The following is Elbert Hubbard's description of the child-laborers of
the Southern cotton-mills. Read it carefully. Notice that the sentences
are all short sentences, and the cumulative effect of these short
sentences is a picture of the condition of these child-workers which one
can never forget. The subjects and predicates are in italics. When you
have finished your study of this question, rewrite it from memory and
then compare your version with the original version.
_I thought_ that _I would lift_ one of the little toilers. _I wanted_
to ascertain his weight. Straightway through his thirty-five pounds of
skin and bone there _ran_ a _tremor_ of fear. _He struggled_ forward
to tie a broken thread. _I attracted_ his attention by a touch. _I
offered_ him a silver dime. _He looked_ at me dumbly from a face _that
might have belonged_ to a man of sixty. _It was_ so furrowed, tightly
drawn and full of pain. _He did_ not _reach_ for the money. _He did_
not _know_ what _it was_. There _were dozens_ of such children in this
particular mill. A _physician who was_ with me _said_ that _they
would_ probably all _be_ dead in two years. Their _places would be_
easily _filled_, however, for there _were_ plenty _more_. _Pneumonia
carries_ off most of them. Their _systems are_ ripe for disease and
when _it comes_ there _is_ no _rebound_. _Medicine_ simply _does_ not
_act_. _Nature is whipped, beaten, discouraged._ _The child sinks_
into a stupor and _dies_.