F

ROM the piazza of the hotel the soft ripple of the river, lapsing away across the road, was just audible. Beyond were green meadows and low hills, and a great mound of culm, over a mile distant, with a red glow in the midst of it; it had been burning for more than a year. A quiet and pretty scene; but the strike was in the air.

"There'll be no arbitration," said young Frank Gibbs. "We wouldn't mind correcting abuses, if there are any; but we won't let a lot of agitators run our business for us. I take a serious view of this thing; I believe God doesn't mean a great industry like coal mining to fall into the hands of the ignorant rabble. We have the brains and the money-and the mines; and we feel our responsibility-" "To God and man," put in Norton, the newspaper man, lean and sardonic. "Yes, you operators are a holy bunch of Christians, and the labor unions are Apollyon, whom you must down for the sake of salvation in general. You make me sick!" "You can sneer; we have the best interests of the men at heart," returned Gibbs, putting on dignity.

"Yes; and of the pretty girls in the silk-mills, too," added Norton, with a malignant chuckle. “Oh, I know your gang and I know you, in particular, Master Frankie!"

"I'm always willing to talk with gentlemen; but I don't care to listen to billingsgate," said Gibbs, pushing back his chair and getting up. "Drop in to dinner this evening, if you have time, Elliott," he went on, to the clergyman who was present. "Glad to have met you, sir," he added to me; and walked off, still with dignity.

"I think you are very unjust," said Elliott, to the journalist. "Frank Gibbs and his father are good men, church members; I've known them for years. Frank is really thoughtful and philanthropic, for a man of his years. He has personally interested himself to better the lot of numbers of his employes and their families, to my knowledge. I really think

* Julian Hawthorne, in Wilshire's Magazine.

your innuendo was unpardonable, Norton."

"It annoys Frankie more than it does you," returned Norton, still chuckling. "And he won't pardon it, Christian or not, never fear! You pulpit fellows mean well; but you don't get your nose down so close to the real thing as we newspaper devils. You ask Frankie, sometime, how Kittie is getting on, and watch his expression! There's slavery in this glorious country, worse than before the war. But there'll be a strike, because some of us aren't quite ready to go on licking the boots that kick us. Shall you write it up?" he asked, turning to me.

"I don't know, yet; I rather hope not," I said.

"If you do, I can put you on to some good stuff," rejoined he; and then Elliott took his leave, and left Norton and me together. We talked strike till the sun went down.

A few weeks later I was on a train bound for the heart of the strike region. From the car window I saw shaggy hills hewn asunder to make tortuous valleys; the roots of the puny vegetation grappled with the black bones of the forests of a thousand years ago. Coal mines were everywhere, blackening the green sides of the range; hillocks of slaty refuse, from thirty to a hundred feet in height, marred the landscape with their sullen, metallic glitter. Their sable drift spread out in glistening levels naked and barren as death, with blasted tree-stumps sticking up out of them. Down the gullies ran streams red as massacre or black as the unpardonable sin. Grotesque coal breakers staggered against the sky, gable above gable hung in air, like ruins of Giant Despair's Castle. Here the ground was rent apart to expose a surface vein; there, there was a cave-in over an abandoned mine. The soil was a bilious yellow where it was not blackened with coal dust; ever and anon we passed clusters of rusty hovels, shabby, naked, hideous, the homes of human beings. There were company stores, large, heavy, dilapidated; with dusty windows, gloomy interiors,

where clerks bent over ledgers, and grayhaired, iron-visaged managers sat spiderlike in their offices. Around the miserable settlements curs sneaked and cantered; goats browsed on rubbish, geese and ducks waddled in filthy mud-puddles; the yards were fenced with tree-stumps, bits of rusty iron sheathing, barrel-staves and mounded refuse-cast-off boots, dented tin cans, broken bottles; in the yards were ovens of clay, like white-ant heaps, with a broken barrel for chimney. Som ber men stood about in groups; barefooted and bare-armed women leaned in doorways; children slunk and crawled about among them. This was Minerdom and the strike had been on for a month and more.

Norton met me at the station. "Things are b'iling!" he said, with his saturnine grin. "Here's a trap for you; the fellow will drive you over to old Harvey's; he's in the way of being a scab. You'll get local color and views there, and more fun, unless I'm mistaken, later on. I'll see you when you get back. So long!"

Old Harvey lived on a hillock composed of compacted filth of generations, in a hovel of two stories, containing two families, renting at four dollars a month, occupant liable for repairs. The unpainted clap-boards were warped with age and weather, and you could peel off strips with your fingers. The planks gaped apart, and the rotten roof was like a sieve. In front was a porch, with dingy white palings, and an elderly man sitting on it; behind was a tiny shed attached to the house, with a stove in it for cooking, when there was anything to cook. As I drove up, a dumpv, waddling old woman emerged from the shed, wiping her arms on her apron. She was Mrs. Harvey, and the man was her husband, a miner for thirty years.

I told them what I "represented," and we entered into conversation.

Yes, they was Johnnie Bulls. Come over 'ere to better themselves thirty years ago; Tom, 'e used to be a butcher. 'Ad 'ad seven children; six livin'; one boy, 'e was killed in the mine, and the h'apple of 'is mother's h'eye, 'e was. ne boss's fault, that was; the law says three feet between the track and the timbers, and it was only six inches, and Jackie was ketched by the truck and killed. The h'operators didn't make no compensation: the witnesses we 'ad, they fired 'em; and h'all we got for h'our boy's ..e was just that! (a snap of the finger). What was the most Tom h'ever earned in a month? 'Ow much was it, now! Well, one month

'e got fifty dollars-yes, fifty in one month; but that was years ago; some months now 'e didn't get more nor eight dollars-h'eight to fifteen. No steady work that was the trouble; an 'undred and fifty days in the year. on the h'average. Too many Polanders about these times. I you tries for a job h'elsewhere, why, you're fired, that's all and you walks to the mine every day for a fortnight, may be, and hangs around all day, and they tells you, nothin' today, they tells you. So Tom 'e told the boss t'other day, h'if I can't get money to buy coal I'll 'ave to thieve it, 'e says. You will? says the boss. H'i must! Tom, 'e says. Well, come around, says the boss; but 'ow can Tom go, with the union men a-waitin' to club 'im for a scab? So there we be; and if it wasn't for Katie, we'd a starved. "Then you don't want the strike?" I asked Tom.

Strike? No, 'e didn't want no strike! Work was what 'e wanted - regular work; h'if 'e went h'out on strike, it would be because the union they forced him to it. Give 'im work, and pay 'im what you will, and 'e'd be thankful! But if 'e went scabbin' it, 'e'd be shot or clubbed, and if 'e didn't 'e'd starve. That was what this free and independent American adopted citizen had come to. "Six other children living besides Katie, eh? Any of them old enough to work?"

Yes; there was Dick-'e's twelve; 'e makes fifty cents a day when there's work; and there's another, h'eighteen 'e is 'e'll make sixty-six cents. It all 'elps. But Katie, she gets three fifty a week at the mill; h'up at four thirty h'every mornin' and walks over; and then Mr. Gibbs, 'e gives her special jobs now and again; right kind and good, Mr. Frank, 'e is; ah! if they was all like 'im! Would like to show me Katie; as pretty a gal, and as good a gal, as there was in the mill; she was a-going to marry young John Kearney next year, if the strike didn't stop it. Yes, one sees plenty of children 'ere-abouts; well, there's got to be; they don't h'eat much, and they does work-beginnin' seven, times, hif the inspectors will stand for it, and they mostly will. It ain't the law but there ain't no law, not for h'operators; plenty of it for miners-yes, there be!

square, six feet high, with its three chromos, its rotting floor, its leaking walls, its home-done whitewashing and plastering, and its desperate struggle to be clean. went back to the village and George Norton, This is not an artistic story. But it is a broken arc in a vast circle-a drama -now being acted out in this country, to what denouement we know not; but doubtless it will be artistic enough, when we know it all.

"So you found him a decent sort of chap, although a scab?" said Norton that evening, as we climbed a narrow pair of stairs to the "committee room." Norton was smoking a Pittsburg stogie, as dry and lean as himself.

"The most peaceable man in the coalfields," I answered. "If they were all like him, the operators would be in clover"

"Until all the Tom Harveys had starved to death," interrupted he, gibingly. "Fine residence, that of his, isn't it? Owner, Frank Gibbs; estimated capital five millions. And now I'll show you the other phase!"

He opened a door at the head of the stairs. The room was fifteen feet square, with a bed in it, on which two men sat, a deal table, two chairs, a smoky lamp, and a slop jar used as a spittoon. One of the men was smoking a pipe; he was bearded, with steady, shining eyes and rough garments; the other was taller, muscular, red-haired; he wore a black vest over a red flannel shirt; his blue eyes had a fierce look, his features were bold and sharply moulded. He sat on the bed, with a knee between his clasped hands.

"Carl Otto, I want you to know this man here whom I spoke of this morningmy friend, and all right." The red-haired one grunted, and held out an enormous hand. "Petowski," continued Norton, "my friend." The dark-bearded one rose and bowed. "These men are strike leaders," went on Norton to me; "and tonight they are going to pay their respects, with a few hundred other gentlemen, to Mr. Frankie Gibbs' stockade. Frankie has been employing scabs-is that right?"

Carl Otto grunted, and nursed his knee. Petowski said, politely, to me, "You come along?"

was a heavy knock at the door, immediately followed by the entrance of a broadshouldered youth, whose handsome face was flushed and distorted by some kind of violent emotion. He seemed to look at no one; he had some one by the hand, who was trying to draw back.

"What's wrong with you, John Kearney?" demanded Norton, sternly. "You're not one of us; you have no business here."

"I have business at Gibbs' stockade tonight," returned the other, in a husky voice; "and here's why." With that, exerting his strength, he dragged into sight his companion, a very pretty girl, neatly dressed, her face white with fear; her dark eyes went from face to face of those in the room, half appealing, half defiant. "Kate Harvey!" muttered Norton, amazed.

The red-haired Berserk rose. He strode to the door, locked it, and pocketed the key. Then he turned to Kearney. His accent was foreign, but his words good enough English.

"You are a peace man; we are for war. You come here-bring this woman. You are a spy, perhaps or not; we don't know! We bind you; we gag you; you stay here till all is over. The woman, she"

"You hear me, first, Carl Otto," Kearney broke in. "You're not for war so much as I am. If the stockade is blown up tonight, and if Frank Gibbs is shot, I'm the man will do it. Give me a gun, and put me in front; you'll see! And here's my reason," he went on, turning to the girl. "We'ye kept company for a year; we was to be married next month. The superintendent up to the mills turned her off today. Can you see what for?"

She stood in the light of the smoky lamp, drooping, faltering. Her shrinking figure told the story. We all saw it.

"The superintendent thought it was my doing, maybe," added Kearney, in his husky voice of passion. "Well, ask her if it was!-ask Frank Gibbs!"

"You are a blackguard, John Kearney, anyway," growled Norton, fiercely.

Kearney paid no attention. "She was on her way to the stockade to warn them, and to be with him, when I met her. We

"As catcher, not pitcher, eh?" chuckled Norton. "Well, you'll see most of the game. I shall carry my gun, just for sociability. Low may guns will there be in the crowd, all told?" he asked Petowski. Before the Polander could reply, there

didn't kill her; I" his voice failed him for a moment, but he set his teeth and went on. "I want to kill him. Give me a gun, and keep me in front-that's all."

There was a silence, broken by the soft voice of Petowski. "Ze young ladee, vould zhe like to zay zomet'ngs?"

She stood silent, shaken with convulsive nervous tremors, her face down, her fingers working together. In a moment Norton said, in a voice so kind and gentle that I hardly recognized it, "Speak or not, as you please, my girl. You shall be protected here."

There was another pause, with such stillness that the different breathing of every person in the little room was perceptible. After several efforts, a broken whisper came from the girl, with pauses between.

"I cared for John. But Mr. Frank was nice to me, and I liked him, too. But I wouldn't have * ** I wouldn't only he promised to help father and mother; and I thought

* * * ""

She crouched down on the floor, half kneeling, half sitting, her face in her hands. Kearney stepped to the window, and stood staring out into the rainy blackness. Norton conferred apart for a few minutes with Otto and Petowski, in undertones.

Then the red-haired one spoke. "Miss Harvey stays here till we come back; she excuse me, I lock the door. You come with me--where I can put my hand on you!"-to John Kearney. "The gun for you when the time come. So, now we go." After an hour of such work as I hope not to see again, came this scene:

Four hundred men faced the stockade, at a distance of forty yards. Shots had been fired on both sides, but none had been hit yet. I was near Carl Otto; and I heard him say to John Kearney, "Now! you go!"

The young fellow held in his hand an oblong object, about ten inches long by four wide. He started forward at once at a run, straight for the stockade. Otto covered him with his revolver while he ran. A shot from the palings struck him in the ankle; he fell, but dragged himself forward. Shots fired from the mob served to protect him; he reached the foot of the stockade, and planted the oblong object there. "Stand back, all!-stand back!" called out the leader, waving his arm. But Kearney lay there, and if the explosion took place it was certain death to him.

Then I saw the lank figure of George Norton emerge from the retreating line of the strikers, and stride leisurely towards the fallen man. Shot after shot was fired at him from the stockade, with no effect. He reached Kearney, got him across his shoulder, and set out to return. It was a heavy load. Twice he stopped to rest: he seemed invulnerable. Just

as

he

reached our line, a bullet passed through the crown of his derby hat. The wounded man was taken from him and passed to the rear. George took off his hat, looked at the hole, remarked, "There goes three dollars!" and retired, panting, into the ranks.

The next thing was to set off the explosive (whatever it was) by a shot from a rifle. But the defenders, aware of their peril, had rigged up a reflector lamp, which, glaring in the faces of the shooters, marred their aim, and at the same time exposed them to danger. Petowski, a good marksman, sent a bullet through the reflector, but the dazzling glare was maintained. "It must be zat some ones like Sheorge Norton walk up to heem and explode heem," said Petowski, thoughtfully, slipping in another cartridge.

But volunteers for the certainty of being blown to pieces are not common.

All at once, however, there was a confusion in the ragged ranks, and a voice calling out with the strong English intonations to which I had listened only a few hours before

"H'I'm the man for the job!-h'I'm the man! Damn the h'operators, and Frank Gibbs! Stand back, boys, and keep yer h'eyes on Tom 'Arvey !"

The gray-haired little figure was now visible, struggling with two men who were holding him back. He broke from them; he had a revolver in his hand. Then sounded a shrill, woman's scream, and a girl, his own daughter, leaped forward and threw her arms round him. He tried to throw her off. The light from the reflector fell full upon them and sparkled on the rain that slanted down from the black sky.

Above the stockade, to the left of the reflector, I saw the head and shoulders of a man rise up, and the shine of a riflebarrel. He aimed hurriedly and fired. Tom Harvey's knees gave way under him, and he fell; the girl fell with him. I rushed forward with some one and pulled them back. It was Norton who had helped me. The old man and the girl were both dead by the same bullet.

"Did you recognize the man who fired that shot?" asked George.

"No," said I.

"Well, no matter; we could never hang him for it; the judge and jury are in his pocket. But it was our Christian philanthropist and church-member, Frankie Gibbs, all the same. He has made a clean job of it!"

A cry arose, "Here come the troops!" and the mob melted away.

The Safety Appliance Bill.

N THE January MAGAZINE the "Lodge-Bates Employers' Liability Bill," officially known as S. 6451 and H. R. 15990, was published in full, and all readers were urged to use their influence with their respective Senators and Representatives to secure the adoption of this bill.

The "Safety Appliance Bill," S. 3560, was passed by the Senate at the last term and was referred to the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on June 28, 1902. This bill was reported with amendments, and referred to the House Calendar, and ordered to be printed on December 19, 1902. The following is the text:

An act to amend an act entitled "An act

to promote the safety of employes and travelers upon railroads by compelling common carriers engaged in interstate commerce to equip their cars with automatic couplers and continuous brakes and their locomotives with drivingwheel brakes, and for other purposes," approved Maich second, eighteen hundred and ninety-three, and amended April first, eighteen hundred and ninety-six.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the provisions and requirements of the act entitled "An act to promote the safety of employes and travelers upon railroads by compelling common carriers engaged in interstate commerce to equip their cars with automatic couplers and continuous brakes and their locomotives with driving wheel brakes, and for other purposes,' approved March second, eighteen hundred and ninety-three, and amended April first, eighteen hundred and ninetv-six, shall be

held to apply to common carriers by railroads in the Territories and the District quirements hereof and of said acts relatof Columbia; and the provisions and reing to automatic couplers, grab irons, and the height of drawbars shall be held to apply to all locomotives, tenders, cars and similar vehicles used on any railroad enTerritories and the District of Columbia, gaged in interstate commerce, and in the and to all other locomotives, tenders, cars, and similar vehicles used in connection therewith, excepting those trains, cars, and locomotives exempted by the provisions of section six of said act of March second, eighteen hundred and ninetythree, as amended by the act of April first, eighteen hundred and ninety-six; or which are used upon street railways. said act, any train is operated with power Sec. 2. That whenever, as provided in or train brakes, not less than fifty per centum of the cars in such train shall have their brakes used and operated by the engineer of the locomotive drawing such train; and all power-braked cars in such train which are associated together with said fifty per centum shall have their brakes so used and operated; and, to more fully carry into effect the objects of said act, the Interstate Commerce Commission may, from time to time, after full hearing, increase the minimum percentage of cars in any train required to be operated with power or train brakes which must have their brakes used and operated as aforesaid; and failure to comply with any such requirement of the said Interstate Commerce Commission shall be subject to the like penalty as failure to comply with any requirement of this section.

Sec. 3. That the provisions of section one of this act shall not take effect until July first, nineteen hundred and three, and the provisions of section two of this act shall not take effect until ninety days after the passage of this act. Nothing in this act shall be held or construed to relieve any common carrier, the