The Jungle: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

by Upton Sinclair

There is no pet quite so fascinating as a baby;

They were the drainage of the great festering ulcer of society; they were hideous to look upon, sickening to talk to.

mostly women—to do the dish-washing of the country. And note that this is most filthy and deadening and brutalizing work; that it is a cause of anaemia, nervousness, ugliness, and ill temper; of prostitution, suicide, and insanity; of drunken husbands and degenerate children—for all of which things the community has naturally to pay.