The consequence is that once the man obtains work he irresponsiblyforgets all ideas of order and discipline, and begins to live luxuriously for the pleasures of the moment. This upsets even the small weekly budget, as even here any intelligent apportionment is lacking; in the beginning it suffices for five days instead of seven, later only for three, finally scarcely for one day, and in the end it is drunk up in the very first night.Often he has a wife and children at home. Sometimes they, too, are infected by this life, especially when the man is good to them on the whole and actually loves them in his own way. Then the weekly wage is used up by the whole family in two or three days; they eat and drink as long as themoney holds out and the last days they go hungry. Then the wife drags herself out into the neighbourhood, borrows a little, runs up little debts at the food store, and in this way strives to get through the hard last days of the week. At noon they all sit together before their meager and sometimes empty bowls, waiting for the next payday, speaking of it, making plans, and, in theirhunger, dreaming of the happiness to come. And so the little children, in their earliest beginnings, are made familiar with this misery.It ends badly if the man goes his own way from the very beginning and thewoman, for the children's sake, opposes him. Then there is fighting and quarreling,and, as the man grows estranged from his wife, he becomes more intimate withalcohol. He is drunk every Saturday, and, with her instinct of selfpreservation forherself and her children, the woman has to fight to get even a few pennies out of him; and, to make matters worse, this usually occurs on his way from the factory to the barroom. When at length he comes home on Sunday or even Monday night, drunk and brutal, but always parted from his last cent, such scenes often occur that God have mercy!
