There is a poignancy in preparing for the night shift, the feeling is really one of tragedy. This is where the unnaturalness begins. Everyone but you is going home to rest, to revel in the sweet society of wife and children, or parents, to enjoy the greatest pleasure of the workers’ day--the evening meal, the happy fireside, a few short hours of simple pleasure or recreation and, afterwards, the honey-dew of slumber. As you walk along the lane or street towards the factory you meet the toilers in single file, or two abreast, or marching like an army, in compact squads and groups, or straggling here and there. The boys and youths move smartly and quickly, laughing and talking; the men proceed more soberly, some upright with firm step and cheerful countenance, others bent and stooping, dragging their weary limbs along in silence like tired warriors retreating after the hard-fought battle.
There is also the inward sense and knowledge of evening, for, however much you may deceive your external self, you cannot deceive Nature. Forget yourself as much as you please, she always remembers the hour and the minute; she is far more painstaking and punctual than we are. The time of day fills you with a sweet sadness. The summer sun entering into the broad, gold-flooded west, the soft, autumn twilight, or the gathering shades of the winter evening, all tell the same story. It is drawing towards night; night that was made for man, when very nature reposes; night for pleasure and rest, for peace, joy, and compensations, while you--here are you off to sweat and slave for twelve dreary hours in a modern inferno, in the Cyclops’ den, with the everlasting wheels, the smoke and steam, the flaring furnace and piles of blazing hot metal all around you.
Within the entrance the place seems almost deserted. The huge sheds have poured out their swarms of workmen. The black-looking crowds have disappeared, and the great, iron-bound doors are closed up and locked. The watchmen, who have been patrolling the yard and supervising the exodus of the toilers, are returning to their quarters. Only the rooks are to be seen scavenging up the fragments of bread and waste victuals which the men have thrown out of their pockets for them.