Chapter 8

Still, if we limit ourselves to a comparison of the same carbonized wood, preserved on the one hand by petrifaction, and on the other hand non-mineralized, we find a very perceptible diminution in bulk. The elements have contracted in length, breadth, and thickness, but principally in the direction of the compression that they have undergone in the purely carbonized specimens.

In the vicinity of the carbonized portions, those of the tracheæ that have not done so have perceptibly preserved their primitive length, which has, so to speak, been maintained by their neighbors, but their other dimensions have become much smaller--a quarter in thickness and half in length.

If the two fragments of the same wood are, one of them silicified and the other simply carbonized and preserved in sandstone, the diminution in volume will have occurred in all directions in the latter of the two.

Figs. 9 and 11, which represent a portion of the _fibrous_ region of Calamodendron wood, may give an idea of the shrinkage that has taken place therein. In Figs. 11 and 12, which show a few tracheæ and medullary rays of the ligneous bands of the same plant, we observe the same phenomenon. We might cite a large number of analogous examples, but shall be content to give the following: Figs. 13 and 15 represent radial and tangential sections of the bark of _Syringodendron pes-capræ_. This is the first time that one has had before his eyes the anatomical structure of the bark of a _Syringodendron_, a plant which has not yet been found in a petrified state. It is coal, then, with its structure preserved, that allows of a verification of the theory advanced by several scientists that the often bulky trunks of _Syringodendron_ are bases of _Sigillariæ_.

If we refer to Fig. 13, which represents a radial vertical section running through the center of one of the scars that permitted the specimen to be determined, we shall observe, in fact, a tissue formed of rectangular cells, longer than wide, arranged in horizontal series, and very analogous in their aspect to those that we have described in the suberose region of the bark of Sigillariæ. Fig. 15 shows in tangential section the fibrous aspect of this tissue, which has been rendered denser through compression. Fig. 14 shows it restored. In Fig. 13, the external part of the bark is occupied by a thick layer of cellular tissue that exists over the entire surface of the trunk, but particularly thick near the scars, exactly as in the barks of the Sigillariæ that we have formerly described. Finally, at _b_, we recognize the undoubted traces of a vascular bundle running to the leaves. If the bundle appears to be larger than that of the Sigillariæ, this is due to the flattening that the trunk has undergone, the effect of this having been to spread the bundle out in a vertical plane, although its greatest width in the first place was in a horizontal one.

In anatomical structure, the barks of the Syringodendrons are, then, analogous to those of the Sigillariæ. If, now, we compare the dimensions of the tissues of these barks with the same silicified tissues of the barks of Sigillariæ, we shall find that there was likewise a diminution in the dimensions, but yet a less pronounced one than in the woods that we have previously spoken of. The corky nature of this region of the bark was likely richer in carbonizable elements than the wood properly so called, and had, in consequence, to undergo much less shrinkage.--_Dr. B. Renault (of Paris Museum) in Le Genie Civil_.

DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES.--Fig. 1, Lancashire cannel coal; longitudinal section, X200. Fig. 2, Lancashire cannel coal; transverse section, X200. Fig. 3. Commentry cannel coal, X200. Fig. 4, Pennsylvania anthracite, X200. Fig. 5, Boghead from New South Wales, X500. Fig. 6, _Arthropitus gallica_, St. Etienne; transverse section, X200. Fig. 7, same; tangential longitudinal section. Fig. 8, same; transverse section through the carbonized part. Fig. 9. _Calamodendron_, Commentry; prosenchymatous portion of the wood carbonized, X200. Fig. 10, same; fragment of the vascular portion of the wood carbonized. Fig. 11, same, from Autun; prosenchymatous portion of the wood silicified, X200. Fig. 12, same, Autun; vascular portion of the wood silicified. Fig. 13, _Syringodendron pes-capræ_; from Saarbruck; radial vertical section, X200. Fig. 14, Suberose cells restored. Fig. 15. _Syringodendron pes-capræ_; tangential vertical section in the corky part of the bark, X200.

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ICE BOAT RACES ON THE MUEGGELSEE, NEAR BERLIN.

The interest in sports of different kinds is increasing considerably in the capital of the German Empire. Oarsmen and sailors show their ability in grand regattas; roller-skating rinks are very, popular; numerous bicycle clubs arrange grand tournaments; and training, starting, trotting, swimming, turning, fencing, walking, and running are practiced everywhere. As this winter has been quite severe in Germany, first class courses have been made for ice boats. Ice boat, races are well known in the United States, but are quite novel in Germany; at least, in the neighborhood of Berlin, as they have been known only on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

These vessels are quite simple in construction, the base consisting of an equilateral triangle made of beams and provided at the corners with runners. The two front runners are fixed, but the one at the apex of the triangle is pivoted, and serves as a rudder. The mast is on the front cross beam, and between the front cross beam and the side beams sufficient space is left for the helmsman.

The annexed cut, taken from the _Illustrirte Zeitung_, shows a race of the above described ice boats on the Mueggelsee (Mueggel Lake), near Berlin. It will be seen from the clumsy construction of the boats that the Germans have not yet learned the art of building these vehicles.

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LABOR AND WAGES IN AMERICA.

[Footnote: A paper recently read before the Society of Arts, London.]

By D. PIDGEON.

The United States of America are, collectively, of such vast extent, and, singly, so individualized in character, that to speak of their labor conditions as a whole would be as impossible, in an hour's address, as to describe their physical geography or geology in a similar space of time. I shall, therefore, confine what I have to say this evening on the subject of labor and wages in America to a consideration of the industrial condition of certain Eastern States, which, being essentially manufacturing districts, offer the best instances for comparison with the labor conditions of our own country. That this field is of adequate extent and of typical character may be inferred from the fact that the three States composing it, viz.. New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, contain together nearly one-half of the whole manufacturing population of America, while Connecticut and Massachusetts are the very cradle of American manufacture, and the home of the typical Yankee artisan. In addition, the State of Massachusetts is distinguished by possessing a Bureau of Statistics of Labor, whose sole business is to ventilate industrial questions, and to collect such facts as will afford the statesman a sound basis for industrial legislation. We shall find ourselves, in the sequel, indebted for spine of our chief conclusions to this excellent public institution.

If we ask ourselves, at the outset of the inquiry, "Who and what are the operatives of manufacturing America?" the answer involves a distinction which cannot be too strongly insisted upon, or too carefully kept in mind. These people consist, first, of native-born, and, secondly, of alien workers. The United States census, reckoning every child born in the country as an American, even if both his parents be foreigners, I would make it appear that only six and a half millions out of its fifty millions are of alien birth, but, for our purpose, these figures are misleading. There is a vast difference, in many important respects, between "Americans" derived from a stock long settled in the States and "Americans" with two or even with one alien parent. In the former case, the hereditary sense of social equality, the teaching of the common school, and the influence of democratic institutions, produce a certain type of character which I distinguish by the epithet "American" because it is of truly national origin. In the latter case, the so-called "American" may really be a German, an Irishman, an Englishman, or a Swede, but the qualities which I would distinguish by the word "American" have not yet been developed in him, although they will probably be exhibited by his later descendants.

Setting the census figures aside, therefore, we find, from the Registration Reports of Massachusetts, that fifty-four out of every hundred persons who die within the limits of this State are of foreign parentage. Now bearing in mind that Massachusetts is essentially a Yankee State, where comparatively few European emigrants settle, it seems probable that, going back several generations, the numbers, even of Massachusetts men, who may be truly called "Americans" would dwindle considerably. These men, however, the children of equality, of the common school, and of democratic institutions, may be considered as leaven, leavening the lump of European emigration, and shaping, so far as they can, the character of the American; people that is yet to be.

Native American labor is best described by reference to a recent past, when it filled all the factories of the United States, and challenged, by its high tone, the admiration of Europe. At the beginning of this century, public opinion in America was most unfriendly to the establishment of manufactories, so great were the complaints of these made in Europe as seats of vice and disease. Thus, when Humphreysville, the first industrial village in America, was built, in 1804, by the Hon. David Humphreys, who wished to see the colony independent of the mother country for her supplies of manufactured goods, parents refused to place their children in his factories until legislation had first made the mill-owner responsible both for the education and morality of his operatives. Similarly, when the cotton mills of Lowell, and the silk mills of Hartford, began to rise, between 1832 and 1840, the American people held the capitalist responsible for the moral, mental, and physical health of the people whom he employed, with the result that all England wondered at the stories of factory operatives, and their so-called "refinements," which were given to this country by writers like Harriett Martineau and Charles Dickens.

Lowell, between the years 1832 and 1850, was, perhaps, the most remarkable manufacturing town in the world. Help, in the new cotton mills, was in great demand, and what were then thought very high wages were freely offered, so that, in spite of the national prejudice against factory labor, operatives began to flow from many quarters into the mills. These people were, for the most part, the daughters of farmers, storekeepers, and mechanics; of Puritan antecedents, and religious training. In the mill they were treated kindly, and, although their hours were long, they were not overworked. A feeling of real, but respectful, equality existed between them and their employers, and the best hands were often guests at the houses of the mill owners or ministers of religion. They lived in great boarding-houses, kept by women selected for their high character, and it is of these industrial families, and of their refined life, that observers like Dickens, Lyell, and Miss Martineau spoke with enthusiasm. The last writer has made us acquainted, in her "Mind among the Spindles," with the height to which intellectual life once rose in Lowell mills, before the wave of Irish emigration, following on the potato famine, swept native American labor away from the spindles. The morality of the early mill-girls, again, was practically stainless, and, strict as the rules of conduct were in the factories, these were really dead letters, so high was the standard of behavior set and sustained by the mill-hands themselves.

Such was the character of native American labor, less than forty years ago, and such, almost, it still remains in those, now few, centers of industry where it has been little diluted with a foreign element. Nowhere is this so conspicuously the case as in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and especially in the western valleys of the former State, where important mill-streams, such as the Housatonic, the Naugatuck, and the Farmington, are lined with mills still largely manned by native Americans.

Aside from wages, which will be separately considered, the housing, education, sobriety, and pauperism of any given industrial community form together the best possible test of its social condition. In regard to the housing of labor, there is no more important fact to be discovered than the proportion of an operative population who possess in fee simple the houses in which they dwell. This proportion among the wage-earners of Massachusetts is remarkably high, one working man in every four being the proprietor of the house in which he lives. Of the remaining three-fourths, 45 per cent. rent their houses, and 30 per cent. are boarders. With regard to inhabitancy, the average number of persons living in one house in Massachusetts is rather more than six, while the average number of the Massachusetts family is four and three quarter persons. Hence, lodgers being excepted, almost every operative family in this State lives under its own roof, while one fourth of all such roofs are owned by the heads of families dwelling therein.

I leave, for a moment, the agreeable task of describing one of these homes of native American labor, and pass on to the question of education, whose universality among native Americans is perhaps most vividly illustrated by the following facts. Of 1,200 persons born in Massachusetts, whether of native or foreign parents, only one is unable to read or write, while four Germans and Scotch, six English, twenty French Canadians, twenty-eight Irish, and thirty-four Italians, out of every 100 emigrants of these nationalities respectively are illiterate. The total number of public, elementary, and high schools in the United States is 225,800, or about one school for every 200 of the entire population, and one for, say, every fifty of the 10,000,000 pupils who attended school during the census year of 1880. Finally, referring once more to Massachusetts, there are nearly 2,000 free libraries in this single State, or one to every 800 inhabitants, and these, together, own 3,500,000 volumes, and circulate 8,000,000 of volumes annually.

With regard to sobriety, it is well known that local option succeeds in closing the liquor saloons in very many operative American towns, and with the happiest results. The county of Barnstaple in Massachusetts, for example, with a population of 32,000 souls, and having no licensed liquor saloons, yields a crop of only three convictions per annum for drunkenness. The county of Suffolk, on the other hand, with a population of nearly 400,000, and a license for every 175 of its inhabitants, acknowledges one drunkard for every 50 of its population. The labor in one case is nearly all native; in the other, largely foreign.

It is almost, if not quite, impossible to obtain the statistics of pauperism in America. The "indoor" poor, as paupers in almshouses are called, can be found and counted with comparative ease, but how can the outdoor paupers be found? It is no use inquiring for them from door to door, and the poor-master's disbursements are so limited in amount that his bills for pauper relief become mixed up with other items, so that they cannot be separately stated. The total number of paupers resident in American almshouses is 67,000, or about one in every 70,000 of the whole population. In England, we have still one pauper in every fifty thousand of the population. Such being the more important aspects of native American labor, as displayed by the statistician, it is time for the social observer to give his account of a typical American artisan's home.

We are at Ansonia, in the Naugatuck valley, one of the chief towns of "Clockland," where, within a radius of twenty miles, watches and clocks are made by millions and sold for a few shillings apiece. Our friend Mr. S. is an Ansonia mechanic who occupies a house with a basement of cut stone and a tasteful superstructure of wood, having a wide veranda, kitchen, parlor, and bed-room on the ground floor and three bedrooms above. The house is painted white, adorned with green jalousies, and surrounded by a well-tilled quarter acre lot. Its windows are aglow with geraniums, and from its veranda we glance upward to the wooded slopes of the Green Mountain range, and downward to the River Naugatuck, whose blue mill-ponds look like tiny Highland lakes surrounded by great factories. Within, a pleasant sitting-room is furnished with all the comforts and some of the luxuries of life, the tables are strewn with books, and the walls decorated with pretty photographs. Mr. S.'s wife and daughter are educated and agreeable women, who entertain us, during an hour's call, with intelligent conversation, which, turning for the most part on the events of the War of Independence, is characterized by ample historical knowledge, a logical habit of mind, and a remarkable readiness to welcome new ideas. No refreshments are offered us, for no one eats between meals, and, in private houses, as in the public refreshment rooms, where native labor usually takes its meals, nothing stronger than water is ever drunk. Such are the homes of men whom I would distinguish as "American" artisans, and such, also, are those of many foreign workmen who have been long under native influence.

It is not in the valleys of Massachusetts, however, that the greatest manufacturing cities of the Union are to be found, the towns already referred to containing usually only a few thousand inhabitants, and being still, for the most part, rural in their surroundings. They are, indeed, the fastnesses, so to speak, to which the Yankee artisan has retired, after having been almost literally swept out of the great manufacturing cities by successive waves of emigrant labor, chiefly of Irish and French-Canadian nationality. To these great cities we must now turn for examples of a condition of operative society which contrasts most unfavorably with that which has already been sketched; it being, meanwhile, understood that a penumbral region, of more or less mixed conditions, graduates the brightness of the one into the darkness of the other picture.

The city of Lowell, whose brilliant past is so well known, exemplifies, on that very account, better than any other manufacturing town in the States, the character of recent alterations in American labor conditions. The mill-hands, formerly such as I have described them, have been almost entirely replaced by Canadians and Irish, who have given a new character and aspect to the Lowell of forty years ago. "Little Canada," as the quarter inhabited by the former people is called, exhibits a congeries of narrow, unpaved lanes, lined with rickety wooden houses, which elbow one another closely, and possess neither gardens nor yards. They are let out in flats, and are crowded to overflowing with a dense population of lodgers. Peeps into their interiors reveal dirty, poorly furnished rooms, and large families, pigging squalidly together at meal times, while unkempt men and slatternly women lean from open windows, and scold in French, or chatter with crowds of ragged and bare-legged children, playing in the gutters.

The Irish portion of the town has wider streets, and houses less crowded than those of "Little Canada," but is, altogether, of scarcely better aspect. Slatternly women gossip in groups about the doorways. Tawdrily dressed girls saunter along the sidewalks, or loll from the window-sills. Knots of shirt-sleeved men congregate about the frequent liquor-saloons, talking loudly and volubly. No signs of poverty are apparent, but everything wears an aspect of prosperous ignorance, satisfied to eat, drink, and idle away the hours not given to work. Such is the general aspect of operative Lowell to-day; but some of the old well-conducted boarding-houses remain, sheltering worthy sons and daughters of toil. Similarly, the outskirts of the city are adorned with many pretty white houses, where typical American families are growing up amid wholesome moral and physical surroundings, and enjoying all the advantages of schools, churches, libraries, and free institutions which the Great Republic puts everywhere, with lavish profuseness, at the service even of its least promising populations.

Concerning the Lowell mill-hands of to-day, I prefer, before my own observations, to quote from an article entitled "Early Factory Labor in New England," written by a lady, herself one of the early mill-girls, and published in the "Massachusetts Labor Bureau Keport for 1883." She says:

"Last winter, I was invited to speak to a company of the Lowell mill-girls, and tell them something of my early life as a member of their guild. When my address was over, some of them gathered round and asked me questions. In turn, I questioned them about their work, hours of labor, wages, and means of improvement. When I urged them to occupy their spare time in reading and study, they seemed to understand the need of it, but answered, sadly, 'We will try, but we work so hard, and are so tired.' It was plain that these operatives did not go to their labor with the jubilant feeling of the old mill-girls, that they worked without aim or purpose, and took no interest in anything beyond earning their daily bread. There was a tired hopelessness about them, such as was never seen among the early mill-girls. Yet they have more leisure, and earn more money than the operatives of fifty years ago, but they do not know how to improve the one or use the other. These American-born children of foreign parentage are, indeed, under the control neither of their church nor their parents, and they, consequently, adopt the vices and follies instead of the good habits of our people. It is vital to the interests of the whole community that they should be brought under good moral influence; that they should live in better homes, and breathe a better social atmosphere than is now to be found in our factory towns."