has felt the effects of this strike more than any other place. Practically every Concord shopman left his work on July 1. The few who remained were generally guarded to and from the shops. Strike-breakers began to come in within a few days. As they were principally, if not wholly, housed within the railroad enclosure, there was comparatively little occasion for trouble on the streets. Of such trouble there was, how ever, a litle-two or three assaults in the early days. A night raid at the shops, by parties as yet unapprehended, resulted in some of the strikebreakers being driven out of town. As a result of conferences with the Mayor of Concord, Governor Brown called out two companies of the National Guard. Whether or not they were needed, has been the subject of keen controversy. Whether the City of Concord should pay for the troops, has also given rise to contention. Up to date the city has paid tens of thousands of dollars. The troops were withdrawn late in October, after the Chamber of Commerce had urged that they were no longer necessary. Meanwhile the same sort of talk has been going on in Concord as in other railroad centers during the strike. On the one side the railroads have claimed everything was normal. On the other the strikers have claimed impairment of rollingstock to the point of danger to the lives of trainmen and travelers. They have published lists of late trains. They have criticized the waste of railroad money in housing, feeding, bedding and entertaining the "scabs," besides paying them overtime. The "scabs" meanwhile have been sifted and settled, and, with the few who stuck and the few strikers who have returned, are represented by the railroad as a permanent force, whom they have allowed to organize in an independent association for the purpose of making agreements. A peculiar situation exists here, as elsewhere; it is believed that the shop work is being done in part by men who struck on other lines and are "scabbing" here. Another interesting thing is the claim of certain artisans that their business has been seriously damaged by the the striking shopmen underbidding for work on mechanical jobs. The merchants find the strikers naturally with less than normal ability to buy, and the strikebreakers within the railroad enclosure do not find normal opportunity to spend their wages. Moreover, if the strikers are not to go back to work, the community will face the necessity of a general shaking-down-some jobless men moving out and leaving unpaid bills, new men taking their places with inevitable experimenting with credits, the sale of homesteads (perhaps at loss), the problem of housing the new-comers, the general difficulties of assimilating in bulk and immediately several hundred new families. With these problems in mind, it is understood that some Concord business men are trying to bring the strikers and the railroad into some sort of agreement. What may be accomplished, with one group bound to win and the other confident of victory, is among the unknowable things. The situation is regarded by many people as sufficient proof, from the standpoint of community interest, of the public damage the public damage done by industrial warfare. The textile strike goes on in New Hampshire, except at some points, as it has since last winter. Because of the longer duration of the trouble, the community losses have been more keenly felt than in the railroad contest, Due to the overshadowing size of the Amoskeag Mills, the textile strike has rather centered in Manchester. Long ago the strike, which began because the mills required a cut in wages, with the 54-hour week, became a deadlock. While the work ers might possibly have accepted the wage-cut with a 48-hour week, they have steadily refused to go back to a 54-hour week even with a proferred return to the old wage. The mill managers have been adamant. Various futile attempts have been made on the part of the public to accommodate the parties. The last was an abject failure. A committee under city auspices invited the two sides to send representatives to meet each other. Both agreed, but October 17, the day fixed for the meeting, the strikers' delegates declined to attend the meeting because strike-breakers among the company's the company's delegates. Bishop Guertin, as we go to press, is exerting his influence to get a resumption of work on the basis of 51 hours a week at the old wage until February 1, before which a permanent arrangement would be hoped for. At Somersworth agreement has been reached on a 51 1-2 hour week. were Later advices are that the Amoskeag employees accepted Bishop Guertin's proposition, but the corporation declared itself unable to adopt the shorter work-week in view of southern Competition on the 55-and60-hour basis. Thus the war goes on. Both sides lose money; the community suffers; and the community has small information as to the validity of the claims and counterclaims made by the contestants in the hope of winning popular support, which in the end is recognized as a pretty valuable asset to either side. Representatives of fourteen Chambers of Commerce and Boards of Trade met at Tilton on October 18, and took steps toward the organization of a State Chamber of Commerce. One of the principal objects of the organization will be to cooperate with the New Hampshire Publicity Commission in raising $100,000 to advertise New Hampshire. The new organization will also take up the study of traffic on the highways in the hope of working out some sensible and consistent method of handling traffic throughout the State. SONNET By Louise P. Guyol I am a lover of the commonplace, I never set great store on rarity- It is these very notes that Mr. Huse evokes. BAREFOOT. DAYS AND SUNDOWN SONGS, by Raymond Huse. Published by the author at Concord with the Rumford Press imprint. $1.00. This book by a New Hampshire man, for a number of years prominent in the pulpit life of Concord, is a collection of homely and unassuming verse. The reviewer is disarmed by the opening lines of the stanzas entitled "To My Critic:" You need not tell me, critic dear, Because you see I know it, I have too much preacher blood To be your kind of poet!" The "preacher blood" courses strongly through most of the two score poems in this collection. The very first in the little book is a bit of poetry which prettily hides a lesson. When the sun has passed the hilltops, But the reviewer must not quote; the reader should have the pleasure of discovering for himself the shrewdly simple way in which Mr. Huse clothes his thoughts. The preacher has not forgotten his barefoot days, or the ways in which boys react to life; he has touched them up with a bit of mature, but reminiscent philosophy, Clever indeed is the playing of experience against adolescence in "When a Youth First Takes to Rhyming." This little volume betrays the author as an appreciative lover of Nature in her every-day moods, which are interpreted in simple and homely, but apt, phrase. In one verse he speaks of Riley as having "heard the notes That rise from common sod." INDIAN LEGENDS IN VERSE, by William C. T. Adams, Superintendent of Schools at Keene and formerly Professor of Education at the Plymouth Normal School. Dr. Adams has put into metrical form about twenty Indian legends, including such of special local appeal as those of Pemigewasset, Passaconaway, Chocorua and Monadnock. For most of them he has adopted the form of verse used in "Hiawatha." Prefixed to most of the verse are prose treatments of the same legends. There is an introduction upon Indian characteristics and customs. The book is aimed to reach the child when he is at the mental age of the mature savage, when, in fact, the child, is at the primitive stage of development. There are illustrations by Beatrice B. Adams and the book is from the press of the W. B. Ranney Company of Concord. people are available. Unfortunately, these are few in number and often slight in content. Some are among the forgotten books of a previous generation, such as "A Book for New Hampshire Children, in Familiar Letters from a Father," published anonymously by Richard Grant of Exeter in 1823, later attributed to Hosea Hildreth who was for some time professor of mathematics at Phillips Exeter Academy. One paragraph runs: "Nothing indeed can be more gloomy than the State Prison. If you were to go into it, to see how it looks, it would make you shudder. There are now about fifty wicked persons in it; but I do hope that no New Hampshire child that reads this letter will ever behave so bad as to be locked up in that dreadful place." At this time Peterborough was famous because "there are more manufactories than in any other town in the state." He also says, "We have in New Hampshire a great many sawmills and corn-mills (commonly called grist-mills), a considerable number of manufactories for making cotton cloth and woolen cloth, and a few for making nails. We have ten, or twelve Banks, where money is kept to let out to people that wish to hire money. All New Hampshire people are generally pretty good to work, though there are some in every town that are lazy and idle, and spend their time a dram-shops (commonly called "grog-shops"). But these are considered very naughty people. Their poor little children often go ragged, and sometimes have no bread to eat." These extracts will show that this book will appeal only to adults curious about manners and customs of early days and to the exceptional the exceptional child. There is great need for a similar current book about our history and industries for use in schools. At the eleventh hour request of the editor of this magazine, I have compiled very hastily a few titles available in many libraries as well as in the State |
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