was next to mine."

"What was the matter with the old Baruch?" I asked.

"The servants did not like him," he answered.

"Was he ill? I mean old Baruch."

"No, the servants did not like him."

"But that's no reason for a man to die!"

The old man looked at me from under his bushy eyebrows. His look said plainly: "You stupid ass." Then he turned away from me and mingled with the other people. He avoided me when I approached him.

On the next day I visited the Home again. It was meal time. They all sat around a big table, much like the one I had seen at the orphanage. In the orphanage are fatherless children, in the Homes childless fathers. They sat around the table and tried to chew what was on their plates. Their toothless mouths worked in vain. When the superintendent remarked to me that most of them have stomach ailments and I suggested that a dentist examine their teeth the lady could not stifle her laughter. She was herself a woman of sixty and her mouth was in perfect condition--it was the dentist's work of course.

After the meal was over I tried very hard to get some of the old men to talk. They had nothing to say--this was the answer I got from a few.

"Are you satisfied here?" I asked, to which one fine looking old fellow replied:

"It all depends what one expects, you know. In the Talmud is a story how a man, once very rich, was not satisfied with a supper that three poor men together would have been satisfied about."

I humoured the old fellow and got him to walk with me about the grounds. When out of hearing of the others he told me how the attendants beat every one of them for the slightest infraction of the rules of the house.

"Why don't you complain to the superintendent?" I suggested.

"The ones that do so shorten their lives."

"You mean?"

"Don't ask any further." A man understands closed lips.

In a rolling chair, at the further end of the garden, sat a paralysed old man.

"How are you feeling, Uncle?" I greeted him.

"Fine, fine," he answered. "I am all right, now."

"He is a lucky dog," remarked my companion, the old man of the Talmud story. "He is paralysed all over."

"Do you call that lucky?--man, it's the greatest misfortune."

"Not in a Home," he answered. "The paralysed are like the dead--they don't feel when they are hurt." Once his tongue was loosened the old man went on. "There is an attendant here, a brute. When he gets mad he runs around to find fault with some one, to hit him. Then we all get out of his way. This fellow here, he has a bad stomach. He would always be the scapegoat. My, how he would suffer. Only his legs got paralysed at first and he had to be turned over in his bed. When that drunkard would get through with him the poor fellow's body was black and blue from pinches and punches. Now he does not feel anything. He punches him and hits and pinches and gets mad to see that the fellow does not feel pain at all."

"Is that true?" I turned to the old man in the rolling chair.

"You bet it's true, and I have my revenge now, to see him get wild. 'Hullo, Harry! Why don't you pinch me a bit. Come on, Harry, have a pinch,' and he gets mad--like a savage."

I see you shake your head. Fiction! Fiction! Then read the letter sent by a young man and a young woman who worked at a "Home" in New York. The letter was printed in "Our Health" of January, 1913. The Institution did not even offer an excuse. Deny, it could not.

"The patients are mistreated, beaten, kicked, insulted," runs the letter. It has two signatures, the man's and the woman's. If this be not true, why did not the Montefiore Home sue the calumniators? But it is true. They keep quiet. They are afraid of revelations. Some old man or old woman might take his last days into his own hands and come out with the truth.

Another old man was punished by the attendant with two days' fast. He sat at the table but was forbidden to eat. The cause of the punishment was that the old man had soiled the tablecloth.

When visitors come the lawn is shown, the clean kitchen, the beautiful dining room, the spacious rooms. Nothing of the inhuman treatment to which the inmates are subject comes to light. The gross insults: "Beggar, schnorrer, pauper, liar," are not heard then.

One "Home" is under the same roof with an orphan house. Upstairs the children, downstairs the old people, as though it were a prophecy: "Here you start, there you finish."

The callousness of this shows the sentiment of the people supporting the institutions. An old woman, while peeling potatoes, remarked: "All they miss is a dressmaking shop between the floors and a cemetery in the yard and their whole life would stretch before them."

"BISMARCK"

Amongst the people in the Home were two chums of olden days. Moise Hertz and "Bismarck." They knew one another from childhood, were born in the same village in Russia, had gone to the same school (cheder) and were both, later on, with their wives and children, driven from home. Once across the border they drifted apart. Moise Hertz with his family went to Germany and "Bismarck" with his wife and children went to England. Both men were tailors. Moise Hertz's two sons returned to Russia during the revolution. One was hanged; the other is in Sachalin (Siberia). His wife died in New York.

"Bismarck's" son is in Denver, trying to cure himself of tuberculosis. His daughter is blind. His wife is in a Home for women.

The two men had not met for fifteen years, though they both lived in New York a good deal of this time. (When they told one another the stories of their lives they found out that they even worked for a time in the same shop, on different floors.) Then one day, as Moise Hertz filled his pipe he felt some one looking at him intently. The years are not so kind to the poor as to the rich, especially to poor Jews, but Moise Hertz's eyes were keen and the two old chums embraced and called one another by their first names. "Moise--Abe!" In their joy they even blessed the place where they met. Moise Hertz's loneliness was over. He had somebody to talk to of his younger days. They told one another their misfortunes. All hope for a better to-morrow was gone. They only had the past--a rich past, rich in suffering. Once a week Bassie, Bismarck's wife, would come to visit her husband. The trio would then sit together and figure out how their old friends' children were getting along. "He was born during the second cholera." "No, during the Ritual blood accusation of 'Thisza Esler.'" "No, that's impossible!" Bassie would explain. "My Baruch was three years old then and she married during the Pogrom in Kiev." They would quarrel on such subjects and their parting words would still contain an assurance from Bassie that she knew the right year of Leah's birth.