THE place has about fifty thousand inhabitants. It has one great industrial occupation, the making of cotton cloth of various kinds. There are more than forty mills used for this manufacture, great buildings, some of them hundreds of feet in length, and six stories high; most of them are of granite, but a few are of brick. They do not occupy any particular region in the city, but are found in nearly every part of it, — in the central squares and principal business streets, and even in those in which the most substantial and elegant dwellings are situated, as well as in the poorer quarters and in the suburbs.

I visited the place recently, and saw something of the life of the operatives and of other portions of the population. Various friends had offered me letters of introduction to prominent citizens and owners of the mills; but I have long been aware that when one wishes to see things directly, and for himself, introductions are not always helpful. They are apt to commit an observer to certain lines and methods of investigation, and they necessitate the adoption, at the outset, of some plan of operations; and this, whether it is adhered to or discarded, is commonly a disadvantage. A man who is capable of making valuable observations of the life around him can usually obtain access to all those persons

who possess knowledge or information which is essential to his objects; and he can do this most successfully by making his plans as he goes on, - that is, by leaving himself free to adapt his methods, at every step, to circumstances and conditions which could not possibly be foreseen.

I employed one day in leisurely sauntering about the city, in the course of which I saw nearly all its streets and byways, its nooks and out-of-the-way corners. During the day the noise of the machinery of the mills fills the air of the whole city with a muffled humming sound, which is not unmusical, but rather soft and dreamy; inside of the mills the shrill buzz and clatter are at first rather painful to unaccustomed ears. In the evening I saw the mill people on their way to their homes. When I walked in the direction opposite to theirs, so as to meet them and see their faces, I noted that they all regarded me with alert, searching glances, and they were plainly at once aware that I was a stranger. A group of children came first, laughing and chattering. They were about twelve or fourteen years old. One of the girls gave me a critical look, and remarked to her companions, "He's a detective." I heard that exclamation many times during the first few days of my sojourn, but the operatives soon rec

ognized me everywhere. I often walked in the same direction with them, going a little more slowly than they, so as to hear their talk. It did not differ greatly from that of young people of about the same age of any class with which I am acquainted: "what Jane said about you;" "what Ned told Delia Smith;" and animated remarks about the "new things" which some of the girls had bought lately, with grave talk of the sickness of some of their companions; all this accompanied and interrupted by frequent careless, noisy laughter. It was rather pleasant and encouraging. The young people of the mills appeared to be very much like other young people when in a crowd together in the street. When I inquired at the hotels whether one could see the mills, the answer was, "Yes, most of them; but at a few of the largest the rules forbid the admission of visitors. The officers are very strict, and if you are a stranger you cannot go in." In the shops and business houses which various errands led me to visit, and in which I always met gentlemen who were ready to talk about the trade and manufactures of their city, this information about the mills from which visitors were excluded was often repeated, and the same mills were always named. I therefore decided to begin by looking through the places which were thus reported to be difficult of access. I encountered no obstacle anywhere that was not easily surmounted. I passed through more than half a dozen of the largest mills, inspecting all the processes and details of the manufacture, from the boiler room in the cellar, where the smooth, resistless swing of the gigantic Corliss engines made one feel as if he were watching the motion of a planet in its path, to the enormous tubs of sizing, high up in the attic.

In all the mills which I visited, far more than half the operatives were girls and women. I saw very few children who appeared to be under twelve years of age, though I heard much criticism, among some of my new acquaintances in the city, of the cruelty of the laws and

usages relating to the employment of young children in the mills. As to nationality or descent, the English, Scotch, and Irish operatives, with their children born here, constitute the most numerous classes, but there are also many French Canadians. I had often heard and read the assertion that very few Americans, or, more strictly, descendants of American families, now work in the mills. But I found among the operatives a considerable proportion of young women who are the children of families that have lived in this country for one hundred and fifty or two hundred years, and I have since learned that the same thing is true of several other factory

towns.

All the mill people looked as if they had enough to eat, but some of them showed in their faces indications of the effects of poor cookery. Some had the peculiar look which comes from living in impure air, and this result is produced chiefly, as I was convinced by what I saw in the mills and in the homes of the people, by the foulness of the air in the rooms in which the operatives eat and sleep. In many, probably in most, of their homes the cooking is done in the "sitting-room;" that is, the apartment in which the members of the family pass the evening together until bed - time. The cost of fuel is one of the principal expenditures and burdens of the household, and economy in its use is one of the most important means of saving; so the room is kept closely shut to prevent the escape of heat and the entrance of cold air from the outside. The impurity of the air in these rooms during cold weather is very great, and this is one of the most unwholesome features of the life of the operatives.

The cotton is brought to the mills in the bale, "just as it comes from the fields in Indiana, or wherever it grows," as an obliging overseer in one of the largest mills explained to me, and all the processes of picking, cleaning, carding, spinning, weaving, dressing, and finishing are performed in the same building. Nearly all this work is done by machinery, and the labor of the oper

atives consists almost entirely in attendance upon the machinery. There are a few things, such as the drawing of the threads of the warp through the "harness," which are done with the fingers, but the wonderful capabilities of the machines leave very few things to be done by human hands. Many of the looms are so constructed that they stop at once if a thread breaks, and do not go on till it is mended. Each girl tends four, five, or six looms. A few of the most skillful can manage eight looms each, as many as the best hands among the men.

There is not much work that requires great muscular strength or exertion, not much lifting or handling heavy materials or articles of any kind. Most of it requires alertness and exactness of attention, the concentration of the faculties and their constant application to the processes going on under one's hand, rather than severe muscular effort. Such work usually exhausts the nervous vitality quite as rapidly as many occupations which appear to be more difficult and toilsome. Most of the operatives are necessarily on their feet nearly all the time, and this feature of their work has an unfavorable effect upon the health of the women and girls. They all appear to be tired at the end of their day's toil, though I saw no signs of extreme weariness or exhaustion. It is very

hard for any one who is not well, or who is "nervous" and sensitive. The noise of the machinery then becomes insufferably irritating and torturing.

No part of the work in the mills appeared to me so severe, or so unwholesome, for girls and women as is the toil of those who run sewing-machines in city shops; yet it is work which requires good health and high average vitality. The high temperature which is necessary for some of the processes of cotton manufacture renders the operatives specially liable, during the winter, to injury by taking cold when they pass into the open air, unless they use some precautions against it by putting on extra clothing when they leave the mills. But I observed that most of them were careless

in this respect, though not more so, probably, than is usual among the pupils of the high-schools in every part of our country. I noted considerable coughing, and certain complained of sore throats. In several departments of a mill the air is always filled by fine flying fibres and particles of cotton. Some of these are drawn into the lungs, and this produces injurious effects. When the lungs are at all sensitive or inclined to disease, this dust increases the irritation. Even for persons who are strong and well it is of course unwholesome, and it probably causes greater injury to health than any other feature or condition of mill work.

A group or company of the young people of the mills, when approached by a stranger, always exhibits the peculiar instinctive shrinking and drawing together for self-defense which is shown by wild animals in similar circumstances. In the mill people it is a feeling of distrust, suspicion, and hostility regarding all who do not belong to their class. The first question asked of a stranger is always, "Do you wish to get work in the mill?" Of course I was simply a stranger, who wished to see the mills and the work which was done in them. During the hour at noon, when the machinery is at rest, is a favorable time for forming some acquaintance with the operatives. Many of them have brought their dinner with them, and they eat it sitting on the floor, or standing in groups together. One scarcely knows when or how the eating is done in some of these little companies, for the talk and chatter and laughter are incessant. The presence of a stranger is at first a restraint, and excites their caution when he approaches or addresses them. Unless a man knows how to penetrate and disarm this reserve, he will learn little from them of their thought or life. They soon became merry and communicative with me. Some of the younger girls

were then inclined to be forward and impudent, but they were checked and controlled by the older ones.

The girls and young women in the mills "learn to take care of themselves," to use a phrase which one often hears

among them; that is, they are not at all ignorant of evil or vice. They know what are the dangers that beset and threaten young girls in their circumstances, among men many of whom are coarse and sensual. In such conditions the delicacy and modesty of thought, deportment, and speech which are so precious and lovely in the character of young women are almost impossible, and we have no right to require or expect them. But these girls are not so liable to be led into actual vice or immorality as are some of the pupils in our Sunday - schools, whose very ignorance of evil, and of the need of avoiding or resisting it, sometimes exposes them to temptation unwarned and unprepared. The mill girls are familiar with coarse and vile language, and can hear it unabashed and without blushing; they can answer in like terms. But these facts are not, in their case, marks of extreme depravity or immorality. They afford no evidence of unchastity. I do not believe that this vice prevails to any considerable extent among the young women of the mills. Some of the older women, especially among the English and Irish, have not always been successful in self-protection, or in repelling temptation, as one can plainly see. But there is, as I am thoroughly convinced, far less of sexual vice among the factory operatives than is usually attributed to them. I am certain that working-people in general, of both sexes, are more pure and free from this vice than most moralists and clergymen think them. Their toil represses passion. Their time is filled by their regular occupations, and they have little leisure for vicious thoughts, for nourishing mischievous and profligate desires. It is among idle men and women that this evil finds most of its recruits. No system of morals or of religious culture has yet been devised which provides any effective safeguard against licentiousness for those who are exempt from toil.

In studying the life of any class of people, an observer soon distinguishes the persons who can be of use to him, who represent or possess something which he

wishes to learn or understand. When I had found several men and women who could thus be of service to me, the next step was to visit their homes, which I did upon their invitation. I saw their food and their methods of preparing it, examined the books and papers which they read, and listened to their accounts of their own life and work and experi

ence.

There are but few "tenement houses" in this place owned by the mill proprietors. Most of the operatives find homes or apartments wherever they prefer, and many of them live in small buildings where there are only two or three families under the same roof. I think this much better than the system of large tenement houses, unless these could be superior in design and arrangement to the buildings of this class which are ordinarily found in American cities. There are, however, a few large buildings here belonging to the mill owners, and each is occupied by a large number of families. I examined two or three of them, and am compelled to say that their construction is not what it should be. In some cases the cellars are not properly secured against the ingress of surface water, and the water-closets are inadequate and unsuitable. The city government should give this matter immediate attention. The tenants should be required by the proprietors to keep the yards surrounding these houses in a more wholesome and cleanly condition than that in which I found them.

The cookery in the homes of the operatives, if judged by what I saw and learned in several families, is not usually very good. They fry too much of their food, and many do not know how to extract the nutritive elements from beef-bones by long boiling. They throw out to their dogs what would give them the basis for a valuable and delicious soup. (The operatives keep a great many dogs, as is the custom among poor people generally, in this country.) If the women had sufficient knowledge in regard to the best methods of preparing it, they could have better food and more of it without additional expense. Much

good might be done by an arrangement for instructing these women and girls in economical methods of preparing wholesome and appetizing food. Perhaps the good women of the city who possess the advantages of wealth and culture can do something to aid their less fortunate sisters among the operatives in this

matter.

The young people of the mills generally read the story papers, published (most of them) in New York city, and devoted to interminably "continued" narratives, of which there are always three or four in process of publication in each paper. I have read some of these stories. They have usually no very distinct educational quality or tendency, good or bad. They are simply stories,

vapid, silly, turgid, and incoherent. As the robber-heroes are mostly grandlooking fellows, and all the ladies have white hands and splendid attire, it may be that some of the readers find hard work more distasteful because of their acquaintance with the gorgeous idlers and thieves, who, in these fictions, are always so much more fortunate than the people who are honest and industrious. But usually, as I am convinced by much observation, the only effect of this kind of reading is that it serves to pass away the time," by supplying a kind of entertainment, a stimulus or opiate for the mind, and that these people resort to it and feel a necessity for it in much the same way that others feel they must have whisky or opium. The reading is a narcotic, but it is less pernicious than those just named.

66

Many hundreds of the older operatives, especially foreigners, of two or three nationalities, were reading a paper which is devoted to the liberation of the working-people of America. Its principal literary attraction at this time was a very long serial story of the overthrow of the republic in 1880. This is written as if the events which form the subject of the narrative had already occurred. It introduces General Grant as dictator, and describes elaborately the character and effects of the terrible despotism which he establishes, in that year,

upon the ruins of popular government. He' suppresses Congress," seizes New York city at the head of an armed force and by the assistance of the capitalists or 66 money power" of the country, and is about to make himself emperor, when the working-people rise in arms, under the direction of a nameless leader, 66 a man with the executive intellect of Cæsar, Napoleon, and Bismarck, and the lofty impulses of Leonidas, Cincinnatus, and Washington." (To continue the description of this personage, "he was a man of huge hulk and brawn. His head was the size and shape of Daniel Webster's, whom he greatly resembled, except in being of the blonde type. His awful gray eyes had a power in them far beyond that of the orbs of the indolent Webster.")

The workingmen, soldiers of the new revolution, are instructed by this hero to supply their own needs from the abundant stores of their neighbors, giving them receipts in the name of the revolution for the property thus forcibly appropriated. They accordingly seize the national banks, and help themselves to as much money as they desire. This story was read with deep interest by many of the older operatives, especially those who were interested in labor reform. The paper containing it prints each week a declaration of principles, which affirms that the government should hold all the land of the nation; that it should be without price (the free use of as much of it as he can cultivate being secured to every man); that ground rents of towns and cities should be controlled by government; that gold and silver should be demonetized, and that in their stead absolute paper money should be issued by the government: that interest on money should be forbidden; that all mines, railroads, and highways should be owned and controlled by the government; that the government ought not to interfere for the collection of debts between individuals, but that the payment of debts should be left entirely to the honor of the debtor. There should be an income tax on all incomes above one thousand dollars, growing heavier for