Jim Blufftwat

There were hardened criminals and innocent men too poor to give bail; old men and boys literally not yet in their teens. They were the drainage of the great festering ulcer of society; they were hideous to look upon, sickening to talk to.

So a barred door clanged upon Jurgis and he sat down on a bench and buried his face in his hands. He was alone; and he had the afternoon and all of the night to himself.

But she did not hear him—she was still in the grip of the fiend. Jurgis could see her outstretched hands, shaking and twitching, roaming here and there over the bed at will, like living things

And now he died. Perhaps it was the smoked sausage he had eaten that morning—which may have been made out of some of the tuberculous pork that is taken out at the bottom of the tank.

Little Kotrina was like most children of the poor, prematurely made old; she had to take care of her little brother and sister, both of them cripples, and also of the baby, and of Jurgis.

...what possible chance has a poor foreign working-girl to understand the banking business, as it is conducted in the in this land of frenzied finance?

...and so she was always chasing up the phantom of good health, and losing it because she was too poor to continue.

...and then the pluckers had to pull out this wool with their bare hands, till the acid had eaten their fingers off.