In the factories wheels go round, clothes and shoes, and tables and chairs are made--consumptives and unfortunates also. Here, souls are torn, men and women degraded, insulted--that's their work. It's a bedlam. Accusations from one side and cries and appeals for pity from the other. They don't remain long. Still crying they are put out--and others are called in: "George Hand," "Carl Wender," "Gib Ralph," "Margaret Cy"--and others, others wend their way towards the other room.
"The terror" has come. Seeing such a big crop, she gets ready the threshing machine. From her room the cries are louder than from any two put together. The applicants also stay longer; she takes delight in their torture. Monday and Friday are her days. A woman has taken a fit. The janitor is called. He drags her out and lays her down in the hall. An old man tries to read the engraved letters above the door. They were once gilded, the gold has partly fallen off and it is difficult to read them. Slowly he reads them out, "Whosoever stretches a begging hand, give and don't question." He shakes his head doubtfully and tries to read the inscription on the other door, "For the poor of the land shall never cease." From the "terror's" room comes a young woman. Her eyes are red and tears run down her pale cheeks. She hurries out as though some one was running after her. What has the "terror" done to her? Look how she runs! I open the door and look after her. How she runs--how she runs. I turn round. The "terror" is near me. She is hurrying--ah! She triumphs. "What happened?" I ask. "She got her medicine--a good strong dose, too." She looks around the waiting room, searching for a victim. She notices the woman with the covered face.
"What is your name?" I don't hear the answer, but the "terror" bids her follow her into the other room. I listen. The woman has awakened my interest. It's very quiet. The investigator raises her voice a few times but is met with such a quiet, calm answer that it goes on in the ordinary conversational tone for a few minutes. Then I hear the woman cry.
But my attention is called elsewhere. An applicant does not want to get out of the investigator's room. She yells, cries and screams. "I want to see the Manager--I want to see the Manager--I have been put out of my rooms--my children are on the streets." The investigator, Mrs. B., uses force, but the woman holds on at the door. "I want to see the Manager. You can't torture me that way. I want to see the Manager." She screams yet louder. The janitor is called and he does his duty. Takes hold of the woman and puts her out. The woman screams in the street. A policeman is called and the officer gives the woman notice that he will arrest her if she does not desist. She still screams and refuses to go. The door opens and she sees the Manager as he orders her arrest for disturbing the peace. The test is applied. Of course she will be immediately released. The Manager telephones to the station at once that they should release the woman. Mrs. B., the investigator, is walking nervously from one desk to the other.