apt to be annoying. Was it not unhealthful? the stranger
would ask, and the residents would answer, "Perhaps;
but there is no telling."

A little way further on, and Jurgis and Ona, staring
open-eyed and wondering, came to the place where this
"made" ground was in process of making. Here was a
great hole, perhaps two city blocks square, and with long
files of garbage wagons creeping into it. The place had
an odor for which there are no polite words; and it was
sprinkled over with children, who raked in it from dawn
till dark. Sometimes visitors from the packing-houses
would wander out to see this "dump," and they would
stand by and debate as to whether the children were eat~
ing the food they got, or merely collecting it for the
chickens at home. Apparently none of them ever went
down to find out.

Beyond this dump there stood a great brick-yard, with
smoking chimneys. First they took out the soil to make
bricks, and then they filled it up again with garbage,
which seemed to Jurgis and Ona a felicitous arrangement,
characteristic of an enterprising country like America.
A little way beyond was another great hole, which they
had emptied and not yet filled up. This held water, and
all summer it stood there, with the near-by soil draining
into it, festering and stewing in the sun; and then, when
winter came, somebody cut the ice on it, and sold it to the
people of the city. This, too, seemed to the newcomers
an economical arrangement; for they did not read the
newspapers, and their heads were not full of troublesome
thoughts about "germs."

They stood there while the sun went down upon this
scene, and the sky in the west turned blood-red, and the
tops of the houses shone like fire. Jurgis and Ona were
not thinking of the sunset, however -- their backs were
turned to it, and all their thoughts were of Packingtown,
which they could see so plainly in the distance. The line
of the buildings stood clear-cut and black against the
sky; here and there out of the mass rose the great chim~
neys, with the river of smoke streaming away to the end

[[33]]

p032 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p033w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p034

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