Daily Wabash Express, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 24 March 1889 — Page 3

THIS YEAB. J*

What was the rhyro* Of last year's time

That made your cheeks so glowing? What was It, dear. Ah, whyfore fear E'en now 'tis worth the knowing?

I landed then.

1

(A fault with men

To fancy, they should know It) That 1* your heart I had some part. For trifles seemed to show It.

But soon you taught How vain my thought,

And though I did not falter To go my way And tl-ere to stay. Some way I thought you'd alter.

And so this year— Pray tell me dear.

If all that glow and tremble. Kor my poor rhyme Of last year's time? Ah! now you can't dissemble.

Good-night, to think I might have said, (iood-nlglit to you such scores of times, Good-night, again Those old, old rhymes repeat themselves within my head,

Good-night, This door, that shuts me out So soon shall close the other way.

And shut me In, when time shall bring Our wedding day.

JURMONY.

Krom All the Year Bonnd. ('HAPTEN I.

Any one who was unfortunate enough to have been walking along the duety road to Pengollan on a certain day at the end of June, not many years ago, might have felt rather inclined to wonder whether, after all, summer was as entirely delightful as he had been wont to think. But no one in the little orchard behind the white walled cottage, which some flower-loving rustic had named "Rose-in-the-Fern," could have failed to be grateful for the arrival of a real June day. lounging at ease in the long grass, hie head supported by the lichen-grown trunk of an ancient apple tree, Prank Hardy was enjoying life as it can only be enjoyed in the days when the name "long vacation" seems absurdly paradoxical and when an unveentf ul day is deemed not "dull," but "peaceful." Around him were a few score fruit trees, of which the majority were old, and covered with the orange and gray tints of lichen. Rows of leafy sycamores stood along the walls, which shut off this little paradise from the glaring high-road beyond, and which were clad in a profusion of glistening hart'u-tongue ferns. It was not yet noon, but the jubilant noise of early morning had grown silent, and the constant murmuring of the bees, as they sped to and fro throughout a little plot of garden ground, made the stillness seem only more intense. Gazing across the curiously-shaped flower beds, with wealth of moss roses, fragrant pinks, harebells and homely stocks, Frank had long been watching a window which stood wide open, as if to let in the scent of the roses which covered the walls of the oottage, and clambered over the low, ijrown-tbatched roof.

to dfgnFful that nothing, save constant iram, could have made them weary of the "f* place. Frank, however, might have found the time 'ying rather heavily upon his hands had it not been for the fact that he was in that blissful state when a man desires only one thing, and is just beginning to own to himself that his hopes of some day securing that prize are not altogether baseless.

Presently he rose and walked towards the window. At a table in the room into which he was looking sat his cousin, Muud Stanley. Her face was buried in her hands and hidden by tumultuous masses of soft, gold brown hair, while she was studying with desperate earnestness the pages of a book entitled "The Elements of Harmony." She had turned away from the window, as if to avoid the manitokl temptations offered by the orchard shades beyond, so that Frank stood there unnoticed for Bome minutes. Presently, however, she sighed wearily, and leaned back in her chair. At that moment Frank tore a branch of scented verbena from a big shrub near at hand, and flung it so that it fell noiselossly amid the papers whereon his cousin had been copying some musical exercises. "I say, Maud," he cried, "it's a downright shame to waste a day like this! As for harmony—it would be much more in harmony with the weather if you were to come out and sit under the trees with me."

Maud looked at him piteously. "Frank, I really must work at this, or 1 shall fail when the examination comes on. I can't come yet, but you know I would like to." "Would you, really?" responded the young man in a satisfied tone. "I can't think why girls will bother themselves with exams., or why they are so horrified nt the prospect of a plow. I wonder if I oould help you, though?"

He stepped into the room, and taking up the book, glanced slowly through the earlier pages.

Maud watched him curiously the while and, at last, when he laid down the book with a despairing sigh, said, with a note of triumph in her voice: "It is ditlicult., isn't it?" "Awfully'."replied Frank. "I'm afraid I shan't be able to help you directly but I could sit here and sympathize until you have done as much as you think necessary." "Indeed you will not!" cried Maud, her blue eyes flashing saucily. "Go back to your seat in the orchard, and perhaps I will come to you in a little while."

There was a very impatient look on his boyish face as he returned to his seat under the apple tree and proceeded to fill a short, black meerschaum. This done, he leaned back against the tree and soon was lost in deep meditations on a subject, the weightiness of which was evident from the solemn and deliberate manuer in which he puffed at his unlovely pipe. Indeed, the matter then engaging his thoughts was one which, under the circumstances, demanded the fullest possible consideration. It was a question of no less a thing than a tramp of five miles to Fairford, the nearest town to Pengollan.

The day, as we have already stated, was a hot one, and the road to Fairford lay white with dust beneath the broiling Bun, shaded by not so much as a single tree when once it had passed the orohard wherein Frank Hardy now lay at

So tbftt

clad in cool flannels, amid the thick grass, shaded by silvery green not BO much feeling the suns warmth as seeing and hearing it in its effect upon the flow­

ers and insects around him, was naturally alow to decide on giving up his present comfort, and undertaking a journey which could not fail to be tiresome in the extreme. But he happened to have strong motives for making the sacrifice, and so at last he rose, and exclaiming, "I'll do it!" leapt over the hedge of the orchard and walked off quickly in the direction of Fairford.

Had he then forgotten Maud's words when she said: "Perhaps I will come to you in a little while?" She, at least, had remembered them, and, half an hour after he had left the orchard, she stepped out into the garden. A wide-brimmed hat shielded her face from the sunlight but had he not forgotten her promise he might have deemed himself a happy youth to see her ae, with lips half-parted, she stood reaching up to pull down a great cluster of pink roses, and fastened them in her soft, white dress.

One may be pardoned, perhaps, for thinking that Maud believed him to be watching her at this moment. At any rate, no one could have refused to render homage to her beauty as she stood to choose which cluster of roses pleased her best and she certainly was needlessly deliberate in arranging them when once they were gathered. What was it he had called her yesterday while he asked for one of the roses which she wore?—"My roBe, that sweetens all my air." Then, suddenly, he had ceased, and asked tenderly, almost anxiously: "And there will be no thorns, dear, for me?"

She bad answered his question with a careless laugh, but she had not forgotten and now, as she looked down at the newly gathered flowers, a quiet smile stole across her face, and her heart made anawer even as he would have de-

But presently she was struck by the silence which reigned unbroken throughout the orchard. She had expected to hear his blithe young voice hail her cheerily and see him eagerly preparing her a pleasant seat. Now, when she looked toward the old apple tree she saw that he was not occupying the seat which he had made his own. Nevertheless, she walked toward it, inwardly determining to punish him for this neglect with several minutes of dignified frigidity. When she reached the favored spot she saw no signs of hia having occupied it, except an old magazine, whosfe every page she had already studied. "Frank," ahe cried, softly, "I am waiting." Then, after a few moments of eager expectation, she cried again: "Frank, I have done with harmony for to-day."

But there came no answer and, with a hurt look upon her face, Maudle ft the orchard and went off to meet her aunt and her cousins, who would soon be returning from the beach to dinner.

CHAPTER II.

Passing down the single winding street which—together with a few scattered cottages on the hillsides, at whose feet the village stands—constitutes the whole of Pengollan, leaving behind you the email cottage chapel, with its dazzling white walla and thatched roof, and the old church, with its tower built of alternate blocks of gray nncl of jet black slag, which waa

ans," rise slowl$'T*£ln f,be *ith the right hand are one or iMfiod the steada, with here and there the lonely cottage of a laborer, from all of which there issue flocks of geese to feed along the muddy bank of a small stream, which presently loses itself in a reed-covered marsh. Soon, however, the road swerves to the right and runs for mile after mile parallel with the coast line.

Following this road for about a mile, and then leaving it for the space of ground, heather, clad and honeycombed by generations of rabbits, which separates it from the cliffs, you suddenly find yourself looking down into a valley which grows gradually shallower as it passes back from the face of the cliffs to the road. Its sides are steep and covered everywhere with purple heather and great clumps of yellow gorse, while now and thea you may find a spray of pure white heather halfhidden beneath more lusty growths of the commoner kinds. A small stream, rising from a perennial spring half-way up the valley, flows murmuring along its bottom, falling at last to the rocka onthe beach, some thirty yards below. Sitting near the mouth of this gorge, there can be seen towards the west the line of low hills which form the western boundary of the bay, and the gray old houses of the fishing town which stands on their furtherest slopes.

Frank and his cousin had already spent many hours here, and looked on this place, which they had called the Happy Valley, as being their own property. Frank, therefore, finding on his return from Fairford that all his friends had left "Rose-in-the-Fern" in order to spend the afternoon elsewhere, took a hasty meal and set off in the direction of the valley in the cliffs. Here he flung himself down with a sigh of contentment, and the scent of the thyme, whereon he had lain down, surged up around him,. as would the waters of a still pool around one who should plunge therein. For awhile he was content to watch the sunlight and to listen to the whisper of the waves as they lapped softly on the beach below. Presently, however, he took a book from the pocket of his bright-hued "blazer," and, glancing round as if to ascertain whether he was alone, he set himself to con its pages with far more earnestness than he had ever evinced in reading for the schools.

Meanwhile, Maud's indignation at Frank's desertion of her had slowly died away, or rather had yielded momentarily to a burning desire to discover what possible counter-attraction had caused him voluntarily tb forego her company. She had gone down to the beach after dinner, but grew tired of the noisy laughter of her cousins, and presently left them to their play, and went off across the "towane" toward the quiet valley, whither Frank had only just preceded her. She had reached the edge of the slope, and was wondering whether it would be possible for her to make the descent without the help of the strong young arm which usually was placed at her service whenever there was—often when there was not—the slightest pretext for its being offered, when she aaw a puff of smoke rise from the bottom of the valley, and fly off on the wings of the wind" from the sea. Then, glancing at the spot whence it appeared to come, she beheld a pair of brown leather boots. Never dreaming that Frank would have come Here, she was just moving away, indignant that an idle tourist should thus intrude on her domain, when the owner of the boots suddenly changed his position and she caught sight of a "blazer," which she recognized as Frank's.

Indignation once more took possession of her. She turned and walked along the side of the valley until, standing at its head, she could see Frank clearly. "He grew tired of waiting for me," she said. "He could not wait half an hour." Slowly she walked down the valley, determined to give her cousin a chance of explaining his apparent carelessness. She did not want to quarrel with him but surely it was right that he should learn that that she was not to be thought lightly of because he happened to have known her all his life "Have you been waiting for me, Prank?" she cried, gaylv.

Her cousin started to a sitting posture, and answered in the guiltiest of tones •'No—that is Why Maud, where did you spring from?"

Maud was sufficiently astonished at the words still more at the embarrassed tone in which he had spoken them. She had seen, too, he blushed hotly when he heard her voice, and that even now he waa trying to smuggle out of sight the book in which he had been so deeply interested a few moments before.

As she approached nearer to him she saw that he was reading. Then she guessed what he had been doing. "I told him this morning that I wanted a book, and he must have gone over to Fairford and fetched one. Poor fellow! how tired he must be!"

So saying, she walked quietly towards her unconscious lover, smiling as she thought how glad his face would be when he should turn and see her there. At last she stood within a few yards of him, and still he remained in ignorance of her presence. But she was on the opposite side of the stream, and the ground was damp and muddy, so that she could approach no nearer.

Her voice was very cold and dignified as she replied: "Are you tired of my company, that you couldn't wait for me this morning, and left me to play with the children this afternoon? You might, at least, offer to help me across the stream."

Then, as he stepped forward with outstretched hand to give her the help she had demanded, she exclaimed: "No, thank you I prefer being here.

Frank lookeid bewildered. "I am sorry, Maud," he said, "but I wanted to get a—some things in Fairford, and quite forgot that you were coming to me."

At this confirmation of her first ex planation of his neglect, Maud looked more friendly and said: "You went to Fairford to get a book? Oh, Frank, I am glad! I think I've read eve'y scrap of print in the house. What did you get?"

At Maud's first words Frank had once more blushed fiercely, as she conclud ed his face was a picture of blank de£pair. "No, Maud, I didn't—that is, I was in a hurry, and forgot it. But I will go over at once and get you one."

Once again the friendliness vanished from Maud's face and it became a perfect study of outraged dignity. "Never mind, thank you," she replied. "You have a book, and you are hiding it from me at this moment. Besides, you blushed when you saw me here. And as you don't offer to lend it me, I suppose that the book is unfit to be read by a lady."

She paused for a moment, as if to see whether he would alter his mind. Her

*5*2*7itS said: "I have no right to qusdinwn~ do not choose to answer

you can read whatever you prefer. Be- her eagerly butneclia ^no^ notice the sidee, I have never read 'Paradise Lost,' or Montgomery's poems. I remember that both are in the parlor at 'Rose-in-the-Fern,' and I have always been fond of poetry."

So Baying, the young lady retraced her footsteps up the valley, a little depressed that she had quarreled with Frank, yet feeling at the same time a novel and rather pleasing sense of her own importance.

Frank stood and watched her as she went from him and when at last she passed out from his view he drew the unfortunate book from his pocket and flung it over the cliffs. The tide was rising rapidly, and the book fell among the mingled sand and spray of the foremost waves. Frank watched it awhile as it was carried hither and thither by the waves. When at last he lost sight of it, he clambered up the Bide of the valley and slowly made his way back to "Rose-in-the-Fern."

CHAPTER III.

He had chosen to go by a footpath which led along the edge of the cliffs, and finally across a tract of desolate sand on to the "towans," and so into Pengollan. Along this path he walked thoughtfully, and not noting how the sky grew every moment darker and darker. At one point of his walk he caught sight of the road, and saw a white-robed figure, which he recognized as Maud's hastening into Pengollin. A moment later he glanced in the direction of the low-lying western hills toward which he was now moving. An unbroken mass of angry purple clouds rose high above them, and the sunlight, struggling through some nearer clouds, fell on the glistening plumage of a few sea-gulls which were visible as tiny moving specks of dazzling white against the purple background. Even while he watched their flight, the sunlight faded from the sea the waves on the further side of the bay grew suddenly dark and troubled, and he heard, mingled with the cries of innumerable sea-birds which floated through the air above and below, the wailing of arising wind. Soon the rain had come, and he was drenched to the skin when presently he reached "Rose-in-the-Fern."

The rain fell continuously throughout the whole afternoon, and did not cease when, earlier than usual, darkness fell. Frank, after sitting with the others for the first part of the evening, went out at last to a disused shed in the old stackyard at the side of the house, and sitting on the shafts of a clumsy country wagon, meditated miserably on the events of the past twelve heurs. He had tried by numberless little attentions to effect a reconciliation with Maud, but Bhe had vouchsafed only monosyllabic answers to his questions, and had greeted his attempts to secure her comfort with a chilly "Thank you." Meanwhile, could he but have known it, Maud was only less unhappy than himself. She sat in the little parlor and vainly endeavored to interest herself in Montgomery's poems. But through all she heard the wearisome dripping of the rain as it fell from the thatch to the graveled path, and the shivering rustle of the wind-troubled roses outside so_ that she found herself before long in just that state of mind in which Macaulay must

THE TERIIE HAUTE EXPRESS, SUNDAY MORNING* MARCH 34, 1899.

have been when he wrote hia criticism on the bard whose works ahe waa reading. Presently, however, the wind grew silent and, when the hour for retiring came round, the rain had altogether ceased. A cold "good-night" was the only greeting exchanged by the two lovers.

On the morrow the Weather waa again perfect, and the whole earth seemed to be fresher and brighter for the shower of the previous evening. Frank was awakened by the cooing of a big white pigeon, which had flown thi-ough his window, and was no* perched, in an attitude of the absurdest pride, at the foot of his bed. He sprang np with an en0fgy which made the startled fantail forget its dignity, and disappear through the window at which' it had entered. Then he walked to window and looked out at the tiny, aid-time garden, whence a gloesy blackbird darted with a shriek of indignation into the cool green orchard beyond.

The first thought was of Maud. "A glorious day again!" he exclaimed. "I'll get Maud to come Then he remembered yesterday, and the sentence, begun in such glad tones, remained unfinished.

But while he was completing his toilet he made up his mind to sake strenuous efforts to prevent a second day being wasted through his own carelessness and Maud's lack of faith. He would go over to Fairford and get her some books then, perhap?, she would be willing to forgive him. But when he reached Fairford, the bookstall at the railway station was not yet open. Life goes at an easy pace in West Cornwall. &°d especially is this true of aH who are in any way connected with the railway. It was, therefore, lata when he got back to Pengollan, and learned from Miss Dolby, the owner of "Rose-in-the-Fern," that all the others had gone down to the beach.

Just near Pengollan there is a sudden outward curve of the coast line, and for a mile or so there are no cliffs worthy of the name. The "towans" rise slowly from the road, and finally slope down in steeps of loose sand to the smooth, broad beach. The road does not follow this curve, but goeB straight ahead until it once more nears the rugged cliffs, amid which lies the Happy Valley.

Frank then pocketed one or two of the books which he had brought front Fairford, and made his way across the "towans" until he stood just above the beach to which Pengollan is largely indebted for its popularity.

Then he sat down among the clumps of reed-like grass, planted by the farmers whose sheep graze on the "towans," so as to prevent their pasturage from being destroyed by the drifts of sand which would assuredly be carried inland on stormy days it anywhere the loose sand were uncovered.

Maud and her cousins were walking along the water's edge, and it waB not long before they had noticed Frank's arrival. The children greeted him with shouts but Maud made not the slightest sign of recognition and so he was content to lie back in his seat and watch them, waiting for a moment when Maud should be separated from her companions to approach and renew his attempts at bringing about a reconciliation. Presently, however, a strange excitement became the members of the apparent among little group on the sand. The children

——opposite side of the had been gathering, with the indiscrimi^^ai^eness of their kind, a

Wg^fabJj111 #he

shaP«iof

sea-shells

and

One of them

and,^oT^urae, patfm^A^fji^jji^le.jp^hw8,^suddenly

sudden gladness which lit her face, nor the quick glance which she cast toward the lonely watcher on the sand hill. "Yes, it, is a book, Jack," she said at length. "Will you sell it to me for a penny?"

The child looked up at her with the wildest delight. "1 don't want it. I'll give it to you if you want it but I'll take the penny."

Maud extracted the required coin from a dainty purse, wrote a pencil note' on a scrap of paper, and gave both to her young cousin. "Take that to auntie," she exclaimed. "I think you'd better all go to her. I am going to speak to Frank."

Nothing loth, the children sped off to where Mrs. Hardy sat comfortably ensconced in a snug corner under the shade of a great pile of rocks. She was a little astonished at receiving the note but she had not been blind to the events of the last few days had guessed that her niece had quarreled with Frank, and so was not long in arriving at the real meaning of the note, which read: "DEAR AVNT Frank and I are going over to the Happy Valley. MAUD."

Meanwhile Frank had been puzzled at Maud's dismissal of her small cousins. Still more was he amazed to see her coming slowly toward him with Jack's treasure-trove held behind her back. As she drew near he ran down to meet her, in order to spare her the trouble of toiling up those slopes of loose, dry sand. "Have you forgiven me, Maud?" he cried, gladly.

In a tone which would have been chilling if it had not been for the smile, half mischievous and wholly tender, which lurked in her blue eyes, Maud replied: "Will you lend me your book to-day, Frank?"

Frank blushed again, as he had done yesterday. Maud saw this, but was not angered by it now. Nevertheless, when he Btepped forward to give her the books which he had just brought from Fairford, she retreated from him. "Will you, at least, tell me why you refused to lend it to me?" she sud in a voice filled with badly-suppressed mirth.

Then, while Frank was still trying confusedly to discover an answer to her question, she brought forward the book which Jack had found at the tide-mark. She held it out to him and said laughingly: "Have you lost it, and ia this it?"

Frank took it from her, and while she read in his face the answer to her last question, he was looking down on the torn and sodden book which he recognized at once. The original covers had been torn off by the waves, but the title-page remained, and on it he read the words, "The Elements of Harmony while it was just possible to trace his own name, written hastily in pencil marks, now almost obliterated. It was the book which he had' yesterday flung over the cliffs—the book to get which he had tramped through heat and dust to Fairford.

Then Maud spoke: "You dear old fellow, did you think that you could help me, and were you ashamed to be caught preparing it? Frank, I will trust you always now."

Then Frank began incoherently to tell how glad he was that their brief quarrel was ended how wretched he had been while it lasted. Ana presently they moved away across the "towans" towards the Happy Valley.

HfifSSl

CHEAP 1AB0R IN CHINA.

A Frightful State of Poverty in the Ltnd Overrunning With Celestials.

NUMBERLESS TRADES AND LABUR ASSOCIATIONS.

The Bagcrar's Union'arid Barber's Guild—TJtie Relations of Capital and Labor.

Special Correspondence of the World. CANTON, China., February 15.—I have come to Canton to see how our Chinamen live and work at home. I no longer wonder at Chinese immigration to America, for I have had a taste of Chinese cheap labor in China. It is from this district that the bulk of our imtnigration comes, and there are coolies here and to spare. This province is one ef the most thickly settled of the provinces of the Chinese empire. It is not quite as big as Kansas, but it contains one-third as many people as the whole United States. Canton itself is bigger than New York City and a twelve-mile radios from its center embraces, I am told, a population of 3,000,000. There are villages outside as big as Washington or CwVeiand, and many of the small towns of the province have been living for years upon contributions from Amercan Chinese laundries. How the people swarm. Almond-eyed, yellow-faced men, women and children tramp upon one another's heels and the thousand streets of this city are more crowded than Broadway in front of Trinity Church at the busiest hour of the day.

Every one is working, from the halfnaked, bar-legged man who, with a hat as big as a parasol, carries great loads upon his shoulders, to the woman in pantaloons and short skirts, who sculls the boat on the river, and to the keeneyed merchant who, in round, black cap and gorgeous silks, stands surrounded by his shelves of fine goods. Every branch of business goes on, and Canton is one of the great manufacturing cities of the world. With the rudest of toola these long fingered Celestials turn out the finest of carving in wood and ivory, and with the weaving machines of a thousand years ago they make dresses for modern Europe. I saw a Canton lumber mill this afternoon. Two men sawed logs into boards with cross-cut saws, They were naked save a breech clout, and they moved up and down all day for 10 cents apiece. Wages here and all over China are at the lowest ebb, and this great human bee-hive containing from onefourth to one-third of all the people in the world, goes on with its labor as quietly as though America did not exist.

What wonderful workers they are and how they tug and pull and coil their keen brains from morning until night all over the empire. From Peking to Canton I have found the streets of every city and village filled with a pushing, hurrying throng. I have seen halfnaked men sweating in carrying loads and delicate women doing

the

drays. Human muscle more work

worKs of

doeB even

China than MM,

materiais"¥or these houses are carried miles up by coolies. Women in Hong Kong carry two great baskets of stone fastened to poles which they swing over their shoulders, and of the 30,000 people who make up the boat population of the Hong Kong bay, the chief workers are women. They row boats with babies on their backs, and I see them standing and sculling with their little ones tied to their shoulders.

The cities are bee-hives of work. The streets are made up of cells open at the front and full of manufacturers and traders. Everything is done by hand and the working hours are from daylight until dark. I have made inquiries into wages, and I find them so low that they would hardly pay for the tobacco and coffee of our American laborers. Coolies employed in foreign families get as low as $3 50 month and board themselves. Skilled cooks receive $4 a month, and at Foo Chow one of the wealthiest Chinamen of the city told me that the wages of masons were 18 cents a day, and the beet carpenters received but 20 cents. Women engaged in making grass cloth, a sort of linen, are paid from 2 to 3 cents a day, and an old missionary tells me he can get ten men lo work a whole day for $1 and leave 10 per cent, to the man who hires them for him. Here in Canton the chief means of conveyance is by chair. The chairs are made of wicker and covered with cloth so that they look like a box. This box is swung in the center between two long poles, and one man walks in front with the Stwo poles resting on his shoulders and another walka behind holding up the chair in the same way. The regular native wages for such men is $4 a month and less, and in the interior the prices are still lower.

Ordinary field hands get from three to four cents a day with food, and skilled workmen receive from five to six cents. Doctors who get as high as 20 cents a visit in the cities come down to 10 centB a visit in the country, and engravers and painters receive from ten to twelve cents a day. Theater actors are paid proportionate low rates, and there are no 85,000 a night Pattis or Henry Irvings in China. The theaters, you know, last all day and half the night, and a troupe of thirty players will play for forty-eight hours for $30. Silk weavers and silk-reelers are among the highest paid men, and their work can only be done when the cocoons are ready for reeling. During this time the men work for weeks day and night, and they receive from $1 to $2 a day. The grand average of skilled labor runs, however, about as follows: Master workmen receive $3 a week, or $156 a year, and workmen under these $1.50 a week or $78 a year. Youngsters and females get 50 cents a week, and these are considered good living wages. For them the laborer does not growl as to the hours of work, and the labor unions of China regulate the hours only in the case of men working by the piece, and not by the day.

There is no country in the world where labor is so organized as in China, and every branch of employment has its trade organization or guild. There are 1,700 men who run passenger wheelbarrows in Shanghai and the guild that these belong to regulates the rate of fare and the hours of work. Weavers have a guild, the barbers have their trades unions, and even the beggars have their associations presided over by a president who assigns to each his beat and who '1

can punish with his bamboo such as refuse to obey him. These guilds are very strong and their demands are respected by the government. The barbers were for a long time prohibited from the literary examinations, which are the only passports to office, cn the ground of their being engaged in a tnenial occupation. They combined together in different parts of the empire and the government had to come to terms. One of the great luxuries in which the Cbinaman delights is having the back ot' his shoulders and neck kneaded after his head iB shaved. Thebarbers concluded that this was below their dignity and their union forbade it. They also prohibited barbers from ear creating during the last six days of the year, as at this time there is so much head shav ng to do in preparation for New Year that there is no time for dirty ears.

China has, perhaps, more barbers than any other country in the world, and the Chinese head needs more attention than any other head on the globe. The Chinese dude has his head shaved daily, and the man is very poor who oannot afford his weekly shave. A place is left at the crown about as big around as a tin cup, and the hair which grows on this forms the cue. The Chinaman has his face shaved even to the forehead and about the eyes, and you find the barbers on the streets, in shops, in the country, and, in fact, everywhere. Itinerant barbers carry two small red stools made of boxes, in the shape ot a pyramid, in which they have drawers containing their razors and basins. They Bhave without soap and they use a twopronged piece of iron with which they make a noise like that of a mammoth tuning fork as ths sign of their trade. You hear this noise everywhere throughout China, and one of the commonest sights of the streets and country roads is one of these barbers at work upon a patient. The Chinese razor is in the ehape of an isosceles triangle. It is made of rude steel, and many of them are pounded up from worn-out horseshoes, which are imported from Europe by the thousands of barrels, and which are used in making all kinds of Chinese implements. Tne rates of shaving are very low, ranging from a few tenths of a cent to ten cents and more, according to the class to which the barber belongs and to the standing of the customer. The barbers' unions fix the rate of shaving for their members, and they have fines and penalties.

These labor unions regulate the laws as to apprenticeship. They fix the number of apprentices that one master may have, and the silk weavers' union forbids the teaching or employment of women. Apprentices receive no wages. They work from three to five years and get only food and lodging. No man can employ an apprentice who has not served out his full time, and some trades provide that only the sons and relatives of the workmen may be taught them. The' usual penalty for acting contrary to the rules of the guild is for the guilty member to pay a fine to the guild, or to furnish a supper or a theatrical performance. These are, however, for minor faults only.

In serious cases there is no punishment to severe, and an employer who violated one of the rules in regard to apprenticeship was not long ago bitten to death in Soo Chow, a city not far froth Shanghai. The employer was a gold beater, and there was a great demand for gold leaf for the emperor. This man took more apprentices than

ber of them. Mnzcr over the rest, and in order that all might be implicated, no one was allowed to quit the place without his gums and lips were bloody. The murderer who took the first bite was discovered and beheaded, but the others went free. Colonel Denby has sent a report of this affair to the state department at Washington.

These Chinese trades unions are against the introduction of machinery. A sewing machine for the making of Chinese shoes was destroyed at Canton not long ago, and a strike was caused here by the importation of sheet brass for the making of cooking utensils, as this would injure the business of the brass hammerers. As a rule, however, strikes are not common. The organizations of both employers and laborers are such that it pays to settle matters by arbitration.

The officials of the cities are, as a rule, on the side of the workmen in cases of trouble, as the employers are the capitalists, and by having a cause against them they are able to squeeze money out of them for the settlement. For this reason the employers wish to have as few labor troubles as possible.

Speaking of employers' unions, all classes of Chinese business men have their guilds and these are almost as old as the country. One of the finest club houses of China is that of the Canton merchants of Foo Chow. It is made up of a great number of finely finished rooms, elegantly furnished in Chinese fashion, and located in the best part ot the city. Here the merchants come to drink tea and to chat. They have a temple and a theater connected with it, and the club consists of five hundred members. I visited at Shanghai some of the finest specimens of Chinese architecture I have seen. They were guild halls belonging to tea and rice merchants, and they had wonderful gardens of caves and rocks built up in the busiest part of the city. These guilds regulate the commerce of China. They fix the rate of interest, the time on which goods may be sold, the weights and the standards of goods. A member using different scales than the one prescribed is fined, and a man acting contrary to the guild can, in many instances, not go on with his business. One of the druggist's guilds has just adopted some new rules, which lie before me. These prescribe that accounts shall be settled three times every year, and that a discount of 5 per cent, may be allowed on cash transactions. No member in the guild shall be permitted to trade with the others while he is in debt to a member of the guild, and any member who violates these laws shall pay for two theater plays for the guild and for the drinks and a feast for twenty members. Some of these guilds prescribe that promissory notes shall be dated on the day of aale and all of them fix the rules of giving credit The banker's guild fixes all matters relating to interest, and these different organizations make the dealings of foreigners with Chinese more safe than such dealings would be in other countries. The Chinaman respects his contract, and if he does not his guild makes him.

FRANK CARPENTER.

A Connecticut reporter won a bride 1 his clever detective work in finding ber long lost mother. Having found his mother-in-law, he may have the questionable privilege ot keeping her.

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