Born poor, born in hard luck, her father, or mother, or both,
victims of long hours, poor fare, bad air and little leisure.
As a baby she struggles against fate and manages to live while
three or four little brothers and sisters die and go back to kind
earth.
She crawls around the halls of a tenement, a good deal in the
way. She is hunted here and chased there.
She is cold in Winter, ill-fed in Summer, never well cared for.
She gets a little so-called education. Ill-dressed and ashamed
beside the other children, she is glad to escape the education.
No one at home can help her on. No one away from home cares
about her.
She grows up white, sickly, like a potato sprouting in a cellar.
At the corner of a fine street she sees the carriages passing
with other girls in warm furs, or in fine, cool Summer dresses.
With a poor shawl around her and with heels run down she peers in
at the restaurant window, to see other women leading lives very
different from hers.
Steadily she has impressed upon her the fact, absolutely
undeniable, that as the world is organized there is no especial
place for her--certainly no comfort for her.
She finds work, perhaps. Hours as long as the daylight.
Ten minutes late--half a day's fine.
At the end of the day aching feet, aching back, system ill-fed,
not enough earned to live upon honestly--and that prospect
stretches ahead farther than her poor eyes can see.
"What's the charge, officer?"
"Disorderly conduct, Your Honor."
There's the criminal, good men, politicians, women and bishops,
that you are hunting so ardently.