be successful farmers where they have so far settled in the southern cotton and sugar plantations. The great lumbering companies of the south are commencing to employ them and it is estimated that more than 100,000 are working in the southern Mississippi valley. They have there begun to purchase little farms, to build good homes and to put money in the bank. They are reported to be prompt in paying debts, and to have improved morally as well as financially since arriving. The younger of these Italians do not wish to return to Italy. This longing common to the older ones has caused their race to be generally disliked in America.

Somewhat of a setback to the immigration plans of a part of the south will, however, be given by the contract labor exclusion clause of the new law. Some months ago the state of South Carolina made arrangements by which an immigrant ship was run directly from Bremen to Charleston and the state paid for the tickets of many of the immigrants, who undertook the voyage in consequence of more or less specific promises of employment. Certain labor unions raised the protest that this method of enticing aliens. to our shores would be a violation of the contract labor clause of the new law, and

the Attorney General has ruled that they are correct. However, other southern states have since sent representatives abroad to endeavor in some manner to arrange for direct steamship lines to our big southern ports.

A wise reform provided by the new immigration law is the requirement that more and better steerage space per immigrant be given by vessels. One of the first acts of Oscar Straus, after assuming office as Secretary of Commerce and Labor, was to look into this question. He has been abroad many times-in fact, is of foreign birth-and has taken a personal interest in the condition of the poor immigrants en voyage. He at once appointed a commission to go over the question carefully. The old laws were not especially regardful of the comfort of the hordes of immigrants pouring in from the countries of the old world. They were made largely from the viewpoint of the welfare of this country. course, all present-day alien legislation is enacted on a similar basis, but wherever possible, the physical well-being of the immigrant is more strictly attended to. Secretary Straus could sympathize with the stranger in his crowded steamer quarters. It was his opinion that since modern steel vessels now have so much

Of

more room than had the old-time vessels the advantages should be shared with the poor immigrants. The framers of our immigration law, at the instigation of the commission mentioned, have made provision, in substance, as follows:

Each adult immigrant will be assured 126 or 140 cubic feet according to whether he is on the upper or lower steerage decks. Those on the upper deck must have at least eighteen square feet of deck surface and those below at least twenty, and there must be seven feet from deck to ceiling, so to speak. On the lower steerage decks less than seven feet from floor to ceiling may be allowed if there is thirty square feet of floor space per passenger. This same extra allowance of floor space must be made also if light and air are admitted to the steerage through apertures averaging less than three square feet to every one hundred square feet of deck surface. Sailing vessels must allow at least one hundred and ten cubic feet per immigrant, and will be forbidden to carry passengers in any "between-decks" or in any space having less than six feet from floor to ceiling. That vessel owners may have ample time in which to make these alterations, this wise reform will not go into effect until January 1, 1909, after which all ships bringing immigrants or other steerage passengers to our ports will

have to comply or pay

$50 fine for each pas

into account. The former law closed our gates to certain mental, moral and physical defectives, but the new law increases the number of excluded classes.

It bars out consumptives-all "persons afflicted with tuberculosis." The White Plague is thus specifically mentioned for the first time in an immigration law. The fact that this grim disease is claiming about 146,000 of our population per year, which is more than the annual mortality average of both armies in our Civil War, sufficed to move the framers of the new law to this reform. Science has lately pointed to the fact that consump

A DUTCH MAIDEN.

A good type of the thrifty Hollander.

Of course if we are to breed a healthier race we must import healthier parents for that race; and the new law takes this

try among foreign-born inhabitants who have settled in localities differing in climate from those to which they have become habituated in youth at the old home.

And then there are added to the list of excluded classes all imbeciles, feebleminded persons and those so defective mentally and physically that their ability to make a living is affected. During last year in particular there was noted by the examining surgeons of the immigration service an increased number of weakminded or imbecile aliens, whose cases were not so marked as to justify the diagnosis of idiocy or insanity required by the old law, but who nevertheless threw serious doubts on their ability to support themselves.

That immigration has by now nearly skimmed off the cream of the old world's peasantry must indeed appear to anyone who compares the medical reports made by our immigrant inspectors in recent years. Lately there has been a significant increase of persons who under the old law have had to be passed by the immigration surgeons, but who have been marked as of "poor physique." This marking has implied that the subject has been undersized or poorly developed; has feeble heart action, arteries below the standard size, etc.; in other words, as one of the surgeons explains, that he has

become physically degenerate, and, hence, is especially undesirable as a citizen.

"That the physical and mental quality of the aliens we are now receiving is much below that of those who have come in former years is evident," says Commissioner General Sargent. He recently instituted an investigation of the charitable institutions of the country, and actually found 30,000 alien paupers, including lunatics, in our public institutions, besides 5,000 more in private institutions. Then he found about 10,000 alien criminals in our penal institutions, making altogether a grand total of 45,000 aliens in institutions, all but 5,000 of them supported at public expense. In addition he found in these institutions about 65,000 naturalized foreigners. New York state was found to be supporting 12,440 insane criminal and pauper aliens; Pennsylvania, 5,000; Massachusetts, 5,400; and Illinois, 3,350. But the most striking fact gathered by the Commissioner General was that while in the United States there are seventy-five citizens to each alien there are in our insane asylums and poorhouses only six citizens to each alien.

The new law further provides that any

alien woman or girl found to be living the life of a prostitute at any time within three years after entering the country shall be deported. This provision will give the government a powerful weapon with which to attack the "white slave" octopus, which has become so formidable of late in New York and other large cities.

But in the hands of the unscrupulous police of some cities and of other subordinates in the machinery of government it would be a powerful instrument with which, to exact blackmail from the innocent.

only a small minority of our immigrants. It has always been so. Last year with the 764,463 men admitted to Our land there came only 336,272 women. In his quest of picturesque

whole shipload of this raw material out of which is to be molded our future Venuses. There are head scarfs and head shawls of all kinds, all colors, all materials; from all countries, all climes, all points of the compass. Today they enter

A CASE ON APPEAL.

human types the artist can search the whole world over, but no single spot can offer such a variety of womenkind as is to be found at Ellis Island-the funnelneck through which the old world pours into the new.

Lacking only the background of their home environment, he finds passing through this labyrinth of mysterious aisles and entryways, the Dutch maiden in her quaint white cap, the bareheaded girl of Southern Italy with her goldhooped ears, the olive-skinned Arab beauty with black eyes flashing the fire of the East, the broad-lipped maid of Russia, the broad-browed miss of Switzerland, the freckled colleen of old Erin, and the bonny Scotch lassie with her sandy hair. There is scarce a hat in a

the land of promise, bag upon back and all their worldly goods therein. But, what a metamorphosis within only a sea-. son hence, or even a month! Nowhere on the continent whence they came would such a transformation be possible. A peasant passing from Russia into Germany, France, Italy, Spain, or from any of these lands into the other would still remain a peasant.

The vast majority of our newly-welcomed alien women are good and pure. But there are webs drawn across the very portals of our immigrant stationswebs whose meshes are fashioned to catch them. Dire punishment is to be meted out also to these spiders which prey upon the innocent maidenhood of the old world's peasantry.

HEN Harry Pendleton agreed to make the first public ascent in his dirigible balloon at the Fourthof July celebration at Three Pines fairgrounds, he told his friends that he meant to make the event as little like an ordinary public show as possible. He was evidently quite serious minded over the event, indeed, for it would be the first real test of the success of his plan for steering the lighter-than-air type of flying apparatus, and he undoubtedly had reason to hope for something in the way of results.

But on the day of the event, when he found himself the center of interest of a big Fourth-of-July crowd of his celebrating fellow townsmen, it appears that the spirit of boyish, fun-loving desire for sensation came upon him. Perhaps it was because it happened that, at the moment he first looked about the crowd surrounding him, he saw Mary Courtney and Augusta Grace in the foreground, holding each other's hands, quite as two children might have done, unconscious of the fact in their interest in the scene, the temptation to tease a diffident and a jolly girl was irresistible. Perhaps it was because there was truth in the report that Mary, of whom he had avowedly been fond since they were children, had recently shown something less than thorough approval of his long course of experiments, that he had a special a special temptation to tease her. But, whatever the cause of his impulse, he did the thing that made all the trouble, with an intent, common apparently to all the crowd that day, simply to make fun.

"Is there any young lady or young

gentleman in the crowd," he asked, standing in the cleared space near his balloon, "who would like the experience of a short ride in the car of the balloon, before the ascension?"

People expected a joke and no one replied at once. Pendleton, with mischief in his eyes, turned slowly about, with hands outstretched, and waited. Then he laughed and turned to the two girls.

"Is the invitation too general?" he asked. "Well, then, will the two young ladies here, who stand holding each other's hands so companionably, accept my offer of the unusual chance?"

Mary Courtney was a very pretty but a very quiet girl, reserved and rather shy. She dropped her friend's hand immediately. But Harry was coming. straight across the open space toward them, bowing and smiling, immensely polite and pleading. "Ah, do, indeed, young ladies," he was saying in showman's tones. "I shall be honored. sides, think of the opportunity. You can always say that you have made the ascension. It will not hurt you. You will only rise to the end of the ropes and they are securely held. Then you will be drawn down safely again."

Be

Some of the things he said Mary did not hear very well. The crowd was laughing and half-cheering. Some of those about her called out bantering encouragement. One acquaintance behind her gave her a little push playfully. It was confusing and, to Mary, very unpleasant. She was very angry with Harry. And then she turned to look at Augusta and was surprised. In Augusta's eyes was a queer light of excitement, mischief and eagerness.