The end of The Jungle

I read the beginning and the very end of The Jungle, reading the end was a bit difficult at first because I did not know the reasons behind why certain things were happening to Jurgis and also I was confused as to where the rest of the characters had gone to because it seemed as if Jurgis was the only person left in the beginning of chapter 27.  As the chapters progressed I obtained a better understanding of what was happening, also reading blogs from my classmates that read earlier chapters gave me a great insight as to what was going on!  
Anyway, from my own reading I learned of the new hardships Jurgis had to deal with.  Jurgis had become unemployed and was searching for a new job but did not have any luck.  He originally lost his job for three months due to an injury and was then not welcomed back after his injury healed.  This caused great difficulty for Jurgis for he was barely finding ways to obtain food everyday.  
I learned that in earlier chapters Jurgis and Ona had finally had the chance to have a proper wedding and then gave birth to a healthy child.  After some time, Ona had died during the birth of their second child and, if that was not enough, Jurgis' son had drowned.  Once it had seemed like things could not get worse Jurgis decided to leave Marija and Elzbieta, this all happened before chapter 27.
Where I picked up Jurgis had become a beggar and a thief, he of course did not have a choice for it was not his fault that he could not find work.  After he had spent his last pennies on stale beer he was left to literally beg at people on the street for money for a meal or whatever he could get out of them.  One evening he was going to beg from a woman and then realized that he knew her!  After a short conversation between the two, the woman gave Jurgis directions to the home that Marija was living at and he immediately went to see her...  After arrival to the home, the police had showed up and were arresting everyone.  This was confusing at first for Jurgis, and myself, but it soon became clear that Marija was living in a brothel.  Jurgis was, of course, taken aback by this new job Marija had attained, but she claimed that it was fine and that she was making plenty of money and that she needed to in order to put her family to sleep at night with food in their bellies and a roof over their heads.  I found this segment to be the most interesting and the most difficult to understand.  I was sickened to learn that the women in the brothel were drugged everyday and made victim to the madame who ran the house.  Some girls were drugged up so much that they literally had no idea as to what was going on and most became so drugged that their addictions took place and caused them to go into much debt.  The debt the women faced was so great that they were basically blackmailed into staying at the house.  It really does sadden me to know that there are places like that, even now, where women are taken complete advantage of and most of the time drawn into because they think they will be doing something different or they were kidnapped.  
There were many other things that happened at the end of this book but I really found the prostitution and the lifestyles of these poor begging people to be so sad and important to understand.