The agreement is that kipping, or dossing,
or sleeping, 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 homelessness
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, we entered the
bathroom. 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 changed for the two men that followed us. This I know; but I am
also 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.
Pages:
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103