Long streamers of garments fluttered from fire-escapes. In all unhandy places there were buckets, brooms, rags and bottles. In the street infants played or fought with other infants or sat stupidly in the way of vehicles. Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, gossiped while leaning on railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels. Withered persons, in curious postures of submission to something, sat smoking pipes in obscure corners. A thousand odors of cooking food came forth to the street. The building quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping about in its bowels.

Their working conditions seem equally filthy. Jimmie eventually finds work as a teamster, driving a team of horses through the dirty streets of New York. Maggie finds work as a seamstress in a sweatshop. They can literally find no respite from the physical filth permeating their lives.

Nor can they find respite from the violence...
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