ith which they
are acquainted.

At bedtime I find my way upward through dark and narrow stairs that open
into a long room with a slanting roof. It serves as nursery and parlour.
In the dull light of a stove and an oil lamp four or five women are
seated with babies on their knees. They have the meek look of those who
doom themselves to acceptance of misfortune, the flat, resigned figures
of the overworked. Their loose woolen jackets hang over their gaunt
shoulders; their straight hair is brushed hard and smooth against high
foreheads. One baby lies a comfortable bundle in its mother's arms; one
is black in the face after a spasm of coughing; one howls its woes
through a scarlet mask. The corners of the room are filled with the
drones--those who "work for a bite of grub." The cook, her washing done,
has piled her aching bones in a heap; her drawn face waits like an
indicator for some fresh signal to a new fatigue. Mary, the
woman-of-all-work, who has spent more than one night within a prison's
walls, has long ago been brutalized by the persistence of life in spite
of crime; her gray hair ripples like sand under receding waves; her
profile is strong and fine, but her eyes have a film of misery over
them--dull and silent, they deaden her face. And Jennie, the charwoman,
is she a cripple or has toil thus warped her body? Her arms, long and
withered, swing like the broken branches of a gnarled tree; her back is
twisted and her head bowed toward earth. A stranger to rest, she seems a
mechanical creature wound up for work and run down in the middle of a
task.

What could be hoped for in such surroundings? With every effort to be
clean the dirt accumulates faster than it can be washed away. It was
impossible, I found by my own experience, to be really clean. There was
a total absence of beauty in everything--not a line of grace, not a
pleasing sound, not an agreeable odour anywhere. One could get used to
this ugliness, become unconscious even of the acrid smells that pervade
the tenement. It was probable my comrades felt at no time the discomfort
I did, but the harm done them is not the physical suffering their
condition causes, but the moral and spiritual bondage in which it holds
them. They are not a class of drones made differently from us. I saw
nothing to indicate that they were not born with like _capacities_ to
ours. As our bodies accustom themselves to luxury and cleanliness,
theirs grow hardened to deprivation and fil