yer in punishment for the exercise of his convictions, etc.,
destroy his existence, or seriously injure it. Now one thing, then
another happens, whereby, sometimes for a shorter, sometimes for a
longer period, he becomes an unemployed, i. e., a starving being.
Uncertainty is the badge of his existence. When such blows of fortune
happen, they at first produce dissatisfaction and bitterness, and in the
home life this mood finds its first expression when daily, every hour,
demands are made by wife and children for the most pressing needs, needs
that the husband can not satisfy. Out of despair, he visits the saloon,
and seeks comfort in bad liquor. The last penny is spent. Quarrel and
dissension break out. The ruin of both marriage and the family is
accomplished.

Let us take up another picture. Both--husband and wife--go to work. The
little ones are left to themselves, or to the care of older brothers and
sisters, themselves in need of care and education. At noon, the
so-called lunch is swallowed down in hot haste,--supposing that the
parents have at all time to rush home, which, in thousands of cases is
impossible, owing to the shortness of the hour of recess, and the
distance of the shop from the home. Tired out and unstrung, both return
home in the evening. Instead of a friendly, cheerful home, they find a
narrow, unhealthy habitation, often lacking in light and air, generally
also in the most necessary comforts. The increasing tenement plague,
together with the horrible improprieties that flow therefrom, is one of
the darkest sides of our social order, and leads to numerous evils,
vices and crimes. Yet the plague increases from year to year in all
cities and industrial regions, and it draws within the vortex of its
evils ever new strata of society: small producers, public employes,
teachers, small traders, etc. The workingman's wife, who reaches home in
the evening tired and harassed, has now again her hands full. She must
bestir herself at breakneck speed in order but to get ready the most
necessary things in the household. The crying and noisy children are
hurried off to bed; the wife sits up, and sews, and patches deep into
the night. The so-much-needed mental intercourse and encouragement are
absent. The husband is often uneducated and knows little, the wife still
less; the little they have to say to each other is soon got through
with. The husband goes to the saloon, and seeks there the entertainment
that he lacks