dred labor bills were introduced this year in congress alone, while the state legislatures ground out their full share of the annual grist.

ACCIDENTS AND DISEASES.

During the year twelve states passed new or strengthened old laws requiring the reporting of accidents on railways and in mines and factories. Four new states require physicians to report the most common occupational diseases, and New York and Connecticut extended their laws to include brass and wood alcohol poisoning. Laws requiring sanitation, dust and fume removal and washing facilities in factories were widely adopted, and three great leadusing states-Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania-enacted scientific provisions. for protection against trade diseases, particularly lead poisoning. Safety requirements for mines were made more stringent in fifteen states, while twentysix states demanded greater safety for railroad employees.

FACTORY INSPECTION.

Impressed by the successful operation of the Wisconsin industrial commission established in 1911, Ohio, Massachusetts, California, New York and Pennsylvania this year reorganized their labor departments more or less upon that plan, the central idea of which is that the legislature broadly lays down the standards and the commission supplies the details through administrative orders. In over a dozen additional states the factory inspection departments were reorganized and enlarged.

CHILD LABOR.

Legislation directly affecting child labor was enacted in thirty-one states. Shorter hours, a higher minimum age and prohibition of night work are the main tendencies. Five states required the compulsory attendance at continuation schools of all minors employed by virtue of employment certificates.

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION. Connecticut, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Texas and West Virginia joined the fifteen states which

previously provided compensation for injured workmen, making twenty-two states, or nearly half of those in the Union, which have adopted this type of legislation within three years. By a liberal interpretation of their compensation laws Massachusetts and Michigan are at present paying limited benefits to the victims of industrial diseases also. A bill to supersede the present inadequate compensation law for federal employees disabled by accident or disease was introduced in congress by Senator Kern, but has not yet been acted on.

HOURS.

Ohio and Texas are this year added to the twenty-four states and the federal government which have limited. hours on public work to eight a day. Declaring that longer work tends to prevent the worker from acquiring the intelligence necessary to make him a useful citizen, Oregon limited factory hours to ten a day, and several other states restricted hours in peculiarly hazardous callings. Laws demanding one day's rest in seven for industrial workers were adopted in Massachusetts and New York.

IMMIGRATION.

Legislation on immigration has been striking, particularly on the Pacific coast, where the approaching opening of the Panama Canal has again brought this question to the fore. While California, Oregon and Washington united in asking congress in asking congress to exclude all Asiatic laborers, California established a commission whose powers embrace the whole field of educational, legal and industrial protection of incoming aliens.

UNEMPLOYΜΕΝΤ.

Three states provided for free employment offices, while five states took action toward remedying the abuses frequently connected with private employment agencies. Illinois appointed a commission to study the subject. WOMAN'S WORK.

The experimental Massachusetts minimum wage law of 1912, applying to women and children, was followed

this year by similar action in eight more states. In Colorado, Minnesota, Nebraska and Washington the minimum wage commissions may fix also standards of working conditions, while in California, Oregon and Wisconsin they have additional authority over hours. Utah established minimum

wage rates in the law itself. Arizona and Colorado established an eighthour day for women, Montana and Idaho a nine-hour day, and Delaware and Texas a ten-hour day, while night work was prohibited or limited in several states, including New York, Nebraska and Pennsylvania.

It is difficult to generalize about the highways of Europe. As a general rule, the roads in Greece and Italy are poor, those in Switzerland are remarkably good considering the difficulties encountered, while the main roads in Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, England, and Scotland are hard roads and as good or better than the best hard roads in this country. They can be used all seasons of the year, and during and immediately after rains. Large sums of money are expended in their upkeep, they are constantly watched, and when a spot begins to ravel, it is immediately repaired. They are narrow and in many places too narrow for their dense traffic. Most of them are rock roads and the stone is very hard and usually found convenient to the roadside. Piles of broken stone are found along the roadside every little while and frequently a man is passed breaking stone, who gets about one dollar a day.

The main roads receive practically all of the automobile travel. Even with their hard stone their roads are wearing out and in many places asphalt, oil or some other kind of binder is being used. In England and the lowlands of Scotland are many good roads, while in the highlands one good road across each county is about all they can afford. Many years ago a military road was built north and south across Scotland which today is about the only automobile road to and in northern Scotland. The national roads in France were constructed and are maintained as such and are very fine roads, where they

pass through villages they are abominable. In Germany are many fine roads, but many of them are not good in wet weather. Italy has a few good roads, but they are generally dusty, not kept in repair and uninviting. The roads in Europe are generally crooked, have sharp turns and are bounded on either side by high hedges, buildings and other obstructions which require great caution and long runs at high speed are impossible. In England, especially, the farms are hidden from view by the high hedges. Many years ago an earth embankment was thrown up for a fence on which a hedge has been planted, and in many places it is impossible to see over the hedge even on the high seat of a tallyho. The English landlord wants to be exclusive and his farm and farm improvements are hidden where possible.

The automobile is permitted to use some of the highways in the Alps a short time each day, but it is not permitted to use, at any time, the Furka, Grimsley, and other mountain passes, nor is it permitted to use the Almalfi Drive in Italy.

Most of the city automobiles in Europe are for hire and nearly all of the others we saw belonged to American tourists. The business or professional man rarely owns an automobile, while the farmers cannot afford to buy them.

A common and cheap mode of travel for American tourists is the motorcycle or a motorcycle with a side wheel and basket attachment. The bicycle is largely used by residents. A motor

cycle can be shipped across the water for less than $20, while it costs from $350 up to ship an automobile. The charge is made by the space occupied in the boat. In England and Scotland, a Ford car costs $100 more than in America.

Road guides and excellent road maps. can be had of the lines of tourist travel and a membership in the A. A. A. and the Touring Club of France are recognized throughout Europe. The roads are easily followed and are usually angling roads leading from one city to another. Sign boards are erected at branch and cross roads and distance signs along the road. Auto clubs have erected warning signs. The distance post we consider best is about three feet high, with three faces for guide matter-one up the road, one down the road, with a sloping top face showing through mileage.

The roads are generally divided into three classes, the through highway, the inter-city highway, and the farmers' road. The farmers' road is narrow, crooked and is wholly kept up by the farmers. The inter-city is a main road. and maintained by the district. The through highways are maintained by the nation. Foreign duties, license fees, and regulations are sometimes annoying, but are not a serious objection. When you cross an international boundary line, you deposit the import duty and when you cross out of the country you get a refund.

Gasoline and oil are very high. Gasoline costs from forty to fifty cents a gallon, and oil one dollar and twenty cents. In Paris, a tax or tariff of ten cents on a gallon is charged on gasoline, which revenue is used to maintain the highways.

In Paris, there is no speed limit and much reckless driving, and it is said that the man who gets run over is the one who is arrested. In the main streets of London, traffic is so dense you can hardly cross them and you can only hold your place in a moving mass. The automobile that gets into it is in hard lines. Michigan avenue in Chicago

and upper Fifth avenue in New York are better streets for automobiling than any streets in Europe. The finest street in Europe is the Unter den Linden in Berlin, which is three miles long, two hundred feet wide and has two rows of linden trees down the center about forty feet apart, with a driveway on each side of the trees at the sidewalks. It opens into a park at either end, which offers fine automobiling.

The Champs-Elysees, the most famous boulevard in France, is about one hundred and sixty feet wide, with two stretches of trees on either side. It is not in good condition, but is thronged with automobiles and other vehicles. It extends from the heart of the city to the triumphal arch, which stands on an elevation and from which radiate twelve splendid avenues and from which at least fifty miles of streets can be seen.

The streets in the German, Holland, English and Scotch cities are in fine condition and kept scrupulously clean. Those in Paris are in fair condition, while those in Italian cities are rough and unsanitary. The Appian Way, the historical highway out of Rome, was built about 312 B. C., is about two hundred and fifty miles long from Rome to Brindisi, and was paved with flat stones and for eighteen hundred years the great tide of immigration has passed over it. It is worn out and in bad condition at present. The edges of the stones are worn off, forming a groove around the rocks two or three inches deep, which makes it hard to walk over, let alone drive over. The road is lined for miles out of Rome with tombs, and it is said there are over thirty thousand sepulchers on the Appian Way. pian Way. It is dirty, filthy, and uninviting.

The highways of Switzerland through the Alps are the finest mountain roads in the world and yearly attract thousands of tourists. It is a good road or a good path in the right place that enables you to see and appreciate mountain scenery. I believe

experienced by the man away from home.

So much for the contrast in the railroad man's environment when off duty. Let us look next at the "good old times" on the rail. In those good old days a freight brakeman rode on the tops of the cars in the heat of summer and the cold of winter. He applied the brakes by hand and in truth became a "horny-handed son of labor." A passenger brakeman in addition to making all the stops with the hand brake had to clean the cars, and "coal up" the locomotive. In the good old times a fireman had to go out on the front of the locomotive to oil the valves while going at full speed. He also had to polish the brass of which the locomotives in those days contained so much.

There were no distance signals in the good old times, so that there were always chances for getting killed in a head-on or rear-end collision.

In those good old times there were no patent couplers; the old time link and pin was the only bond of union between the cars, and the old-timer very frequently lost his life, or his hand or arm in making a coupling.

In the good old times passenger cars and engines rolled on cast iron wheels, which frequently broke and caused many a wreck.

In those good old times it was frequently impossible to find men to man the trains following pay day, as many of them were too intoxicated to work. We have known of freight trains stand

ing on a side track for hours while the crew were having a good time in a nearby saloon.

In the good old times profanity and obscenity passed current in elite railroad society. But time would fail us to tell of the inconveniences, the injustices, the sordid meannesses and the dangers of those days. Yes, there were giants in those days; men of strong moral fibre, men of strong religious convictions who were not afraid to show their colors.

In the autumn of life, when the shadows are growing longer, and the gaze of the foot-sore pilgrim is turned toward the setting sun, the bright experiences of other days rise out of the evening mists like the mirage before the desert caravan.

Railroad men are, of course, no exception to this rule. As they come into contact with experiences not altogether pleasant, they unconsciously recount the good old days, when life was one huge picnic; when the warm blood bounded through young veins, and when all nature seemed to conspire to augment the happiness of the man whose feet yet pressed "the primrose path of youth."

owners.

Mr. Wilson, who addressed the delegates as "fellow unionists," said:

"The Department of Labor as now organized and directed will be utilized to co-operate with the great trade union movement in its effort to elevate the standard of human society.

"One of the general duties imposed