The verses seemed exactly to fit his mood, for he repeated them again and again, with lingering liking for their sense and alliteration.

Jerry broke in abruptly here with sudden, unmeasured condemnation of the dulness of evenings in a country town in the absence of the theatre, pronounced theatre. The drama had fired his imagination for the moment, for he broke through his wonted reserve and waxed fluent as he expressed his views:

"When I go to the theatre, I go to laugh. I want to see pretty girls and lots of them, and I want to see them dance. I want songs as I can understand the words of, and lots of jokes, and horse-play. You don't get me to the theatre to see no show got up by Shakespeare, nor any of them fellows as lived two thousand years ago. What did they know about us fellows as is living now? Pete, you mind that Tim Healy in the union, him that's full of wind in the meetings? Onct he give me a book to read, and he says it's a theatre piece wrote by Shakespeare, and the best there was. I read more'n an hour on that piece, and I'm damned if there was a joke into it, nor any sense neither."

We were presently yawning under the stars, and I was more than glad when the men spoke of bed. Almost in the next moment, to my consciousness, Mrs. Flaherty was knocking on the door, bidding us wake and not to go to sleep again, for it was six o'clock.

noon.

Of the five, this second day was the hardest. My body was sore in every part when I began to work, and the help of hardening muscles I did not gain until the third day. Mrs. Flaherty had skilfully bound up the slight wounds on my fingers. The merciful rain came twice to our relief, once in the morning and again in the afterBut this was not an unmixed blessing, for in the minutes of delay we could but calculate the growing loss in wages, and watch the sure vanishing of any surplus above actual living expenses. I remember making an estimate on my way to my lodgings that evening, and it was with much sinking of heart that I discovered that my earnings made a total rather less than the cost of the day's living.

There has been difficulty in the way of intercourse with the men. I speak no Ital

ian, nor any of the Scandinavian tongues, so that my acquaintance has been confined to my own countrymen, who are few in number in the gang, and to the Irishmen and negroes, and an occasional Hungarian who understands my stammering German. And within the English-speaking circle, in the absence of this, there have been other barriers. There is wanting that social freedom that is most natural in Mrs. Flaherty's home. There is much of it among the foreigners. They hang together at their work, and sit in separate groups through the noon hour, and one commonly hears, especially among the Italians, that picturesque volubility which sets you wondering as to the subject of such fluent debate. Among the English-speaking men, the Irish and negroes are as Jews and Samaritans; but aside from this, the general attitude is one of sullen suspiciousness. Few appear to know the others, and not even their wretchedness draws them to the relief of companionship. Sometimes we hear warm greetings among acquaintances, or see some show of friendliness, but this is markedly out of keeping with the general tone of things. The usual intercourse is an exchange of experiences, an account of the circumstances which brought them to their present lot, among men who happen to be working side by side or sitting in company at the noon hour. Quite as commonly one hears only muttered curses against the boss.

You would gather from their own accounts that many of the men are unused to unskilled labor. There is a singular uniformity in their histories. Nearly all have seen better days, and are now but tiding over a dull season in their trades, or are earning enough to take them to some other part of the country, where there is a quickening in the demand for their labor.

I found myself growing doubtful of these unvarying tales. The mechanism became too apparent. "I am really an efficient and energetic workman," each seemed to say; "you see me now in a strait of circumstances. You should see me at my trade, in which I am an adept. I am out of that employment now because of depression in the business, but when business revives, or when I can reach Chicago or St. Louis or Minneapolis, my labor will be

in strong demand." Irresistibly one is led to the belief that most of these men probably have no trade, or, at the best, are inefficient workmen, who, unable to keep a job long, habitually pick up a living at work like this, in the careless makeshift of a shiftless life.

It is refreshing to meet others who are frankly laborers. All their lives they have been bred to unskilled labor, and they make no pretence of anything different. They are hard men, who look out upon a world that is hard to them at every point of contact; but they are true men, by virtue of their honesty and directness, and one likes them accordingly. Some of them are old, and it is pitiful to see them tottering under the burden of years, and staving off actual want by forcing their rheumatic limbs through the drudgery of this rude toil.

I had noticed the absence of one of this coterie for a day or two when, in the middle of a morning's work, he appeared among the ruins. He was an old Irishman. His face was swollen from toothache, and was bound up with a cotton bandanna. His hands were clasped on his stooping back, and he moved with the painful motion that suggests acute rheumatism. For a time he stood watching us at our work and exchanging words with some of the men about his complaints, when suddenly he burst into tears. men jeered him, and angrily told him to be gone. I had a sickening feeling of cruelty as I saw him go sobbing down the road; but when I spoke of him at the noon hour the men explained that it was a disgrace to have him crying there, but that they would see that his wants were provided for.

The

There was a revelation in the discovery of the degree to which profanity is ingrained in the vernacular of these men, as representatives of the laboring poor. They swear with the readiness of instinct, not merely in anger, when their language mounts to a torrent of abuse unspeakably awful in its horrid blasphemies, but in commonest intercourse, when their oaths are as meaningless as casual interjections. And almost never is the rude hardness of their speech softened by the amenities which seem so natural a part of language. The imperative, more than any other

mood, is rudely thrust into common use. They are even punctilious in its employment.

A single instance will serve to point the nature of this graceless speech. Two boys of ten or twelve are employed in carrying water to the men at their work. One carries his bucket through the building to those engaged in the upper stories; and the other, a flaxen-haired, delicate child whose thin legs bend under his burden, serves those of us who are at work on the heaps below. Through all the day, and especially in its greatest heat, the boys run busily from the works to a neighboring pump, and return with bucketfuls of water, which are at once surrounded by thirsty workmen and emptied in a few minutes. Regardless of the prevailing custom, I always thanked the little fellow for my drink. Soon I noticed that even this instinctive acknowledgment seemed to embarrass him. In an interval of rest he came up to me, after receiving my thanks. shouldn't thank me," he said. why not?" I begged to know. Because, you see, I'm paid to do this," was his conscientious answer. A mere child, naturally gentle, and yet so bred to rougher usage that a simple "Thank you" jarred upon his sense of right! A few minutes later I saw the two boys in rough-andready fight, and their language lacked none of the horror of that of their elders.

66

"You "And

I shall be on the road again to-morrow morning, and I shall go as penniless as I came, but somewhat richer in experience. I have been through nearly a week of labor, and have survived it, and have honestly earned my living as a working-man. In the future, I shall have the added confidence which comes of knowing that, if work offers, I shall probably be able to perform it. But this is not the only cause of my increased lightheartedness. I am frankly glad to get away from the job on the old Academic building. This is a selfish feeling, and is not without the cowardice of all selfishness. I hope for a job of another kind, for a time at least, because I wish to see some hopefuller side of the lot of common labor. When we draw too near to the hand of Fate, and begin to feel as though there were a wrong in the nature of things, it is best, perhaps, to change our point of view-if we can. This may account for

some of the drifting restlessness among working-men of my class.

The salient features of our condition are plain enough. We are unskilled laborers. We are grown men, and are without a trade. In the labor market we stand ready to sell to the highest bidder our mere muscular strength for so many hours each day. We are thus in the lowest grade of labor. We are here, and not higher in the scale, by reason of a variety of causes. Some of us were thrown upon our own resources in childhood, and have earned our living ever since, and by the line of least resistance we have simply grown to be unskilled workmen. Opportunities came to some of us of learning useful trades, and we neglected them, and now we have no developed skill to aid us in earning a living, and we must take the work that offers.

Some of us were bred to farm labor, and almost from our earliest recollection we worked in the fields, until, tiring of country life, we determined to try some other; and we have turned to this work as being within our powers, and as affording us a change. Still others among us, like Wilson, really learned a trade; but the market offers no further demand for the peculiar skill we possess, and so we are forced back upon skilless labor. And selling our muscular strength in the open market for what it will bring, we sell it under peculiar conditions. It is all the capital that we have. We have no reserve means of subsistence, and cannot, therefore, stand off for a reserve price." We sell under the necessity of satisfying imminent hunger. Broadly speaking, we must sell our labor or starve; and as hunger is a matter of a few hours, and we have no other way of meeting this need, we must sell at once for what the market offers for our labor. And for some of us there is other pressure, unspeakable, immeasurable pressure, in the needs of wife and children.

The contractor buys our labor as he buys other commodities, like brick and iron and stone, which enter into the construction of the new building. But he buys of us under certain restrictions to us both. The law of supply and demand does not apply to our labor with the same freedom as to other merchandise. We are human beings, and some of us have social ties, which bricks and iron have not, and we do not, therefore,

move to favorable markets with the same ease and certainty as these. Besides, we are ignorant men, and behind what we have to sell is no trained intelligence, or a knowledge of prices and of the best means of reaching the best markets. And then we are poor men, who must sell when we find a purchaser, for no "reserve price" is possible to us.

The law of supply and demand meets with these restrictions and others. If it applied with perfect freedom to our commodity, we should infallibly be where is the greatest demand for our labor; and with perfect acquaintance with the markets we should always sell in the dearest. But the benefits of perfect freedom of supply and demand would not be ours alone. If we sold in the dearest markets, the employer would as certainly buy in the cheapest. He has capital in the form of the means of subsistence, and can stand off for a “reserve price," and could force us to sell at last in the pinch of hunger, and in competition with starving men.

As matters are, our wages might rise, in an increased demand for labor, far above their present point; but even under pressure of decreasing demand, and with scores of needy men eager to take our places, our wages, if we had employment at all, would not fall far below their present level. So much has civilization done for us. It does not insure to us a chance to earn a living, but it does measurably insure to us that what we earn by day's labor, such as this, will at least be a living.

As unskilled laborers we are unorganized men. We are members of no union. We must deal individually with our employer, under all the disadvantages which encumber our position in the market as compared with his.

But his position is not an enviable one. He is a competitor in a freer market than

worth nothing to him as finished product until given sections of the work are completed. In the meantime he must advance to us our wages out of capital which is a product of past labor, his own and ours as working-men, and of other capital. And this he must continue to do, even if his margin of profit should wholly disappear, and even if ultimate loss should be the net result of the expenditure of his labor and capital. In every case, before any other commodity has been paid for, we have insured to us the price for which we have sold our labor.

Our employer is buying labor in a dear market. One dollar and sixty cents for a day of nine hours and a quarter is a high rate for unskilled workmen. And the demand continues, for I notice that the boss accepts every man who applies for a job. The contractor is paying high for labor, and he will certainly get from us as much work as he can at the price. The gangboss is secured for this purpose, and thoroughly does he know his business. He has sole command of us. He never saw us before, and he will discharge us all when the débris is cleared away and the site made ready for the constructive labors of the skilled workmen. In the meantime he must get from us, if he can, the utmost of physical labor which we, individually and collectively, are capable of. If he should drive some of us to exhaustion, and we should not be able to continue at work, he would not be the loser, for the market would soon supply him with others to take our places.

We are ignorant men, and we have a slender hold of economic principles, but so much we clearly see that we have sold our labor where we could sell it dearest, and our employer has bought it where he could buy it cheapest. He has paid high for it, but not from philanthropic motives, and he will get at the price, he must get, all the labor that he can; and, by a strong instinct which possesses us, we shall part with as little as we can. And there you have, in its rudimentary form, the bear and the bull sides of the market.

You tell us that our interests are identical with those of our employer. That may be true on some ground unknown to us, but we live from hand to mouth,

and we think from day to day, and we have no power to "reach a hand through time, to catch the far-off interest of tears." From work like ours there seems to us to have been eliminated every element which constitutes the nobility of labor. We feel no personal pride in its progress, and no community of interest with our employer. He plainly shares this lack of unity of interest; for he takes for granted that we are dishonest men, and that we will cheat him if we can; and so he watches us through every moment, and forces us to realize that not for an hour would he intrust his interests to our hands. There is for us in our work none of the joy of responsibility, none of the sense of achievement, only the dull monotony of grinding toil, with the longing for the signal to quit work, and for our wages at the end of the week.

We expect the ready retort that we get what we deserve, that no field of labor was closed to us, and that we are where we are because we are fit, or have fitted ourselves, for nothing better. Unskilled labor must be done, and, in the natural play of productive activity, it must inevitably be done by those who are excluded from the higher forms of labor by incapacity, or inefficiency, or misfortune, or lack of ambition. And being what we are, the dregs of the labor market, and having no certainty of permanent employment, and no organization among ourselves, by means of which we can deal with our employer and he with us by some other than an individual hold upon each other, we must expect to work under the watchful eye of a gang-boss, and not only be directed in our labor, but be driven, like the wage-slaves that we are, through our tasks.

All this is to tell us, in effect, that our lives are the hard, barren, hopeless lives that they are because of our own fault, and that our degradation as men is the measure of our bondage as workmen.

This seems to state an ultimate fact, and then, with the habit of much of such thinking, to settle itself peacefully, with an easy conscience, behind the inevitable.

But for us there is no such peace or comfort in the inevitable. And yet, even in this statement of our case, we are not without hope. We are men, and are capable of becoming better men.

We may