he was now using compared with anthracite for steam-making purposes, he replied, "It is twelve per cent. better." (This estimate I have since verified in several quarters.) When I asked whether this saving in the matter of fuel would amount to as much a year in an ordinary mill as the cost of superintendence, he figured a moment and replied, "Yes, it would be liberal pay for superintendence." Here at once, then, was a gain equivalent to at least five per cent. on wages. Still another important matter was the cost of cotton. This he bought direct from the cotton plantations, saving thirty cents a bale by not needing to have it compressed for shipment, and $2 a bale more in the matter of freights. This saving, he said, would be unimportant in a mill working fine goods, but in a mill making coarse goods like that at Lindale, $2.30 a bale, or half a cent a pound, meant a good many thousand dollars a year. When talking with my superintendent at Concord, North Carolina, I found that neither of these advantages counted so heavily in his favor. He was paying, he said, seventy cents a ton for his coal at the mines, but $3 a ton for its freight to Concord. Railroad freights, he said, had not been reduced in years, except on fertilizers and farm implements, on which the Railroad Commission had effected a reduction at the demand of the farmers. All of his cotton product, he said, had to be shipped to New York either for the bleacheries or for market, and the rates charged him took away most of the apparent advantage of being nearer the cotton supply. Concord, he said, had to pay a higher rate to New York than Augusta, though Augusta was two hundred miles further off. speaking, therefore, of the relative advantages of the South, the figures have to be changed for every particular place, and perhaps in the matter of freights-for every particular mill. The only differences which everywhere operated strongly in favor of the South were the cheaper grade of goods made, and the better feeling between en ployed. The first of these was probably the more important. Cotton manufacture at the South never gained rapidly upon cotton manufacture in Massachusetts until the hard times set in, in 1893. Then the economies forced upon all classes greatly

In

reduced the demand for the fine grades made at the North, but hardly affected the demand for the cheap grades made at the South. As a result, the Southern mills were able to go on keeping their hands at work and even increasing their plant, while the Northern mills ordered shut-down after shut-down. The constant work at the South was one of the reasons why the employees were in more cordial relations with their employers, though the chief reason was the closeness of social and even church relationships, and the great prosperity of the mill hands compared with the neighboring farm hands. These cordial relations existing, the employees had not fought against reductions in wages corresponding to the reductions in prices. The absence of trades-unions had probably contributed to the same end, for while the Southern cotton operatives would probably get somewhat better wages, and certainly get better hours, if they had trade-unions, they would almost inevitably have resisted any reduction of the old union rates. All things, therefore, have combined, during the hard times, to make production at the South go on unimpeded, while there has been stagnation at the North. Southern factories have multiplied while Northern factories have shut down, and Southern workmen have never had to face the hardships of the unemployed which have been the curse of their fellows at the North. Nevertheless, when a period of rising prices restores the demand for the finer grades of goods, there is no reason why cotton-manufacturing should not again advance at the North, though the present gains of the South can never be lost. At present, however, there is one danger menacing progress for the Southern cotton operative—the corporations prospect of negro competition. Thus far all attempts to introduce negro labór within factory walls have been successfully resisted, but each year this struggle becomes more difficult for the operatives. As the race feeling between white and black gives place to the class feeling between rich and poor, white employers will incur less odium by employing negro labor, and the white employees will be less able to stand as a unit in resisting the inevitable competition. At Lindale I heard nothing about this peril,

Partially

co-operative

though even in this white village the number of idle men was increased by the employment of negroes from the surrounding country to serve as teamsters and perform other "outside" labor. At Concord, N. C., however, the negro problem was the most important that presented itself, and the "co-operative" factories I came to study demanded relatively little attention. They proved to be co-operative only in the sense that they had been built in part upon the building and loan association plan, which had proven so successful in the neighboring city of Charlotte. As the shares had often been taken by families of small means, to be paid for by small assessments, the ownership of the mills was widely distributed, and corporation came very near spelling co-operation. Although few of the shareholders worked in the mills, and a few large shareholders, active in the management, owned the bulk of the property, nevertheless social conditions in this rapidly growing town were in happy contrast with those of Lindale. Instead of all the families being tenants, almost half of the white families owned their homes; and these homes, with their yards and gardens, betokened the social independence of their possessors.

financier

But the sight of a prosperous factory town whose prosperity was creA negro ated and possessed by its own middle classes was the smaller of the gains that came to me from my visit to Concord. The larger gain was the light thrown on the negro problem. At the time of my visit the leading negro of the town had recently laid the cornerstone of a cotton-factory to be owned and operated by negroes. My first inquiry was, naturally, whether the negro projector could procure sufficient money to equip a factory, and I learned to my surprise that he could very nearly build and equip a factory with his own money. Besides owning a store, he was the landlord of nearly a hundred negro tenements, which returned to him an average of $2 a month apiece. I expressed a desire to meet this negro magnate, and soon after my lunch he called on me at my hotel. We went together to his office, where he unfolded to ine his plans and told me something of his personal history. He was a mulatto who had been born a slave, and, without any aid whatever from his

father, had acquired his present property, which included, he told me with pardonable pride, the home of his former master. His present plan of building a cotton-factory he had cherished for years, and believed it to be on the point of consummation. There were already, he said, eight hundred subscribers for stock. When I asked where they all came from, he showed me on his books that the North Carolinian at the head of the cigarette trust had subscribed $1,000, and that this, that, and the other prominent officeholder or bishop had subscribed some smaller amount. When I asked how many local subscribers there were of his own race, he replied, several hundred. When I questioned him about their occupations and promptness in paying, he admitted that only about one hundred subscribers had as yet paid anything in, but insisted that a great many more-laborers, masons, carpenters, and even washerwomenwere willing to pay for their share in labor or by small installments. Over against the apparent weakness of this support he put the offer he had received from a reliable firm to put in the machinery for his mills and take part of the payment in stock. When I asked him where he would find the men to teach his negroes how to handle the machinery, he said that he expected no difficulty whatever on that score, as "everybody in town" was in favor of the enterprise. To prove this, he proudly called my attention to the Democratic paper's account of the laying of the cornerstone, and the glowing speeches made by prominent citizens. Everything in this account was laudation of the enterprise and its projector, and yet there was so much eloquence about the epoch-making event that the whole affair had an air of unreality. In fact, I could not persuade myself that its projector believed in the mill as a business enterprise. When he talked about his store or about rent collections, he talked like a business man of uncommon common sense; but when he talked about the factory, he inevitably talked like the solicitor of funds for a semi-philanthropic undertaking. The enthusiasm which the project evoked promised that some day such a plan would be carried through, but I came away questioning whether this shrewd mulatto ever risked much of his property in the enter

sentiment against negroes. Even my cotton-mill superintendent was strongly opposed to the new enterprise-though in his case the race feeling was cherished against his material interests. He employed no negro labor whatever about his mills, even for teamsters, because, he said, if he employed negro labor for this work there would be still more white men in the mill families with nothing whatever to do. When I asked him whether white men could be found to teach the negro hands in the projected factory, he expressed strongly the belief that they could not be found in Concord.

At the time of my visit race feeling was at fever heat. The Sunday A lynching before two negroes had been

episode lynched, and the crime which

caused the lynching kept the blood of the best part of the community at the boiling point. Though I had read of such crimes time and again, I had never before felt their reality. I had thought that a low type of whites had been the victims, and had condemned chiefly the outrages of the lynchers whose lawlessness kept alive the race hatreds from which, in part, the original crimes had sprung. When, however, I learned in Concord of the character of young Emma Hartzel, and the utter fiendishness of the assault upon her, the only question I could ask was, "Were they sure they had the right men?" On this point there was no doubt. One of the murderers-for the crime had involved murder-was caught with blood on his garments and had confessed, while the other, when told by the minister who long had fought the mob in vain to rescue him, that he must not face God with a lie on his lips, had also confessed his guilt. There was no question in any one's mind, and the negroes present had sanctioned the execution. I talked with one negro after another regarding the sentiment of their race, and while one or two protested that a white man would have had a trial,

from a white man would have merited and received the same punishment. The Hartzel family lived only three miles from Concord, and to make certain that the praise of the victim had not sprung from the desire to defend the outlawry, I drove out into the neighborhood. All that I learned increased my regard for the young girl. The son of the neighboring farmer who had captured the first of the criminals told me anew the story of the crime: Emma Hartzel, his younger schoolmate, had stayed at home the previous Sunday afternoon to take care of her baby sister, while her older sister, her father, and his young wife had gone to church. The family, he said, were as fine people as any in the valley, and Emma Hartzel was a modest Christian girl. The father, he thought, would be willing to talk with me, and so I drove on to the house. The door was opened by the young mother. The older sister, a girl of sixteen, with an attractive, serious face, stood just back of her. The father was not at home, but I knew from the face of his young wife and daughter that he was the type of man his neighbors had described. As I paused a moment to express my sympathy, there recurred to me the remark of a friend years before, that it was easy to believe in God's fatherhood when all went well, but that it would be impossible if one of your own daughters were the victim of crime. Turning to the mother, I asked, I hardly know how, whether the crime had overthrown her husband's faith. The reply came slowly, but in words which showed the depth of her own religious life: He is going to live nearer to God." As I stood upon that doorstep and listened to this simple expression of supreme faith, I felt that I was in touch with a higher world of spiritual life; and as I came back North, I felt that for the last time I had condemned these Southern communities for administering justice according to the elemental feelings of manhood instead of the cold processes of law.

T

HERE is a striking contrast between the Representative Chambers in England and America. At Washington you are in the atmosphere of democracy, pure and simple. Any one who cares can go and listen without let or hindrance to the speeches of the men who represent him in the government of the country. At Westminster, however, the case is quite different. The House of Commons is hedged in, not exactly by divinity, but by austere barriers of custom and convention. On entering the precincts of St. Stephen's one is struck by the large number of men who represent law and order. It is not improbable that one of these will immediately ask the reason of your entrance. Your answer is, naturally, that you wish to listen to a debate, and that you are intending to apply to the Member of Parliament who represents your district for permission. Thereupon you are escorted by another policeman to the spot where, on slips of paper provided, you may write your own name and the name of your Member. This the policeman hands to a House messenger, whose business it is to ascertain, first, if that Member has taken his seat, and, failing that, if he be anywhere within the House. The messenger thereupon shouts the name of the Member in the smoking-room, library, or dining-room, as the case may be. It may be that at least half an hour will elapse before any answer is forthcoming, and then the man of your choice will appear at the barrier and present you with an order to occupy a seat in the strangers' gallery, which you may do at once, if the gallery be not full. As it is generally full, you may have to wait some considerable time before a vacancy occurs; in which case you take your place at the end of a long queue, and at last you find yourself seated in the gallery at the end of the House facing the Speaker, at present the Rt. Hon. W. C. Gully. Above the Speaker is the press gallery, and above that a screened gallery for ladies. In the galleries on either side are to be seen a few disconsolate Peers,

who seem to be there by mistake. If, however, it be a great debate, the Peers' gallery is crowded; but these occasions are most exceptional. There is also another gallery to which the Speaker alone is entitled to give entrée.

The floor of the House is entirely given up to Members; and the accommodation, at the time of an exciting debate or on the occasion of some great declaration of policy, is altogether insufficient for 670 men. Certain seats are, of course, secured by custom for leading statesmen of the Government and of the Opposition; and both the Cabinet and the ex-Cabinet, members of the Government and members of the late Government, may be sure that their seats are regarded as absolutely "taboo." For the rest it is often a good deal of a scramble, and a Member wishing to secure a seat has been known to go down to Westminster as early as 6 a.m., although the House did not sit until 3 P.M. This reminds one of the fact that during the Commonwealth the House sat early in the morning; the regular hour was 8 A.M., and any Member who failed to put in an appearance at prayers was liable to a fine of one shilling, which was given to the poor. In the preceding generation the House actually sat at 7 o'clock in the morning, and during the Parliament of the Protectorate committees frequently met at 6 A.M. It was not until the reign of George I. that sittings by artificial light were allowed, except by express order of the House. the House. We often have long sittings at the present time, but there is a famous example of a debate in Richard Cromwell's Parliament which killed two speakers. This was the time when, after nine days' incessant controversy, the House sat all one night and on till 10 P.M. the next day. Mr. Chalmer Chute, the Speaker, was taken ill and died a few weeks later; Mr. Long, Recorder of London, took his place and sat for four days, when he also was taken ill and died. It was in the course of this debate that the following plaintive appeal was made: " Mr. Speaker, I perceive the House grows empty: so do our bellies. I