swindle and plunder and prey. The law forbade Sunday
drinking; and this had delivered the saloon-keepers into
the hands of the police, and made an alliance between them
necessary. The law forbade prostitution; and this had
brought the "madames" into the combination. It was the
same with the gambling-house keeper and the pool-room
man, and the same with any other man or woman who had
a means of getting "graft," and was willing to pay over a
share of it: the green-goods man and the highwayman, the
pickpocket and the sneak-thief, and the receiver of stolen
goods, the seller of adulterated milk, of stale fruit and
diseased meat, the proprietor of unsanitary tenements, the
fake-doctor and the usurer, the beggar and the "push-cart
man," the prize-fighter and the professional slugger, the
race-track "tout," the procurer, the white-slave agent, and
the expert seducer of young girls. All of these agencies
of corruption were banded together, and leagued in blood
brotherhood with the politician and the police; more often
than not they were one and the same person, -- the police
captain would own the brothel he pretended to raid, and
the politician would open his headquarters in his saloon.
"Hinkydink" or "Bath-house John," or others of that
ilk, were proprietors of the most notorious dives in Chi~
cago, and also the "gray wolves" of the city council, who
gave away the streets of the city to the businessmen; and
those who patronized their places were the gamblers and
prize-fighters who set the law at defiance, and the burglars
and hold-up men who kept the whole city in terror. On
election day all these powers of vice and crime were one
power; they could tell within one per cent what the vote
of their district would be, and they could change it at an
hour's notice.

A month ago Jurgis had all but perished of starvation
upon the streets; and now suddenly, as by the gift of
a magic key, he had entered into a world where money
and all the good things of life came freely. He was
introduced by his friend to an Irish man named "Buck"
Halloran, who was a political "worker" and on the inside
of things. This man talked with Jurgis for a while, and

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v?