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 PRICE, 10 CENT"<;RKELEY CALIFORNIA 
 
 Extracts from Newspapers, 
 
 EXPLANATORY OF THE 
 
 Credit Fonder Company 
 
 COMPILED BY 
 
 ALBERT K. OWEN, 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 Published by THE CREDIT FONCIER Co., 
 Room 708, 32 Nassau St. 
 
L. 
 
 Newspaper Articles 
 
 RELATING TO THE 
 
 CREDIT FOGGIER 
 COMPANY. 
 
 Nothing is so contagious as example ; we never do either 
 inucli good or much evil, without Imitators. 
 
 YORK : 
 THE CREDIT FONCIER COMPANY, 
 
 32 NASSAU STREET. 
 
.r 7/3 
 
 is* 
 
 Lives of great men all remind us 
 
 We can make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 
 Footprints on the sands of time ; 
 Footprints that perhaps another, 
 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
 A forlorn and shipwrecked brother 
 
 Seeing may take heart again. 
 
 Longfellow, 
 
 ALBERT K. OWEN salutes the friends of the Credit Foncier 
 Company, and wishes to say that these selections from the news- 
 papers of the United States are published in circular to show 
 the interest which is now being taken in our purpose to plant 
 a co-operative community in Sinaloa, Mexico. 
 
 The statements made are generally correct, but must not be 
 taker! as altogether so ; we do not feel at liberty to alter what 
 others have published. In fact, there are only two of the selec- 
 tions, that of Mr. W. N. Slocum, page 39, and that written for 
 The Railway Age, page 10, which are intended to give exact 
 information upon the details of the enterprise. 
 
 There will be, doubtless, many criticisms upon our movings 
 to and doings in Mexico ; but work, time and patience will 
 show, we believe, that our plans have been started upon a firm, 
 broad and lasting basis. We have not courted newspaper com- 
 ment, and we are not 'in a hurry to be held up to public gaze j 
 nor are we anxious to swell the number of our settlers in Sinaloa. 
 We do wish, however, that earnest men and women may come 
 to a knowledge of our principles ; and that they may see it to 
 be to their interests to unite their lives and fortunes with us 
 at the time, at the place, and in the manner their crafts and 
 presence are required. We believe that, "In all labor there is 
 profit' (Prov. xiv. 23), and we wish ever to obey the command : 
 "Whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatso- 
 ever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, * * think on 
 those things" (Phil. iv. 8). 
 
 Room 708, 32 Nassau St., 
 NEW YORK CITY, January 25, 1887. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 A NEW AND STRANGE YANKEE COLONY IN MEXICO. 
 
 N. Y. Sun. 5 
 
 THE CREDIT FONCIER COMPANY RANDOM NOTES OF ITS 
 
 ORIGIN, ETC. By A. K. Owen. Denver Tribune- Republican. 10 
 
 A DREAM OF HEAVEN BELOW. . . . N. Y. Tribune. 19 
 
 SOCIALISM IN ACTION. By Edward Howland. 
 
 John Swinton's Paper. 25 
 
 THE JOYS OF TOPOLOBAMPO. By Dr. S. T. Peet. 
 
 Denver Tribune-Republican. 27 
 
 SENDING BACK GREETINGS 31 
 
 A PACIFIC CITY N. T. Herald. 32 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF PARADISE. By E. D. Babbitt, M. D. 
 
 Spiritual Offering. 33 
 
 THE SINALOA CO-OPERATIVE SCHEME. 
 
 The Golden Gate (San Francisco). 39 
 
 MEXICAN COLONIES San Diego Union. 44 
 
 THE TOPOLOBAMPO COLONY. By A. K. Owen. . N. Y. Sun. 46 
 
 SINALOAN HOSPITALITY 51 
 
 A MILITARY ESCORT FOR OUR COLONISTS. , 52 
 
A NEW AND STRANGE YANKEE COLONY 
 IN MEXICO. 
 
 MR. ALBERT K. OWEN'S GREAT SOCIALISTIC 
 UNDERTAKING AT TOPOLOBAMPO. 
 
 (From t?ie X. Y. Sun, January 23, 1887.) 
 
 TOPOLOBAMPO, Jan. 5. 
 
 Here, at a point where, less than two months since, the land 
 was covered with chaparral and cactus, is the beginning of a col- 
 ony like unto which there is none other, if the enthusiasm of its 
 founders shall be kept alive and the principles upon which it is 
 based shall prove correct. The purpose in view is the establish- 
 ment of an ideal community with all the accessories of an ad- 
 vanced civilization, diversified industries organized upon a large 
 scale, with railroads constructed and inter-State and foreign com- 
 merce, organized, under the belief of those engaged, that the col- 
 ony will in time swell into the proportions of a State. 
 
 Topolobampo is a bay in the state of Sinaloa, in the Gulf of 
 California, about midway between Guaymas on the north and 
 Mazatlan on the south, in northwestern Mexico, being about two 
 hundred miles distant from either place. The bay contains over 
 fifty square miles of area, and is divided into two sections, the in- 
 ner of which is a capacious harbor, on the north bank of which is 
 the site of tne projected city. Except on maps of the most recent 
 date, Topolobampo Bay is not shown at all. For many years it 
 was known only as the resort of smugglers. Some fourteen 
 years since a young man engaged as a civil engineer, surveying 
 routes for the Mexican railway system, discovered the bay, and 
 finding there was a depth of water equal to twenty-one feet at low 
 tide on the bar at the entrance, with deep water clear to the banks 
 on either side, he thought he saw a situation that opened up com- 
 mercial advantages not inferior to any port of the Pacific coast for 
 general commerce, and greatly superior advantages for transcon- 
 tinental traffic. 
 
 But further we believe that the opportunity was afforded to 
 build up a model colony, based upon a system of integral co-opera- 
 tiona plan of industrial and social organization which he framed 
 in his own mind, and which he believed would eliminate poverty 
 and guarantee to all within the scope of its influence not only the 
 means of self -subsistence, but in the end give the opportunity for 
 the highest development, moral, intellectual and physical, of 
 
6 
 
 which each was capable. For in this colony the accumulation 
 of large estates by individuals is to be rendered impossible, and 
 yet each and every one will have the advantage of concentrated 
 wealth in the hands of the corporation, and eventually the State, 
 which shall throw its protecting mantle over all. 
 
 Such is the scheme presented by Mr. Albert K. Owen, of 
 Chester, Pa., which has aroused the day dreams of others for a 
 realization of a Utopia on the western coast of Mexico. Seeing 
 as he thought, the possibilities, Mr. Owen began drawing atten- 
 tion to the place and his proposed enterprise. 
 
 The commercial advantages w^ere so far perceived that the 
 United States Government, through his instigation, made a hydro- 
 graphic survey of the harbor and the approaches to it, and a num- 
 ber of leading men were induced to cause surveys to be made for 
 an extensive system of railways, with a view of opening up trans^ 
 continental traffic. This being a part of Mr. Owen's scheme, he 
 was able to obtain, in connection with the project, valuable con^ 
 cessions from the Mexican Government, by which for ten years 
 the colonists are to be exempt from import and export duties upon 
 whatever is necessary, and the right to build, within the same 
 period, lines of railroad nearly 2,000 miles in length. In time he 
 was able to arouse an interest in the project of colonization. 
 
 Among the few who were attracted by it were Mr. Edward 
 Howland and his wife, Mrs. Marie Howland, of Hammonton, N. J., 
 both writers of very progressive views on questions of finance and 
 social reorganization. Nearly two years since they began the 
 publication of a little paper called CREDIT FONCIER OF SINALOA, 
 which became the organ of the movement, and up to this time five 
 thousand men and women have subscribed for shares in the enter- 
 prise. In the meantime a charter was granted by the State of 
 Colorado to the Credit Foncier Company, and directors were duly 
 elected, and preparations were made to break ground for the 
 colony during the past autumn. 
 
 During December I was at Guaymas when several bodies of 
 colonists arrived from Minnesota, Colorado, .Maine, Chicago and 
 Wyoming, with Topolobampo as their objective point. They 
 were about 140 in number, and their approach had been an- 
 nounced at Guaymas, which is the terminal point of the Atchison, 
 Topeka and Santa Fe Railway system. A schooner and steamer 
 were chartered to convey them down the coast to their destination. 
 They were full of enthusiasm and with bright hopes of happiness 
 in their new horrcs to be created, and I asked and was accorded 
 the privilege of accompanying them to Topolobampo. We arrived 
 at the bay and found that an advance party of colonists from 
 California and Oregon, numbering twenty-seven, had arrived in 
 the latter part of November, and were in camp on the North 
 shore of the strait that connects the two sections of the bay. 
 Others have arrived since, and at the present time over 300 people 
 are on the ground, and to this number will be added 100 more 
 within the next thirty days, making 400 in all, of whom seventy- 
 five are women and about the same number children. 
 
 The ground was cleared of its undergrowth for the beginning 
 of the settlement, and tents were pitched for the accom- 
 
modation of the colonists. As they came into a previous)/ 
 uninhabited country they had to bring with them the means of 
 subsistence (except meats, fish, eggs and tropical fruits), and the 
 necessary comforts of domestic life. They have within them 
 many pursuits and trades, and it was but a short time before they 
 were surrounded with all that was necessary for their daily needs. 
 As they arrived in the dry season, they needed no shelter from the 
 rain. The situation of the place, near the lines of the tropics, 
 made out-of-door life more comfortable and healthful than life 
 within doors at the homes which they had left. Large numbers of 
 men went to work to clear the way for the first section of the 
 projected railway to extend from the harbor thirty-five miles 
 north to the Fuerte River, and on the completion and equipment 
 of it, within two years and a half from the present time, the 
 colony will become possessed of a controlling interest in the stock 
 of the company to own it. Others are preparing to erect buildings 
 for permanent abodes and for public use, one of which is to bo the 
 custom house for the Mexican Government, through which mer- 
 chandise is to pass for the use of people without the colony. 
 Others, and a good many of them, are breaking ground for the 
 sowing of seed for crops to be raised during the coming season for 
 the sustenance of the people, and perhaps to sell outside. 
 
 No more desirable situation could be found for the beginning 
 of the enterprise. There is but little variation in the temperature 
 throughout the year. The range of the mercury in the shade at 
 noon in summer is 86, and in the winter 52. At night cool breezes 
 
 Srevail, which enable one to sleep with comfort. The harbor will 
 oat vessels of the greatest depth. Edible fish abound in the 
 waters, green turtles and their eggs invite the epicure to feast upon 
 them, and I am told that the best quality of oysters is to be found 
 in large quantities but a few miles distant in other waters. The 
 soil is a dark, vegetable mould, capable of growing the cereals and 
 fruits of the temperate zone, as well as products of a semi-tropical 
 character. 
 
 But something must be said in reference to the plans of the or- 
 ganization of the colony and its people. It is incorporated, as I 
 have said, under the laws of Colorado. It has become possessed 
 of the site for the city, containing about thirty square miles on the 
 inner harbor, and of a large tract of farming land adjacent con- 
 taining about 36,000 acres. The city is laid out in lots 25x100 feet, 
 contained in blocks 600 feet^long by 300 feet wide. Avenues of 
 200 feet in width, streets of 100 feet, and ways of 50 feet intersect 
 one another at right angles, while running diagonally, at an angle 
 of 45 degrees, in each direction across the city plot, are to be the 
 wide avenues called "praclas," to facilitate movement from one 
 part of the city to the other. The city looks lovely on the map. 
 
 Each colonist must be a subscriber for at least one share of the 
 stock of the company, the value of which is $10, and for which he 
 is entitled, on the payment of an additional $10, to become pos- 
 sessed of one of the first series of lots, not, however, in fee simple, 
 but the use of it in perpetuity and by his children after him. 
 Dwellings will be built upon the lots by the corporation in accord- 
 ance with the wishes of the party holding the lot. Neither lot nor 
 
8 
 
 improvement can be sold to another, but will be taken off the own- 
 er's hands at any time at their actual cost by the corporation itself. 
 Land speculation will not be permitted and land monopoly can 
 never exist. No colonist can employ another. Each works for 
 the company alone, fie fixes the price for his labor, which, if 
 satisfactory to the corporation, they pay him. The products of 
 labor are deposited in the storehouse of the company and sold by 
 them to colonists at their actual cost, including the cost of hand- 
 ling. The corporation is the only merchant. In selling to the out- 
 side world the prices are regulated by the state of the general 
 market. Whatever profits are made upon a commodity sold goes 
 to the producer. Women are to be employed in all light pursuits 
 for which they have a taste. Especially the effecting of exchanges 
 in the storehouse will be mainly done by them. So far as practi- 
 cable the pay of the workers will be by the piece, as being the 
 most equitable method of compensation. But at present, in the 
 beginning of the community, each is paid by the day, men and 
 women alike receiving a daity wage of $3. They are paid in the 
 credits of the company, that is to say, each is credited with the 
 amount of his services, and will be furnished with house, furni- 
 ture, food, clothing, and whatever is possessed or obtainable by 
 the company to the extent of the amount of his credit, and if a~ 
 balance remains he can draw the value in money or in any form 
 desired. The buildings will be of all classes, above a minimum 
 class suggested by the company. A resident hotel is to be erected 
 at an early day, at which colonists or visitors can live. Mr. 
 Owen prefers extensive apartment houses, occupying an entire 
 block, with spacious verandas and open grounds and with kitchen, 
 dining room, nursery, and music hall separate from the main 
 building, and by which women can be freed from household cares 
 and be enabled to engage in productive industries. Others, from 
 force of habit, will doubtless prefer separate households upon 
 their lots. Still others favor the erection of grand unitary edifices 
 like the social palace of Guise, in France, where M. Godin has 
 built extensive edifices, in which his workmen and their families 
 dwell, numbering nearly 2,000 people, and live in a style far above 
 others in their walks of life, with art galleries, schools, and music 
 halls. 
 
 All public utilities, street railroads, heating and lighting, the 
 telegraph and telephone, messenger service, amusements, and nur- 
 series are to be provided by the company. Physicians and law- 
 yers will be employed on salaries. Church organizations and 
 secret societies will not be permitted within the limits of the do- 
 main of the corporation. The utmost freedom of worship is al- 
 lowed among families, but no combination of individuals will be 
 allowed to establish a sect. 
 
 The use of tobacco is discouraged. Public saloons for the sale 
 of wines and liquors will not be permitted. They can be pur- 
 chased 'only at the storehouse of the company, and then under 
 wise restrictions. Earth closets are to supersede water closets, and 
 the excretee saved for fertilization, and not to pollute the adjacent 
 waters by ordinary sewer drainage. 
 
 The affairs of the company are managed by ten directors elected 
 
by the shareholders, each having a vote for every share he holds. 
 The canvass for the election of directors is to be conducted with- 
 out the machinery of public elections, where eloquence and specious 
 argument can sway the feelings of the listener. Matters of pub- 
 lic interest will be discussed in the columns of a journal printed 
 under the auspices of the corporation. 
 
 A word as to the character of the colonists. The great portion 
 are young men and women under forty. Now and then a patri- 
 archal face is to be seen, but a marked feature of all is the evi- 
 dence of intelligence and deep thought. They seem to be practical 
 in their ideas. Thus far no cranks have shown themselves among 
 them. Strong common sense is a prominent characteristic. Many 
 are persons of superior education and who have been successful in 
 the homes they have left, but who have become identified with 
 the movement because of the opportunities it seems to them to af- 
 ford for a more harmonious and pleasant social life. 
 
 It is useless to prognosticate tiie result of the experiment. At 
 this time varied industries for a self-sustaining community are im- 
 possible. The colonists have neither the capital to erect the neces- 
 sary buildings nor to purchase the machinery, nor have they num- 
 bers on the ground. It will probably be many years before they 
 can establish all the industries necessary to supply all the products 
 for their use without depending to some extent upon the outside 
 world. But they are happy and not only hopeful, but even confident 
 that each month will work favorable changes, and that, within a 
 year, everything will be organized upon a permanent plan that 
 will present advantages over the organization of society as it now 
 exists. 
 
 The present question seems to be not how to gain a rapid in- 
 crease of the colonists, but how to prevent it. The efforts of Mr. 
 Owen, who is the leading spirit, are to keep the growth within the 
 limits at which sustenance, comfort and employment are practi- 
 cable. There are probably 3,000 others ready to start for the col- 
 ony when the word shall be given. 
 
 A few days ago Christmas was celebrated with delightful fes- 
 tivities. It was made a general holiday. The Christmas feast had 
 the adjuncts of pudding and fruit cake, with oranges and lemon- 
 ade. In the afternoon the Stanley family from Oregon, who were 
 among the earliest colonists, and have a band of eleven pieces 
 among themselves, discoursed excellent music under the shade of 
 a huge cactus, on what has already been christened the "Plaza." 
 A Christmas celebration in summer weather, with the mercury at 
 70, was a novelty to me. A few days previously, in the only 
 building then erected, on "Engineer Hill," there was a fancy 
 dress ball in blankets, taking the hint from the Mexicans, who at 
 night wrap their blankets about them for comfort, and the young 
 people danced into the small hours of the morning. 
 
 But all has not been joyous here in the short life of the little 
 colony. On the 21st of December a little son of one of the colonists 
 died and in the afternoon was laid to rest. It was a gloomy day, 
 but outside from that pathetic episode and a light epidemic of 
 measles the people seemed to have regarded their experience as a 
 prolonged picnic even in the midst of their labors, and yet each 
 
10 
 
 day there have been discomforts endured. There is no flagging in 
 enthusiasm. They seem bent upon the successful issue of The en- 
 terprise, but they are more sanguine of the kindly feelings -of the 
 Mexicans and the integrity and permanency of the Mexican Gov- 
 ernment than we are accustomed to have in the United States, 
 even though Mexico has been at peace within, herself for a consid- 
 erable period. It may be that the colonists have the best of reasons 
 for the faith that is within them, and that they will inaugurate 
 the social millenium. I have had a most delightful experience in 
 the primitive life here, and so long as I am within their influence 
 I feel as if I was one of them, with now and then a misgiving. 
 Within a few days I will take my departure, and when I reach my 
 usual surroundings I may conclude that after all they are delight- 
 ful enthusiasts who may for a brief period live in a hopeful dream 
 of an earthly paradise, only to be disappointed as thousands have 
 been who have co-operated in experiments of a kindred nature in 
 years gone by. 
 
 THE CREDIT FONCIER COMPANY. 
 
 RANDOM NOTES OF ITS ORIGIN, GROWTH AND 
 PROSPECTS, ETC. 
 
 BY ALBERT K. OWEN. 
 
 372 AKAF 
 DENVER, Colorado, October 30, 1S86. 
 
 3T2 AKAPAHOE STREET, V 
 
 To the, Tribune-Republican: 
 
 The articles that you have published in The Tribune-Republican 
 at various times in regard to the Credit Foncier Company 
 have awakened a great amount of interest in one of the grandest 
 enterprises that was ever inaugurated to ameliorate the condition 
 of the industrial classes. In the articles referred to nothing was 
 attempted further than to set forth as briefly as possible a few of 
 the fundamental principles of the organization. In order to 
 satisfy the demand for information on this subject I herewith 
 submit a copy of an article written for the Railway Age by Albert 
 K. Owen, the leader of the colony, en route from New York to 
 Guaymas. 
 
 It is accompanied with a letter of welcome to Mr. Owen and 
 the colony from the Governor of Sonora, Mexico. I commend 
 these to the thoughtful consideration of all who wish to be well- 
 informed in regard to the American colony that is soon to locate 
 at Topolobampo Bay on the Gulf of California, in a delightful 
 semi-tropical climate, and on the finest natural harbor on the 
 coast of Mexico, if not the finest in America. Respectfully, 
 
 S. T. FEET. 
 
11 
 
 The Credit Fonder Company was incorporated under the laws 
 of Colorado in September, 1886, and is an organization of men 
 and women who have associated their lives, labors, crafts, talents 
 and credits to secure for themselves and their children regular and 
 agreeable employments, wholesome food, cleanly and attractive 
 surroundings, improved facilities, correct instructions, cultured 
 entertainments, kindness in sickness, attentions in old age and in- 
 surance at all times, in every place and against any class of acci- 
 dents. 
 
 The suggestion for this association was made in the Integral 
 Co-operation, published by John W. Lovell & Co., 16 Vesey street, 
 New York City, and has been explained and propagated by means 
 of a little paper, The Credit Fonder of Sinaloa, issued weekly by 
 Marie and Edward Howland, from Hammonton, Atlantic County, 
 New Jersey. Integral Co-operation has passed through three 
 editions, and The Credit Foncier of Sinaloa has issued to October 
 5, 1886, sixty-five numbers. 
 
 The members of the association numbered at that date 4,232 
 persons, mostly adults, who had subscribed for 15,978 shares of $10 
 each, and had pledged to place with the Department of Deposits 
 aad Loans of the Credit Foncier Company over $600,000 in 
 United States money. The real estate and personal property 
 which have been offered the company would, if properly handled 
 aad sold, probably place several hundred thousand dollars more 
 to the said department. 
 
 The members of the association are mostly American born, 
 well educated, vigorous thinkers, and active, well-to-do people. 
 They represent and may be said to be masters of about two hun- 
 dred distinct crafts, and can cut a pearl button, make a locomotive 
 engine, and navigate a ship. There are nursery-men from Cali- 
 fornia and orange growers from Florida going to Topolobampo 
 to assist in establishing our enterprise; and we have stock raisers 
 from Texas, miners from Colorado, fishermen from Maine, lumber- 
 men from Oregon, irrigating ditch-makers from Greeley and 
 Fresno, and farmers, artisans, accountants, housewives and sew- 
 ing women from almost every State and Territory in the Union. 
 To these we can add play-wrights, authors, actors, singers and 
 musical composers and instructors; school-teachers and professors; 
 sculptors and painters; ornamental tile and brick makers; archi- 
 tects, builders and engineers; the inventors of an improved graft- 
 ing machine, of the Star bicycle and tricycle, of the Pioneer 
 stump-puller, of the American rock-lifter, of the Pressey brooder, 
 incubator and apiary, of the Lightning saw, of the Boynton 
 bicycle locomotive, of improved machines for boring wells, of 
 agricultural implements, of a type-setting machine, of a type- 
 writer, together with electricians, and fish, vegetable and 
 fruit canners, and special cooks for serving fish, oysters and 
 turtle; and many other persons of marked individuality and genius 
 belonging to useful and progressive callings. 
 
 The Credit Foncier Company has made the first payment, and 
 now controls twenty-nine (29) square miles of land known as the 
 site of " Pacific City," located on the north shore of Topolobampo 
 Bay, Sinaloa, Mexico, and thirty-three thousand five hundred 
 
12 
 
 (33,500) acres of agricultural lands, known as "Mochis Ranch," 
 which is fifteen miles from their lauding on the harbor, and mid- 
 way between the Eios Fuerte and Sinaloa. 
 
 The Credit Foncier Company, also, has just executed a contract 
 to build, equip and operate the 2,000 miles of railroad and tele- 
 graph lines known as the franchises granted by Mexico to the 
 Texas, Topolobampo & Pacific Railroad and Telegraph Company. 
 The said company has three years to finish 62 miles of track, and 
 ten years to make the 2,000 miles ; and it receives a subsidy of over 
 $16,000,000, or the sum of $49,996 paid on the completion of 
 each 6 2-10 miles of railroad. Besides this, the said Credit Foncier 
 Company has contracts to survey and colonize public lands on each 
 side of their railroad from fifteen to thirty-seven miles in width; 
 to irrigate by pipe line and ditches a million and more acres in the 
 State of Sinaloa, and to run steamers on the Gulf of California 
 and elsewhere. 
 
 The Credit Foncier Company is managed by a board of ten 
 Directors and is authorized to issue 100,000 shares (it will increase 
 its shares as it multiplies its settlements) of $10, and each share is 
 based upon a building lot (25x150 feet) within the site of "Pacific 
 City." While the first 15,000 shares are sold to persons who wish 
 to promote the objects of the movement, the remaining 85,000 
 can be sold only to actual settelers, and then only to the number 
 corresponding with the number of lots wished for resident pur- 
 poses, which in no case is to exceed 48 lots or a block 600x300 feet 
 (4.13 acres). The possession of a share of stock^does not entitle 
 the holder to a lot, but it gives him or her the right to purchase 
 the occupancy of a lot at the price of a series being sold at the 
 time, i. e. , the Credit Foncier Company Jwlds all the real estate in 
 perpetuity, but sells to its members the right to occupy lots in 
 series as follows: 
 
 First series of 500 lots at $ 10 $ 5,000 
 
 Second series of 500 lots at 20 10,000 
 
 Third series of 500 lots at 40 20,000 
 
 Fourth series of 500 lots at 80 40,000 
 
 Fifth series of 500 lots at 160 80,000 
 
 After this the right to occupy all lots will be sold at the fixed 
 price of $200, it being more important to have the citizens than 
 is to have the money. The occupation of the 100,000 lots ii\ 
 Pacific City will in this way bring to the company $19,655,000 
 United States money, or its equivalent in services. This belongs 
 to the common fund and is used for the common benefit of all the 
 citizens part goes to pay dividends upon the stock of the Credit 
 Foncier Company and the rest for planting the parks, improving 
 the streets, putting up and equipping mills, constructing electric 
 ways, maintaining schools, inaugurating lectures, encouraging 
 musical rehearsals, etc. 
 
 One member cannot sell to another member or to anybody 
 other than to the Credit Foncier Company, his or her stock, right 
 to occupy Jot or lots, house, labor or product; but the Company is 
 at all times ready to return the price paid for the right to occupy 
 lot or lots, the cost of the house, and to give full value for the 
 
13 
 
 labor, product, etc., of its members. Hence there cannot "be spec- 
 ulation in stock of the Company or in the right to occupy land, 
 or in the home, nor is there competition between laborer and 
 laborer, nor is the product pitted against product. There is, how- 
 ever, rivalry between laborer and laborer, for each is paid for that 
 which he or she does and the skill which he or she shows in doing 
 it; and products are paid for according to their classification. 
 Hence speculation ceases, competition ends and every one is 
 awarded in full, and on delivery for his or her labor and product 
 and for not anything more. No well-instructed person will object 
 to the equity of this. 
 
 Foncier, in French, stands lor home or manor; hence Credit 
 Foncier means credit based upon home or stationary property, in 
 contradistinction to Credit Mobilier, which is credit based upon 
 movable property, such, for instance, as the rolling stock on rail- 
 roads or steamboats, etc. The name Credit Foncier was selected 
 because we base not only our credit but everything upon the home 
 upon the home life, home attractions, home influences; upon 
 the love, the example, the comfort, the fireside, the endearments 
 of home; and hence it is that the home has become the palladium 
 of our Company, and that our by-laws make the possession of a 
 home essential to permanent membership. 
 
 A distinct home for each family is necessary to useful life and 
 to individual character. A person without a home is an uncertain 
 factor in society often enough the instigator of thieves, arson and 
 murder. No matter how good he or she may be without a home, 
 it is certain that he or she with a home would be better. Four 
 walls and a roof, however, do not constitute a home. A home 
 made attractive to a civilized person must be not only luxuri- 
 ous in its own appointments, but should have entertaining sur- 
 roundings, where nature and art vie to keep in the front rank of 
 progressive ideas, cultures and tastes, and where eclecticism is en- 
 couraged and elected to be in good form. Home is not only 
 "where the heart is," but where the mind is always expanding, 
 and where the ethics without keep pace with the desires within. 
 
 In pursuance with these ideas the Credit Foncier Company, 
 through its Departments of Employments and Diversification of 
 Industries, secures agreeable occupations for every adult member 
 and, through the Department of Deposits and Loans, it offsets 
 service with service and undertakes from the start to build and 
 settle every head of a family in a house in a house built after the 
 wishes and upon the lot or lots selected by the particular member. 
 A home being secured for each head of a family and the lands be- 
 ing held in fee simple by the corporation for the use of all and 
 Erotected from the abuse of any, the foundation is substantially 
 dd for separating public utilities from private properties and for 
 having mankind to deal, one with the other, equitably with just 
 weights and measures and with a correct instrument of associ- 
 ation; for " A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a 
 just weight is his delight." (Prov. ii, 1.) 
 
 The Credit Foncier Company in the uses and facilities given by 
 its Department of Deposit and Loans prides itself upon having 
 solved vexatious problems which have agitated the past ages and 
 
14 
 
 which still distresses society. In the first place, it is a pawnshop 
 where all members deposit their money, personal property and 
 realty and, that which is more important than all together many 
 times over, their labor, which is always received at its full value 
 and accredited, on presentation, upon the books of the Company. 
 The Department of Deposit and Loans of the Credit Foncier Com- 
 pany, is a savings bank for its members where profits are declared 
 to depositors and not interest paid. It is easy to pro rate profits 
 with those who co-operate to make a business successful ; but it is 
 mostly ruinous to insure interests to those who do nothing but 
 embarrass honest effort. Our depositors simply authorize their 
 own agents to utilize their moneys and services for the benefit of 
 the common weal and are secured by credits upon the bt>oks of 
 the Company. These credits are legal tender at par for all ser- 
 vices in the settlements of the Company and at the home and 
 foreign banks with which the Credit Foncier does business. This 
 security, it is believed, will be nearer safe and more satisfactory 
 in its uses and revenues than bonds, mortgages, stocks, etc., have 
 been; for it is well known that hundreds of millions of bonds 
 issued by Nations, States and Corporations have been repudiated, 
 principal and interest. Mortgages have been found to be placed 
 upon properties where no title existed; and stocks have been 
 watered until their uses have ceased. 
 
 To pro rate profits is easy at all times, no matter if they are 
 large; but to pay interest during unprofitable years, even if ever 
 so little, cuts both ways. 
 
 Our Department of Deposits and Loans banks upon the char- 
 acter of the individual and not upon the^ amount of bonds and 
 money he or she may hold; and every day in the year a member 
 may deposit his or her crude or skilled, manual or mental, labor 
 and be accredited upon the company's books for its full valuation. 
 In this way we utilize every willing mind and laboring arm and 
 save every hour set apart for work. 
 
 Labor co-operating with the land and natural elements, pro- 
 duces all wealth, every luxury; and the Credit Foncier Company 
 employs and directs labor at the moment it is offered, secures and 
 controls the land and all which within and upon it rests, and saves 
 the time of every member by acting without delay in bringing the 
 labor and the land into useful interdependence and systematized 
 co-operation. There is truth in the of t-quoted words : "Time is 
 money;" and that labor is wealth no thinking person will dispute. 
 The Credit Foncier Company is the first ever incorporated, w T e 
 believe, to accept labor the moment it is offered and to so direct 
 as to make it a credit and the equivalent of a legal tender currency 
 within the community which employs it and with those with 
 whom the said community transacts business; and it is the only 
 association in existence which maintains that labor and time are 
 the most perishable and important factors to be found within a 
 State, and that they should be the objects of the greatest care by 
 those in authority. 
 
 The New York Clearing House offsets the debts between banks. 
 Our Department of Deposits and Loans offsets services of one 
 member against those of another; and as money is only used to 
 
15 
 
 pay balances, $100 in money, in our community, -will perform the 
 functions of $100,000 in cities not organized to offset services. 
 Balances between producers are an infinitesimal quantity when 
 compared with the exchanges made, and yet all the financiering of 
 the commercial world is done to the end that this fact may be lost 
 sight of and that the producers may, by the cunning tricksters 
 and ' ' the cannibals of exchange alley, " be legally, consistently, 
 persistently and incessantly plundered. The same fuss is made 
 about foreign trade, which is never more than 10 to 14 per cent, of 
 any nation's business, and yet it rules political parties, agitates 
 people and deceives political economists. When a trunk railroad 
 line is to be completed from ocean to ocean, it is the through 
 business which the bond hucksters mostly urge, although the local 
 business gives about 87 to 90 per cent, of the gross receipts of the 
 road, and England, which has only 8 per cent, of the gold held 
 by commercial nations, and which never has yet produced one 
 ounce of that metal, is a monometalist, and makes the most noise 
 about that w r hich she has the least of; and while 97% per cent, of 
 her exchanges are settled with checks, drafts, exchequer notes 
 and Clearing House certificates, she publicly declares that there 
 can be no just payment of debts except with gold coin. 
 
 The Credit Foncier Company maintains that labor is the most 
 important, the most valuable possession held by any nation ; that it 
 is the basis of all wealth; and it is to utilize labor and to demon- 
 strate this fact that our Department of Deposits and Loans was 
 instituted. Deposited labor is more useful than deposited gold, 
 and this is the basic idea of our association. 
 
 A pawnshop will advance money upon an old Bible, a revolver 
 which won't revolve, on a worn-out ring, and on most articles of 
 finished workmanship, while our department does all which the 
 pawnshop intends to do, and is so prepaid through centralized 
 management and diversified industries, to take upon deposit labor 
 from its crudest to its highest form, and so direct and utilize it 
 that the individual is benefited and the corporation is enriched. 
 
 _ There has not been a Nation recorded in history which ever 
 utilized one thousandth part of its labor; and all Nations have 
 robbed their producers and squandered the time of their citizens. 
 Labor, if not used systematically, is gone forever, and time lost 
 can never be recovered. A company which has for its purposes 
 the care, the instruction and organization of labor, the saving and 
 utilization of time, and the control and management ot land, is 
 building upon a firm foundation, and will be proudly advancing 
 in the line of enlightened association and happiness, when present 
 governments and to-day's institutions are a stench in the nostrils 
 of their subjects and of their advocates. 
 
 The second half of the nineteenth century has been a period 
 in which incorporated companies have reigned supreme, and their 
 success in accomplishing the purposes for which they were created 
 has been marked, their earnings great and their influences many. 
 
 If a street car, banking, gas, electric light, telegraph, insurance, 
 coal, manufacturing, farming, cattle, fruit canning, land improve- 
 ment, construction companies, building associations, etc., have 
 been useful, acting separately under different organizations and 
 
16 
 
 ofttimes antagonistic one with the other, why should they not be 
 still more useful to all concerned if associated in one company 
 and under one direction? Is not union strength? Is not co-oper- 
 ation better than competition? Is not construction more pleasant 
 than destruction? Is not peace to be preferred to war? 
 
 The purpose of the Credit Foncier Company is to unite benefits 
 and to harmonize differences, and its moral is expressed in its 
 motto: "Duty, Interdependence and Equity."" It maintains that 
 there is a duty which every man, woman and child owes to every 
 other man, woman and child; that one is interdependent with the 
 other, and that in every association, act and word, equity should 
 be considered. 
 
 The 4,000 members of the Credit Foncier Company when 
 gathered together upon their city site, will at once give a valuation 
 of $4,000,000 to the 1,000 acres upon which they settle. There is 
 nothing so sure or substantial as the association of people and land. 
 Locate 1,000 acres almost anywhere, and place 500 persons per- 
 manently upon them, and you have increased their value $1,000 
 to each person settled. If settlers acted individually, each con- 
 troling his or her own property of more or less value, there would 
 necessarily be antagonisms, and the coming together of the settlers 
 would be mostly the gain of land speculators and of cunning, un- 
 principled sharps. The Credit Foncier Company avoids conflicts 
 ,of interests, and attracts all its forces to co-operate for the best of 
 each by centralizing the common gain for the general good. 
 
 Again, when there is private ownership in city property, spec- 
 ulation rules and the population scatters, for when a house is built 
 the lots adjoining raise in price, and the next builder is driven by 
 enhanced prices to a distance, rather than attracted to move up 
 close to the buildings already erected. The Credit Foncier Com- 
 pany reverses this. It begins to build in the center of the selected 
 site, and although a person is at liberty to choose a lot where he 
 or she wishes, it is quite likely that, as the lots are the same price, 
 that the blocks will advance from the centre outward in solid and 
 complete order. This will concentrate the people, their amuse- 
 ments, their instructions, their culture; and the streets will be put 
 in first-class condition at the time each block is completed. Good 
 order is contagious, and well-formed plans work in every direc- 
 tion, at all times and in harmony for the advancement and the 
 happiness of those who think before they act, and act vigorously 
 after they are certain that they are right. 
 
 To give another example : The Credit Foncier Company buys 
 everything necessary for the uses of its members in quantity and 
 for cash, and sells it to the members in the quantity wished at 
 cost; thus saving at least 25 per cent, to the consumer and guaran- 
 tees the article to be always good and as represented. In the case 
 of food the company cooks and serves, at cost, a la carte or other- 
 wise, as it may be desired by the one served. This not only 
 guarantees the best quality of wholesome food, but it insures the 
 most skilled knowledge of the culinary art and the most careful 
 regularity and taste in serving at table. The more persons co- 
 operating the better and cheaper can each be served. To serve 
 4,000 persons, as well as they are served at Delmonico's in New 
 
17 
 
 York at $3 per order, will probably cost, in Sinaloa, each person 
 20 cents per day. 
 
 It can be readily seen that with us there can be no merchant, 
 middleman, manipulator or money-changer. All which they have 
 made, by handling other people's labors, products and talents, will 
 go to the common fund. There being no employment of one 
 person by another person, there will be no way for one to enrich 
 himself at the expense of another ; and hence there will be no 
 lawyers ; and, as inquiry, examination and truth are to be in every 
 way encouraged by our association, there will be no business for 
 ordained ministers or holy priests. Our purpose is to live a cor- 
 rect life and not to preach salvation or to sustain superstition. 
 "We maintain that there is a distinction with a difference between 
 to pray and prey ; between rights and rites ; between principle 
 and principal ; between truth and revelation ; and we deplore the 
 fact that most of our countrymen and women have not learned 
 this distinction. 
 
 The Credit Foncier Company, from first to last, never imposes 
 a direct tax upon any person or article or service. From the 
 revenues which come into its treasury by the management of its 
 street cars, electric lights and powers, steamboats, steam cars, 
 farms, hotels, theatres, fisheries, canneries, manufactures, etc., etc., 
 it attends to all public thoroughfares, parks, schools, insurances, 
 hospitals, buildings, sanitations, improvements, etc., etc. Charity, 
 which bemeans both giver and receiver, will be relegated to the 
 past, for there cannot be occasion for it within our community. 
 There will be no licenses, rents, interests in our Company. If a 
 thing is useful it is not just that a person should pay for license to 
 do it ; if it is bad, it should not be tolerated under any considera- 
 tion. The Mother Church licenses the rich to commit any crime, 
 and some of our politicians argue that if you put a " high license," 
 whatever that may be, upon the sale of liquors, that they have 
 done a commendable act. Both act perniciously ; each wants 
 money and sells principle for principal. Rents and interests 
 belong to capitalistic communities ; with co-operation incorpor- 
 ated, profits take their place. The Credit Foncier Company 
 cannot contract a debt, or have a mortgage or lien upon its prop- 
 erties. And a member cannot hypothecate his home, stock or 
 anything within the jurisdiction of the Credit Foncier Company, 
 in any way whatever other than with the corporation. The 
 Credit Foncier Company makes it a study to assist every arm and 
 brain to action, useful and profitable. It gives for use lands, 
 buildings and machinery without cost, rent or interest ; pays cash 
 for the product delivered and for articles manufactured ; and by 
 advancing the interests of the individual members adds directly 
 and indirectly, in a hundred different ways, and at all times, to 
 the prosperity of the community. Prosperity made general gives 
 security to the individual, encourages eclecticism and makes pro- 
 gress steady and substantial. 
 
 The Credit Foncier Company does not ask any one to join it, 
 but its members are pleased to explain the details of its workings, 
 and are glad when persons are attracted to unite their fortunes, 
 their crafts, 'their lives with theirs. 
 
18 
 
 The Credit Fonder Company in its contract with the Texas, 
 Topolobanipo and Pacific Bailroad and Telegraph Company agrees 
 not only to furnish the capital, but the labor necessary to construct, 
 equip and operate the said railroad and telegraph lines, and to 
 survey and colonize lands, etc. The said railroad company pays 
 the Credit Foncier Company, just as other railroad companies pay 
 ordinary banking houses for money, with bonds and stocks. 
 
 The Credit Foncier Company before long may become the 
 controller and manager of the said railroad and its franchises ; 
 and thus we may see, in the course of time, the actual builders of 
 a railroad come to possess the work of their own labor. Such a 
 sight as this indeed would be strange, in a land where those who 
 produce the food starve ; where those who build houses have no 
 homes : where those who produce clothes wear rags ; and where 
 those who neither produce, build or make have everything. 
 
 But as beneficial as this plan will be for the members of the 
 Credit Foncier Company, it will be found of the greatest good to 
 Mexico and her people, for the members of the Credit Foncier 
 Company have their homes in Mexico, and the dividends on the 
 stock and the interests on the bonds will remain along the line 
 and go into home industries and not to aliens living in foreign 
 lands. 
 
 But more anon. However, before the wiseacres and penny-a- 
 liners criticise the " Credit Foncier Company," it would be well 
 for them to study in the direction of correct purpose, at least suffi- 
 ciently to discriminate between socialism and anarchism, between 
 evolution and revolution, between co-operation and communism, 
 between eclecticism and ritualism, that they may discriminate 
 between that which is custom because it is right from that which. 
 is right because it is custom. 
 
 HERMASILLO, Sonora, October 22, 1886. 
 MR. A. K. OWEN, Present. 
 
 Dear Sir : The Mexican government in granting to a company 
 incorporated in the United States of North America concessions 
 to build railroads, to survey and to colonize public and other 
 lands in Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Coahuila, has done so 
 for the general good of the people of these States in particular and 
 of those of the United States of Mexico in general ; and I, as Gov- 
 ernor of the State of Sonora, wish to express in writing to yourself 
 and to those associated with you my sincere interest In all which 
 may affect your success and happiness on the coast of the Gulf of 
 California. 
 
 I have learned with particular pleasure of the intention of the 
 "Credit Foncier Company" to settle a part of its four thousand 
 and more colonists at Topolobampo this winter, and as Governor 
 of the State of Sonora, for my people and for myself personally, 
 I extend to them and to all who may follow their example, a 
 welcome to and across pur State to Sinaloa, and it will be my 
 pleasure at any and all times to co-operate with them in any way 
 
19 
 
 -which will add to tlieir own advantage and to the welfare of the 
 Mexican Republic. 
 
 I wish to say to you that I have, in person and on two occasions, 
 visited the waters of the harbor of Topolobampo, and that it is, in 
 natural advantages, probably superior to any other harbor within 
 the Republic of Mexico. Believe me, my dear sir, yours very 
 truly, Luis TORRES. 
 
 A DREAM OF HEAVEN BELOW- 
 
 THE CREDIT FONCIER OF SINALOA. 
 
 BOUNDING A SOCIALISTIC STATE ON THE PACIFIC PLANS TO 
 REALIZE THE VISION. 
 
 (From a special correspondent of tUe N. Y. Tribune, Dec. 19, 18SG.) 
 
 HAMMONTON, N. J., Dec. 18. 
 
 Ideas are scant and well worn and life is dull and decorous in 
 a slow-going country town like this, hidden away amid the gray 
 sand drifts and scrubby pines of southern New Jersey. One 
 would as soon think of finding the data of a Parisian novel here as 
 the stir and ferment of socialistic theories of social discontent. And 
 no people, perhaps, will be more surprised than the Hammonton 
 villagers themselves to hear that for more than a year past a little 
 group of zealous Fourierites amongst them has been plotting the 
 foundation of a new socialistic colony, which, if successful, will 
 eclipse the peaceful triumphs of the New-Lebanon Shakers, or, 
 failing, will vindicate more signally than ever the melancholy les- 
 sons of Brook Farm. It is j list eighteen months ago that the new 
 venture a co-operative city on the shore of the Pacific, in* the State 
 of Sinaloa, Mexico was launched here by Marie and Edward How- 
 land, both well-known writers among the socialistic and labor re- 
 form parties of this country. Edward Ho wland has been a master 
 in the Grange, and a prominent G-reenbacker in the time of the 
 " soft money craze." His wife had written some socialistic novels, 
 and is the translator of M. Godin's "Solutions Sociales." Under 
 their direction a little eight-page paper was started, called "The 
 Credit Foncier of Sinaloa," the scheme itself being known to its 
 subscribers as the Credit Foncier. The Credit was a corporation 
 or stock company with 100,000 shares, at $10 a share, and each 
 prospective colonist took one share or more. The tiny paper had 
 a fair success. The stock was scattered far and wide over the 
 West and South, bit by bit at first, then block by block. The de 
 tails of a plan of government and living were worked out. Land 
 in Sinaloa on the Bay of Topolobampo was bought ; concessions 
 
20 
 
 from the Mexican Government were obtained ; the Credit Foncier 
 was incorporated ; the actual settlement has begun. There are 
 now about 2,000 men and women enlisted as colonists. Over 
 15,000 shares of the stock have been sold. Ground will be broken 
 gradually at Topolobampo, but by next spring nearly the whole of 
 the new colony, then swollen in all probability to 2,500 or 3,000, 
 will reach its destination, and this fresh experiment with the forces 
 of human nature, combative as well as co-operative, will begin. 
 
 Brook Farm and the American Phalanx at Red Bank failed, as 
 their apologists will have it, through lack of isolation, of a fair 
 chance to try the community life under thoroughly self-depend- 
 ent conditions in fresh fields far from the echo of the old world of 
 competition. The Credit Foncier hopes now to build a city on 
 virgin soil, cut off by nature from hostile civilizations, where the 
 co-operative life may work out its own salvation untrarn- 
 meled, or fail by its inherent impotence, and that alone. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE SCHEME. 
 
 The beginnings of this striking colony scheme go further back, 
 however, than eighteen months ago ; to the wanderings, in fact, of 
 its real projector, A. K. Owen, in Mexico in 1872 and 1873. 
 Owen has had an adventurous career from boyhood as a traveler 
 and surveyor, rambling afoot over nearly every country in Europe 
 and through Palestine, and crossing and re-crossing the Western 
 plains before the days of railroads or stage lines. He had learned 
 civil engineering in Chester, Delaware County, Penn. , and plunged 
 with great vigor into railroading at thirty years of age. Getting 
 through with some work in Colorado, he went down into Mexico, 
 in 1872, with General W. J. Palmer, to survey what is now the 
 Mexican Central Railroad. For eleven months he pushed his ex- 
 plorations through Central and Western Mexico ; and in Septem- 
 ber, 1873, traveling by chance along the coast of Sinaloa, he dis- 
 covered Topolobampo Bay. This bay, it seems, opening off the 
 Pacific by a narrow passageway, like the Golden Gate at San 
 Francisco, had escaped the notice of geographers until then. 
 About half-way between Guaymas, a poor roadstead to the north r 
 and Mazatlan, another poor one to the south, lying just 
 where the Gulf of California merges with the ocean, with a spa- 
 cious land-locked harbor, deep water and gently sloping shores, it 
 seemed to offer rare advantages for commerce. The young sur- 
 veyor saw in fancy the broad harbor covered with ships, a splendid 
 city on its northern edge, with wharves and towers and parks, the 
 terminus of a mesh of railroads and of huge steamboat lines. And 
 that dazzling picture of wealth and industry he never lost. 
 
 A railroad across Mexico to Topolobampo became now his 
 fondest project. At the Governors' Convention in Atlanta, in the 
 Virginia Legislature, in the United States Senate and House of 
 Representatives whenever and wherever the opportunity offered 
 Owen urged the claims of his ' ' Great Southern Trans-Oceanic and 
 International Air-line Asia to Europe via Mexico." President 
 Grant, in his second term, ordered a survey of Topolobampo Har- 
 bor, and a report on it by a board of United States engineers was 
 published in the War Department. Two committees in Congress. 
 

 21 
 
 recommended the railroad scheme favorably, before 1876, but 
 hard times followed, and nothing came of it. Owen meanwhile 
 had joined the Greenback party and gone into all sorts of 
 labor reform movements and organizations the Sovereigns of In- 
 dustry, the Brotherhood of the Union and the Knights of Labor. 
 From ' ' soft money" he ran by degrees into Socialism, fiercely at- 
 tacking the old competitive order in his pamphlets and advocating 
 what he calls, in recent work on the Sinaloan colony, "Integral 
 Co-operation." Full of these socialistic ideas, he went to Mexico 
 once more in 1879 and set afoot plans for digging a vast system of 
 canals and drainage for the Valley of Mexico, and for building the 
 Mexican State railways. His proposals were accepted by the Gov- 
 ernment and he came back to New York to organize a syndicate 
 for the work. General A. T. A. Tarbert was at the head of it, and 
 Owen sailed with him and seventy-four others for Mexico again 
 in the City of Vera Cruz. The steamer foundered off Florida and 
 all but Owen were lost. U. 8. Grant, jr., was next made head of 
 the syndicate, but by this time the Mexican Central and Franco- 
 Egyptian banks had got control of the public works and Owen's 
 schemes were dropped. 
 
 Nothing was left but to organize a new railroad corporation and 
 apply for concessions of land and subsidies for building. The 
 Texas, Topolobampo and Pacific Railroad Company was formed 
 with ex-Senator Windom as President, and General B. F. Butler, 
 ex-Mayor Prince, of Boston, General Grant, Wendell Phillips, 
 Minister Romero, E. A. Buck and John H. Rice on the Board of 
 Directors. In 1883 one hundred miles of road were surveyed east- 
 ward from Topolobampo. Owen himself had charge of i't and of 
 the north and south branches. A city was needed badly at 
 the terminus of the railroad. Inducements would have to be given 
 to settlers. Here was a chance for Owen's socialistic friends, one 
 that he knew they would enthusiastically snap at. It was at his 
 suggestion that the Hammonton paper, The Credit Fancier of 8m- 
 aloa, was started, and of the Credit itself he became practically the 
 leading director. He drew up a declaration of principles for the 
 co-operative city and has been its recognized agent in all financial 
 matters. Last summer he succeeded in obtaining a series of con- 
 cessions from the Mexican Government, admitting all materials for 
 the new city and for the railroad duty free. The colonists, too, 
 were to be exempt from all taxes and conscription for a period of 
 years, and subsidies of lands and money were promised for the 
 building of railroads and the clearing and cultivating of the soil. 
 Owen is now in Sinaloa with his advance-guard of colonists from 
 Colorado, Texas and California. Some 15,000 city lots have been 
 purchased for $25,000 and 15,000 acres of farm land for $10,000. 
 A few houses will be built, the ground cleared and staked off, the 
 plan of the city laid, and the farm lands divided, by the time the 
 bulk of the colony arrives next spring. 
 
 THE FINANCIAL BASIS. 
 
 The Credit Foncier has a nominal capital of $1,000,000. About 
 15,000 shares have been taken so far, realizing $150,000. About 
 $340,000 in United States money and some $200,000 in real estate 
 
22 
 
 have also been pledged by stockholders, as deposits, bearing 
 interest, with the Credit's Department of Deposits and Loans. The 
 land already purchased has cost $35,000. A steamer of 500 tons 
 burden was to be bought for $15,000. A hotel, overlooking the 
 harbor, to be built for $20,000; a section of the colonial head- 
 quarters and ten model houses for $20,000 more. Thirty thousand 
 dollars were to be spent on a pipe line of thirty or forty miles to 
 the Rio Fuerte for irrigation and drinking water. Finally a news- 
 paper was to be published at an outlay of $2,000, and $10,000 more 
 voted for incidental expenses. This would leave $18,000 still in 
 the treasury, and the greater part of the money spent coming 
 back, of course, to the laboring colonists themselves, in the shape of 
 lands and houses. 
 
 This was the first scheme of the Board of Directors and all 
 would have gone smoothly along the lines, if the Texas, Topolo- 
 bampo and Pacific Railroad had kept on building. But in July 
 or August last the Mexican Government withdrew its subsidy of 
 $5,376 a mile, and the construction company within the railroad 
 company precipitately abandoned work. The railroad company 
 showed the white feather too, leaving the poor colonists in tlie 
 lurch. Owen was equal to the emergency, however. He now 
 proposes that the Credit Foncier buy 1,000 shares one-fourth of 
 all of the Texas, Topolobampo and Pacific Railroad and Telegraph 
 Company, and 28,000 shares also one-fourth of all of the Mexican- 
 American Construction Company for $200,000, and give in pay- 
 ment a bond for thirty years at 6 per cent., it being further agreed 
 that 1,000 shares more of the railroad and telegraph company be 
 "pooled" with the Credit Foncier in case of a vote to sell. The 
 cost of thirty-five miles of railway from Topolobampo to the River 
 Fuerte would be, at most, $5,500 a mile, or $192,500 in all. But 
 500 colonists will be employed on the railway and a part of the ex- 
 pense, the profits of the construction, will thus be saved the cor- 
 poration itself. And on these easy terms, too, the improvements in 
 the first plan will all be carried out. 
 
 SCOPE OF THE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 The Credit Foncier, in fact, -as it appears in all these trans- 
 actions, is a huge banking house, a stock company to which each 
 colonist is at once creditor and debtor. All middlemen are sup- 
 pressed. What a single corporation does in a single branch of 
 business, banking, railroading, mining, lighting the streets, fur- 
 nishing conveniences of one sort or another, it does in all branches 
 together. The Credit Foncier will own everything and manage 
 everything. No colonist can have any dealings directly with 
 another colonist, but only with the State. All will be functionaries 
 and of equal rank, the director himself who manages the public 
 business, and the woman who scrubs the public halls. There aie 
 to be no servants and no masters, no creditors and no debtors Within 
 the corporation itself. No society, partnership, or even church, is 
 longer possible. Religious belief is made a personal matter purely, 
 and priesthood is abolished. Marriage, however, though a sort of 
 contract, is both allowed and encouraged, and society is ^to be 
 based on strict monogamic rules. The colony, in short, is one 
 that asks, according to the curious phrases of its projector, "i'tfr 
 
23 
 
 evolution and not for revolution ; for interdependence and not for 
 independence ; for co-operation and not for competition ; for equity 
 and not for equality ; for duty and not for liberty ; for employment 
 and not for charity ; for eclecticism and not for dogma ; for one law 
 and not for class legislation ; for corporate management and not 
 for political control ; for State responsibility for every person, ai 
 all times, and in every place, and not for municipal irresponsibility 
 for any person, at any time or in any place ; and it demands thai 
 the common interests of the citizen the atmosphere, land, water, 
 light, power, exchange, transportation^- construction, sanitation, 
 education, entertainment, insurance, production, distribution, etc. , 
 etc. be pooled, and that the private life of the citizen be held 
 sacred." 
 
 The corporate State, of course, is the board of ten directors, two 
 of whom are elected annually by a vote of stock. One director is 
 made chairman and the other nine are set each over a Department 
 of his own. The head of each department, like that of the De- 
 partment of Policing, Sewerage and Cleanliness, or of Farming, 
 Forestry, Stock-raising, Game, and Fish Culture, has complete 
 control over all the laborers under his direction ; making assign- 
 ments of work each day, and, in conjunction with the eight other 
 chiefs, fixing the wages or salary paid each man. There is to be, 
 presumably, perfect harmony all round, the laborer getting small 
 wages, taking consolation from the fact that the State thereby 
 saves something and the percentage of profits to all is sensibly or 
 insensibly raised. But all these are untried delicacies of detail. 
 The State stands ready to modify them in the working out. 
 
 The city of Topolobampo, as laid down on the colony's maps, 
 is one of the airiest and most charming in the world. The streets 
 are to be wide and cut one another, for the main part, at right 
 angles, though diagonal avenues, like those of Washington, inter- 
 sect here and there. The squares and circles will be set in trees 
 and flowers and fountains. The houses will be built in the Moor- 
 ish style, with pillars, carvings and open courts. The streets will 
 be paved with asphalt or some other hard substance, for bicycle 
 and tricycle riding. Cable cars may be used for travel, but no 
 horses. All domestic animals, horses, dogs, cats, fowls, and the 
 rest, are to be kept beyond the city limits. There will be little rain- 
 fall and no snowfall, and the Department of Street Cleaning will 
 be a sinecure if there is one at all in this model metropolis of the 
 future. 
 
 No less Utopian are the fertility and beauty of the Topolo- 
 bampan fields, as they appear to the colonists. In the rich valley 
 of the Rio Fuerte, as a matter-of-fact public document makes it 
 out, all cereals grow, with rice and cotton, tobacco and sugar cane. 
 The rainy season has its two crops, and one can get two more, per- 
 haps, from the alluvial bottom lands by careful irrigation. Back 
 toward the mountain ranges the fruits of two zones are found, the 
 banana vieing with the luscious pear, the orange with the New- 
 England apple. Timber of all sorts abounds, and the whole coast 
 range of mountains is streaked with precious veins of metal. The 
 bay itself is stocked with fish so densely that the native Indians 
 and Mexicans use no lines or nets, but only spears. Add to all 
 
24 
 
 this the temperate climate, which the projectors of the railroad 
 found cool nights and breezy days even in the dry season, the 
 thermometer rarely showing more than 70 or 80?, a fine light 
 atmosphere and constant southwestern winds and one has some 
 faint conception of the charms of this Land of Promise, bathed in 
 the mellow Southern sun of fancy, fragrant with perfumes like 
 some new Araby the Blest. 
 
 In all this Eldorado one thing is certain, at least, Topolobampo 
 has an unequaled site. From New York, Chicago, St. Louis, or 
 Galveston, it is the nearest point on the Pacific Coast and, as Owen 
 himself has taken pains to show, it lies on the most direct line 
 across the continent from England to the Australian Colonies. No 
 harbor on the Pacific coast, except that of San Francisco, can ap- 
 proach it. The outer bar never shows less than twenty-six feet 
 frequently over thirty and the channel is wide and deep. With 
 any fair degree of progress the new city will in time control, at least, 
 the trade, both coasting and railroad, of the western slope of Mex- 
 ico. It is a dream of commercial supremacy as well as of social 
 order this distant commonwealthand no one who will not work 
 for both is wanted among its citizens. 
 
 THE COLONISTS. 
 
 The Credit Fonder of Sinaloa published in October last a par- 
 tial list of the colonists 1,423 adults in all with their probable 
 occupations. There were 256 housewives promised, 196 farmers, 95 
 carpenters, 35 clerks, 41 laborers, 22 blacksmiths, 23 painters, 23 mer- 
 chants, 21 civil engineers, 31 printers, 18 miners, and 21 dress- 
 makers. Twenty-nine put themselves down as teachers and 29 as 
 stock-raisers. There were 10 telegraphers, 4 musicians, 3 stenog- 
 raphers, and 7 inventors. One man had the hardihood to profess 
 authorship, and there were two preachers, one elocutionist, one 
 lecturer, and seven editors. On the whole the list was well bal- 
 anced, 188 different trades and professions having representatives. 
 Seven editors will, doubtless, prove too great a burden for The 
 Credit Fonder in its new quarters, and many other occupations, of 
 course, will droop or vanish altogether. And when personal tastes 
 about work and haphazard assignments clash, the real tug in the 
 co-operative system will come. 
 
 There are many trials and privations, no doubt, before the Sin- 
 aloan colony. The perils of a half -tropical climate, the weary 
 struggle with new uncleared soil, the light against drouth, the 
 delays and vexations of building railroads, houses, waterways, 
 piers and streets, and the strain of life through all these enterprises 
 under the new system of association and self-support all these 
 are enough to dismay the most enthusiastic member of the Topolo- 
 bampan State. But in a way the venture has a prospect of suc- 
 cess. The bulk of the colonists come from, the country, from 
 Texas, California, Colorado, Michigan and Kansas. Many of them 
 have practised irrigation and are accustomed to the hardships of 
 frontier life. They ought to get an easy subsistence from the 
 fertile soil of Sinaloa. But to plot out the city, build the railroad, 
 dig the waterways and bend to all the delicate workings of the 
 
25 
 
 communistic State-^ that calls for an energy of purpose, a subtle 
 and finely tempered skill above the average of human flesh. 
 
 Yet the Topolobampan colonists are terribly in earnest, to all 
 appearances. There is something pathetic in their eagerness to 
 sell their homes here and pledge their whole fortunes to the suc- 
 cess or failure of the Mexican colony. It is not a religious ardor, 
 looking to privations here and rewards hereafter, that draws them 
 to tlu's distant, unbuilt city in the wilderness, but a weariness of the 
 struggle and selfishness of the world of competition, a longing for 
 an ideal commonwealth, where the strong and the weak, the rich 
 and the poor shall fare alike, and earthly happiness come back 
 once more to all men. It is the dream of a perfect State, the vision 
 of Plato and Sir Thomas Moore. 
 
 There is a little hymn that the Sinaloan colonists sing often, 
 
 "In a beautiful land, as I dream, 
 
 Is a palace and city all new ; 
 Prophetical vision, I deem, 
 
 This mystical city most true. 
 
 From Dreamland, O city, arise, 
 For shadows the substance must be ; 
 
 And he who has faith, and who tries, 
 This beautiful city shall see." 
 
 Such is their faith and hope, and having cast religion proper 
 aside, this city of Dreamland has become their cult. 
 
 SOCIALISM IN ACTION. 
 
 AN INTERESTING VIEW OF TOPOLOBAMPO. 
 
 (From Jo7m Swtntoris Paper, New YorTc, January 2, 1887.) 
 
 The history of mankind in their steady advance from the lowest 
 condition of savageism to the present civilization is marked by the 
 inception and growth of socialism by the conception that the 
 institutions through which the lives of each of us are predestined 
 to failure or success is a matter for human arrangement, and is the 
 most important subject for consideration. 
 
 It was the practical application of this conception which led to 
 our revolution in the last century, and to the forcible attempt to 
 replace the organized institutions of royalty by those of a republic. 
 The promulgation of the Declaration of Independence was the 
 public statement of the fact that this country had accepted 
 socialism as its rule and guide for the organization of human rela- 
 tions, and this statement was really the key and the interior mean- 
 ing of all our political progress up to 1860. 
 
 The war which then was undertaken was merely a foolish 
 slaughter, if it was not undertaken with the view of endorsing this 
 belief and reiterating it as the policy of the country. 
 
26 . 
 
 And yet by one of the sudden aberrations of human society, 
 for the past twenty years or more, the entire legislation of this 
 country, and the political efforts of our public men, have been 
 used to controvert practically the meaning of the Declaration of 
 Independence, and make it a glittering tissue of abstractions 
 instead of what it really is, a statesmanlike chart for our political 
 action.. 
 
 So far had this attempted retrogression gone that a few believers 
 in the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence determined to 
 illustrate their belief by the establishment of the ' ' Credit Foncier 
 of Sinaloa." It had happened that one of these, Mr. A. K. Owen, 
 had discovered an unknown and unused harbor on the Pacific 
 coast, at Topolobampo, in Mexico, and they proposed to build a 
 city there, offered an opportunity for gathering a colony, to be 
 organized upon such a socialistic basis as should complete and 
 carry out to their legitimate conclusions the Fourieristic move- 
 ments that from 1840 to 1850 had so engaged the attention of the 
 progressive thinkers of the world, and in which the New York 
 Tribune had, at that time, taken a prominent part. 
 
 There had been but a single pamphlet published by Mr. Owen, 
 entitled a " Social Study," and proposing the raising of a fund by 
 general subscription sufficient to organize a colony to settle in 
 Sinaloa. This had been circulated the edition was 1,000 
 when Marie and Edward Howland, residing in Hammonton, N. J., 
 and both writers of more or less reputation, proposed to found a 
 weekly paper to advocate the scheme. This was done, and sixteen 
 pages of pamphlet size were printed and circulated each week in 
 advocacy of the socialistic plan of organizing a colony to settle in 
 Sinaloa, the capital of which should be $1,000,000 in 100,000 
 shares at $10 each. Nearly 17,000 shares have been sold, and 
 nearly 5,000 persons have subscribed for them. They come from 
 all over the country, but chiefly from the West. Among these 
 subscribers are representatives of probably over two hundred 
 trades and occupations. A census taken some months ago con- 
 tained a list of over 188. 
 
 The social and industrial problems of the colony have been 
 illustrated and enforced during the publication of the paper so 
 thoroughly and well, that it is not too much to say that no colony 
 ever entered upon the inauguration of its new life more fully 
 equipped for success. The institutions which Fourier and the 
 socialist students and writers, both of Europe and America, have 
 constantly advocated and advised are organized for immediate 
 introduction in Sinaloa. The ownership of the land will be by 
 the community, and there will be no pecuniary relations between 
 individuals, as the State, or the collectivity, will stand entirely in 
 the position of the employer. Each number of the organ, which 
 is published weekly, is headed with these two lines, that run across 
 the entire page : 
 
 " Collective ownership and management for public utilities 
 and conveniences." 
 
 ' ' The community responsible for the health, usefulness, indi- 
 viduality and security of each." 
 
27 
 
 As a terse and complete epitome of the whole body of socialistic 
 doctrine, this condensation is really a noticeable contribution to 
 the literature of socialism. Let it be realized that these five 
 thousand persons have been so thoroughly enthused and convinced 
 of the value of the proposed method for entering up on the next 
 higher ^lune of civilization that, induced by this consideration, 
 they have subscribed and stand ready to go half-way round the 
 world to put their belief in practice. 
 
 As a fact in the history of social science, this statement en 
 titles this movement to serious consideration. As an industrial 
 movement, the fact that these colonists carry witli them a knowl- 
 edge and an intention to organize their company upon a social 
 method, and expect to solve the financial muddle of the present 
 era of money starvation by making their own circulation and 
 using it only as an aid to industry, it is certain that nothing but 
 the blindest social apathy can pass it over with silence. E. EL 
 
 THE JOYS OF TOPOLOBAMPO. 
 
 AN ENTHUSIASTIC LETTER FROM DR. PEET ON THE 
 SINALOA SCHEME. 
 
 KEPORTS OP THE COMMITTEES FRUITS, FLOWERS AND KINDLY 
 MEXICANS-AN ARCADIA THE OUTLOOK. 
 
 (From the Denver Tribune-Republican, Friday morning, Dec. 31, 1886.) 
 TOPOLOBAMPO BAY, Sinaloa, Mexico, Dec. 18. 
 Nothing would afford me greater pleasure than to be able to 
 give your readers an accurate and comprehensive pen picture of 
 the beauties of Topolobampo and Ohuira bays, of the grandeur of 
 the rugged bush and cactus- covered hills and rocky porphyry 
 dykes almost surrounding them. As you approach the outer bay, 
 bearing the unique aboriginal appellation, ' ' Topolobampo" (signi- 
 fying hidden water), from the Farallon, a large solitary rock rising 
 nearly perpendicular on all sides from the surface of the Gulf of 
 California to the height of 484 feet, as if placed there by the Titans 
 to mark the entrance to the channel leading to the bay, you would 
 almost imagine that the sailors had lost their course, their compass 
 or their senses, and had started for the hills, so meagre and im- 
 probable are the appearances of a large bay and fine harbor in that 
 direction. The first that will attract your attention are the 
 breakers to the north of the channel ; next, the sand-bars and the 
 -drifts and hills of beautiful sand. In the valleys between these 
 sand hills an abundance of excellent fresh water is obtained by dig- 
 ging down and setting barrels in the loose sand. And between these 
 sand beds, and on each side of the bay, there is a flat of several 
 
28 
 
 hundred acres of splendid bottom land covered with wild prairie 
 grass from three to five feet high, which, if cut, would make 
 hundreds of tons of very fair hay. 
 
 TOWERING HILLS. 
 
 These grass or hay covered plains, 3arge as they are', would 
 scarcely be noticed, except by a close observer, while the hills 
 farther inland tower up, some of them between 800 and 900 feet 
 high, and are painfully conspicuous to the colonist looking for the 
 site of Pacific City, the future metropolis of the Pacific coast. 
 But his disappointment, if he experiences any, must certainly be 
 intermingled with the enchanting scenery that absorbs and rivets 
 his attention. At the eastern end of the bay there is a large island, 
 called Mummucahui, which, being a high, rocky hill, intercepts 
 all appearances of the Straits of Joshua, and its top, rising up 
 between Mount Joshua on the south and Observation Point on the 
 north, produces the impression that the precipitous base of these 
 hills forms an absolute boundary of the waters in that direction, 
 and official reports have been made to that effect, which probably 
 accounts for the absence of Topolobampo and Ohuira bays from 
 nearly all maps of Mexico. 
 
 But contrary to the misleading appearances there is a wide 
 channel on each side of the island, one of which is more than 
 ninety feet deep. And what is still more surprising, the straits 
 3ead to a beautiful bay beyond the hills of some thirty square miles 
 in area. 
 
 But I must leave a further description of these beautiful bodies 
 of water for some future time, and take your kind readers to tlie 
 top of Observatory Hill, and, if you are a colonist or a stockholder 
 of the Credit Foncier Company, show you "where your posses- 
 sions lie." 
 
 A GRAND SCENE. 
 
 Can you imagine a scene more grand- and delightful than the 
 one before you ? All that rich and fertile plain stretched away 
 thirty-five miles to the northeast, rises from the surface of the 
 water at your feet and the estero to your left, at the rate of a metre 
 a mile as you go toward the foothills. 
 
 The railroad will run from the wharf on the northern shore of the 
 Straits of Joshua, through a short cut through Harbor Pass, thence 
 along and around the base of Howard Ridge to the plain on the city 
 side, a distance of about one-half mile from the harbor ; it then 
 runs due north along a 200-foot avenue to the north base line of 
 the city ; thence north thirty-two miles to Vegaton, over as fine 
 and fertile a plain as was ever traversed by a railroad, without a 
 bend or curve, and with scarcely a variation in the established 
 grade of about one metre to the mile unlike prairies, which are 
 more or Jess undulating, and consequently require cutting and 
 filling and frequent culverts ; the grade for this railroad was 
 established by Dame Nature, and for the sake of economy she left 
 but one place for a culvert, and that the bed of the dry lake of 
 Camajoa, which for some distance requires grading up about six 
 feet, and results in a culvert a hundred feet deep. A short cut, 
 
29 
 
 twelve feet, will have to be made in one place through the saddle 
 between mountains Seguin and Don Martin at Vegaton. 
 
 The soil of this vast plain consists of deep strata of sandy 
 alluvium, upon which rests a thick stratum of sedimentary loam 
 covered with a rich, dark layer of vegetable mould. There can 
 be no question about its fertilty, and its agricultural and horticul- 
 tural possibilities are truly wonderful. It produces an endless 
 variety of tropical and semi-tropical fruits of the very best quality 
 in great profusion, and the same is true in regard to cereals, fibers, 
 vegetables and grasses. For some thirty miles of the distance the 
 plain is covered with a dense forest, consisting of a great variety 
 of trees and cacti ; the former of rather inferior growth, but the 
 proportions attained by the latter are simply stupendous. 
 
 FOREST TREES. 
 
 In this forest the cassia or locust family occupy an important 
 position, the most common variety of which is the Mesquite, which 
 occasionally attains a height of 45 feet and a trunk diameter at 
 the base of 1)^ feet, and sometimes along the streams considerable 
 more. The trunk of the tree seldom, in this country, exceeds 
 twelve or fifteen feet in height, but the limbs are long, very 
 abundant and wide spread. It is an excellent timber for fuel, and 
 makes first-class charcoal. The Palo Verda and screw bean are 
 also quite common members of the same family in this vicinity. 
 The Pachote or vegetable silk, Cholata, Guamuchil, Caguinagna, 
 Noeapui (a species of the Banyan), Lignumvitse and other varieties 
 . abound in the forest in question. They are nearly all good for 
 fuel and charcoal, and some of them make good furniture, etc., 
 though none of it can be considered suitable as sawed lumber for 
 building purposes. The average height is probably from 25 to 30 
 feet, and the majority of it less than a foot in diameter. Through 
 this timber the engineer corps is cutting a road 20 feet wide, from 
 Vegaton to Topolobampo at the rate of about one-half mile per day. 
 
 SITE OF VEGATON. 
 
 The site of Vegaton is located on the southern shore of the 
 Fuerte river, at the intersection of the Topolobampo & Mazatlan 
 branches of T. B. & P. R. R., and where the latter branch crosses 
 the river. 
 
 The Fuerte valley is principally owned in large tracts by 
 wealthy Mexicans, and is in a very fair state of cultivation, and 
 the grains, vegetables, fibers and fruits hereafter mentioned are, 
 as a general thing, very successfully raised there without irriga- 
 tion. The past season, however, was a remarkably dry one the 
 driest known for years and wheat, corn, oats, barley, and nearly 
 all vegetables were an utter failure, and castor beans and sugar 
 cane planted early in the season were also destroyed by the drouth ; 
 but cane and castor beans planted the year before had got well 
 rooted and have produced a very fair crop. The calabash (similar 
 to the Hubbard squash) and watermelon were "fair to middling" 
 crops in spite of the protracted drouth. About the only provisions 
 and produce that our colonists can purchase of the natives, are 
 panoche, i. e., cane sugar in cakes, similar in taste and appearance 
 
30 
 
 to commercial maple sugar ; calabashes, melons, fish, beef and 
 oranges. 
 
 Prices are about as follows : Panoche, 4 to 7 cents per pound ; 
 calabashes, 1 to 4 cents each ; oranges, $1 per 100 to 15 cents a 
 dozen ; melons 10 to 25 cents ; fish, 4 to 8 cents per pound ; beef 
 steers, $12 to $20 each. There are some islands in Ohuira Bay 
 where thousands of ducks congregate and lay their eggs and hatch 
 and rear their young. Our colonists gather the eggs in cracker 
 boxes. Some days they bring in a 110 dozen. 
 
 EXCELLENT FISH. 
 
 The bays and esteros are full of excellent fish, but our colonists 
 have as yet no very effective way of catching them. A few men 
 have gone out in boats with a torch, spear and pitchfork, and 
 taken thirty to forty pounds of fine fish in an evening. A seine 
 has been ordered ; when it arrives our colonists can subsist on fish 
 if they desire. 
 
 In April and May turtles come upon the shores of Topolo- 
 bampo Bay in droves, figuratively speaking, and deposit tkeir 
 eggs in the sand. They are easily captured on moonlight nights 
 by simply turning them over on their backs. The number of this 
 delicious variety of mammoth Crustacea that a courageous and 
 competent party of turtle-hunters may secure is only limited by their 
 endurance and skill in turtle turning. 
 
 As an illustration of some of the methods of agriculture as 
 carried on in Mexico we will mention as an example the cultivation 
 of sugar cane. Trenches four feet apart, two feet wide and two * 
 feet deep are dug across the field. The seed is planted in three 
 rows, one in the centre and one on each side, twelve to fifteen 
 inches apart, in quincunx order, and no more attention given it 
 until it is ripe, when it is cut and the leaves stripped from the stock 
 and thrown into the ditch, and when thoroughly dried they are 
 burned, which sometimes makes a very hot fire. The ashes and 
 roots are then covered with fresh soil. 
 
 A NEW CROP. 
 
 A new crop more hardy than the previous sprouts up from the 
 roots and is treated in manner identical with the parent 
 crop. This process is repeated with each ensuing crop until the 
 ditch has been filled full and level with the rest of the field ; then 
 a new ditch is dug midway between the original ditches, and a 
 new crop planted, cultivated and harvested in the regular order of 
 the preceding eight or ten crops from one planting. This process 
 is very successful without irrigation. What improved methods 
 may be inaugurated with a bountiful supply of water by irrigation 
 it is hard to tell. 
 
 S. T. PEET. 
 
31 
 
 SENDING BACK GREETINGS. 
 
 TOPOLOBAMPO, Sinaloa, Mexico, Dec. 17, 
 To OUT Friends : In accordance with a request of the members 
 of the Pacific Colony, made at a meeting on the shore of Topolo- 
 "barnpo Bay, December 15, 1886, a statement of the facts concern- 
 ing the climate and natural resources of the country is hereby 
 presented. 
 
 Upon entering the inner harbor we find it unsurpassed in the 
 depth of its channel and its protection for shipping by any harbor 
 on the Pacific coast, having a depth of at least four fathoms, 
 almost surrounded by high hills, and of sufficient area for all ship- 
 ping that an extensive commerce requires. 
 
 Immediately on the north and east extends a vast and fertile 
 plain comprising the valley of the Fuerte river, having a deep, 
 dark and rich soil, with a few scattering hills rising abruptly from 
 the plains. Valley and hills covered with a dense growth of low 
 timber, affording excellent material for fuel and charcoal, together 
 with a thick growth of underbrush and cactus. This soil is 
 capable of producing everything in semi-tropical and temperate 
 regions. The air is pure, winds moderate and regular, and the 
 temperature at this season ranges between 56 and 85 degrees. The 
 city is laid out so as to front the bay east of the railroad terminus. 
 
 WELL-DISPOSED MEXICANS. 
 
 We find the Mexican people kind and well-disposed towards 
 us, and the Indians peaceable and industrious. Upon the whole, 
 we find the published letters and reports of those who have been 
 here before us true in all essentials. Some of the members of the 
 Pacific Colony now here have explored the valley above mentioned, 
 and know the facts above stated, the others hereby affirm the state- 
 ments herein made, so far as their knowledge extends. 
 
 We have all had the opportunity of making the acquaintance 
 of Albert K. Owens, who has been with us for a week, and find in 
 him a man of indomitable spirit, of profound and comprehensive 
 mind, of undoubted integrity, of great executive ability and deep 
 earnestness and determination in the work in which he is engaged, 
 such a man as we see but once in a generation of time, and even 
 then standing alone amidst the great army of selfish beings by 
 which he is surrounded. 
 
 We hereby express our unbounded confidence in him as a 
 leader in the grand enterprise in which we are all engaged. 
 
 In attestation of the statements here made we subscribe our 
 names. 
 
 ALVIN J. WILBER, E. J. SHELLHOUSE, 
 
 BENJAMIN WOODRUFF, H. W. YOUMANS, 
 THOMAS YOUNG, W. MATSON, 
 
 ANNA J. NOKRIS, W. A. MCEJENZIE, 
 
 Committee, 
 And by eighty (80) other Colonists. 
 
52 
 
 A PACIFIC CITY, 
 
 AN ELYSIUM FOR THE LABORING CLASSES ON THE 
 GULF OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 (From the New York Herald, Dec. 27, 1886.) 
 
 Mr. John "W. Lovell, the publisher, delivered last night an 
 address on "A Co-operative City How to Build and How to 
 Govern It. " It was the feature of one of the semi-religious meet- 
 ings presided over by Rev. Charles P. McCarthy at No. 52 Union 
 Square. Mr. Lovell announced, in the first place, that the Utopia 
 of Moore, the cherished dream of all ages, was to all appearances 
 about to be realized, and that on the Gulf of California a city and 
 State would soon appear where there would be no rich and no 
 poor, a city and State where co-operation would prevail instead of 
 isolation ! All arrangements had, he said, been made ; the land 
 had been purchased, a company had been formed, and pioneers 
 had already gone to begin the work. The city is to have a harbor 
 equal to that of New York ; it is to be the terminus of a projected 
 transcontinental railway ; in short, its situation is a guarantee of 
 its prosperity. 
 
 Mr. Lovell then went on to tell how the city is to be built and 
 how governed. He said that no man is to own anything more 
 than a home, and all business of every sort is to be owned and 
 managed by the State at large, as represented by elected officers. 
 The people are to live in social palaces, where all the domestic 
 labor is employed in common and paid for by ratio. The place is 
 to be called Pacific City, and no one can live in it unless he owns 
 a fiat or house which is equivalent to a share of the stock of the 
 city rtnd entitles the holder to a vote. There are to be no doctors 
 but S) \laried ones ; no lawyers whatever ; but one newspaper, which 
 is obliged to publish everything anybody writes and signs his name 
 to, except advertisements, which nobody wants, as there is no 
 business to advertise. 
 
 There is to be absolute equality, except that a worker is to out- 
 rank an idler. There is to be no gold or silver coinage, nor any 
 church. The streets are to have from six to eight rows of trees. 
 The houses are all to have gardens and courts and fountains. 
 Early marriages are to be encouraged,' and since there will be no 
 wealth to force their inclinations bachelors or maidens will use 
 their own sweet will ; everything will be just right, and the angels 
 will all want to abandon their celestial residences and become 
 citizens of Pacific City. 
 
33 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF PARADISE. 
 
 THE GREATEST SOCIAL MOVEMENT OF THE AGES- 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF HAPPY HUMAN LIVES SOLVED 
 
 BY THE PACIFIC COLONY CO-OPERATION 
 
 PLANNED ON A SCIENTIFIC BASIS. 
 
 BY E. D. BABBITT, M. D. 
 
 (From tne Spiritual Offering, November 20, 1886.) 
 
 By request of our friend, E. D. Babbitt, 20 University Place, New York, 
 we Insert this article. Our brother is very enthusiastic and warmly enlisted 
 in the success of the colony, and we hope his and their expectations may 
 be fuUy realized. He submitted his article for corrections, if any were 
 needed, to Mr. John W . Lovell, treasurer of the Pacific Colony, and received 
 the following letter: "My Dear Dr. Babbitt. I enclose your admirable 
 article. I cannot suggest any changes. JOHN W. LOVKLL." [EDITOK 
 OFFERING. 
 
 I have not been so thrilled for years as I have in getting full 
 accounts of the great colony which is forming in our country to 
 settle on the Pacific coast, or rather on the Gulf of California, at 
 Topolobampo Bay, in the Mexican State of Sinaloa. It has been 
 maturing now for several years and already over four thousand 
 persons have taken stock in the joint stock company, under the 
 title of the Credit Foncier of Sinaloa. In a pamphlet called 
 " Social Solutions," the following description of the site is given: 
 "Topolobampo Bay in the State of Sinaloa, Mexico, has been 
 selected as the only place known at present, as yet unsettled, com- 
 bining so many natural advantages for a great commercial, manu- 
 facturing and agricultural commonwealth. Situated on the 
 Gulf of California in latitude 25 degrees, 32 minutes north, with 
 a magnificent, mountain-locked harbor, embracing 54 square miles 
 of water area, twelve and a half miles being deep anchorage, it 
 promises at no distant day to be the great centre through which 
 the commerce of Asia, Australia and the Pacific Islands with 
 Europe and this Continent will pass. It is 800 miles nearer New 
 York ^than San Francisco ; 322 miles nearer St. Louis than San 
 Francisco; 195 miles nearer Chicago than Chicago is to San Fran- 
 cisco.'' From New Orleans it is 1,400 miles, from Galveston, Texas, 
 it is 1,100 miles. If any object that it is in Mexico, they should 
 remember that it is a sister republic modeled much after our own, 
 and that the government of Mexico has made some capital conces- 
 sions to the Texas, Topolobampo and Pacific Railroad from which 
 the land for the new colony has been procured. I have been sur- 
 prised to learn how liberal and public-spirited that government 
 has been in offering inducements for the establishment of rail- 
 ways, manufactories, colonies, etc. The prophecy is that in the 
 
34 
 
 first decade of the coming century, Mexico, Canada and toe 
 United States will be unified into a great and mighty government, 
 each State of which shall be as free to govern itself as ever, and 
 yet shall have the advantage of the greatest aggregation of power 
 that this planet has ever experienced. A Mr. Albert K. Owen 
 was chief engineer of the above-named Texas, Topolobampo and 
 Pacific Railroad Co., and was assisted in organizing it by Gen. 
 Grant, Gen. Butler, Wendell Phillips, etc. Mr. Owen is chair- 
 man of the new Pacific colony, and has developed what, without 
 doubt, is the most practical and beautiful system of co-operative 
 government ever given to the world. His soul seems all aglow 
 for human upbuilding, and his ideas are given quite fully in a 
 work of 208 pages called "Integral Co-operation, with an Account 
 of the proposed Pacific Colony and the Credit Foncier of Sinaloa." 
 This work comprises five fine large maps and charts of the new 
 city, and is furnished postpaid for 30 cents by the John W. 
 Lovell Company, 14 Vesey Street, New York. 
 
 I will now proceed to give some account of this wonderful 
 enterprise, engineered by large advanced souls and developed 
 mainly by Mr. Owen. Every stockholder must take at least one 
 share of stock which is $10. This gives one full membership. If 
 one is thus accepted and is fitted for labor and other useful avo- 
 cations, constant employment at fair wages is guaranteed. Each 
 member is expected to take one or more lots at a very small price, 
 and to build him a home thereon, and tasty and convenient plans are 
 furnished him by an architect. One is not required to pay any- 
 thing down on his house, but can turn a portion of his wages 
 toward the same and toward the furnishing thereof. More than 
 that, he gets everything at cost price and on the most honest plan, 
 for under a system of co-operation there is no motive for cheating. 
 In the midst of a group of houses will be a smaller building for 
 kitchen, laundry, store-room etc., where by means of the best ap- 
 pliances the more unpleasant and severe part of housekeeping will 
 be performed by persons adapted to it, and appointed by the 
 board of directors. In this way the drudgery of housekeeping 
 will be avoided. There will also be resident hotels w r ith hollow 
 squares devoted to flowers, lawns, etc. In these hotels will be 
 suites of rooms for different families, and these suites are to be 
 owned by those who live in them. These will be provided with a 
 general kitchen, laundry, reading-room, bath-rooms, a dining 
 room for meals a la carte or a table d'hote for those who prefer. 
 
 Nurseries for the little ones, even for babies, will be provided, 
 so that one great care will be taken from the parents, thus enabl- 
 ing them to get out into the open air, to take walks, rides, etc. 
 This does not hinder parents from taking their babies and loving 
 and caressing them as much as they please. When the children 
 get a little larger their little minds are unfolded and delighted by 
 object teaching and kindergarten methods and by companionship 
 of those of their size. This is another great care taken off from 
 parents, and performed better than most parents themselves could 
 do it. Children are happier to be with those of their own size 
 and make less trouble than they would if only adults were around. 
 First-class technical and other schools are to be established. 
 
35 
 
 Libraries, lecture rooms, a theatre and many little parks all 
 through the city will be established. Each street is to be park- 
 like with various rows of trees, smooth sidewalks, lawns and fine 
 roadways for almost noiseless travel. It is hoped that the trouble, 
 dirt and expense of horses may to a considerable extent be done 
 away with, and before public conveyances are established it is 
 suggested that bicycles or, still better, tricycles should be used. 
 Tricycles are already quite fashionable, and in England a tricycle 
 capable of carrying two or three persons has been run successfully 
 by electricity. Tricycles need no feeding or stable care. 
 
 Sewage is to be carried out on a superior plan. The water of 
 artesian wells is commended above all other kinds. 
 
 Telephones from each house will connect with the commissariat 
 and central storehouses where provisions and goods are furnished 
 at wholesale prices to all, and there will be pneumatic tubes 
 through which letters and packages will be shot to all parts of the 
 city. 
 
 When sickness takes place physicians and nurses are sent and 
 tender care is taken of the patient without expense to himself. 
 Arrangements are also made, by which the aged who feel less able 
 to work may be able to rest or travel, and have money granted to 
 them. 
 
 Why has not the church world been able to devise any such 
 system of heavenly kindness by which people are provided with 
 beautiful homes and life is made a matter of joy and harmony? 
 Our greatest blessings must come from the liberals and reformers, 
 but our commercial and religious people generally, working under 
 a false system, are almost forced into a selfish life. 
 
 The land and home though sacred to the owner, is never 
 allowed to go out of the company's hands, but if the owner wishes 
 to leave the company will buy it back. This keeps all property 
 under the co-operative system, and prevents monopoly. 
 
 To go from an ordinary city into such a place, would be like 
 going from the infernal regions into paradise, for the poverty, 
 degradation, lying, stealing, drunkenness and dreadful struggles 
 for a livelihood, especially in large cities, is frightful. We call 
 this liberty, but it is such liberty as a lot of brutes have 
 where they are thrown together, in which the stronger destroy the 
 weaker. " How much longer," says Mr. Owen, " are we to see a 
 man with both legs cut off, one hand gone and the other paralyzed, 
 one eye out and the other useless, no teeth in one side of his jaw, 
 and an artificial bone in the other, made to start with ' equal rights 
 before the law/ in the struggle for existence, against giants en- 
 trenched by legal enactments, behind vested rights and guaran- 
 teed privileges ? " 
 
 ^ But this is not' all of the beautiful benevolence of this co-oper- 
 ative system. Woman is to have the same wages as man for doing 
 the same work. Woman is not so strong as man, therefore it is 
 proposed that she work only six hours a day and man eight 
 hours. Woman is no longer to be classed with idiots and babes 
 and jailbirds by having the right to vote taken from her. Shame 
 on the manhood of our legislators who rob woman of her right to 
 vote. Shame on the great selfish world who are willing to take 
 
36 
 
 dear, weak woman and make her labor for a half or a third of 
 what man gets. After all, the manhood is not so bad, innately, but 
 the system prevents it. 
 
 No liquor shops, gambling saloons or other perverting places are 
 to be allowed. No drunkards or paupers or criminals will be seen. 
 All will be happy and there will be no temptation to commit 
 crime. Mons. Godin, of Guise, France, has conducted his remark- 
 able co-operative system for twenty-six years without having a 
 single one of his men committed into the hands of the police, al- 
 though he has now nearly 2,000 hands. This remarkable man who 
 has proved the practicability of co-operation so admirably and es- 
 tablished nurseries, schools, theatres, etc., for his people, when only 
 a child, had inspirational views of the great work he was to per- 
 form as he grew up. Mr. Owen has copied his best points and 
 made his movement wider and grander, carrying it forward into 
 the sphere of statesmanship, and I think he must have received in- 
 spirational help in this great work, whether he realized the fact or 
 not. 
 
 How many expenses will be escaped by the fortunate members 
 of this colony. There will be no municipal, county, school or per 
 capita tax to annoy any one, no law}*er's fees, and many other 
 blessings will be enjoyed without having to exhaust one's pocket 
 book. " In modern society," says Mr. Owen, " the doctor is paid 
 to keep us sick. In Pacific Colony the doctor should be salaried, 
 and his interests should be to keep all persons well and not be per- 
 mitted to try experiments upon feeble bodies in doubtful cases. " In 
 a land of such wonderful sunshine, I would like to guarantee to 
 keep most people well without any medicine, for I can do it, even 
 here, if people will let me prescribe instruments for collecting and 
 modifying the sunlight. It is said that yellow fevers, malarial 
 fevers, sunstrokes and epidemics have never been known in the 
 zone of continent embraced by the rivers Fuerte and Sinaloa, and 
 that poisonous insects and reptiles are met with, but cases are 
 unknown where they have molested any person. People are not 
 struck by lightning there which comes, I presume, from the dry- 
 ness of the air by which it becomes non-conducting. It is a land 
 of everlasting spring and summer, neither so cold nor so warm as 
 it is in our Northern States, the temperature at noon in the winter 
 reaching as low as 55 degrees F., in the summer as high as 86 de- 
 grees, possibly a little higher at times, although from the purity of 
 the air it does not depress a person any more than it would if ten 
 degrees lower here. The productiveness of the soil when irrigated 
 is wonderful ; fine mining abounds near by, while boundless quan- 
 tities of oysters, turtles and fish can be had. Within a hundred 
 miles of Pacific City on the new railroad, some of the sublimest 
 mountain scenery in the world is to be seen. 
 
 There is almost constant sunshine for nine months in the year,, 
 and what is called the rainy season is not very rainy, there being 
 generally a shower each afternoon. The climate, of course, is 
 much superior to that of our Southern States, the air being much 
 less damp and changeable. Flowers and fruit grow side by side 
 all the year round, and planting can be done in any month in sum- 
 mer or winter. 
 
37 
 
 The question may be asked Can this generosity of the com- 
 pany towards its members be kept up ? and what are the resources 
 upon which it shall depend? In the first place the wonderful re- 
 sources, agricultural, mineral, commercial, and piscatorial, have 
 already been spoken of. In the second place, the land which is 
 equal to that of Lower California, is procured from twenty to fifty 
 times less than it would cost there. Then when settled and con- 
 verted into a beautiful city it will be sold at a great advance to 
 those who come afterward. Fifty per cent, of this advance will 
 be used for public improvements and the other fifty per cent, 
 granted to the individual members according to their amount of 
 stock. Third, by establishing manufactories on a fine scale, many 
 things can be sold to the Mexicans who are deficient in machinery 
 and factories. The colony well managed, will naturally become 
 wealthy in a few; years and have probably the most beautiful and 
 well-regulated city as well as the most harmonious and happy 
 people in the world. At first, of course, some hard work will be 
 required, but the grand purpose to construct a model system for 
 future upbuilding and for the study of the whole world, should be 
 the exceeding great and sufficient reward. Practical men and 
 women who can do good work of different kinds machinists, car- 
 penters, cabinet-makers, masons, engineers, cooks, laundry 
 women, seamstresses, tailors, dressmakers, barbers, printers, house- 
 keepers, iron-workers, plumbers, teachers, chemists, scholars and 
 many other trades and professions will be needed. Every one ap- 
 plying for membership should have an enthusiasm for the cause, 
 and should come with a spirit of harmony that would lead him or 
 her to work kindly with all associates. Reformers are on the 
 :whole noble people, but they sometimes bristle with points which 
 might conveniently be pared off a little. I think if I were to name 
 the new town instead of calling it Pacific City, I would use the 
 shorter term Pacifico, which is a Latin word signifying / make 
 peace, I pacify. Would it not be appropriate for a colony that 
 gives peace to so many people, who have been storm-tossed under 
 the ordinary money-grabbing and selfish systems of the day? 
 Many very choice spirits will be found in this colony. Old fogies 
 cannot understand a scheme of home life so broad and grand and 
 they will be left behind. Mr. Jesse Grant, son of General Grant, 
 I see is a member. Mr. Albert K. Owen the central spirit in the 
 matter, as I have said, is the chairman. Mr. John W. Lovell, 
 whose company are publishers of over nine hundred works, is the 
 treaurer. I have known and dealt with this gentleman for many 
 years and have ever found him thoroughly upright, courteous and 
 business-like. Unlike corporations in general, this one will have 
 a soul to it. It rejoices me to know that a system has been devel- 
 oped which approaches so nearly to the kind of life exemplified in 
 the ideal planet, Celestla, and it is easy to forsee that all commu- 
 nities and all nations will gradually evolute into this diviner and 
 more fraternal order of things. Mere communism is a system of 
 unity without diversity, of law without individuality and liberty, 
 and must ever fail in the end as it has always been failing. The 
 Faitkists located at Dona Ana, New Mexico, commenced with fly- 
 ing colors but are now almost disintegrated. The Pacific colony 
 
38 
 
 grants to its members a spirit of liberty, allowing them to have 
 their own homes and their own property, and yet blending them 
 into the oneness of common interests and organization. The im- 
 pulse of liberty springs forth in mighty tides like the currents of 
 an ocean in every great soul, and can never be too prominent so long 
 as it conforms to law. 
 
 I notice that there is a predominance of masculine over feminine 
 names in those who are becoming enrolled in the new company. 
 It is always important to keep as even a balance of the sexes as 
 possible, not only for the sake of society, but on account of the 
 kind of work to be done. Let every young woman that can cook, 
 sew, keep house, or do anything else, understand that all labor will 
 have its true dignity there. There is no such thing allowed there as 
 the direct employing of one person by another, as this looks a little 
 too much like master and servant and tends to interfere with the dig- 
 nity of labor. All are masters and all servants, as all are employed 
 by the Board of Managers, and these managers are employed 
 directly or indirectly by the people themselves. Every man and 
 woman who holds a single share ($10) in the company has a right 
 to cast a ballot for the directors, 
 
 No church structures will have to be built and paid for, but in 
 fine lecture halls different religions can be represented. The folly 
 of putting up magnificent buildings to lie idle all the week will not 
 be committed there. The religion of the founders of this colony 
 seems to have struck in and filled them full of sympathy for their 
 kind. They pray so much by heart and hand in their beneficent 
 work, that they do not seem to have so much time for prayers 
 which consist of mere words. I suppose nearly all have heard of 
 the deacon who had his hands clasped so tightly in prayer that he 
 could not get them open to reach out money to the poor. 
 
 Arrangements have been made by which settlers going in small 
 companies can be conveyed there from New York for about $40. 
 including 250 pounds of baggage. It will, of course, be less from 
 cities farther West. 
 
 Prominent among the editorial workers in this new cause are 
 Mrs. Marie Howland and Mr. Edward Rowland. Mrs. Rowland 
 is author of what is called " a charming romance," named " Papa's 
 Own Girl." I have read this with enthusiasm. It presents a grand- 
 er view of the happiness and dignity of which a human life is ca- 
 pable than most people have any conception of. It shows the su- 
 preme folly of the bogus aristocracy of the day, and presents a 
 wonderful view of a co-operative labor palace, founded on Godin's 
 great achievement in France, exemplifying the happy and cultured 
 state which the laborer may attain to under this higher co-opera- 
 tive system. The work in paper, containing 547 pages, is sent post- 
 paid for 30 cents, by John W. Lovell Company, 14 Vesey st., N. Y. 
 
 One advantage in going to Mexico to establish a colony is that 
 they are enabled thereby to work out a money reform which could 
 not be done here, and which will be for the good of the whole, as 
 it gives them additional power and resources. Several thousand 
 societies with partially co-operative features are already success- 
 fully operated in Europe. 
 
 For humanity's pake alone do I write this long article, and all 
 men and women with souls in them should help on such a cause. 
 
39 
 
 THE SINALOA CO-OPERATIVE SCHEME. 
 
 (From the Golden Gate, January 15, 188T.) 
 
 As secretary of the San Francisco Club, "C. F. of S.," I am 
 asked for information concerning the co-operative institution known 
 as the Credit Foncier of Sinaloa. Assuming that what is required 
 is not a dissertation on Socialism, but simply the prominent fea- 
 tures of this particular enterprise, I will confine myself to the 
 general facts and leading principles of the Credit Foncier, and 
 leave the reader to search elsewhere for information concerning 
 the philosophy of co-operation, which every earnest seeker can 
 easily find. 
 
 The originator of the Sinaloa movement is Albert K. Owen, 
 of Chester, Pa., a civil engineer by profession, who, in 1872, 
 while surveying the route for the Mexican Central Railroad, had 
 his attention called to the excellence of the natural harbor at 
 Topolobampo, which is an Indian name, signifying hidden water. 
 Situated on the Gulf of California, more than a hundred miles 
 away from the course of vessels passing along the Pacific Coast, 
 it has attracted very little attention, although it is probably the 
 best harbor in Mexico, and one of the best in the world. On his 
 return to the United States, Mr. Owen projected a railroad to ex- 
 tend from Topolobampo to the Texas lines of railway, with the 
 design of securing a transcontinental short line. He procured the 
 introduction in Congress of a bill-to provide for a railroad survey 
 which was favorably reported by the House committees on Pacific 
 Railroads of the 44th and 45th Congresses, but the opposition^ 
 already established companies prevented consideration of the bill. 
 Failing in this direction, Mr. Owen organized a company in New 
 York and Boston, and a charter was secured in accordance with 
 the provisions of the Massachusetts railroad law, under the cor- 
 porate name of " The Texas, Topolobampo, and Pacific Railroad 
 and Telegraph Company," and in June, 1881 , the Mexican govern- 
 ment conceded the right of construction and granted a subsidy of 
 eight thousand dollars per mile, amounting in all, for the main 
 line and its branches, to $16,000,000, besides a very liberal land 
 grant. It has been asserted that the Mexican government has 
 withdrawn its money subsidy, but if that is a fact it has not been 
 authoritatively made known to the stockholders of the Credit 
 Foncier. The land grant cannot be withdrawn, as it is secured 
 by special contract signed in July last by the Secretary of Public 
 Works on behalf of the government. This grant is made not for 
 the construction of the road, but for the survey of the public 
 lands along the proposed route, and for the colonization of such 
 lands. ^ It gives the railroad and telegraph company one-third of 
 all public lands surveyed by it within a strip seventy-four miles 
 wide through the States of Sonora and Sinaloa, and thirty-seven 
 miles wide through the States of Chihuahua and Coahufla. It 
 also gives the right to purchase another third of all land so sur- 
 veyed at the rate now fixed for Mexican public land. 
 
40 
 
 Although the Credit Fonder is a distinct corporation from that 
 of the Railroad Company, their interests are so closely connected 
 that it has been found advisable to form a combination, which 
 has been accomplished by the purchase of a controlling interest in 
 the railroad and construction companies. The former having, as 
 yet, expended only about $300,000, the arrangement at this stage 
 is possible, whereas by delaying until very large capital had been 
 invested, the consolidation would be more difficult. In fact it 
 had to be done by the directors without waiting for the sanction 
 of the stockholders, and Mr. Owen writes to Senor Romero, 
 Mexican Minister at Washington : ' ' The three companies are united 
 by a common interest to co-operate for the construction of the 
 railroad lines centering at Topolobampo, and for the colonization 
 and development of the public lands along the route." 
 
 It may surprise some people to learn that on a straight line 
 Topolobampo is nearer every seaport of the Atlantic Coast, from 
 Portland, Me. , to Galveston, Texas, than is San Diego, San Fran- 
 cisco or Portland, Oregon, the respective termini of the Texas 
 Pacific, Central and Southern, and the Northern Pacific roads. By 
 air line from New York, Topolobampo is 165 miles nearer than 
 k San Diego, 304 miles nearer than San Francisco, and 176 miles 
 nearer than Portland, Oregon; but by the surveyed route it is 558 
 miles nearer New York than by the most direct line from New 
 York to San Francisco. 
 
 The Credit Foncier Company do not depend entirely upon the 
 railroad lands for homes. The land for the city site, including 
 twenty-nine square miles and a large tract of adjoining lands, 
 were purchased by the railroad company from Dr. Benjamin R. 
 Carman, of Mazatlan, and Senor Don Bias Ybarra, and this prop- 
 erty the Mexican government has no claim to. Its ownership is 
 distinctly acknowledged in the contract between the Mexican 
 government and the Railroad and Telegraph Company. The 
 settlement at Topolobampo is mentioned in this contract as 
 "Pacific Colony." Article 15 of the contract is as follows: 
 
 Article 15. As a compensation, for the service, by the com- 
 pany in establishing the above referred to colonies the following 
 concessions^re hereby granted : 
 
 1. Introduction, free of duties, for a term of ten years, of 
 machinery for all manufactories, etc., and of agricultural imple- 
 ments. 
 
 2. Exemption from all taxes (with the exception of muni- 
 cipal imposts); and free exportation of all the products of the 
 colonies, for the same term of ten years. 
 
 8. Introduction, free of duties only once of all personal 
 effects brought by the colonists at the time of their arrival. 
 
 The remitted duties on provisions, etc., are not to exceed in 
 the aggregate, $300 for each family settled, ($80 for each single 
 man), families being defined as : 
 
 1. Husband and wife, with or without children. 
 
 2. Father or mother, with one or more descendants, constituted 
 under their legal authority. 
 
 3. Brothers or sisters, one of which shall be of legal age, the 
 others being minors. It shall be understood by the words ' ' settled 
 
41 
 
 family" a family having built their house, and having begun to 
 cultivate a tract of laud, or to work in some trade or industry. 
 
 Additional articles provide that the company and the colonists 
 shall be bound to abide, by the requirements of the Law on 
 Foreigners and their Naturalization. The colonists shall be con- 
 sidered and held as Mexicans. They shall enjoy all the rights, 
 .and shall have all the obligations of Mexicans, as provided by the 
 general laws of the Republic of Mexico, and those of her several 
 states, with the exceptions specified in the Law on Colonization 
 actually in force. The company, as well as the colonists, shall 
 submit all their differences and disputes to the jurisdiction of the 
 Mexican courts of justice; but the colonists, among themselves, 
 and in all cases of dispute with the company, and the company 
 in all its differences with the colonists, are at liberty to decide 
 them by arbitration. 
 
 The Credit Foncier was originated by Mr. Owen some years 
 ago, and in 1885 a small weekly paper was started at Hamrnonton, 
 New Jersey, for the purpose of extending a knowledge of the 
 .scheme, This journal is edited by Marie and Edward Howland, 
 the former of whom is the author of "Papa's Own Girl," and 
 the translator of M. Godin's socialistic work, "Social Solutions." 
 The name of the paper is the same as that of the corporation, and 
 the principles put forth by the editors as the platform of the paper 
 convey as clear an idea of the movement itself as can be given in 
 so few words. They are as follows : 
 
 The Credit Foncier of Sinaloa presents a matured plan, with 
 details, for farm, city, factory and clearing house; and invites the 
 farmer, manufacturer, artisan, engineer, architect, contractor and 
 accountant to unite and organize to build for themselves homes 
 in keeping with solidity, art and sanitation. It asks for evolution 
 and not for revolution; for interdependence and not for indepen- 
 dence; for co-operation and not for competition ; for equity and not 
 for equality; for duty and not for liberty; for employment and not 
 for charity; for eclecticism and not for dogma; for rationalism 
 and not for ritualism; for deeds and not for creeds; for works and 
 not for words; for specific payments and not for specie tokens; 
 for one law and not for class legislation; for corporate management 
 and not for political control; for State responsibility for every 
 person, at all times and in every place, and not for muncipal irre- 
 sponsibility for any person, at any time or in any place; and it de- 
 mands that the common interests of the citizen the atmosphere, 
 land, water, light, power, exchange, transportation, construction, 
 sanitation, education, entertainment, insurance, production, dis- 
 tribution, etc., be "pooled," and that the private life of the 
 .citizen be held sacred. 
 
 The Credit Foncier Company, although it has been so many 
 years in conception, was not incorporated until August, 1886, 
 .under the incorporation law of Colorado. It is the design of the 
 directors to carry on all branches of industry, but probably the 
 most important, at first, will be the construction of the railroad. 
 The leading object of the Credit Foncier may be said to be to se- 
 cure homes for its members and employment for their mainten- 
 ance. Among the principles set forth by Mr. Owen are th.e 
 following : 
 
42 
 
 " The highest ambition for man and woman is to have a per- 
 manent, substantial and beautiful home; constant, remunerative 
 and agreeable employments; varied instruction; approved facilities 
 and attractive amusements; and the ability to possess and enjoy 
 should keep pace with their cultures and desires. . . . There 
 cannot be correct life separated from useful and remunerative em- 
 ployment; therefore, it is the duty of the corporation to provide 
 occupation for every one of its members, and it is the duty of the 
 members to undertake that occupation or those employments which 
 he and she are best fitted for. . . . Every ruling should be 
 general in its application; and for a member to ask for a special 
 privilege is treason against the corporation. . . . Should there 
 exist one member unemployed at any time who is willing and able 
 to work, such should reflect against the directors." 
 
 The by-laws provide that there shall be ten executive depart- 
 ments, each presided over by one of the Board of Directors. 
 These directors are to be paid one hundred dollars per month each 
 for their services, a sum very little greater than the regular rate 
 of wages, which, for the present, has been fixed at three dollars 
 per day, equal pay being awarded for equal service, without re- 
 gard to sex. 
 
 Of course, it is expected that the present plan of operations 
 will be modified as experience may direct, and it is quite probable 
 that the various industries will ultimately be regulated by what is 
 known as the " Serial organization of labor," by which is meant 
 the division of laborers into groups and series of groups, each series 
 being constituted of the groups pertaining to a particular industry 
 or class of industries. For instance, the agricultural series may be 
 divided into farming, fruit-raising, gardening, etc. Each group 
 selects its chief, and the persons so selected constitute a Council of 
 the Department of Agriculture. The President of the Council is the 
 general manager of the department, and should also be entitled to 
 voice, if not vote, in the Board of Directors. In this way the wants 
 of every part of the colony are at once known at headquarters. 
 Of course, there must be system in co-operative enterprises, other- 
 wise there is misunderstanding and ultimate failure. The same 
 plan of organization by groups is adapted to the mechanical, com- 
 mercial, educational and all other departments. 
 
 It may be asked why American co-operators do not select a 
 location in their own country. The answer is, nowhere within 
 the limits of the Union can so large a tract of unoccupied land 
 be purchased for ten times the cost of this, and nowhere else are 
 there such natural facilities, for building up a large industrial com- 
 munity. The commercial advantages of the location are very 
 great, while the climate and soil are unexcelled. Yellow fever, 
 malarial fevers, sunstrokes and epidemics have never been known 
 in that section, and poisonous insects and reptiles do not abound 
 there as in some other portions of Mexico. It is a land of almost 
 perpetual summer, the temperature near the coast varying from 
 fifty-five degrees in winter to eighty-.six degrees in the warm 
 season. There are points in the Interior where it is warmer than 
 this, but in no part of Siualoa is the temperature oppressive. All 
 the fruits of the tropics and of the temperate zone can be grown 
 
43 
 
 there. The rainy season commences in June and lasts till Sep- 
 tember, the rain generally falling in gentle showers two or three 
 days of each week. There are no high winds, excepting the gales- 
 of the autumnal equinox at the close of the rainy season. 
 
 There are many other advantages, not the least of which, in 
 my estimation, is non-interference of the government in our local 
 affairs. The colonists have accorded to them, by Mexico, the 
 right of regulating their own domestic matters to an extent which 
 would not be permitted in this country. Besides, I do not think 
 the laboring people of America owe this government a very deep 
 debt of gratitude. Nearly all legislation here is for property- 
 very little for humanity. Some may say that it is the people's own 
 fault, because they make the laws. I deny the assertion ; they do 
 not make the laws, though many of them think they do. Money 
 rules our Government, State and National; and the people, who 
 in theory have all the power, in practice have very little. The 
 wage slave of America is quite as much at the mercy of his em- 
 ployer as is the workingman of England ; and the landless, home- 
 less poor of this country are in a condition quite as pitiable as are 
 the oppressed tenantry of Ireland. But I will not now discuss 
 this question. Suffice it to say that the condition of many thou- 
 sands of honest, industrious workingmen and women in America 
 is so hopeless, that they renounce, with pleasure, the place of 
 their birth, and look with longing to a foreign land for the justice 
 they feel has been denied them at home. 
 
 There are now about four hundred colonists at Topolobampo, 
 and many more are anxious to go, but the directors deem it best 
 to have only able-bodied men as pioneers, until shelter can be 
 provided for the " angels of the household." Therefore, the immi- 
 gration of women and children is discouraged, yet of the twenty 
 colonists who left San Francisco on the steamer " Newbern," Jan- 
 uary 8th, three were women and seven children. Those who go at 
 this time do so under disadvantages that will disappear a few 
 months hence, when the Company will have a steamer of its own, 
 and there will be no necessity, as now, for each person to take 
 three months' provisions. 
 
 It is not the intention to live in Sinaloa in large co-operative 
 houses, excepting those who prefer that method. The by-laws 
 require each colonist to own at least one fully paid-up share of 
 stock $10 per share and it is expected that one city lot will be 
 taken for each share of stock. But the lots may be for separate 
 homesteads or for a co-operate domicile, as the colonists prefer. 
 The corporation sells its railroad lands in Sonora, Chihuahua and 
 Coahuila to actual settlers, but it does not convey absolute title to 
 farming lands in Sinaloa, -or to Topolobampo town lots. It sells 
 merely the right of occupancy, and improvements desired by the 
 occupant are made either by the company, for which a small usage 
 is paid, or by the colonist, and the latter has the right, whenever 
 he desires, to sell his improvements to the company at an appraised 
 value. 
 
 The regular hours of labor for the present, are eight for males 
 and six for females, but it is not obligatory on any person to work 
 the full time unless he desires. Any one having the means to 
 
44 
 
 build his own home and live wholly or partly on an income derived 
 from outside of the colony, or from money loaned to the Company, 
 can do so, yet drones are not desirable members, and the loaning 
 of money to individuals, other than through the corporation itself, 
 is prohibited, as is also the building of houses for rent, and the 
 hiring of labor. The corporation furnishes all labor required by 
 a member which he cannot do himself. 
 
 Mexican and American money will at first be used for purposes 
 of foreign exchange, but all domestic business transactions will be 
 in labor notes issued by the corporation. 
 
 There are many other details which might be of interest, but 
 this letter is already too long, and inquirers are referred to the list 
 of publications concerning the colony, which may be found adver- 
 tised on the last page of Credit Fancier of Sinaloa, published at 
 Hammonton, New Jersey. It is the intention soon to publish all 
 essential information in a pamphlet now in course of preparation 
 by a committee of the San Francisco Club, of which I am Secre- 
 tary. The President of the Club, and California agent of the 
 Credit Foncier Company, is Gustave Faber, 349 Fourth street. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 W. N. SLOCUM. 
 
 MEXICAN COLONIES. 
 
 HOW THE GOVERNMENT TREATS STRIKERS IN 
 THAT COUNTRY. 
 
 (From the San Diego Union.) 
 
 A. Union representative yesterday called upon Mr. Theophilus 
 Masac, lately appointed Inspector of Colonies and Fisheries for 
 the Mexican Government, and upon his stating his business and 
 the object of his visit, Mr. Masac very courteously granted the 
 newspaper man an audience and leave to " augur " as much as he 
 he wished. 
 
 " Mr. Masac, " said the reporter, " I have called to ask if you 
 would be willing to give the public some little knowledge concern- 
 ing the colonies of Mexico, which information your position and 
 your long experience peculiarly fit you to impart." 
 
 ' ' Well, sir, since my appointment I have been inspecting 
 several of the colonies of the Mexican Government, to which branch 
 of the executive duties President Diaz pays most particular atten- 
 tion. He, himself, has traveled extensively in the United States, and 
 is a great observer. He has seen that foreign immigration into and 
 the investment of foreign capital in the United States have greatly 
 advanced the position, among nations, of your country. President 
 Dia/ wishes to be the pioneer in securing for Mexico the immigration 
 
45 
 
 and the attention which her wonderfully rich soil (anything will- 
 almost spring from the ground without cultivation) and delightful- 
 climate ought to secure for her. To further this design he has estab- 
 lished at an enormous expense to the Government, in different parts 
 of Mexico various colonies, of which the principal ones are the 
 following: The colony of Manuel G-onzales, in Huatusco, State of 
 Vera Cruz; Porfiorio Diaz, Morel os; Carlos Pacheco, Puebla; 
 Diez Gutierrez, San Luis Potosi; Fernandez Leal, Puebla; Aldana, 
 Mexico. Everyone of these is established under the immediate su- 
 pervision of the Government. Besides, seven new ones have been 
 inaugurated since I began my tour, to give the strikers a chance to 
 work." 
 
 "The strikers!" ejaculated the reporter. 
 
 "Yes,. we have strikers, too. Down in Mexico, not long ago, 
 the proprietors of some cotton mills and their employees had trouble 
 and no adjustment could be arrived at; so President. Diaz quietly 
 bought up a lot of land and gave it to the hard-working mill 
 hands, and now they are tilling the soil and earning a good 
 competency. Besides these official colonies, which were inaugur- 
 ated and established by the Government at the expense of many 
 millions of dollars, the Government has granted concessions and 
 lands to some private individuals and corporations (on condition of 
 their being colonized), the Government giving absolute and indisput- 
 able title just as soon as the concessionaries have earned the same. 
 The wisdom of this policy is becoming every day more apparent, and 
 it will not be long until Mexico takes front rank among the coun- 
 tries into which to immigrate. The liberality with which the Gov- 
 ernment treats the new-comers is very noticeable, never meddling 
 with their citizenship, nor compelling them to renounce it, and 
 waiving imports on many articles which they may bring with them 
 into the country, exempting the colonists from military service and 
 giving them many other valuable privileges too numerous to 
 mention. 
 
 ' 'Mr. Masac," said the reporter, ' ' you speak of Government colo- 
 nies. Can a citizen get land in these colonies in the same manner 
 that public land is secured in the United States, and how is it ob- 
 tained in these corporation grants?" 
 
 Mr. Masac." The question of getting land from any of those 
 concessionaries is a very simple one. The party proposing to be- 
 come a colonist makes a contract with the company, occupies land 
 in such quantities and on such terms as may be mutually agreed; 
 upon, and the Government always respects such a contract, never 
 interfering with the absolute freedom of the contracting parties. 
 From that moment on the colonist enjoys numerous privileges, 
 granted by the Federal law of December 15, 1883, besides those 
 contained in the special concessions held by the company whose 
 colonist he becomes. In case a would-be colonist wishes to become 
 a member of any of the colonies established by the Government 
 itself he has to apply, in due form, to the Secretary of Public 
 "Works, General Carlos Pacheco, who, after a thorough investi- 
 gation, assigns to the new colonist such lands and in such quan- 
 tities as the Government may have at its disposal ; which, at the 
 present time, is not much, very little remaining untenanted. The 
 
46 
 
 majority of these colonists who come into Mexico under the direct 
 auspices of the Government are Italians. The American settlers 
 prefer, as far as I have noticed, a more independent way of ac- 
 quiring lands ; I might say, more after the manner prevailing in 
 the United States, and that is precisely what Mexico wants and the 
 Government favors/' 
 
 Reporter. " The Government then is in favor of improvement, 
 and is progressive. How are the people, and does the country, as 
 Americans say, ' back up ' the administration in its measures of 
 advancement?" 
 
 "I have known," said Mr. Masac, "the country for twenty- 
 three years, and there has been very little progress visible until 
 the advent of railroads and the telegraph, which brought the coun- 
 try into a direct and constant communication with the outside 
 world, and made revolution, the former curse of that glorious land, 
 impossible. Counting from the first Presidential term of General 
 Diaz, Mexico has advanced in the path of civilization in a manner 
 which eclipses the history of any nation, no matter how progres- 
 sive. Mexico has crowded into the space of the last decade the im- 
 provements which it has taken the United States the last hundred 
 years to accomplish. The railroads have changed the conditions of 
 Mexico so completely that any one who had known the country 
 before their era, would scarcely have thought it possible. In other 
 countries, depending for their progress on rivers, canals and other 
 waterways, the railroads would not have played such an important 
 part as they did in Mexico, where they form the main arteries of 
 commerce, travel and transportation. This will explain to you 
 how it happened that small villages that slumbered for centuries in 
 a forgotten corner of the Republic have suddenly wakened when 
 they heard the locomotive whistle, and developed into large and pros- 
 perous towns and cities, boasting street cars, telephones, electric 
 lights, and other modern improvements." 
 
 THE TOPOLOBAMPO COLONY. 
 
 THE FATHER OF THE SCHEME DENYING PUBLISHED 
 REPORTS. 
 
 THE HARBOR GOOD AND THE CLIMATE EXCELLENT FERTILE 
 
 LAND WITHIN REACH, AND THE HARBOR 800 MILES 
 
 NEARER THE ATLANTIC COAST THAN SAN 
 
 FRANCISCO-GOOD WATER. 
 
 (From the New Torlc Sun, February 6, 1887.) 
 
 To THE EDITOR OF THE SUN : 
 
 Sir : The World and Times of yesterday contained a despatch 
 from San Francisco detailing an interview with Mr. J. W. Nichols, 
 said to have just arrived from Topolobampo in the Newbern. 
 
 Mr. Nichols was repeatedly told not to go to Topolobampo 
 until the pioneers had cut the road from the bay to the river, and 
 
47 
 
 had reported upon the country, its climate and resources. I told 
 him that there was nothing for him to do upon our lands at present. 
 In the face of this, however, he borrowed enough money to buy 
 his ticket, and, with several others equally as poor and just about 
 as worthless, every one of whom acted against my written and 
 positive orders, wandered across the continent into Sonora and to 
 Topolobampo. They evidently expected to find there a picnic 
 ground, with nothing to do but pick up the ripened fruit when it 
 fell and to make themselves comfortable. The one redeeming 
 trait that Nichols has shown is that he got out of our settlement 
 as soon as he found he had to work to pay for the food he ate. I 
 hope to be able to stop 'others from going to Sinaloa who know 
 nothing of the principles which underlie the movement now being 
 made by the Credit Foncier Company. 
 
 As to Nichols's statements concerning the harbor, an elaborate 
 chart of the harbor was published by the Navy Department from 
 a survey made in 1874 and 1875 by Commander George Dewey 
 and other officers of the United States ship Narragansett. The 
 harbor is composed of two bays, the outer one called Topolo- 
 bampo, and the inner Oguira, - or San Carlos. In the journal of 
 Commander W. T. Truxton, U. S. K, who surveyed it in 1869, 
 we find this : 
 
 The anchorage outside is perfectly safe, as a ship could 
 always lie off shore with a southeast wind, should it begin to blow. 
 Inside Topolobampo vessels are entirely protected from the sea, 
 while only southwest and northwest winds would be felt. In San 
 Carlos vessels would be entirely land-locked. In fact, for safety 
 no more secure anchorage is to be found ; while, with the aid of 
 two or three buoys, access to it could be made perfectly simple 
 more so than to most of the harbors on the coast of the United 
 States south of Boston. 
 
 Mr. George W. Simmons, Boston merchant, who visited the 
 harbor in April, 1881, says in his report of the railway reconnois- 
 eance : 
 
 I am familiar with many of the finest harbors in the world, but 
 for natural beauty I know of none that excel, and few that equal 
 the Bay of Topolobampo. . . . The exquisite beauty of the 
 harbor, the exact correspondence of our soundings with the chart 
 measurements, the abundance of game, the great charm of the 
 place, had wrought us to such a pitch of enthusiasm that we spoke 
 of everything in superlatives, and agreed that the harbor of Topo- 
 lobampo was one of the most beautiful in the world, and I see no 
 reason to modify in the slightest degree my original opinion. 
 
 Mr. Simmons publishes in his report a letter from a sea captain, 
 George Davis, in which is the following reference to the harbor : 
 
 In the month of July, 1872, I came from San Francisco in a 
 vessel of my own, and by advice of Mr. David Turner, American 
 Consul of La Paz, Lower California, I entered this harbor of To- 
 polobampo. When I came to the Farallon Island , a large rock, situ- 
 ated about W. S. W. from entrance to the port, I was troubled to 
 know where the channel lay, as I expected to find it by the surf ; 
 but as the sea was perfectly smooth on the bar, I took my boat and 
 
started out ahead to sound, and easily found a good, wide channel, 
 carrying from six to seven fathoms, until past Las Copas Island, 
 and from there it deepened to fifteen fathoms, with excellent 
 holding ground. 
 
 In a recent communication, Mr. Mareno, Government en- 
 gineer of the railway, says of the entrance to the harbor as follows : 
 
 I hereby state that Topolobampb bar is of movable sands, and 
 that at low tide it has a depth, at the most dangerous places that is 
 to say, where sands accumulate never less than 3| fathoms. This 
 case is very rare, and in order that such a thing may take place, it 
 is necessary that a very heavy gale blows. The depth at the bar 
 is generally from four to six fathoms. 
 
 *Col. Von Motz says of the harbor : 
 
 In arriving at Topolobampo harbor we were magnetized by the 
 majestic aspect of this future depot of commerce ; the grandeur 
 and quietness of nature were impressive. Being acquainted with 
 the depths of the harbor itself, we got reliable information about 
 the bar, bringing the depth there at about four to five fathoms 
 during four months of the year, and about seven to eight fathoms 
 for eight months of the year, subject to local winds at the coast. 
 Rise and fall of tide about five feet on the average. 
 
 Capt. N. Ohlson, of the schooner Laura, wrote from Guaymas, 
 in December, 1884 : 
 
 In compliance with your request, I will now give you the exact 
 information regarding the Topolobampo bar : 
 
 1. In the middle entrance you have three and a half fathoms 
 of water. 
 
 2. At the north entrance, five fathoms. 
 
 3. On the south side or entrance, you have four fathoms of 
 water : all the above measurements are at low tide. 
 
 The bar is something like 500 feet wide. After leaving the bar, 
 on the inside of the harbor, the channel deepens to twelve fathoms. 
 You have six fathoms up to point of landing in the Straits of 
 Joshua. 
 
 You will, require three buoys on the bar, so that any vessel will 
 be safe at any time with a pilot. If you should require more de- 
 tailed information, you can call on me at any time and I will be 
 ready at short notice. 
 
 Mr. Nichols says he had to wade a distance to get ashore. Had 
 he not gone several miles out of his way, he might have stepped 
 from our stone pier into twelve feet of water. ^ We sent out 7,000 
 feet of lumber last month to build a wharf, which will be less than 
 fifty feet long and have twenty-five feet of water at its end. We 
 also sent out iron buoys to be properly placed in the channel. 
 
 As to Mchols' statements as to climate and fertility, let Wm. K. 
 Rogers, late of the Executive Mansion at Washington, speak. 
 Writing from Topolobampo, Jan. 13, 1884, he says : 
 
 I am in my third week of my stay in camp here. I wish I could 
 make the stay as many months as it will be weeks as many years, 
 indeed. The climate at this season of the year is incomparable. 
 The sea air and the sea bathing where else is thero anything of 
 
the kind equal ? And where is there such another city site ? The 
 aUr.ietions I und in the splendid harbor and its surroundings 
 would detain me a long lime if I had it to spare. There is a com- 
 bination of natural advantages here for the site of a seaport city, 
 such as one would look for a long time to lind equalled elsewhere 
 deep waier, the greatest abundance of it ; bold shores, with rock 
 frontage for wharves, and the channels, right alongside ; level lands 
 all around for convenient improvement, broad and deep esteros ex- 
 tending through them, with firm solid banks ; not a foot of marsh 
 land anywhere. These esteros, leading from the deep water of the 
 inner nnd outer bays, far exceed my anticipation in the addition 
 they make to the anchorage of the safest kind at the harbor, and 
 the extent of wharfage their improvement will add. It is impos- 
 sible to overestimate their value 
 
 And here are three paragraphs of a letter by Noble E. Dawson, 
 ;:fivr a visit to Sinaloa. Mr. Dawsou was private secretary to Gen. 
 Grain : 
 
 As you are doubtless aware, the dry season, in its effects upon 
 the agricultural and forest growths of that country, corresponds in 
 a measure with our Northern winter. My visit to Topolobampo oc- 
 curred in the dead of that season (May, 1883), and I could not but 
 expect the harbor and its surroundings to present a somewhat bleak 
 and bare appearance. In short, I expected little in the way of 
 scenic beauty, 'and was consequently very agreeably surprised when 
 our Indian canoe shot from the mouth of the ester p, upon whose 
 Clear waters we had embarked, and presented suddenly to our 
 view the whole outer bay. The sunset scene of that day I shall 
 never forget, and will not attempt to describe. Its beauty could 
 have been surpassed only by that of the following sunrise, which 
 found us entering the Straits of Joshua, a brisk pull through which 
 brought us upon the inner bay. With the added embellishment of 
 abundant verdure, nothing could be wanting in point of attractive- 
 ness. What is of vastly more importance to the commercial world, 
 however, we had here all the natural conditions and requisites of a 
 first-class harbor. I base this opinion not only on personal exami- 
 nation, but also upon the results of diligent inquiry among seamen 
 who have personal knowledge of its capacity, depth, acces- 
 sibility, &c. 
 
 We found oysters of excellent quality in the outer bay, and 
 abundance of turtles, fish, and sea fowl in both. The water is 
 very clear, and fish can be seen swimming about at considerable 
 depths. 
 
 I will not tire you with a detailed description of the magnificent 
 Fuerto Valley, or with speculations as to its immense agricultural 
 possibilities. I have visited the valley of Mexico, ihe regions 
 watered by the lower Rio Grande, and other portions of the repub 
 lie, and, with such opportunities for forming an opinion, I freely 
 express the view that Sinaloa is the natural, though as yet unde- 
 veloped, garden State of the republic, while the Fuerto Valley is 
 the garden spoi of Sinaloa. 
 
 Let me add, that on Dec. 18, just as I was leaving the camp, ] 
 was given a report, from which flic following extracts are taken 
 
50 
 
 TOPOLOBAMPO, SINALOA, MEXICO, Dec. 17, 1886. 
 
 To OUR FRIENDS : In accordance with a request of the mem 
 bers of the Pacific Colony, made at a meeting on the shore of To- 
 polobampo Bay Dec. 15, 1886, a statement of the facts concerning 
 the climate and natural resources of the country is hereby pre- 
 sented. 
 
 Upon entering the inner harbor we find it unsurpassed in the 
 depth of its channel and its protection for shipping, by any harbor 
 on the Pacific coast, having a depth of at least four fathoms, almost 
 surrounded by high hills and of sufficient area for all shipping that 
 an extensive commerce requires. 
 
 Immediately on the north and east extends a vast and fertile 
 plain comprising the valley of the Fuerte River, having a deep, 
 dark, and rich soil, with few scattering hills rising abruptly from 
 the plains. Valley and hills covered with a dense growth of low 
 timber, affording excellent material for fuel and charcoal, together 
 with a thick growth of underbrush and cactus. This soil is capa- 
 ble of producing everything in semi-tropical and temperate regions. 
 The air is pure, winds moderate and regular, and the tempera- 
 ture at this season ranges between 56 and 85. 
 
 This report was signed by eighty-six adult colonists, all at that 
 time within the camp. 
 
 Mr. Nichols charges us with being " money-making Socialists." 
 I am a Socialist, and I advocate "a nearer, precise, orderly, and 
 harmonious arrangement of social relations of mankind than that 
 which has hitherto prevailed," but I am not an Anarchist, or one 
 who advocates a government without a head and withoilt by-laws 
 for public guidance, I trust that THE SUN'S readers will discrimi- 
 nate between the two. I have been trying during fourteen years to 
 give New York city an outlet to Topolobampo Bay, 800 miles 
 shorter by rail than she now lias by rail to San Francisco, and in 
 that time I have put all the means I have been able to obtain in the 
 project, connected with this enterprise, and if I have stolen $600,000 
 its good effects will soon be seen. I never sold a piece of real estate 
 in my life, and was never associated with any speculative enter- 
 prise. My home is at Chester, Delaware county, Pa., and from the 
 yard of the house in which I now live, I can throw a stone into the 
 window of the room in which I was born. There is the place to 
 find out the shortcomings of the writer and the character of his 
 father before him. I have kept my estates in Sinaloa free from 
 encumbrances, thai I might associate them with the properties of 
 others to build up a city which will secure a safe and comfortable 
 home for all who may wish to join our company, free from taxes, 
 and surrounded with the conditions of honorable, progressive, 
 peaceful, intellectual life. My purpose in the present existence is 
 not to make money, but to secure the prompt and equitable ex- 
 change for the services which I have to offer for those of others which 
 I may need. A plan which will do this for me will be a great boon 
 to others ; and my determination is to associate persons who will 
 utilize the great harbor of Topolobampo, and make it a benefit to 
 the commerce of North America. 
 
 There are several Micawbers at Topolobampo who may turn up 
 
at any time, the sooner the better, and we have no idea of getting 
 well started without meeting many difficulties ; but we have gone 
 to stay, and will abide our time. There are about 500 persons there 
 now, at least 300 more than there should be for the limited supplies 
 and the amount of work we can do under the pressure of circum- 
 stances, over which we have no control; but we have stopped all 
 others from going to Sinaloa, at least until I return from Topolo- 
 bampo in April, and this will give us time to breathe and to get 
 our people into better shape along the thirty-five miles of road we 
 are now preparing for ties, and upon our farms and in our 
 fisheries. 
 
 We have under our control, and partly paid for, about 19,000 
 a<"Tes of building lands on the harbor of Topolobampo, 33,500 acres 
 of farming lands midway between the harbor and the Puerte River, 
 15,000 acres, a site for ft town on the Fuerte River, and a farm of 
 304 acres close to the last site, irrigated, and with crops of our own 
 planting now growing. Certainly, those " reformers" who believe 
 that it is only necessary to own land to be happy, should say that 
 we are well fixed. 
 
 The Credit Foncier Company is incorporated to advance re- 
 forms deeper than the land question, and more important than the 
 money problem. It puts every member of its society into his or her 
 own home. It employs, secures, insures, teaches, amuses, and 
 assists every member, and yet individuality is maintained, and di- 
 rect taxation has no existence. Respectfully, 
 
 A. K. OWEN, 
 
 President of the Mexican Construction Co. 
 32 Nassau St., New York, Feb. 4, 1887. 
 
 SINALOAN HOSPITALITY. 
 
 Private Correspondence of the Governor of Sinaloa. 
 
 CULIACAN, Dec. 20, 1886. 
 MB. ALBERT K. OWEN, Guaymas: 
 
 Dear Sir : I have been favored by your kind letter, dated in 
 Topolobampo, the 18th inst., which inclosed another addressed 
 to me by the Mexican minister in Washington, Mr. Matias Romero. 
 
 I truly regret not having seen you and Mr. Grant during the 
 day I sojourned at that port (Guaymas), for I would have had great 
 pleasure in offering my services in person ; but as this was im- 
 possible, on account of the rapidity of your trip, it is vory gratify- 
 ing for me. to-day, to assure you' that you may consider my true 
 
friendship and command me in everything in which you believe 
 I can be useful to you. 
 
 In reference to the Topolobampo colonists, they will have fron ; 
 the Government all the necessary guarantees and the protection 
 which I will be able to extend to them, for it has always been 
 the tendency of this Government to favor the immigrants that 
 come in search of work, and to give them every kind of security 
 for their establishment and contribution toward the general 
 progress of the country. 
 
 I intended 1o make a visit to the new colony, but considering 
 that you and Mr. Grant would be absent from there a few months, 
 T resolved to make the trip when } T OU will be back from the United 
 States. 
 
 With my sincerest wishes for your personal happiness and the 
 jost success in your business, I place myself at your orders as a 
 true friend. FRANCISCO CANEDO. 
 
 A MILITARY ESCORT FOR OUR COLONISTS. 
 
 Private Correspondence of the Gommander-in- Chief of tfie First 
 Military Zone. 
 
 GUAYMAS, Dec. 26, 1886. 
 MR. ALBERT K. OWEN: 
 
 Dear Sir : I have the pleasure of answering your favor of the 
 24th inst., arid stating that, according to your wishes, I will furnish 
 the necessary guard to the colonists you refer to, so that they tind 
 no obstacles in their way to Buena Vista. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 ANGEL MAKTINEZ. 
 
 

 r * 
 
 The Credit Fonder Series of Publications. 
 
 The first five publications are devoted exclusively to expla- 
 nations of The Credit Fonder Company. 
 
 To bo had from M. & E. Howland, Hammonton, Atlantic 
 County, New Jersey, and from The Credit Foncier Company, 
 Koom, 708, 32 Nassau Street, New York City. 
 
 PRICES INCLUDE POSTAGE. 
 
 Integral Co-operiitlon. By A K.Owen. $0.30 
 
 The New Departure. By Wm. H. Mnller 10 
 
 A Co-operative City and The Credit Foncier of 
 
 Sinai oa. By John W. Lovell .10 j 
 
 "The Credit Foncier of Sinaloa," A Weekly Paper (8 
 page octavo). By Marie and Edward Howland. 3 months, 25c., 
 
 6 months, 5Oc., 12 months l.OO j 
 
 Extracts from Newspapers, explanatory of the 
 
 Credit Foncier Company. Compiled by A. K. Owen .10 j 
 
 The North Anieri an Phalanx. By Charles Sears 1() | 
 
 The Military, Postal and Commercial Highways. 
 
 By A.K.Owen 25 ! 
 
 The Texcoco-Hnehuetoca Canal. By A. K. Owen 25 
 
 Social Solutions. Edited by Edward Howland. 12 parts, each 
 
 10c., or the 12 for 1.00 
 
 Social Solutions. By M. Godin. Translated by Marie How- 
 land. Cloth, Gilt ... 1.5O 
 
 Papa's Own Girl. By Marie Howland 3O 
 
 The American and Ulexicaii Paciflc Railivay. By 
 
 Alexander D. Anderson .25