These midnight hours were fateful ones to Jurgis; in
them was the beginning of his rebellion, of his outlawry
and his unbelief. He had no wit to trace back the social
crime to its far sources -- he could not say that it was the
thing men have called "the system" that was crushing
him to the earth; that it was the packers, his masters,
who had bought up the law of the land, and had dealt out
their brutal will to him from the seat of justice. He
only knew that he was wronged, and that the world had
wronged him; that the law, that society, with all its
powers, had declared itself his foe. And every hour his
soul grew blacker, every hour he dreamed new dreams of
vengeance, of defiance, of raging, frenzied hate.

"The vilest deeds, like poison weeds,
Bloom well in prison air;
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there;
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy? gate,
And the Warder is Despair."

So wrote a poet, to whom the world had dealt its
justice --

"I know not whether Laws be right,
Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in gaol
Is that the wall is strong.
And they do well to hide their hell,
For in it things are done
That Son of God nor son of Man
Ever should look upon!"

-192-