Jurgis got up, wild with rage, but the door was shut and the great
castle was dark and impregnable. Then the icy teeth of the blast bit
into him, and he turned and went away at a run.

When he stopped again it was because he was coming to frequented
streets and did not wish to attract attention. In spite of that last
humiliation, his heart was thumping fast with triumph. He had come out
ahead on that deal! He put his hand into his trousers' pocket every now
and then, to make sure that the precious hundred-dollar bill was still
there.

Yet he was in a plight--a curious and even dreadful plight, when he came
to realize it. He had not a single cent but that one bill! And he had to
find some shelter that night he had to change it!

Jurgis spent half an hour walking and debating the problem. There was
no one he could go to for help--he had to manage it all alone. To get
it changed in a lodging-house would be to take his life in his hands--he
would almost certainly be robbed, and perhaps murdered, before morning.
He might go to some hotel or railroad depot and ask to have it changed;
but what would they think, seeing a "bum" like him with a hundred
dollars? He would probably be arrested if he tried it; and what story
could he tell? On the morrow Freddie Jones would discover his loss, and
there would be a hunt for him, and he would lose his money. The only
other plan he could think of was to try in a saloon. He might pay them
to change it, if it could not be done otherwise.

He began peering into places as he walked; he passed several as being
too crowded--then finally, chancing upon one where the bartender was all
alone, he gripped his hands in sudden resolution and went in.

"Can you change me a hundred-dollar bill?" he demanded.

The bartender was a big, husky fellow, with the jaw of a prize fighter,
and a three weeks' stubble of hair upon it. He stared at Jurgis. "What's
that youse say?" he demanded.

"I said, could you change me a hundred-dollar bill?"

"Where'd youse get it?" he inquired incredulously.

"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 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 sledgehammer 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 the fray, he made another rush at Jurgis,
and knocked aside his feeble defense 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 unshorn, 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 courtroom; 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 courtroom, 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 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 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.

A month ago Jurgis had all but perished of starvation upon the streets;
and now suddenly, as by the gift of a magic key, he had entered into a
world where money and all the good things of life came freely. He was
introduced by his friend to an Irishman named "Buck" Halloran, who was
a political "worker" and on the inside of things. This man talked with
Jurgis for a while, and then told him that he had a little plan by which
a man who looked like a workingman might make some easy money; but it
was a private affair, and had to be kept quiet. Jurgis expressed himself
as agreeable, and the other took him that afternoon (it was Saturday) to
a place where city laborers were being paid off. The paymaster sat in
a little booth, with a pile of envelopes before him, and two policemen
standing by. Jurgis went, according to directions, and gave the name of
"Michael O'Flaherty," and received an envelope, which he took around the
corner and delivered to Halloran, who was waiting for him in a saloon.
Then he went again; and gave the name of "Johann Schmidt," and a third
time, and give the name of "Serge Reminitsky." Halloran had quite a list
of imaginary workingmen, and Jurgis got an envelope for each one. For
this work he received five dollars, and was told that he might have it
every week, so long as he kept quiet. As Jurgis was excellent at keeping
quiet, he soon won the trust of "Buck" Halloran, and was introduced to
others as a man who could be depended upon.

This acquaintance was useful to him in another way, also before long
Jurgis made his discovery of the meaning of "pull," and just why his
boss, Connor, and also the pugilist bartender, had been able to send him
to jail. One night there was given a ball, the "benefit" of "One-eyed
Larry," a lame man who played the violin in one of the big "high-class"
houses of prostitution on Clark Street, and was a wag and a popular
character on the "Levee." This ball was held in a big dance hall, and
was one of the occasions when the city's powers of debauchery gave
themselves up to madness. Jurgis attended and got half insane with
drink, and began quarreling over a girl; his arm was pretty strong by
then, and he set to work to clean out the place, and ended in a cell in
the police station. The police station being crowded to the doors, and
stinking with "bums," Jurgis did not relish staying there to sleep off
his liquor, and sent for Halloran, who called up the district leader and
had Jurgis bailed out by telephone at four o'clock in the morning. When
he was arraigned that same morning, the district leader had already seen
the clerk of the court and explained that Jurgis Rudkus was a decent
fellow, who had been indiscreet; and so Jurgis was fined ten dollars and
the fine was "suspended"--which meant that he did not have to pay for
it, and never would have to pay it, unless somebody chose to bring it up
against him in the future.

Among the people Jurgis lived with now money was valued according to an
entirely different standard from that of the people of Packingtown; yet,
strange as it may seem, he did a great deal less drinking than he had
as a workingman. He had not the same provocations of exhaustion and
hopelessness; he had now something to work for, to struggle for. He
soon found that if he kept his wits about him, he would come upon new
opportunities; and being naturally an active man, he not only kept sober
himself, but helped to steady his friend, who was a good deal fonder of
both wine and women than he.

One thing led to another. In the saloon where Jurgis met "Buck" Halloran
he was sitting late one night with Duane, when a "country customer"
(a buyer for an out-of-town merchant) came in, a little more than half
"piped." There was no one else in the place but the bartender, and as
the man went out again Jurgis and Duane followed him; he went round
the corner, and in a dark place made by a combination of the elevated
railroad and an unrented building, Jurgis leaped forward and shoved a
revolver under his nose, while Duane, with his hat pulled over his eyes,
went through the man's pockets with lightning fingers. They got his
watch and his "wad," and were round the corner again and into the saloon
before he could shout more than once. The bartender, to whom they had
tipped the wink, had the cellar door open for them, and they vanished,
making their way by a secret entrance to a brothel next door. From the
roof of this there was access to three similar places beyond. By means
of these passages the customers of any one place could be gotten out
of the way, in case a falling out with the police chanced to lead to a
raid; and also it was necessary to have a way of getting a girl out
of reach in case of an emergency. Thousands of them came to Chicago
answering advertisements for "servants" and "factory hands," and found
themselves trapped by fake employment agencies, and locked up in a
bawdy-house. It was generally enough to take all their clothes away from
them; but sometimes they would have to be "doped" and kept prisoners for
weeks; and meantime their parents might be telegraphing the police, and
even coming on to see why nothing was done. Occasionally there was no
way of satisfying them but to let them search the place to which the
girl had been traced.

For his help in this little job, the bartender received twenty out of
the hundred and thirty odd dollars that the pair secured; and naturally
this put them on friendly terms with him, and a few days later he
introduced them to a little "sheeny" named Goldberger, one of the
"runners" of the "sporting house" where they had been hidden. After a
few drinks Goldberger began, with some hesitation, to narrate how he had
had a quarrel over his best girl with a professional "cardsharp," who
had hit him in the jaw. The fellow was a stranger in Chicago, and if he
was found some night with his head cracked there would be no one to care
very much. Jurgis, who by this time would cheerfully have cracked the
heads of all the gamblers in Chicago, inquired what would be coming to
him; at which the Jew became still more confidential, and said that he
had some tips on the New Orleans races, which he got direct from the
police captain of the district, whom he had got out of a bad scrape, and
who "stood in" with a big syndicate of horse owners. Duane took all
this in at once, but Jurgis had to have the whole race-track situation
explained to him before he realized the importance of such an
opportunity.

There was the gigantic Racing Trust. It owned the legislatures in
every state in which it did business; it even owned some of the big
newspapers, and made public opinion--there was no power in the land that
could oppose it unless, perhaps, it were the Poolroom Trust. It built
magnificent racing parks all over the country, and by means of enormous
purses it lured the people to come, and then it organized a gigantic
shell game, whereby it plundered them of hundreds of millions of dollars
every year. Horse racing had once been a sport, but nowadays it was
a business; a horse could be "doped" and doctored, undertrained or
overtrained; it could be made to fall at any moment--or its gait could
be broken by lashing it with the whip, which all the spectators would
take to be a desperate effort to keep it in the lead. There were scores
of such tricks; and sometimes it was the owners who played them and made
fortunes, sometimes it was the jockeys and trainers, sometimes it was
outsiders, who bribed them--but most of the time it was the chiefs
of the trust. Now for instance, they were having winter racing in New
Orleans and a syndicate was laying out each day's program in advance,
and its agents in all the Northern cities were "milking" the poolrooms.
The word came by long-distance telephone in a cipher code, just a little
while before each race; and any man who could get the secret had as good
as a fortune. If Jurgis did not believe it, he could try it, said the
little Jew--let them meet at a certain house on the morrow and make a
test. Jurgis was willing, and so was Duane, and so they went to one
of the high-class poolrooms where brokers and merchants gambled (with
society women in a private room), and they put up ten dollars each upon
a horse called "Black Beldame," a six to one shot, and won. For a secret
like that they would have done a good many sluggings--but the next day
Goldberger informed them that the offending gambler had got wind of what
was coming to him, and had skipped the town.

There were ups and downs at the business; but there was always a living,
inside of a jail, if not out of it. Early in April the city elections
were due, and that meant prosperity for all the powers of graft. Jurgis,
hanging round in dives and gambling houses and brothels, met with
the heelers of both parties, and from their conversation he came to
understand all the ins and outs of the game, and to hear of a number of
ways in which he could make himself useful about election time. "Buck"
Halloran was a "Democrat," and so Jurgis became a Democrat also; but he
was not a bitter one--the Republicans were good fellows, too, and were
to have a pile of money in this next campaign. At the last election the
Republicans had paid four dollars a vote to the Democrats' three; and
"Buck" Halloran sat one night playing cards with Jurgis and another man,
who told how Halloran had been charged with the job voting a "bunch" of
thirty-seven newly landed Italians, and how he, the narrator, had met
the Republican worker who was after the very same gang, and how the
three had effected a bargain, whereby the Italians were to vote half and
half, for a glass of beer apiece, while the balance of the fund went to
the conspirators!

Not long after this, Jurgis, wearying of the risks and vicissitudes
of miscellaneous crime, was moved to give up the career for that of a
politician. Just at this time there was a tremendous uproar being raised
concerning the alliance between the criminals and the police. For the
criminal graft was one in which the business men had no direct part--it
was what is called a "side line," carried by the police. "Wide
open" gambling and debauchery made the city pleasing to "trade," but
burglaries and holdups did not. One night it chanced that while Jack
Duane was drilling a safe in a clothing store he was caught red-handed
by the night watchman, and turned over to a policeman, who chanced to
know him well, and who took the responsibility of letting him make his
escape. Such a howl from the newspapers followed this that Duane was
slated for sacrifice, and barely got out of town in time. And just at
that juncture it happened that Jurgis was introduced to a man named
Harper whom he recognized as the night watchman at Brown's, who had been
instrumental in making him an American citizen, the first year of his
arrival at the yards. The other was interested in the coincidence, but
did not remember Jurgis--he had handled too many "green ones" in his
time, he said. He sat in a dance hall with Jurgis and Halloran until one
or two in the morning, exchanging experiences. He had a long story to
tell of his quarrel with the superintendent of his department, and how
he was now a plain workingman, and a good union man as well. It was not
until some months afterward that Jurgis understood that the quarrel with
the superintendent had been prearranged, and that Harper was in reality
drawing a salary of twenty dollars a week from the packers for an inside
report of his union's secret proceedings. The yards were seething with
agitation just then, said the man, speaking as a unionist. The people of
Packingtown had borne about all that they would bear, and it looked as
if a strike might begin any week.

After this talk the man made inquiries concerning Jurgis, and a couple
of days later he came to him with an interesting proposition. He was
not absolutely certain, he said, but he thought that he could get him
a regular salary if he would come to Packingtown and do as he was told,
and keep his mouth shut. Harper--"Bush" Harper, he was called--was a
right-hand man of Mike Scully, the Democratic boss of the stockyards;
and in the coming election there was a peculiar situation. There had
come to Scully a proposition to nominate a certain rich brewer who lived
upon a swell boulevard that skirted the district, and who coveted the
big badge and the "honorable" of an alderman. The brewer was a Jew, and
had no brains, but he was harmless, and would put up a rare campaign
fund. Scully had accepted the offer, and then gone to the Republicans
with a proposition. He was not sure that he could manage the "sheeny,"
and he did not mean to take any chances with his district; let the
Republicans nominate a certain obscure but amiable friend of Scully's,
who was now setting tenpins in the cellar of an Ashland Avenue saloon,
and he, Scully, would elect him with the "sheeny's" money, and the
Republicans might have the glory, which was more than they would get
otherwise. In return for this the Republicans would agree to put up no
candidate the following year, when Scully himself came up for reelection
as the other alderman from the ward. To this the Republicans had
assented at once; but the hell of it was--so Harper explained--that
the Republicans were all of them fools--a man had to be a fool to be
a Republican in the stockyards, where Scully was king. And they didn't
know how to work, and of course it would not do for the Democratic
workers, the noble redskins of the War Whoop League, to support the
Republican openly. The difficulty would not have been so great except
for another fact--there had been a curious development in stockyards
politics in the last year or two, a new party having leaped into being.
They were the Socialists; and it was a devil of a mess, said "Bush"
Harper. The one image which the word "Socialist" brought to Jurgis was
of poor little Tamoszius Kuszleika, who had called himself one, and
would go out with a couple of other men and a soap-box, and shout
himself hoarse on a street corner Saturday nights. Tamoszius had tried
to explain to Jurgis what it was all about, but Jurgis, who was not of
an imaginative turn, had never quite got it straight; at present he was
content with his companion's explanation that the Socialists were the
enemies of American institutions--could not be bought, and would not
combine or make any sort of a "dicker." Mike Scully was very much
worried over the opportunity which his last deal gave to them--the
stockyards Democrats were furious at the idea of a rich capitalist
for their candidate, and while they were changing they might possibly
conclude that a Socialist firebrand was preferable to a Republican bum.
And so right here was a chance for Jurgis to make himself a place in
the world, explained "Bush" Harper; he had been a union man, and he
was known in the yards as a workingman; he must have hundreds of
acquaintances, and as he had never talked politics with them he might
come out as a Republican now without exciting the least suspicion. There
were barrels of money for the use of those who could deliver the goods;
and Jurgis might count upon Mike Scully, who had never yet gone back on
a friend. Just what could he do? Jurgis asked, in some perplexity, and
the other explained in detail. To begin with, he would have to go to the
yards and work, and he mightn't relish that; but he would have what he
earned, as well as the rest that came to him. He would get active in the
union again, and perhaps try to get an office, as he, Harper, had; he
would tell all his friends the good points of Doyle, the Republican
nominee, and the bad ones of the "sheeny"; and then Scully would
furnish a meeting place, and he would start the "Young Men's Republican
Association," or something of that sort, and have the rich brewer's
best beer by the hogshead, and fireworks and speeches, just like the
War Whoop League. Surely Jurgis must know hundreds of men who would like
that sort of fun; and there would be the regular Republican leaders and
workers to help him out, and they would deliver a big enough majority on
election day.

When he had heard all this explanation to the end, Jurgis demanded: "But
how can I get a job in Packingtown? I'm blacklisted."

At which "Bush" Harper laughed. "I'll attend to that all right," he
said.

And the other replied, "It's a go, then; I'm your man." So Jurgis went
out to the stockyards again, and was introduced to the political lord of
the district, the boss of Chicago's mayor. It was Scully who owned the
brick-yards and the dump and the ice pond--though Jurgis did not know it.
It was Scully who was to blame for the unpaved street in which Jurgis's
child had been drowned; it was Scully who had put into office the
magistrate who had first sent Jurgis to jail; it was Scully who was
principal stockholder in the company which had sold him the ramshackle
tenement, and then robbed him of it. But Jurgis knew none of these
things--any more than he knew that Scully was but a tool and puppet of
the packers. To him Scully was a mighty power, the "biggest" man he had
ever met.

He was a little, dried-up Irishman, whose hands shook. He had a brief
talk with his visitor, watching him with his ratlike eyes, and making
up his mind about him; and then he gave him a note to Mr. Harmon, one of
the head managers of Durham's--

"The bearer, Jurgis Rudkus, is a particular friend of mine, and I would
like you to find him a good place, for important reasons. He was once
indiscreet, but you will perhaps be so good as to overlook that."

Mr. Harmon looked up inquiringly when he read this. "What does he mean
by 'indiscreet'?" he asked.

"I was blacklisted, sir," said Jurgis.

At which the other frowned. "Blacklisted?" he said. "How do you mean?"
And Jurgis turned red with embarrassment.

He had forgotten that a blacklist did not exist. "I--that is--I had
difficulty in getting a place," he stammered.

"What was the matter?"

"I got into a quarrel with a foreman--not my own boss, sir--and struck
him."

"I see," said the other, and meditated for a few moments. "What do you
wish to do?" he asked.

"Anything, sir," said Jurgis--"only I had a broken arm this winter, and
so I have to be careful."

"How would it suit you to be a night watchman?"

"That wouldn't do, sir. I have to be among the men at night."

"I see--politics. Well, would it suit you to trim hogs?"

"Yes, sir," said Jurgis.

And Mr. Harmon called a timekeeper and said, "Take this man to Pat
Murphy and tell him to find room for him somehow."

And so Jurgis marched into the hog-killing room, a place where, in the
days gone by, he had come begging for a job. Now he walked jauntily, and
smiled to himself, seeing the frown that came to the boss's face as
the timekeeper said, "Mr. Harmon says to put this man on." It would
overcrowd his department and spoil the record he was trying to make--but
he said not a word except "All right."

And so Jurgis became a workingman once more; and straightway he sought
out his old friends, and joined the union, and began to "root" for
"Scotty" Doyle. Doyle had done him a good turn once, he explained,
and was really a bully chap; Doyle was a workingman himself, and would
represent the workingmen--why did they want to vote for a millionaire
"sheeny," and what the hell had Mike Scully ever done for them that they
should back his candidates all the time? And meantime Scully had given
Jurgis a note to the Republican leader of the ward, and he had gone
there and met the crowd he was to work with. Already they had hired
a big hall, with some of the brewer's money, and every night Jurgis
brought in a dozen new members of the "Doyle Republican Association."
Pretty soon they had a grand opening night; and there was a brass band,
which marched through the streets, and fireworks and bombs and red
lights in front of the hall; and there was an enormous crowd, with
two overflow meetings--so that the pale and trembling candidate had to
recite three times over the little speech which one of Scully's henchmen
had written, and which he had been a month learning by heart. Best
of all, the famous and eloquent Senator Spareshanks, presidential
candidate, rode out in an automobile to discuss the sacred privileges
of American citizenship, and protection and prosperity for the American
workingman. His inspiriting address was quoted to the extent of half a
column in all the morning newspapers, which also said that it could be
stated upon excellent authority that the unexpected popularity developed
by Doyle, the Republican candidate for alderman, was giving great
anxiety to Mr. Scully, the chairman of the Democratic City Committee.

The chairman was still more worried when the monster torchlight
procession came off, with the members of the Doyle Republican
Association all in red capes and hats, and free beer for every voter in
the ward--the best beer ever given away in a political campaign, as
the whole electorate testified. During this parade, and at innumerable
cart-tail meetings as well, Jurgis labored tirelessly. He did not make
any speeches--there were lawyers and other experts for that--but he
helped to manage things; distributing notices and posting placards and
bringing out the crowds; and when the show was on he attended to the
fireworks and the beer. Thus in the course of the campaign he handled
many hundreds of dollars of the Hebrew brewer's money, administering it
with naive and touching fidelity. Toward the end, however, he learned
that he was regarded with hatred by the rest of the "boys," because he
compelled them either to make a poorer showing than he or to do without
their share of the pie. After that Jurgis did his best to please them,
and to make up for the time he had lost before he discovered the extra
bungholes of the campaign barrel.

He pleased Mike Scully, also. On election morning he was out at four
o'clock, "getting out the vote"; he had a two-horse carriage to ride in,
and he went from house to house for his friends, and escorted them in
triumph to the polls. He voted half a dozen times himself, and voted
some of his friends as often; he brought bunch after bunch of the newest
foreigners--Lithuanians, Poles, Bohemians, Slovaks--and when he had put
them through the mill he turned them over to another man to take to
the next polling place. When Jurgis first set out, the captain of the
precinct gave him a hundred dollars, and three times in the course of
the day he came for another hundred, and not more than twenty-five out
of each lot got stuck in his own pocket. The balance all went for actual
votes, and on a day of Democratic landslides they elected "Scotty"
Doyle, the ex-tenpin setter, by nearly a thousand plurality--and
beginning at five o'clock in the afternoon, and ending at three the next
morning, Jurgis treated himself to a most unholy and horrible "jag."
Nearly every one else in Packingtown did the same, however, for there
was universal exultation over this triumph of popular government, this
crushing defeat of an arrogant plutocrat by the power of the common
people.

Jurgis is "wild with rage" at having been tossed out onto the street, but he has the one hundred dollar bill. He knows that he has a new problem, however, because he cannot give the bill to a shelter, and it is very difficult for a man of his stature to break the bill into smaller change without being beaten, robbed, and murdered or hauled away to jail. He finds an empty saloon, goes up to the barkeeper, and asks him to change the bill. The barkeeper agrees if he will buy a beer, and so Jurgis does. The barkeeper pours the beer and gives Jurgis ninety-five cents in change. Jurgis asks where the other ninety-nine dollars is, and the barkeeper only looks at him strangely telling him he must be mistaken. Jurgis goes into another wild rage at this. He leaps over the bar and begins to attack the barkeeper, throwing his glass and bottles at him. The barkeeper punches Jurgis and is helped by two other men who enter the fight. Soon, a police officer joins them, knocks Jurgis out with his club, and hauls him to jail. The next day, Jurgis faces a judge who does not believe his side of the story. Jurgis does not know that the bartender pays the authorities five dollars every week to receive preferential treatment and that the barkeeper is a "kid-gloved reformer" for the Democratic Party. Jurgis goes to jail and the first person he meets is Jack Duane. Jack tells him to find him once he gets out of prison and Jurgis does that after his ten days behind bars. Jack tells Jurgis that he wants to make him a part of his crime operation ,and Jurgis is grateful for the chance. Jurgis and Duane's first crime is to rob a man on the street. They beat him up and take his money and possessions. Jurgis's share of the take is fifty-five dollars. He reads about the crime in the paper the next day. The paper reports that a gang is on the prowl. They had hit the man and given him a concussion and because they had left him on the street, he had lost three fingers to frost. Jurgis feels bad about this, but Duane assures him that "it was the way of the game, and there was no helping it. Soon, Jurgis would "think no more of it than they did in the yards of knocking out a bullock. Jurgis soon begins to hang out in the saloons and halls where the rest of Chicago's criminals congregate. Every crook and crime boss hangs out in these places: lawyers and businessmen, police officers and bar owners, pick pockets and fake-doctors, and even more. Jurgis sees that "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. Jurgis begins to be hired by different crooks and thieves to participate in different crimes for which he is paid. He participates in one scam in which he goes by several different names, picking up the weekly pay which did not belong to him and delivering it to a man named Buck Halloran. He is given the opportunity to rob rich businessmen, and the bartenders give him a way to escape. He gets tips on how certain horse races can be fixed, and so he bets on the horses and wins money. Even when Jurgis gets in trouble, he now has friends that can make a few phone calls and get him out of prison. Soon, tiring of a life of petty crime, Jurgis begins to move into the world of the politicians. A man named Bush Harper gives him a special job. Harper offers him a job in the packinghouses if he will come to work for Mike Scully, the Democratic leader of the packing yards who owns most of the crooked businesses in the district. Scully, as leader of the Democrats, is being asked to run a Jewish businessman for a seat on the alders board. Scully does not want to do so but agrees. He then makes a deal with the Republicans to fund their candidate, a workingman, with the Jew's money. The Republicans agree not to run a candidate the next year when Scully is up for re-election. However, the problem with the plan is the rise of the Socialist party. The Socialists could siphon votes away from the Republicans, so Scully needs working men to make sure the Republican candidate will win. Jurgis is told that he will get a job in the packinghouses where it will be his job to round up votes for the Republican candidate. He will be paid a weekly salary for this position. On Election Day, Jurgis goes to work. He gets many hundreds of dollars to pay for votes. He pockets twenty-five of every hundred for himself. He works hard, and when the election is over, the Republican candidate, "Scotty" Doyle wins

Jurgis is humiliated by Hamilton's treatment, but he's still delighted: he has a hundred dollar bill! But where is he supposed to use it? He'll have to find somewhere to break the hundred into more usable bills. Jurgis goes into a bar and asks if he can have change for a hundred. The bartender says he'll change it if Jurgis buys something. Jurgis orders a beer. The bartender gives Jurgis his beer - and 95 cents in change. When Jurgis protests that he gave the bartender a hundred, the bartender tells Jurgis he's crazy and tries to kick Jurgis out of the bar. Jurgis attacks the bartender, which is what the bartender wants. The bartender knocks Jurgis out and calls the cops. The bartender accuses Jurgis of pulling a knife on him. A cop on the scene uses his billy club to beat the crap out of Jurgis. In the hub-bub, the bartender stows the hundred-dollar bill away. Then the cop drags Jurgis to the police station. When Jurgis is taken in for sentencing, he can't explain where he got the hundred-dollar bill. Or rather, he can explain, but no one believes him. Jurgis tells the courtroom that a man gave the money to Jurgis freely when Jurgis had been begging on the street. The judge thinks Jurgis is a drunk and a liar - and Jurgis's record of biting people's cheeks doesn't help - so the judge sentences Jurgis to ten days in jail plus costs. So, Jurgis gets carted off to jail again. Oddly, he finds Jack Duane, the dashing safe cracker, in the same prison. Jurgis tells Jack Duane what's happened to him since they last met in jail. Jack Duane replies that he's in jail yet again on a fake charge. Jurgis doesn't see many familiar faces in jail, but it's all the same kind of guy. And Jurgis realizes that he's going to be one of them. When he gets out of jail, he has decided to become a real criminal. So, after Jurgis is released, he decides to go seek out Jack Duane to see if he can be of any help to Jack. He finds Jack Duane in the back room of a pawnbroker and a fence for stolen goods. Jack Duane is glad to see Jurgis because he needs Jurgis's help to start doing some mugging. The two wait at the side of the road for rich-looking guys to rob. They split the proceeds equally and make pretty good money. Jurgis reads about the victim the next day - the guy's going to lose three fingers to frostbite after being knocked unconscious - and Jurgis feels guilty. Still, Jack Duane says it's either that guy or them, and he'd pick the other guy every time. In this rotten system, that guy is probably exploiting or hurting someone else. He deserves what he gets. Jurgis gets up close and personal with Chicago's criminal world. He discovers that businessmen use lots of money to pay off the city's officials to serve their interests. That's the big picture. But in more local corruption, the police, fire, and water departments have more direct relationships with ordinary businesspeople. So, all the bars pay off cops to look the other way when they serve liquor on Sunday. All the brothels pay the cops to look the other way when they engage in prostitution. There are tons of these kinds of street-level bribes to keep the city's criminal activities going strong. Jack Duane introduces Jurgis to a political operative named "Buck" Halloran. This guy sends Jurgis in to collect election bribes under a series of different names - "Johann Schmidt," "Serge Reminitsky," and "Michael O'Flaherty." Politicians are buying votes, and Jurgis is the frontman for this operation. Because Jurgis now associates with an important political machine, he suddenly has pull in court. This means that, when he appears on trial again on a drunk and disorderly charge, he's given a slap on the wrist and allowed to go. What a change of luck! Jurgis and Jack Duane keep mugging people and making cash. They do this by bribing a bartender to look the other way while they track down drunk people coming in from out of town to rob. So, naturally, they become friendly with this bartender who they keep paying off. The bartender points them in the direction of a guy named Goldberger. Goldberger gives Jurgis and Jack Duane tips about who they should rob next . Goldberger also lets them in on some sweet information about horse racing in New Orleans. Apparently, all these races are rigged, and Goldberger knows about them. So, Jurgis and Jack Duane get in on horse betting as well. Around this time, Jurgis and Jack Duane part ways. Jack Duane gets caught red-handed drilling into a safe and has to leave town. Jurgis, meanwhile, bumps into that night-watchman from all the way back in Chapter 9, who got Jurgis his citizenship. This is the guy who bought Jurgis's vote for a local political machine. Now that they have met up again, the night-watchman makes Jurgis an offer. The night-watchman works for a guy named "Bush" Harper, who in turn works for Mike Scully, one of the richest and most influential men in Packingtown. Mike Scully is a Democrat, but he has worked out a back-room deal with the local Republican party for the next couple of elections. The next Democratic nominee for a city council position is a rich Jewish man. Mike Scully isn't very invested in the Democratic nominee because he has his own prejudices. Scully himself, however, is coming up for reelection in the next election after this. So, what Scully secretly offers the Republicans is this: he will give them money from this poor Democratic nominee's election fund as long as the Republicans promise not to raise a candidate against Mike Scully in the following election after this. It's a trade of city council positions: Mike Scully will sacrifice this election as long as he is guaranteed to win the next one. The one trouble in this deal is that there is a new movement gaining steam in the packing yards: socialism. Mike Scully is worried that the hot-head Democrats of Packingtown would prefer to go with the Socialist Party candidate over some random Republican. So "Bush" Harper hires Jurgis, who is well-known as a union man and has lots of union connections. He wants Jurgis to go back to the meatpacking plants to lobby for the Republican candidate with his old union buddies. Jurgis doesn't see how this is going to work, since he's been blacklisted from working in Packingtown. "Bush" Harper promises that won't be a problem. So Jurgis agrees, and he gets to meet Mike Scully, the most important man in Packingtown. Mike Scully personally gives Jurgis a note to take to the head manager of Durham's packing plant, Mr. Harmon. The note tells Harmon to hire Jurgis as a personal favor to Mike Scully. Mr. Harmon offers Jurgis a job as a night watchman. Jurgis refuses because he needs to be surrounded by the workers. Mr. Harmon lets Jurgis take a job trimming hogs. Again, what a reversal of luck: Jurgis once begged for this job and was refused. Now, he gets automatically appointed to the hog-killing room. The boss of the room, "Pat" Murphy, is specifically ordered to make room for Jurgis. Jurgis joins the union again right away. He tells everyone to vote for "Scotty" Doyle - the Republican candidate. He also trashtalks the millionaire who is the Democratic candidate - what does he know about the working man? Jurgis brings dozens of guys to join the Doyle the Republican's campaign. This is how Jurgis becomes a politician without making a single speech: by working hard around the factory drumming up support for a candidate he doesn't care about at all with the secret backing of Mike Scully. So, when reliably Democratic Packingtown elects a Republican representative, Jurgis goes out on a bender with the money he has made fixing the election.

Unable to gain lodging for the night with a $100 bill, Jurgis attempts to change it by buying a beer. The bartender, however, only provides change for a $1 bill, and a fight ensues. Jurgis winds up in jail again. In prison, Jurgis once more meets up with Jack Duane. No longer needing to provide for a wife and child, Jurgis is now able to accept Duane's worldview and vows to look him up after he serves his time. After Jurgis is released from prison, he goes to Duane, who introduces Jurgis to the criminal world of Chicago and the inner workings of the illicit alliances among politicians, businessmen, and criminals. Buck Holloran, an acquaintance of Duane's, explains many of the inner workings of the corruption as he hires Jurgis to collect the wages of sundry city employees. After a series of illegal adventures with Duane, Jurgis meets up with Bush Harper, the man who helped Jurgis become a citizen, and eventually gets involved with politics. Mike Scully needs to rig an election and get the workers to vote for a Republican candidate. In order to do this, he needs a man who is familiar with the stockyards and is willing and able to organize the campaign. Jurgis is that man and is soon working at Durham's. Working as a hog trimmer, Jurgis joins the union and begins to spread news about Doyle, the Republican candidate for office. Chiefly through his efforts, Doyle is elected, and the laborers mistakenly believe they have used the system to defeat a capitalist.

Jurgis' rebellious nature, which previously has only been alluded to, is now displayed in full force. He becomes a criminal, taking full advantage of the system. And for the first time in his life, Jurgis is getting ahead in the world. Although he demonstrates a bit of sympathy for his first victim, Jurgis soon submits to the natural law of the jungle, becoming the hunter instead of the hunted. Once again, mention is made of the Socialist Party, and once again Jurgis does not understand or care to understand the socialist position. Jurgis believes that he now has control over his destiny and is making choices that will affect his future positively. In reality, he is still being used by the higher-ups on the pecking order. This time, Scully is the one pulling all Jonas' strings. The majority of this chapter continues the muckraking that Sinclair has been doing throughout The Jungle. This time, the police and government officials are the primary people being indicted. Thematically, this illustrates Sinclair's beliefs that society is severely corrupt: The business world, political world, and criminal world are all equally exploitative in nature. By the end of the chapter, Duane, who has served his purpose, disappears, driven out of town by the police. Glossary pugilist boxer. oligarchy form of government in which the ruling power belongs to a few persons. tenement a building divided into apartments, now specifically in the slums that is run-down and overcrowded. usurer a person who lends money at interest, here specifically at a rate of interest that is excessive or unlawfully high. firebrand a person who stirs up others to revolt or strife. hogshead a large barrel or cask holding from 63 to 140 gallons. Plutocrat a person whose wealth is the source of control or great influence.

Jurgis quickly realizes that he cannot get change for a one-hundred-dollar bill without raising suspicions or being robbed. He enters a saloon to try anyway. The bartender tells Jurgis that he must buy a drink first. Jurgis agrees to have a glass of beer for five cents. The bartender takes the bill and gives him ninety-five cents in change. Realizing that he has been cheated, Jurgis furiously attacks the bartender. A policeman rushes in and drags Jurgis to jail. The judge at his trial finds Jurgis's version of events laughable. He sentences Jurgis to ten days in jail plus costs. Jurgis again encounters Jack Duane in Bridewell Prison. Jurgis agrees to see Duane when he gets out of jail. Jurgis listens to the other prisoners and decides that a life of crime is the best way to survive. He visits Jack at a pawnshop where he is hiding out, and Jack takes him on his first mugging. They attack a well-dressed man and steal his jewelry and wallet. Jurgis's share is fifty-five dollars. Jurgis reads in the paper that the victim suffered a concussion and nearly froze to death while he was unconscious; he will lose three fingers to frostbite. Over time, Jurgis ceases to worry about what happens to his victims. Through Duane, Jurgis becomes acquainted with Chicago's criminal underground. On one outing, a watchman catches Duane breaking a safe. A policeman allows him to escape, but it causes such a scandal that Duane's criminal associates choose to sacrifice him. Duane then flees Chicago. Meanwhile, Jurgis begins talking with Harper, a vote-buyer for the corrupt politicians of Chicago. An election is coming up, and Harper offers to let Jurgis take part in the schemes. Harper introduces him to Mike Scully, a wealthy, corrupt democrat. Scully wants Jurgis to take a job in the stockyards and join a union. Scully and the Republicans have made a pact, and Scully wants Jurgis to support a Republican candidate. Jurgis takes a job as a hog trimmer for which he receives regular pay in addition to the fruits of political graft. He works tirelessly for the Republican candidate and, when it comes time to vote, -ushers group after group of immigrant workers through the polls. The Republican candidate is elected to office and Jurgis becomes three hundred dollars richer. He treats himself to a long drinking binge. Meanwhile, Packingtown is alive with celebration over the political victory

Jurgis's entrance into the underworld of crime demonstrates that merciless predation, thievery, and dishonesty are far better rewarded in the universe of The Jungle than commitment to fundamental American values. It also provides a look into the corruption of the justice system and the democratic political process. Jurgis makes far more money by mugging, rigging elections, and working as a scab than he did as a regular wage earner. Sinclair again ironically positions capitalism, which is generally considered to be the forum of the American Dream, as a threat to the American way. Whereas Jurgis earlier fails to achieve this dream when he submits himself wholeheartedly to the process that he believes will garner him that life for which he longs, he now succeeds by means of tactics antithetical to the values of hard work and honesty. The profits that he makes from these practices assuages his conscience, so that he cares only about himself and can completely ignore the suffering of his victims, just as the real estate agent and various foremen earlier ignore his suffering. Jurgis heads down the road of corruption and dishonesty, and Sinclair uses the encounter with Phil Connor to illustrate that any remaining vestige of morality or desire to achieve the American Dream by honest means is pointless for Jurgis. His instinctive attack on Connor evidences a lingering sense of injustice at Connor's rape of Ona. But though this sentiment may be somewhat noble, it only lands him in prison again, which inevitably leads to his losing all of his money again. Sinclair, thus, reasserts the worthlessness of moral values in the face of capitalism, as one cannot gain ground by clinging to such idealistic values when corruption abounds. In particular, Sinclair focuses on the moral depredations of capitalism, especially the corrupting influence of vice among the laborers as a means of escaping the miseries of their lives. He describes the depravity and immorality that run unchecked among the scab workers in order to charge the meat packers with encouraging sinful behavior. Gambling, fighting, and prostitution run rampant in the population of scab workers. He describes how these prostitutes, criminals, and gamblers handle the meat that is sold to the American public. Sinclair equates the moral "dirtiness" of the scab workers with the literal dirtiness of the meat itself. Sinclair's representation of the scab workers attacks the meat packers by association. The filth and immorality of the scabs rubs off on their employers. However, the racism prevalent in turn-of-the-century white America begins to creep into Sinclair's narrative at this stage. Many of the scab workers are black southerners, to whom Sinclair often refers as "big buck Negroes." The black scab workers are continually described as lazy, ignorant, criminal, and self-destructive. Furthermore, he conjures images of these "big buck Negroes" rubbing elbows with white country girls, knowing that the idea of black men cavorting with white women would raise the ire of white readers. Sinclair states that their ancestors were once African savages forced into slavery; now, however, they are really "free" for the first time--"free to wreck themselves." In his fervent attempt to rouse the reading public's moral outrage against big capitalists, Sinclair reproduces, unfortunately, some of the most racist stereotypes against blacks.