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vEtna Insurance Company, HARTFORD, CONN. ON JUNE 19th HAD ADJUSTED 789 CLAIMS AND PAID $1,126,506.00 OF ITS SAN FRAN CISCO LOSSES. When You Have a Loss The Best Is None Too Good. Why Not Buy The Best? ASSETS, . $16,815,296.87 SURPLUS,. ...... $11,036,010.33 LIPSCOMB & CO., Sole Agents, 619-20-21 Century Building. ’Phone, Bell 172. (Copyright, 1906, by Upton Sinclair. All rights reserved.)' CHAPTER V (CONTINUED). So, after all, there was a crack In the fine structure Qf Jurgls* faith In things as they are. The crack was wide, while Dede Antanas was hunting a job—and it was yet wider Vhen he finally got It. For one evening the old man came home in a great state of ex citement, with the tale that • he ha a been approached by a man in one of the corridors of the pickle rooms of Dur ham*?, and asked what he would pay to get a job. He had not known what to make df this at first; but the man had gone on with matter-of-fact frank ness to say that he could get him a job, provided that he were willing to pay one-third of his wages for It. Was he a boss? Antanas had asked; to which the man had replied that that was nobody's business, but that he could do what he said. Jurgls had njade some friends by this time, and he sought one of them and asked what this meant. The friend, who was named Tamoszlus ICuszlelka, was a sharp little man who folded hides on the killing beds, and he listened to what Jurgls had to say without seem ing at all surprised. They were com mon enough, he said, such cases of petty graft. , l^e .was simply, some boss wno proposed to add £'little; to his'In come. After Jurgls had been there a while he would know that the plants were simply honey-combed with rot tenness of that sort—the bosses graft ed off the men, and they grafted off each other; and some-day the superin tendent would find out about the boss, and then he would graft off the boss. Warming to the subject, Tamoszlus went on to explain the situation. Here was Durham’s, for Instance, owned by a man who was trying to make as much money out of It as he could, and did not care In the least how he did It; and underneath him, ranged in ranks and grades like an army, were managers and superintendents and foremen, each one driving the man be low him and trying to squeeze out of him as much work as possible. And all the men of the same rank were pitted against each other; the ac counts of each kept separately,^ and every man lived in mortal terror of los ing his job, if another made a better record than he. So from top to •bot tom the place was simply a seething cauldron of jealousies ana hatreds; there was no loyalty or decency any where about It; the fit was no place In It where a man counted for anything against a dollar. And worse than there being no decency, there was not even any honesty. The reason for that. Who could say? It must have been old Durham In the beginning; It was a heritage which the self-made merchant had left to his son along with his mil lions. Jurgls would find out these things for himself, If he rtayed there long enough; It was the men who had to do all the dirty Jobs, and so there was no deceiving them; and they caught the spirit of the place, and did like ail the rest. Jurgls had come there, and thought he was going to make himself useful, and rise and bocome a ***>|®u man; but he would soon find out his erorr—for nobody rose In Packlngtown by doing good work. You could lay that down for a rule—if you met a man who was rising In Packlngtown, you met a knave. That man who had iwen sent to Jurgls’ father’by the boss, he would rise; the mart who told the tale and spied upon his fellows would rUe; but the man who minded his own business and did his work—why, they would "speed him up” till they had worn him out, and then they would throw him Into the gutter. Jurgls want home with his head buz zing. Yet he could not bring himself to believe such things—no, it could not be *0. Tamosslus was simply another of thr grumblers. Hs was a man who *i**m all his time fiddling; »nd he would go to parties at night and not get home till sunrise, and so of course he did not feel like work. Then, too, ne was a puny little chap; and so he had been left behind In the race, and that wa* why he was sore. And yet so many SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS ernment Investigation Into the methods employed by the beef trust, has its origin In nn actual l’ncklngtown romance. The flrat chapter shows a broad-shouldered butcher being wedded to n young girl who sees In him a hero. The wedding. In all Its grotesqueuess. Is described. Practically peunlless. Jurgls tells bis bride she shall not return to work In the packing house—he will work early and late, lie could not work harder, but the thought of seeing her contribute toward their support was abhorrent to him. On arriving in Chicago, J. fixedvllas, a Lithuanian, who ran a delicatessen store In Packlngtown. guided Jurgls, Onn, Mnrljn and the remainder of the party through the stock yards, after he bad given theur lodging. In this section of the story the author reveals some of the things that have startled the country. Finding the cost of living high, the little coterie decided to purchase a small house, dividing the cost l»etwcen them, against the advice of Hzedvlln*. who said they would Is? swindled. Hxedvllas went with Tetn Klxhleta and Onn to sign the papers. Ho discovered the word "rental” In the Instalment contract. The women, believing they had lieen trapped, were terrified. A lawyer prononneed the paper regulnr. Their fright was shared by Jurgls. Another lawyer mollified his wild fancies. Needed furnishings were.purchaseu on the same "easy payment" Pln Jurgls, In his enormous strength, gloried In imlng able to keep up with picked n trhn *a» ttm nApo In tho fiu-fti! ni*ri*al knntrit na "speeding the gntlg" at men, who set the pace In the awful ordeal known the slaughter house. When usked to ‘g| At *“ — this evil, he declined with fine rage. could the rest of them, he declared. If mey were goou ror anru Antanas Kudkus. broken In health, was a victim of this system. of the story question." had been Into every building In racklngtown," yesterday's Instalment concludes. "He had been likewise to all the stores and saloons for tltnes with curses, and hot once stopping to ask him a STATUARY. Are you interested in works of art? If so, you will appreciate very much the choiee gathering of studies iu our Art Rooms. The purest Carara and aCs- tiiian marble wrought into forms of compelling beauty and appealing grace. These studies are charm ing for gifts as well as for individual possession. MAIER & BERKELE. strange things kept coming to Jurgls' notice evry day! He tried to persuade his father to have nothing to do with the offer. But old Antanas had begged until ho was worn out, and all his courage waij gone; he wanted a Job, any sort of a job. So the next day he went and found the fhan who had spoken to him. and promised to bring him a third of all he earned: and that same day he was put to work In Durham's cellars. It was a “pickle room,” where there was never a dry spot to stand upon, and so he hnd to take nearly a whole of his first week's earnings to buy him a pair of heavy-soled boots. Ho was a •■squeedgle” man: his Job wns to go about all day with a Ion/:- handled mop, swabbing up the floor. Except that It was damp and dark. It was not an un. pleasant Job, In summer. Now Antanas Kudkus was the meek est man that God ever put on earth; and so Jurgls found It a striking con- flrmatlon of what the men all said, that hla father had been at work only two daya before he came home as bitter as any of them, and cursing Durham's with all the power of his soul. For they had set him to cleaning out the traps: and the family sat round and listened In wonder while he told them what that meant. It seemed that he was working in the room where the men S repared the beef for canning, and the eef had lain In vats full of chemicals, and men with great forks speared It out and dumped It Into trucks, to bo taken to the cooking room. When they had apeared out all they could reach, they emptied the vat on the floor, and then with shovels scraped up the bal ance and dumped It Into the truck. This floor was filthy, yet they set An tanas with his mop slopping the "pickle” Into a hole that connected with a sink, where it was caught and used over again forever: and If that were not enough, there wae a trap In the pipe, where all the ecnapa of maat and and ends of refuse were caught, and every few daye It wae the old man’e task to clean theee out, and ehovel their content* Into one of the trucks with the reet of the meat! This wae the experience of Antanae; and than there came aleo Jonae and Marija with tales to tell. MarIJa was working for one of the Independent packers, and was quite beside hereelt and outrageoue with triumph over the sume of money ehe wee making as a painter of cane. But one day aha walked home with a pale-faced little woman who worked opposite her, Jad- vyga Marclnkue by name, and Jadvyga told her how she, Marija, had chancad to get her Job. She had taken the place of an tilth woman who had been working In that factory for over fifteen years, so ehe declared. Mary Dennis waa her name, and a long tlmt ago she had been betrayed, and had a little boy; he wae a cripple, and an epilep tic, but etlll he waa all that she had In the world to love, and they had lived In a little room alone somewhere back of Haleted street, where the Irish were. Mary had had consumption, and all day long you might hear her cough ing as she worked: of late ehe nad been going All to pieces, and when Ma- rtja came, tha "forelady had suddenly decided to turn her off. The forelady Siad to come up to a certain standard herself, and could not atop for alck people, Jadvyga explained. The fact that Mary had been there so long had not made any difference to her—It waa doubtful If ehe even knew that, for both the forelady and the superintendent were new people, having only been there two or three years themselves. Jadvyga did not know what had be come of the poor creature: ahe would hare gone to see her, but nad been sick herself. She had pains In her back all the time, Jadwga explained. It was not fit work for a woman, handling fourteen-pound cane all day. It was a striking circumstance that Jonas, took had gotten his Job by the misfortune of some other person. Jonas pushed a truck loaded with hams from the emokeroorn on to an elevator, were bound to have nnd thence to the packing rooms. The trucks were all of Iron and hedvy, and they put about three-score hnms on each of them, a load of more than a quarter of a ton. un the uneven Hour It was a task for a man to start one <>f these trucks, unless h»* whs a giant; nnd when it was once started In* natur ally tried Ills best to keep It going. There was always the boss prowling about, and If there was a second's de lay he would fall to cursing; Lithuan ians and Slovaks and such, who could not understand what was said to them, the bosses were wont to kick about the place like so many dogs. There for© these trucks went for the most part on the run; and the predecessor of Jonas had been Jammed against the wall by on© and crushed In a horrible manner. mi of urn- sinister Incidents, but they were trifles compared to what Jurgls saw with his own eyes before long. One day a man slipped and hurt his leg, and that afternoon, when the lost of the cattle had been disposed of and the men were leaving, Jurgls was or dered to remain and do some special work which this Injured man had usually done. It was late, almost dark, and the government Inspector* had all gone, and there were only a dozen or two of men on the floor. That day they had killed about four thousand cattle, and these had come In freight trains from far states, and some of them had got hurt. There were some with broken legs nnd some with gored sides; there were some that had died from what cause no one could say.-and they were oil to be disposed of here In darkness and silence. "Downers," the men called them, and the packing house had a special elevator upon which they were raised to the killing beds, where the gang proceeded to handle them, with nn air of business-like non chalance which said plainer than any words that It was a matter of every day routine. It took a couple of hours to get them out of the way. and In the end Jurgls saw them go Into the chil ling rooms with the rest of the meat, being chrefully scattered here and there ao that they could not be Identi fied. When he came home that night he was In a very sombre mood, having begun to see at lost how those might be right who had laufrhed *t him for his faith In America. Jurgls and Ona were very much In love; they had wafted a long time—it was now well Into the second year, and Jurgls Judged everything by the criterion of Its helping or hindering their union. AH his thoughts were there; he accepted the family because It was part of Ona, and he was In terested Ip the house because It was to be Ona’s home. Even the tricks and cruelties he saw at Durham's had little meaning for him Just then, save as they might happen to afreet his future with Ona. The marriage would have been at once, If they, bad had their way; but this would mean that they would have to do without any wedding feaat, and when they suggested this they came Into conflict with the old people. To Teta Elzbleta especially the very sug gestion was an affliction. What! she would cry. To be married, on the road side like a parcel of beggars! No! No! —Elzbleta had some traditions behind her; she had been a person of fmpor- .that tance In her girlhood—had lived on a big estate and had servants, and might have married w#U and been a lady but for the fact that there had been nine i house and all that they had paid on and then the friends would talk about It They must not give up what was right for a little money—If they did, the money would never do them any good, they could depend upon that. And Elzbleta would call upon Dede An tanas to support her; there was a fear In the souls of these two, lest this Journey to a new country might somehow undermine the old home vir tues of their children. The very first Sunday they had nil been taken to mass.; and poor ns they were, Elzbleta had felt it advisable to Invest a little of her resourced In «.representation of the babe of Bethlehem, made In plaster and painted In brilliant colors. Though it was only a foot high, there was a shrine with four snow-white steeples, and the Virgin standing with her child In her arms, nnd the kings and shep herds and wise men bowing down be fore him. It had cost fifty cents; but Elzbleta had a feeling that monoy spent for such things was not to be counted too closely, It would come book In hidden ways. The piece was beauti ful on the parlor mantel, and one could not have a homo without some sort of ornament. The cost of the wedding feqst would, of course, be returned to them; but the problem was to ralso It even tempora rily. They had been In the neighbor hood so short a time that they could not get much credit, and there was no one "v < i-t S/.cd vitas from whom they could borrow even a little. Evening after evening, Jurgls nnd Ona would sit and figure the expenses, calculating the term of their separation. They could not possibly manage It decently for less than $200, and even though they were welcome to count In the whole ot the earnings of Marija and Jonas, as a loan, they could not hope to raise this sum In less than four or five months. So Ona began thinking of seeking employment herself, saying that lr she hnd even ordinarily good luck, sho might bo able to takp two months off the time. They were Just beginning to adjust themselves to this necessity, when out of the dear sky there fell a thunderbolt upon them— a calamity that scattered all their hopes to the four w In.Is; About a block away from them there lived another Lithuanian family, con slating of an elderly widow and one grown son; their name was Majausz- ivi -, nnd our friends struck up an ac- qualntance with them before long. One evening they came over for a visit, and naturally the first subject upon which the conversation turned was th«* nclghbot I, I mid Its history . ami then Grandmother Majauszklene, as the old lady was called, proceeded to recite to them a string of horrors that fairly froze their blood. She was wrlnkled-up and wizened personage she must havo been eighty—and os sho mumbled the grim story through her toothless gums, she seemed a very old witch to them. Grandmother MajauBZ- klene had lived In the midst or mis fortune so long that It had come to be her element, and she talked about starvation, sickness and death as other people might about weddings and holi days. The thing came gradually. In the first place os to the house they had bought. It was not new at all, as they had supposed; It was about fifteen years old, and there was nothing new upon It but the paint, which was so bad that It needed to be put on now every year or two. The house was <»n- "T a w i fha* un* built |,v a company which existed to make money by swindling poor people. The family had paid $1,&00 for It, and it had not coat the builders I&00 when it was new. Grandmother Majauszklene knew that, because her son belonged to a political organzatlon with a con tractor who put up exactly such houses. They used the very flimsiest and cheapest material; they built the houses a dozen at a time, and they cared about nothing at ail except the outside shine. The family could take her word as to the trouble they would have, for she had been through It all —she anfi her son had bought their house In exactly the same way. They had fooled the company, however, for her son was a skilled man, who made as high as $100 a month, and as he had had sense enough not to marry they had been able to pay for the house. Grandmother Majauszkiene saw that her friends were puzzled at this re mark; they did not quit# see how pay ing for the house was "fooling the company." Evidently they were very Inexperienced. Cheap as the houses were, they were sold with tbe idea that the people whp bought them would not be able to pay for them. When they failed—If It were only by s single month—they would lose the daughters and no sons In the family. Even so, however, she knew wfyat was decent and clung to her traditions with desperation. They were not going to lose si! caste, even If they had come to be unskilled laborers (n Packing- town; and that Ona had even talked of omitting a vessellja waa enough It, and then the company would sell It over again. And did thsy often get a chance to do that? Dieva! I Grandmother Majauezktene raised h*-r hands.) They did It—how often no one could say, but certainly more than half of the time. They might ask any one who knew anything at all about Pack- to keep her stepmother lying awake I Ingtown as to that; tns had been Uv- all night. It wan in \ain for them to ' Ing here ever since this h«mse was say that they had so few friends; they 1 built, and she could tell them all about friends in time,'it. And had it ever been sold before? UPTON'SINCLAIR. Author of “The Jungle.** Husimilkie! Why, since lr had been I but they had worked hard, and the built no less than four families’ that ! father hnd been a steady man. they hod a good deal more than half their Informant could name had tried to buy It nnd failed. Hhe would tell them n little about It. The first family had been Gormans. The families had all been of different nationalities—there hnd been a repre scntutlve of several races that had displaced each other In the stock yards, Grandmother Majauszklene had come to America with her son at n time when so Car as sho knew there was only one other Lithuanian family In the district; the workers had all been Germans then—skilled cattle butchers that the packers had brought from abroad to start the business. After wards, as cheaper labor had come, these Germans had moved away. The next were the Irish—there had been bIx or sight years when packlngtown had been a regular Irish city. There were a few colonies of them still here, enough to run all the unions and the police force nnd get nil the grart; but the most of those who wertj working In the packing houses had gone away at the next drop In wages—after the big strike. The Bohemians had com* then, and after them the Poles. Peo pie said that old man Durham him self was responsible for these Immigra tions; he had sworn that he would fix the people of Packlngtown so that they would never ngnln cnll a strike on him. and so he had sent his agents Into every city ami village in Europe to spread the tale of the chances of work and high wages at the stock yards. The people had come In hordes, and old Durham hod squeezed them tight er nnd tighter, speeding them up and ? rinding them to pieces and sending or new ones. The Poles, who had come by tens of thousands, had been driven to the wall by the Lithuanians, and now the Lithuanians were giving way to the Slovaks. Who there was poorer and more miserable than the Slovaks, Grandmother Majauszklene had no idea, but the packers would find them, never fear. It was easy to bring them, for wages were really much higher and It was only when It was too late that the poor people found out that everything else was higher too. They were like rats In a trap, that was the truth; and more of them were piling in every day. By and by they would have their revenge, though, for the thing was getting beyond human endurance, and the people would rlae and murder the packers. Grandmoth er Majauszklene was a socialist, or some such strange thing; another son of hers was working In the mines of Siberia, and the old lady herself had hes in her time—which made her seem all the more terrible to her present auditors. They called her bark to the story of j children, the house. The German family had I the lawi been s good sort. To be sure, there I there had been a great many of them, whifh bit as a common falling In Packlngtown; an* paid for his house. But he had been killed In an elevator accident In Dur ham's, Then there had come the Irish, nnd there had been lots of them, too. The husband drank and bent the children— the neighbors could hear them shriek ing any night. They were behind with their rent all the time. But the com pany was good to them. There was some politics back of that. Grand mother MgJgtiggkfaM could not say ^ st what, but the LfilTerty* had be- ■netd to the "War Whoop League,” which waa a sort of political club of all the thugs and rowdies In the dis trict, slid lr you belonged to that you could never be arrested for anything. Once upon s time old Laflerty had been caught with a gang that had stolen cows from several of The poor people 6t the neighborhood nnd butch ered them In an old shanty of the yards and sold them. He hnd been In Jail only three days* for It, and hod come out laughing and had not even lost his place In the packing house. He hod gone all to ruin with the drink, however, and lost his power; one of his sons, who was a good man, had kept him and the fSmlty up for n year or two, but then he had got sick with consumption. “There was another thing, Grand mother Majauszklene Interrupted her self—this house was unlucky. Every family that lived In It, some one was sure to get consumption. Nobody could tell why that was; there must be something about a house or the way It was built—some folks said It was because the building had been be gun In the dark of the moon. The*© were dozens of houses that way In Packlngtown. Sometimes there would be a particular room that you could point out—If anybody slept In that room he was Just as good ns dead. With this house It had been the Irish first;- and then a Bohemian family had lost a child of It—though, to be sure, that was uncertain, since It was hard to tell what was the matter with chil dren who worked in the yards. In those days there hod been no law about the ago of children -the pack ers had worked all but the babies. At this remark the family looked puzzled, and Grandmother Majusz- kiene again had' to make an explana tion—that It was against the law for children to work before they were six teen. What was th«* sense of that? they asked. They had been thinking of letting Htanlslovu* go to work. Well, there was no need to worry. Grand mother Majauszklene said—the law made no difference except that It forc ed people to lie about the ages of their old like to know what ted them to I of getting a living. Very often ft man could get no work In Packlngtown for months, while a child could end get a place easily; there was always some new machine, by whlcji the packets could get n» much work out of a * hlld ns they had been able to get out of a man, ond for n third of the pay. To rou.i- In- k Ho house again. It was the woman of the next family that hnd died. That wns after they hnd been there nearly four years, and this woman hnd had twins regularly every year ,ni<J th*u«* hint »*♦•«• n more than you * .hiIi 1 « ■•uni when they moved In. After she died toe man would g<* to u.»ik .ill . I ii \ ami leave them to shift for tlieim-.-heM the neighbors would help th* III ‘imw ami then, for they would almost freoze to death. At tho end there were three days that they were alone before It was found out that the father was dend. He wits a "llonr■: mnn" at .lone-', ami a wounded steer had broken loose and mashed him ng'iliiMt a pillar Then the chil dren had been taken away, and the company hnd sola the house that very same week to a party of emigrants. Ho this grim old woman went on with hei tale nf honors. How much of It wns exaggeration—who could tell? It was only too plausible. There was that about consumption, for Instance. The\ knew nothing about eonsumpthm whatever except that it made people cough; nnd for two weeks they had been worrying about n coughing spell of Antnnns. It seemed to shake hint nil over, and If never stopped. YOU could see a red stain wherever he had spit upon the floor. And yet all these things were as nothing to what came a little later. They had begun to question the old Indy ns to why one family had been unable to pay, trying to show her by figures that It ought to have been )*e- slble; and Grandmother Majauszklene hnd disputed their figures “You say $12 n month; but that does not Include the Interest." Then they starod at her. "Interest!” they cried. "interest on the merit? you still owe." she answered. "But we don’t have to pay any In- tereet!" they exclaimed, three four at once. "We only hnve to pay fli each month." And .for this she laughed at them. You rii<- like all th** rest,” she said: they trick >ou and eat you alive. They never sell the houses without Internet. Oet your deed nnd see." Then, with n horrible sinking of tho heart, Teta Elzbleta unlocked her bu ll and In Might ..in Mi*- paper that hnd already caused them so many Now th* I **n> round, scarce ly breathing, while the old Indy, wlm could read English, ran over It. "Yes,” •'ll** said, finallv ,, h*i*- It I**, of course: •U IUi 1111«• i • • • t 111• • i *">ii Uhl', at the rate of 7 per cent per annum.*," And there followed a dend silence. "What does that mean?" asked Jurgls finally, almost In n whisper. ’That means." replied the other, "that you hnve to pay them $7 next month, os well ns the $12.” Then ngnln there was not a sound. It was sickening. like a nightmare. In which sudJenly something gives way beneath you, and you feel fe*d your self sinking, sinking, down Into bot tomless abysses. As If In n flash of lightning they saw therns**lves victim relentless fate, cornered, trapped. In the grip of destruction. All the fair structure of their hopes earns crashing about their enrs. And all the time the old woman was going on talking. They wished that she would he still; her voice sounded Just like the croak- ng of somo dismal raven. Jurgls sat with Ida hands clenched nnd beads of perspiration on his forehead, nnd there was a great lump In Ona’s throat, choking her. Then suddenly Teta Kllz- bleta broke the silence with « wall, and Marija begun to wring her hands and sob. *A1! A1! Beda man!" All the|r outcry did them no good, < our"*- There sat Grandmother Majauszklene, unrelenting, typifying fate. No, nf course it whs not fair, but then fnlrneHS had nothing to da Ith It. And of course they had not n It. They had not been Intended kno It. But It he deed, cssary, time mllles that had no possl- jpport except the children rovlded them no other way Somehow or other they got rl*1 of heir guest, and then they passed a lght of lamentation The children oke up and found out that something a* ur.ng nnd th*-v walled and would not be comforted In the m<.rnlug, of course, most of them had to go to work; the packinghouse would not stop their sorrows; but by 7 o'clock Ona and her stepmother were standing at the door of the office of the agent. Yes, he to!d them, when he came, it was quite true that thev would have to pay Interest. And then Teta Elzbleta broke forth Into protestation# and re- prooches, so that the people outside Stopped and peered In at the window. The ag*nt was ns bland as aver. He was deeply pained, he said. He had not told them slniplv because he had supposed they would understand that [they had to pay interest upon their debt ontinued in Tor awe Georgian.)