Quotation from: The People of the Abyss

Written by: Jack London


Perhaps there is a wise mercy in all this. These men of the spike, the
peg, and the street, are encumbrances. They are of no good or use to any
one, nor to themselves. They clutter the earth with their presence, and
are better out of the way. Broken by hardship, ill fed, and worse
nourished, they are always the first to be struck down by disease, as
they are likewise the quickest to die.


They feel, themselves, that the forces of society tend to hurl them out
of existence. We were sprinkling disinfectant by the mortuary, when the
dead waggon drove up and five bodies were packed into it. The
conversation turned to the "white potion" and "black jack," and I found
they were all agreed that the poor person, man or woman, who in the
Infirmary gave too much trouble or was in a bad way, was "polished off."
That is to say, the incurables and the obstreperous were given a dose of
"black jack" or the "white potion," and sent over the divide. It does
not matter in the least whether this be actually so or not. The point
is, they have the feeling that it is so, and they have created the
language with which to express that feeling--"black jack" "white potion,"
"polishing off."

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Old Dominion University CS Dept
Designed by Joan A. Smith for the CRATE project
Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
Part of the CratePreservation Project
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Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.