the mine is being rushed, his pay may run to seventy-five dollars. One Hungarian miner brought me his pay slips for a couple of years, in a mine where he no longer worked, and from whose boss he had nothing to fear. The slip published below is for one of his best months:

M

No......

Hazleton, Pa., Nov. 30, 1897.

IN ACCOUNT WITH A. PARDEE & CO.

$81 42

57 37 $24 05

The men in the Miners' Union simply ridiculed the widely published statement that they were receiving an average of forty or fifty dollars a month. Upon this point their position received authoritative support from the report published that very day by the Pennsylvania Bureau of Mines and Mining. During 1899, says this report, there were 140,000 persons employed in the mines, who produced 54,000,000 tons of coal-or less than 315 tons per capita. Operators nowhere claim that the total wages aggregate a dollar a ton. In fact, a dollar a ton was the estimate made to me by an official of the Lehigh Valley Company when he was stating his side of the case as strongly as possible. Another operator told me that his wage bill averaged sixty cents a ton. Ninety cents would be a high estimate of the average cost of mining coal of all sizes, and if the average product per employee is 315 tons, the average wages would not exceed $285.1 The claim of the Miners' Union that their wages did not average more than $240 a year was a great deal nearer the truth than the statement of the operators that they had been paying forty and fifty dollars a month. In fact, the miners hardly

1 Since writing the above the writer finds in the census of 1880 the statement that wages per ton averaged 79 cents in the anthracite fields. If this average still holds, the mine employees in 1899 averaged but $250 a year gross.

AN OPERATOR'S GRIEVANCES

The first day I spent with the menthe morning at Hazleton, the afternoon at McAdoo and Silverbrook, and the evening at Jeddo. I was especially interested to see McAdoo, as it has the name of being the worst hotbed for trades-unionism and strikes in the whole district. When I visited it, I found that its distinguishing peculiarity was that nearly all the miners owned their homes-having secured them through years of punctual payments to a building and loan association. Owning their homes, they had a sense of independence not possessed in the other towns where the companies owned mines, stores, and houses, with the power to cut off credit at once and evict on a few days' notice. All through these districts, wherever the men are best off they are the most ambitious and determined to better their condition, and wherever they are most ground down they are least disposed and least able to protest. The only partial exception to this rule was where kindly personal relations with the employers modified the disposition of well-paid men to demand better pay. The conspicuous illustration of this was at Jeddo-the mining town belonging to the firm of G. B. Markle & Co. I visited this town chiefly because it had been the scene of the now

famous debate between the head of the company and President Mitchell, of the Miners' Union. I reached it at the close of another and much smaller meeting of the miners at the village school-house. The miners who remained in the building talking over prospects were young men and boys-all full of strike. Never have I heard striking employees speak so well of their employer. "Markle is a gentleman," said one of them. "His is about the only company store that doesn't rob the men,' said another. So far as he was concerned, they hated to join the strike, but they wanted to stand by the other miners so as to get better conditions for the whole district. Only when questioned about the contract with Mr. Markle to submit all grievances to arbitration did his men show any resentment. The contract, they said, was made fifteen years ago, and though it was in the book where all employees registered, most of them had never read it. At the time of the Lattimer massacre, they said, three years before, they had presented grievances, and Mr. Markle had said nothing then about arbitration. He had merely said that he would furnish powder at cost if the men would accept a cut of nearly ten per cent. in wages. They did not feel that this agreement was binding. It was merely pushed to the front to disorganize the strike. If the strike failed, Mr. Markle himself could not give them much better wages than his competitors.

The next morning I drove out to Jeddo to meet Mr. G. B. Markle, and, fortunately, found him disengaged. His personal influence with the men had brought a good many of them back to work, and he was naturally in good spirits over the situation. When I tried to talk with him about general conditions in the mining regions, he said that he was concerned only with conditions about Jeddo, and regarding these he was glad to tell me and show me all he could. This was manifestly a sincere assertion-his sincerity being illustrated by his bringing me the August pay-rolls for me to examine at my leisure. About fifty dollars net seemed to be the ordinary figure for that month. As to the exceptionally good condition of his houses I did not need his statement, as I had seen that for myself as I had driven up. Most of the families occupied four-room dwell

ings which were in good order. When any of the employees were sick, said Mr. Markle, they were cared for by trained nurses-a force of three being constantly employed at his wife's instance. In each village there were club-rooms-one of which I afterwards visited-where the men could meet for any kind of social enjoyment, gambling and drinking being the only things prohibited. In the schools also Mr. Markle took justifiable pride, and when I visited one of these I found that the spirit of the school was good, and that there was not the overcrowding customary in the mining region. In short, local conditions were better than I had seen elsewhere, either during the present visit or during a longer one two years ago. I did not wonder that Mr. Markle was ready to have them thoroughly investigated, or that news-gatherers who are hostile to the miners have tried to concentrate public attention upon the situation at Jeddo, and ignored the fact that the Markles employ but 2,800 miners out of 140,000. When Mr. Markle spoke of his agreement with the men to submit all differences to arbitration, he stated that when his firm submitted it in 1885 it took a long and perhaps unprecedented step toward the preservation of peaceful and just relations between coal operators and their men. "When President Mitchell advised the men to break that agreement, he advised them to confess that the contract of Jeddo miners was not worth the paper it was printed on."

Mr. Markle believed that President Mitchell had virtually confessed that his demand for general arbitration was insin

cere.

"A general agreement," he said, "is as impossible as for water to flow up hill. . . . The conditions at the different mines are too different to permit it." When I asked how, then, it had been possible for the bituminous coal miners to make an agreement with operators covering all the fields from western Pennsylvania to the Mississippi, he said that the mining of bituminous coal was altogether different from the mining of anthracite. The only point made by President Mitchell to which he conceded any force was Mitchell's declaration that extortionate freight rates were at the bottom of the anthracite coal difficulties. Mr. Markle did not admit the full truth of this declaration, but

he did admit that the freight rates on anthracite were unreasonably heavy. As regards company stores, he would not discuss their operations elsewhere, but pointed out that his store received orders from men not employed in his mines. Although he conducted a company store, he did not violate the law, since the Pennsylvania statute only forbade mining "corporations" to operate company stores. His company was merely a firm. As to the semi-monthly payment of employees supposed to be required by law, Mr. Markle pointed out that the law simply required such payments "on the demand" of the men. None of his men ever demanded to be paid twice a month, and he denied that they would have been discharged if they had made such a de mand. This last point was the only one made by Mr. Markle in reference to local conditions which any of his men afterwards disputed. All the men, they said, would like to be paid twice a month, but no one dared demand it.

THE ROOT OF THE DIFFICULTIES

On my way back to Hazleton I drove through another town in which the operatives seemed to be exceptionally well cared for. This was a place called Drifton, and here also the owners of the mines -the Coxe family-still reside. There is a great difference between a mining town owned by residents and towns owned by absentee landlords and managed by agents. In the former human relationships enter, while in the latter commercial relationships absolutely control. The

town of Lattimer, which I also passed through on my return, was an extreme illustration of the commercially managed town. In another place where I stopped on my way back, I found a former taxcollector for the district, and learned the truth of the miners' assertion that all through these regions the propertyless classes pay a considerable part of the direct taxes.

Even in Jeddo the absolutely propertyless miners and laborers pay about one-third of all the direct taxes, their year's wages being assessed as property; and at Lattimer the propertyless miners pay about two-fifths of all the taxes. These relics of feudalism, however, hardly deserve attention in trying to get a view of the general situation. What

I cared most to learn when I got back to Hazleton was the miners' reply to the assertion that a general agreement by arbitration is impossible. Upon this point the Secretary of the Miners' Union admitted that such an agreement was more difficult for hard-coal fields than for soft-coal fields, but urged that the difference was simply one of degree and not of kind. When a certain vein is taken as a standard, he said, the payment in other veins could be graded according to their relative thickness and the time required in getting out the toal. The agreements which the miners have had for the last three years in the soft-co States have involved individual instances of hardship, but it has always been easy to settle these local disputes by mutual concession and arbitration. The same thing could be done in the hardcoal fields if the railroads would agree to arbitration.

The conflict centers in the attitude taken by the railroads. These, the men know, own 72 per cent. of the anthracite fields, and by charging for the shipment of hard coal three times as much as railroads usually charge to ship soft coal, the roads make it impossible for any of the operators to grant their employees the advances which the union has secured for the soft-coal miners in the West. The strike, therefore, is a strike against the extortion of the railroads, and the miners wish public attention concentrated upon this point. Here the facts which they put forward are absolutely incontrovertible. The Lehigh, the Reading, and the other hard-coal roads charge twice as much for hauling anthracite as the soft-coal roads such as the Columbus and Hocking Valley or the Chesapeake and Ohio charge for freight of all classes. Coal is notoriously the cheapest kind of freight to handle. The charge for hauling anthracite could be reduced one-half and still leave an excessive margin. The reduction of one-half would mean 70 cents a ton to be divided between producers and consumers. This would mean that hard coal would find an increased market at lower prices, and that the miners in the anthracite regions could find steady employment at wages as high as have been secured for their organized fellow-workers west of the Alleghanies. C. B. S.

Ο

By Th.

NE may say that, at the Exhibition of 1900, woman, both as inspirer and executor, is admirably represented in the arts and industries and makes herself felt in every manifestation, whether great or small, of modern progress. From the threshold she invites you, in the form of that gigantic Parisian who, placed above the gate of honor at the Place de Concorde (where there are thirty-two en nces), extends a welcome to visitors. Diessed in the latest fashion, coiffed with a small cap which is nothing more than a copy of the ship that appears on the arms of Paris, she rises to a height of one hundred and fifty feet from the ground, greeting the whole world with an untiring gesture which, when the sunshine fades, is illumined by the varied reflections o electric light.

Enter! Throughout the vast extent of the Esplanade, the Champs de Mars, the Champs Elysées, and the Trocadéro, you will not find one spot where woman has not added in one way or another to the brilliancy and the interest of the fête. From a picturesque point of view alone, all the old costumes (now, unfortunately, seldom to be found in the various provinces) worn by the attendants at the counters and cafés enliven the great galleries of the Palace of Agriculture and Food, where the different products of France are classified according to the regions they come from. Hebes in Norman and Breton coifs pour out the cider and poiré. Peasants from the respective localities serve at the Flemish dairy, at the hostelry of Poiton, etc.; and, in the same way, Japanese women, in their own especial domains, offer you saké, the ricewine, while Cinghalese at the Ceylon

The first article in this series was published in The Outlook for September 8. It dealt with the Industrial Side of the Exposition, and was written by Robert Donald, editor of the London " Municipal Journal." *Religious Aspects of the Exhibition," by Charles Wagner, was published in the issue of September 15. Other articles will be: The Social Economics Exhibition (illustrated), by Dr. W. H. Tolman, Secretary of the League for Social Service; Educational Aspects, by Howard J. Rogers, Director of Education for the Commissioner-General of the United States to the Exposition; The Historical Element, by the Rev. W. E. Griffis, D.D., author of "The Mikado's Empire," etc., etc.; and The Pictorial Side of the Exposition, by Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith, illustrated by the author.

Bentzon

pavilion bring you tea, and the Algerians. prepare houskouss behind the overhanging draperies of Moorish houses. Carpetweaving is carried on before your eyes by other Orientals, crouching down by their looms; and in the Swiss Village you see the women of St. Gall, Berne, etc., making embroideries and laces. Sometimes the foreign and provincial visitors seem to contribute to this exhibition of women from all countries, as in the case, for example, of two hundred Boulognese who landed together one morning at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, with their white caps like halos, their immense earrings, their gold chains, and their closely folded fichus. fichus. Two generous ship-owners of Boulogne wanted to assure these sailors' wives and daughters a holiday from the factories where they make nets and salt and pack the fish. Our famous "James," of the Halles, gave them a welcome; they were offered bouquets, toasts, a fine luncheon, which the poor fisherwives, who had never traveled before, and who found themselves suddenly transported among the united wonders of the entire earth, will remember for a long time to come.

Queens and princesses have played their rôle worthily in the Exhibition of 1900. The amusing collection of smaller national Russian industries, objects manufactured for the most part by the peasants in their homes-was this not organized under the patronage of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth? The name of the Queen of Roumania, Carmen Sylva, is attached, in the pavilion of her people, to a magnificent illuminated manuscript Gospel, the work of this sovereign, writer, and artist. In the monument of fifteenth-century style which shelters the Italian products there are some admirable samples of the lace industry, whose brilliant revival is due to the patronage of Queen Marguerite; and if the Spanish Pavilion surpasses all others in the Rue des Nations for artistic splendor, it is because the Queen lent the incomparable collections of tapestry belonging to the Crown; with the pieces of historic armor from the Armeria of Madrid, they form an ensemble unique in its severe

and majestic beauty. It is a great and well-deserved success. When I said so to a clever Spanish lady, she answered, with a sigh, "Yes, it is indeed the splendor of the past; but as to the present, if we only want to find a writing-table, why, we must go to the pavilion of the United States !" But this is a parenthesis.

In the Rue de Paris, the street of amusements and diversions, there are perhaps even too many women peopling the innumerable small theaters where native songs are sung in different languages, with the costumes, the decorations, the surroundings ad hoc, and where the long-ago dances of France alternate with comedies and farces. At the Palais de la Danse proper, one can make a study of comparative choreography-Greek, Hindu, Spanish, English; one can learn about all sorts of dances-war dances, religious dances, Druidical dances, dances of the Renaissance, and I know not what; and the attractive history is embodied by a legion of pretty women. Andalusia, with a building faithfully copied from Cordova and Toledo, presents us with real gitanas; the Egyptian women have made a furor on their own ground; a Parisian, Cléo de Mérode, has glided in among the authentic Hindo-Chinese, and one would have difficulty in recognizing her under the disguise that extends as far as her face; Loie Fuller has kept her prominent place; and in the theater that bears her name we have been able to applaud the great Japanese actress Sada Yacco.

The fact is that no country, no epoch, has been left without its women representatives; and everywhere the peculiarity of the types, the strangeness of the costumes, add to the reality of the scene.

Speaking of costumes, let us notice briefly the Palace which has been dedicated to them on the Champs de Mars, through the care of the great dressmaker Félix, who had as aids an archæologist, M. Gayet, and several well-known men artists, together with a host of intelligent women collaborators. It represents the history of dress throughout the ages, from the Gallico-Roman times to the present day, with scenes borrowed from the Middle Ages, feudal times, the Renaissance, the reigns of Henry IV., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV. and their successors, passing by the Revolution, the Directory, and

the Empire. A semi-obscurity, lighted by electric lamps, lends an appearance of reality to the figures which compose it. And if these manikins seem to be alive, one is surprised to find, on the floor above, people in flesh and blood chosen among the prettiest of women to play the same rôle; they make real a reproduction of the wooden galleries in the Palais Royal, with the gay open booths that bordered them. Milliners, perfumers, and other grisettes of the times are replaced by their modern sisters dressed to perfection. Not the least interesting part is the résumé of fashions from 1867 to 1900, which represents all the transformations of beauty and dress during this still recent period. The women laugh as they recognize themselves, so different from what they now When you have completed the study begun at the Palais des Costumes by a review of what the Palace of Decorative Arts and Furniture of All Times offersthings borrowed from the most aristocratic collections, where one passes from a salon of the Second Empire to a Louis Philippe bedroom, from a Directoire apartment to the chamber of Talma, the famous actoryou will be better posted than by any amount of reading on the changes of taste in France. The most ancient things, Louis XV. and Louis XVI. furniture, and costumes as well, are those which have aged the least.

are.

Woman's triumph is in the Petit Palais on the Champs Elysées, which I may, without fear of being accused of favoritism, praise as the gem of the Exhibition. The masterpieces of retrospective French art are heaped here, for the most famous collections have sent a tribute, and the church treasures have journeyed from all corners of France. How, in speaking of women, could one omit the hundreds of marvelous Virgins in wood, in stone, in ivory, works of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, besides which the vulgar religious imagery of our days suffers keenly by comparison? This is the first time the celebrated Virgin of Villeneuve-les-Avignon has faced any public but that of her own province, and, religion aside, the least Catholic should feel tempted to kneel before this marvel of a naïve art inspired by faith. So near to it, although it is in reality at the antipodes, the delicate art of our eighteenth