On the doss, they call vagabondage here, which
corresponds to on the road in the United States.
The agreement is that kipping, or dossing, or sleep
ing, is the hardest problem they have to face, harder
even than that of food. The inclement weather
and the harsh laws are mainly responsible for this,
while the men themselves ascribe their homeless-
ness to foreign immigration, especially of Polish and
Russian Jews, who take their places at lower wages
and establish the sweating system.

By seven o clock we were called away to bathe
and go to bed. We stripped our clothes, wrapping
them up in our coats and buckling our belts about
them, and deposited them in a heaped rack and on
the floor a beautiful scheme for the spread of
vermin. Then, two by two, w r e entered the bath
room. There were two ordinary tubs, and this I
know: the two men preceding had washed in that
water, we washed in the same water, and it was not
chano;ed for the two men that followed us. This
I know; but I am quite certain that the twenty-two
of us washed in the same water.

I did no more than make a show of splashing
some of this dubious liquid at myself, while I hastily
brushed it off with a towel wet from the bodies of
other men. My equanimity was not restored by
seeing the back of one poor wretch a mass of blood
from attacks of vermin and retaliatory scratching.

[[106]]

p105 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p106w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p107

v?