Moloch: Or, This Gentile World Read Online Free PDF

and a dressing room which occupied the rear of the premises. Along the side wall of this rear room tiny cubicles were partitioned off so as to permit the newly appointed messengers to dress and undress. At the rear exit was a table covered with sheet metal on which was fastened a huge roll of wrapping paper and a ball of twine. After a messenger was engaged, and had changed into the uniform, he was obliged to wrap his citizen clothes into a neat bundle and make his departure through the rear exit. If the office he was dispatched to was beyond walking distance, he was allowed carfare. This carfare allowance was theoretical. Usually Moloch reserved it for his lunch money, dolling it out only to “repeaters” who knew of its existence and were cheeky enough to demand it.
    The employment office itself was exposed to the public eye. Two enormous plate-glass windows permitted the curious passerby a full sweep of the drama that was constantly being enacted within. Ofttimes it was necessary to send the porter outside to persuade the idlers and vagabonds who collected to remove their noses from the windowpanes. A life-size cardboard figure of a bright, handsome-looking youngster, attired in the full regalia of the service, was placed conspicuously in each of the show windows. This piece of bait served two purposes: it pretended to persuade the idler and the nitwit that in the service of the telegraph company there was ever open a glorious career; it also helped to break down an erroneous popular conception. All messengers, it seemed to say, are not idiots or septuagenarians.
    It must be mentioned, in passing, that the rosy-cheeked youngster who had posed for this cardboard effigy (which was on display in every office of the Great American Telegraph Company throughout the United States) was no longer in possession of that bloom and hustle which was so ostentatiously exploited. Through an excess of zeal he had acquired tuberculosis of the foot, and was at this period languishing at home, vainly begging for disability compensation. To be sure, such unfortunate circumstances were not uncommon, nor were they particularly remarkable considering the thousands of individuals who were put through the hopper.
    To lighten the burdens of the legal department a “Safety First” campaign had been inaugurated. Large posters were tacked on the bulletin boards in the offices, and on the partitions of the dressing booths, giving the latest country-wide statistics relating to messengers killed, crippled, or incapacitated. To lend a touch of realism, snapshots showing the most prevalent ways in which accidents occurred were often sandwiched in among the statistics. The question of whether or not this gruesome liability roll should be displayed in the dressing booths had been debated for a long while between the Vice-President and the General Manager. The Vice-President had a theory that these announcements acted as a boomerang. Perhaps the Vice-President had been given this impression through reading Moloch’s monthly report of “resignations and dismissals.” The report showed that no less than ten percent of the force resigned after working less than a day. To the Vice-President this was an inexplicable situation. Perhaps the latter had really convinced himself that the telegraph company offered a career to the messengers in its employ.
    Moloch returned to his desk after the razzle-dazzle of the Bowery in a fever of excitement. He had left the office toward noon to make an investigation. One of the messenger force had gone bughouse.
    It was now going on to three o’clock. The day was warm and sultry and he was perspiring freely. His discomfiture was made more acute by the pungent, acrid odor of camphor and Lysol escaping from the dressing room and the wardrobe depot. Moreover, he was annoyed to find so many applicants lined up on the benches, waiting for him with that stolid patience which one so often observes in the anteroom of a charity