here was the spike line, less than a score of feet
away neither privacy for the workman, nor pri
vacy for the pauper. About our feet played the
children of the neighborhood. To them our pres
ence was nothing unusual. We were not an in
trusion. We were as natural and ordinary as the
brick walls and stone curbs of their environment.
They had been born to the sight of the spike line,
and all their brief days they had seen it.

At six o clock the line moved up, and we were
admitted in groups of three. Name, age, occupa
tion, place of birth, condition of destitution, and
the previous night s doss, were taken with light
ning-like rapidity by the superintendent; and as
I turned I was startled by a man s thrusting into
my hand something that felt like a brick, and
shouting into my ear, " Any knives, matches, or
tobacco ? " " No, sir," I lied, as lied every man
who entered. As I passed downstairs to the cel
lar, I looked at the brick in my hand, and saw that
by doing violence to the language it might be
called bread. By its weight and hardness it
certainly must have been unleavened.

The light was very dim down in the cellar, and
before I knew it some other man had thrust a
pannikin into my other hand. Then I stumbled
on to a still darker room, where were benches and
tables and men. The place smelled vilely, and

[[101]]

p100 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p101w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p102

v?