The Jungle

by Upton Sinclair

  “Never mind,” said Jurgis; “I’ve got it, and I want it changed. I’ll pay you if you’ll do it.”

  The other stared at him hard. “Lemme see it,” he said.

  “Will you change it?” Jurgis demanded, gripping it tightly in his pocket.

  “How the hell can I know if it’s good or not?” retorted the bartender. “Whatcher take me for, hey?”

  Then Jurgis slowly and warily approached him; he took out the bill, and fumbled it for a moment, while the man stared at him with hostile eyes across the counter. Then finally he handed it over.

  The other took it, and began to examine it; he smoothed it between his fingers, and he held it up to the light; he turned it over, and upside down, and edgeways. It was new and rather stiff, and that made him dubious. Jurgis was watching him like a cat all the time.

  “Humph,” he said, finally, and gazed at the stranger, sizing him up—a ragged, ill-smelling tramp, with no overcoat and one arm in a sling—and a hundred-dollar bill! “Want to buy anything?” he demanded.

  “Yes,” said Jurgis, “I’ll take a glass of beer.”

  “All right,” said the other, “I’ll change it.” And he put the bill in his pocket, and poured Jurgis out a glass of beer, and set it on the counter. Then he turned to the cash-register, and punched up five cents, and began to pull money out of the drawer. Finally, he faced Jurgis, counting it out—two dimes, a quarter, and fifty cents. “There,” he said.

  For a second Jurgis waited, expecting to see him turn again. “My ninety-nine dollars,” he said.

  “What ninety-nine dollars?” demanded the bartender.

  “My change!” he cried—“the rest of my hundred!”

  “Go on,” said the bartender, “you’re nutty!”

  And Jurgis stared at him with wild eyes. For an instant horror reigned in him—black, paralyzing, awful horror, clutching him at the heart; and then came rage, in surging, blinding floods—he screamed aloud, and seized the glass and hurled it at the other’s head. The man ducked, and it missed him by half an inch; he rose again and faced Jurgis, who was vaulting over the bar with his one well arm, and dealt him a smashing blow in the face, hurling him backward upon the floor. Then, as Jurgis scrambled to his feet again and started round the counter after him, he shouted at the top of his voice, “Help! help!”

  Jurgis seized a bottle off the counter as he ran; and as the bartender made a leap he hurled the missile at him with all his force. It just grazed his head, and shivered into a thousand pieces against the post of the door. Then Jurgis started back, rushing at the man again in the middle of the room. This time, in his blind frenzy, he came without a bottle, and that was all the bartender wanted—he met him halfway and floored him with a sledge-hammer drive between the eyes. An instant later the screen-doors flew open, and two men rushed in—just as Jurgis was getting to his feet again, foaming at the mouth with rage, and trying to tear his broken arm out of its bandages.

  “Look out!” shouted the bartender. “He’s got a knife!” Then, seeing that the two were disposed to join in the fray, he made another rush at Jurgis, and knocked aside his feeble defence and sent him tumbling again; and the three flung themselves upon him, rolling and kicking about the place.

  A second later a policeman dashed in, and the bartender yelled once more—“Look out for his knife!” Jurgis had fought himself half to his knees, when the policeman made a leap at him, and cracked him across the face with his club. Though the blow staggered him, the wild beast frenzy still blazed in him, and he got to his feet, lunging into the air. Then again the club descended, full upon his head, and he dropped like a log to the floor.

  The policeman crouched over him, clutching his stick, waiting for him to try to rise again; and meantime the barkeeper got up, and put his hand to his head. “Christ!” he said, “I thought I was done for that time. Did he cut me?”

  “Don’t see anything, Jake,” said the policeman. “What’s the matter with him?”

  “Just crazy drunk,” said the other. “A lame duck, too—but he ‘most got me under the bar. Youse had better call the wagon, Billy.”

  “No,” said the officer. “He’s got no more fight in him, I guess—and he’s only got a block to go.” He twisted his hand in Jurgis’s collar and jerked at him. “Git up here, you!” he commanded.

  But Jurgis did not move, and the bartender went behind the bar, and, after stowing the hundred-dollar bill away in a safe hiding-place, came and poured a glass of water over Jurgis. Then, as the latter began to moan feebly, the policeman got him to his feet and dragged him out of the place. The station-house was just around the corner, and so in a few minutes Jurgis was in a cell.

  He spent half the night lying unconscious, and the balance moaning in torment, with a blinding headache and a racking thirst. Now and then he cried aloud for a drink of water, but there was no one to hear him. There were others in that same station-house with split heads and a fever; there were hundreds of them in the great city, and tens of thousands of them in the great land, and there was no one to hear any of them.

  In the morning Jurgis was given a cup of water and a piece of bread, and then hustled into a patrol wagon and driven to the nearest police-court. He sat in the pen with a score of others until his turn came.

  The bartender—who proved to be a well-known bruiser—was called to the stand. He took the oath and told his story. The prisoner had come into his saloon after midnight, fighting drunk, and had ordered a glass of beer and tendered a dollar bill in payment. He had been given ninety-five cents’ change, and had demanded ninety-nine dollars more, and before the plaintiff could even answer had hurled the glass at him and then attacked him with a bottle of bitters, and nearly wrecked the place.

  Then the prisoner was sworn—a forlorn object, haggard and un-shorn, with an arm done up in a filthy bandage, a cheek and head cut and bloody, and one eye purplish black and entirely closed. “What have you to say for yourself?” queried the magistrate.

  “Your Honor,” said Jurgis, “I went into his place and asked the man if he could change me a hundred-dollar bill. And he said he would if I bought a drink. I gave him the bill and then he wouldn’t give me the change.”

  The magistrate was staring at him in perplexity. “You gave him a hundred-dollar bill!” he exclaimed.

  “Yes, your Honor,” said Jurgis.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “A man gave it to me, your Honor.”

  “A man? What man, and what for?”

  “A young man I met upon the street, your Honor. I had been begging.”

  There was a titter in the court-room; the officer who was holding Jurgis put up his hand to hide a smile, and the magistrate smiled without trying to hide it. “It’s true, your Honor!” cried Jurgis, passionately.

  “You had been drinking as well as begging last night, had you not?” inquired the magistrate.

  “No, your Honor—” protested Jurgis. “I—”

  “You had not had anything to drink?”

  “Why, yes, your Honor, I had—”

  “What did you have?”

  “I had a bottle of something—I don’t know what it was—something that burned—”

  There was again a laugh round the court-room, stopping suddenly as the magistrate looked up and frowned. “Have you ever been arrested before?” he asked abruptly.

  The question took Jurgis aback. “I—I—” he stammered.

  “Tell me the truth, now!” commanded the other, sternly.

  “Yes, your Honor,” said Jurgis.

  “How often?”

  “Only once, your Honor.”

  ‘What for?“

  “For knocking down my boss, your Honor. I was working in the stockyards, and he—”

  “I see,” said his Honor; “I guess that will do. You ought to stop drinking if you can’t control yourself. Ten days and costs. Next case.”

  Jurgis gave vent to a cry of dismay, cut off suddenly by the policeman, who seized him by
the collar. He was jerked out of the way, into a room with the convicted prisoners, where he sat and wept like a child in his impotent rage. It seemed monstrous to him that policemen and judges should esteem his word as nothing in comparison with the bartender’s; poor Jurgis could not know that the owner of the saloon paid five dollars each week to the policeman alone for Sunday privileges and general favors—nor that the pugilist bartender was one of the most trusted henchmen of the Democratic leader of the district, and had helped only a few months before to hustle out a record-breaking vote as a testimonial to the magistrate, who had been made the target of odious kid-gloved reformers.

  Jurgis was driven out to the Bridewell for the second time. In his tumbling around he had hurt his arm again, and so could not work, but had to be attended by the physician. Also his head and his eye had to be tied up-and so he was a pretty-looking object when, the second day after his arrival, he went out into the exercise-court and encountered—Jack Duane!

  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 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 working-man, one who had even been a beggar and a tramp. Jurgis could not see what help he could be to him; 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 slung-shot. They came to a residence district, and he sprang up a lamp post 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 working-man—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 transfernng the contents into his own pockets. At last, after feeling of the man’s fingers and in his neck-tie, 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 match-box, and a handful of small change, and finally a card-case. This last Duane opened feverishly—there were letters and checks, and two theatre-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 the 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 suf fering from concussion of the brain; and also he had been half-frozen when found, and would lose three fingers of 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 “hold-up 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 populace 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 pool-room 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 “push-cart 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, and the politician would open his headquarters in his saloon. “Hinkydink” or “Bath-house 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 hold-up men who kept the whole city in terror. On election day all these powers of vice and crime were one power; they could tell within one per cent what the vote of their district would be, and they could change it at an hour’s notice.