It is the picture of one life. We see it beginning helplessly in the arms of the factory physician; it is only after some violence that it consents to breathe,--as if it hesitates to enter upon its adventure. It has a touch of consumption but is otherwise a fair enough baby, says the factory physician. It will do,--not saying for what or whom. Luckily, it is a boy, and will be able to work soon. He does; at the age of nine he becomes a newsboy; he is up at five in the morning and peddles news till eight; at nine he gets to school, fagged out but restless; he gives trouble; cannot memorize quickly enough, nor sit still long enough; plays truant, loving the hard lessons of the street; school over, he has a half-hour of play, but must then travel his news route till six; after supper he has no taste for study; if he cannot go down into the street, he will go to bed. At fourteen, hating the school where he is beaten or scolded daily, he connives with his parents at certain falsehoods which secure his premature entrance into the factory. He works hard, and for a time happily enough; there is more freedom here than in the school. He discovers sex, passes through the usual chapter of accidents, and finally achieves manhood in the form of a sexual disease. He falls in love several times, and out as many times but one; he marries, shares his disease with his wife, and begets ten children,--nearly all of them feeble, and two of them blind; he does not want so many children, but the priest has told him that religion commands it. He works harder to support them, but his health is giving way, and life becomes a heavy burden to him. The factory installs scientific management, and he finds himself performing the same operation every ten seconds from seven to twelve and from one to six;--some three thousand times a day; he protests, but is told that science commands it. He joins a union, and goes out on strike; his family suffer severely, one of the children dying of malnutrition; he wins a wage-increase of five per cent; his landlord raises his rent, and a month later his wife informs him that the prices of food and clothing have gone up six per cent. His country goes to war about a piece of territory he has never heard of; his one fairly strong boy rushes off to the defence of the colors, returns (age twenty) with one leg and almost an arm, and sits in the house smoking, drinking, and dribbling in repetitious semi-torpor his memories of battle. Then comes street-corner talk of socialism, capitalism, and other things new and therefore hard to understand; a glimmer of hope, a cloud of doubt, then resignation. Four of the children die before they are twenty; two others become consumptive weaklings. The father is sent away from the factory because he is too old and feeble; he finds work in a saloon; drink helps him to slip down; he steals a bracelet from the factory-owner’s kept woman, is arrested, tries to hang himself, but is