to $.60 or 2s. to 2s. 6d. per bushel. Most of these articles are more than double these prices in the eastern states, owing to their not growing enough for themselves, and the expense of carriage from the far west. Apples, pears, peaches, &c., are very plentiful and very cheap in the west. We saw whole orchards of fine apples in Indiana and Kentucky rotting on the trees, not being considered worth the expense of gathering. The same evil exists in the western states of America, as respects agricultural produce, as we find in England as to manufactured goods; excessive competition, and consequent reductions in wages, have driven so many from the eastern states, to cultivate land in the west, added to the shoals of emigrants daily arriving from other countries, that the produce is so abundant, it can scarcely be sold for the expense of taking it fifty miles to a market, and prices will still go lower and lower as more and more land is brought into cultivation, till the man who cultivates his own land will not be able to get a living, as is now the case with our friend C. F. Green, with a most beautiful and fertile farm of 140 acres freehold.

One of the greatest evils the working classes have to contend with in the United States and in Canada, for it is generally practised in both countries, is the abominable cheating truck system, which is carried on with more barefaced impudence there, and to a greater extent than it ever was practised in this country. The following is a verbatim copy of a printed notice given by Ben. Cozzens, a large manufacturer, who has two large cotton factories and a print work, and employs from a thousand to fifteen hundred pair of hands, at Crompton mills in Rhode Island. Single men at board, who cannot take goods, have ten per cent deducted from their wages in lieu of it.

NOTICE. Those employed at these mills and works will take notice, that a store is kept for their accommodation, where they can purchase the best of goods at fair prices, and it is expected that all will draw their goods from said store. Those who do not are informed, that there are plenty of others who would be glad to take their places at less wages.

CROMPTON MILLS, February, 1843.

BENJ. COZZENS.

One of the printed notices, from which this was copied, was put into my hands by a man who lately worked for Benjamin Cozzens, and who has returned home, tired of America, in the Roscius. Five colliers returned home by the same vessel, who had been working at Pittsville, in Pennsylvania, where the same vile truck system is carried on to the greatest extent. They declared that when their American wages were turned into cash, they could earn as much, and

were as well off, in their own country. I know the general prevalence of this system, by information from masters as well as men. The average of loss to the workmen by this system is not less than twentyfive per cent of their wages, and in many cases it is attended with a loss of fifty per cent. When masters have no shops of their own, they give notes to the men to get their goods at other shops, who supply them with inferior articles at high prices, and out of the money the workmen are cheated of, they allow a per centage to the master. In many places the shopkeepers will not give flour and groceries for these notes; they tell them these are cash articles only, in which case the men are compelled to take other goods which they do not want, and then have to submit to a still greater loss in disposing of them for cash to get absolute necessaries. At Shreeve's iron and nail works, in Cincinnati, and at other cut nail works, the workmen are paid in casks of cut nails, charged at high prices, by which they lose at least twenty-five per cent in all they receive. When I told the masters that we have severe laws against this infamous practice; they replied, "Here we do as we like; ours is a free country." Yes, America is as free for working men as England, for in both countries, when trade is bad, the workmen must labour on such terms as are offered, or go without employment and starve. The condition of the working classes in America, however, is much better at present than it is here; but my conviction, from all I have seen and heard in America, is, that the wages of labour are everywhere falling, and that the condition of the labourer is gradually becoming worse.

II. IMPROVEMENTS IN MANUFACTURES

Labor-saving Machinery and the Demand for Labor, 18321

The introduction of labor-saving machinery has often been opposed by the laborers whom it has displaced. Such opposition in the United States was never as great as it was in England, yet it was present, though neutralized by the scarcity of labor and the abundance of public land. In the long run, however, those displaced by machinery tend the machines or seek employment in new fields.

The objection usually urged against improvements in machinery, is, that the poor are deprived of employment. It is true, that at the introduction of an invention which produces the same quantity with less labour than was before required, some of the labourers are thrown out of employment - but this though a serious evil is a transient one,

1 American Quarterly Review (Philadelphia, 1832), No. XXIV, 312.

and not for a moment to be weighed against the permanent advantages which result from the improvement to the community generally, and particularly to the labourers themselves. The commodity is not only furnished to them in common with others at a cheaper rate, but the lasting effect of every improvement in machinery is, increased employment. This can be proved by innumerable facts and is a conclusion which might be arrived at by à priori reasoning. It has been shown that by the cost of production being diminished the price is diminished; the price being diminished, the demand is increased; if the demand is increased, in order to supply that demand, a proportionably greater quantity of the commodity must be produced, and to produce this augmented supply, a greater number of labourers is required. It has generally been found in practice that the increased demand consequent upon diminished price has been so great, that many more labourers were required to supply it even with the improved machines, than were required to supply the old demand with the old machines, although they required more labourers to work them.

III. THE FACTORY SYSTEM

A. Conditions at Waltham and Lynn, 18351

One of the first important centers of the factory system was Lowell, Massachusetts. Conditions there were good, and apparently typical of the conditions to be found in the other manufacturing centers of textile goods. They have been described from several angles by different observers. Other factory centers in Massachusetts were Waltham and Lynn. The latter place was at an early date - and has continued to be down to the present time- an important center for the manufacture of shoes. Miss Martineau visited these places during the thirties and afterward recorded her impressions as follows:

I visited the corporate factory-establishment at Waltham, within a few miles of Boston. The Waltham Mills were at work before those of Lowell were set up. The establishment is for the spinning and weaving of cotton alone, and the construction of the requisite machinery. Five hundred persons were employed at the time of my visit. The girls earn two, and some three, dollars a-week, besides their board. The little children earn one dollar a-week. Most of the girls live in the houses provided by the corporation, which accommodate from six to eight each. When sisters come to the mill, it is a common practice for them to bring their mother to keep

1 Society in America. By Harriet Martineau (London, 1837), II, 247-50.

house for them and some of their companions, in a dwelling built by their own earnings. In this case, they save enough out of their board to clothe themselves, and have their two or three dollars a-week to spare. Some have thus cleared off mortgages from their fathers' farms; others have educated the hope of the family at college; and many are rapidly accumulating an independence. I saw a whole street of houses built with the earnings of the girls; some with piazzas, and green venetian blinds; and all neat and sufficiently spacious. The factory people built the church, which stands conspicuous on the green in the midst of the place. The minister's salary (eight hundred dollars last year) is raised by a tax on the pews. The corporation gave them a building for a lyceum, which they have furnished with a good library, and where they have lectures every winter, the best that money can procure. The girls have, in many instances, private libraries of some merit and value.

The managers of the various factory establishments keep the wages as nearly equal as possible, and then let the girls freely shift about from one to another. When a girl comes to the overseer to inform him of her intention of working at the mill, he welcomes her, and asks how long she means to stay. It may be six months, or a year, or five years, or for life. She declares what she considers herself fit for, and sets to work accordingly. If she finds that she cannot work so as to keep up with the companion appointed to her, or to please her employer or herself, she comes to the overseer, and volunteers to pick cotton, or sweep the rooms, or undertake some other service that she can perform.

The people work about seventy hours per week, on the average. The time of work varies with the length of the days, the wages continuing the same. All look like well-dressed young ladies. The health is good; or rather, (as this is too much to be said about health anywhere in the United States,) it is no worse than it is elsewhere.

These facts speak for themselves. There is no need to enlarge on the pleasure of an acquaintance with the operative classes of the United States.

The shoe-making at Lynn is carried on almost entirely in private dwellings, from the circumstance that the people who do it are almost all farmers or fishermen likewise. A stranger who has not been enlightened upon the ways of the place would be astonished at the number of small square erections, like miniature school-houses, standing each as an appendage to a dwelling-house. These are the "shoe shops," where the father of the family and his boys work

while the women within are employed in binding and trimming. Thirty or more of these shoe-shops may be counted in a walk of halfa-mile. When a Lynn shoe manufacturer receives an order, he issues the tidings. The leather is cut out by men on his premises; and then the work is given to those who apply for it; if possible, in small quantities, for the sake of dispatch. The shoes are brought home on Friday night, packed off on Saturday, and in a fortnight or three weeks are on the feet of dwellers in all parts of the Union. The whole family works upon shoes during the winter; and in the summer, the father and sons turn out into the fields, or go fishing.

B. Superiority of the Operatives, 18331

Another English traveler, Patrick Shirreff, "Farmer," visited Lowell in 1835. The superiority of the mill operatives over the same class in England was noticed by this traveler and recorded as follows:

The females engaged in manufacturing amount to nearly 5000, and as we arrived at Lowell on the afternoon of Saturday, we had an opportunity of seeing those connected with some of the largest cotton factories retiring from labour. All were clean, neat, and fashionably attired, with reticules hanging on their arms, and calashes on their heads. They commonly walked arm in arm without displaying levity. Their general appearance and deportment was such that few British gentlemen, in the middle ranks of life, need have been ashamed of leading any one of them to a tea-party. Next day, being Sunday, we saw the young females belonging to the factories going to church in their best attire, when the favourable impressions of the preceding evening were not effaced. They lodge, generally, in boarding-houses, and earn about 8s. 6d. sterling per week, independent of board; serving girls earn about 4s. 3 d.

The recent introduction of large manufacturing establishments, thin population, and ample reward of labour, account for the apparent comfort and propriety of the Lowell young women. The situation of the manufacturing class in Britain is very different; nurtured amidst poverty and vice, they toil in crowded and unwholesome factories from infancy, often disregarded by parents and employers, and attaining maturity ruined in constitution and in morals, with few of the sympathies of humanity.

The factories and dwelling-houses at Lowell are mostly composed

1 A Tour Through North America. By Patrick Shirreff (Edinburgh, 1835),