THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE By REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN Author of "What is Socialism?" etc. NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY NEW YORK _All Rights Reserved_ Published August, 1910 Second Printing, November, 1910 Third Printing, December, 1910 Fourth Printing, January, 1911 Fifth Printing, February, 1911 Sixth Printing, February, 1911 Seventh Printing, March, 1911 Eighth Printing, March, 1911 Ninth Printing, April, 1911 Tenth Printing, April, 1911 Eleventh Printing, June, 1911 Twelfth Printing, July, 1911 Thirteenth Printing, August, 1911 Fourteenth Printing, October, 1911 Fifteenth Printing, February, 1912 Sixteenth Printing, April, 1912 THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS RAHWAY, N. J. TO ANDREW JOHN KAUFFMAN (1840-1899) "O strong soul, by what shore Tarriest thou now? For that force, Surely, has not been left vain! Somewhere, surely, afar, In the sounding labor-house vast Of being, is practiced that strength, Zealous, beneficent, firm!" CAVEAT EMPTOR This story is intended for three classes of readers, and no more. It is intended for those who have to bring up children, for those who have to bring up themselves, and for those who, in order that they may think of bettering the weaker, are, on their own part, strong enough to begin that task by bearing a knowledge of the truth. For it is the truth only that I have told. Throughout this narrative there is no incident that is not a daily commonplace in the life of the underworld of every large city. If proof were needed, the newspapers have, during the last twelvemonth, proved as much. I have written only what I have myself seen and myself heard, and I set it down for none but those who may profit by it. REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN. NEW YORK CITY, _16th June, 1910_ THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE I "AS IF THE SPRING WERE ALL YOUR OWN" The local weather-prophets--the cape-coated Mennonites and the bearded Amishmen, who came into the town to market--had said, with choral unanimity, that the spring would be brief and sudden, and the summer parching and intense. Already, though April had but dawned, the pink arbutus had bloomed and withered, and the pale first violets were peeping, purple and fragrant, among the lush grass of the front yards on Second Street. The annual oriole was a full fortnight ahead of his time in opening his summer-house in the hickory-tree on the Southwarks' lawn; and up in the droning study-room of the high-school, where all the windows were wide to the lazy sunlight, Miss England had begun, this week, to direct the thoughts of her dwindling senior-class toward the subjects of their graduation essays. Swaying with the easy, languid grace of an unstudied young animal, Mary Denbigh, the morning-session ended, turned from the graveled walk before the school-grounds into the little town's chief thoroughfare.