LIBRARY 
 
 or 
 
 SANTA 
 
 CRUZ 
 

THE WORKS OF 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 Bfcftion 
 
 VOLUME IX 
 
 SYBARIS 
 HOW THEY LIVED IN HAMPTON 
 

Sybaris 
 And Other Homes 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 How they Lived in Hampton 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 1900 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, 
 BY FIELDS, OSGOOD, & Co., 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Copyright, i888 y 
 BY J. STILLMAN SMITH & Co. 
 
 Copyright, 1900, 
 
 BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS . JOHN WILSON 
 AND SON CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 
 
PS 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO THE EDITION OF 1900. 
 
 THE sympathetic reader will at once see that 
 the essays in this volume belong together, 
 however different in form; and that they follow 
 out the same line of opinion and of hope. With 
 some hesitation, I have resisted the temptation, 
 natural enough, to recast them so far as to substi 
 tute the statistics of the year 1900, or in any way 
 the point of view of to-day, for those which belong 
 to the time when the papers were printed. " What 
 is written, is written." 
 
 The date of the Sybaris papers, which are the 
 earliest, is 1869; the date of the Hampton book, 
 which is the latest, is 1886; so that nearly twenty 
 years parts the two. 
 
 It is with some pride that in the year 1900 I call 
 the reader's attention to the fulfilment in thirty- 
 one years of some prophecies of 1869. Cable 
 cars have proved workable in that time; but I 
 have letters of that date from civil engineers who 
 wished to prove to me that they were impossible. 
 Mr. Ingham found the automobiles in successful 
 use in Sybaris, and doubtless to-day he would find 
 them in Naples. 
 
vi Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 My distinguished friend, the late Josiah Quincy, 
 used to flatter me by telling me that he owed to 
 the suggestions made in the Naguadavick paper 
 the interest with which he embarked in the crea 
 tion of Wollaston, now one of the most interesting 
 and beautiful villages built up near Boston. To 
 his energy and forethought the people of Boston 
 owe the improvements in legislation which have 
 made possible the building up of such towns by 
 the combined effort of the persons who are to 
 inhabit them. 
 
 The paper on Boston must be read as belong 
 ing to the year 1869. With the energy of a Board 
 of Health which is not afraid to do its duty, 
 the terrible grievances there described have been 
 largely abated. The sad mortality of children 
 spoken of in this paper was checked by the im 
 pulse given in the creation of the Sea Shore Home, 
 and maintained by the admirable efficiency of the 
 Floating Hospital. But the population of Boston 
 is still terribly overcrowded, and we must still do 
 everything possible to relieve the congestion. 
 
 When the earlier papers of this series were 
 written, the Mayor of Boston was chosen for one 
 year only, and he had next to no power. Under 
 a new charter he has a term of two years, and 
 his power and responsibility are considerably 
 enlarged. 
 
 Writing in the year 1900, thirty years after the 
 first of these papers were written, I think I ought 
 
Preface 
 
 vn 
 
 to say that the friends of decent government in 
 cities should not be wholly dissatisfied with the 
 improvements made in a generation. 
 
 To any American reader, Mr. Shaw's studies 
 will easily show how great has been the improve 
 ment achieved in the cities of Europe. To speak 
 of our affairs here, the machinery of Boston, of 
 New York, and of other cities, is certainly better 
 than it was then. And there is hardly one of the 
 western cities of America which, in some detail at 
 least, has not an object lesson worthy of careful 
 study. Sensible men no longer faint nor sneer 
 at the suggestion that a city may own a tramway 
 or a gas pipe. The health of children in the large 
 cities is much more sure than it was then. Con 
 tagious diseases, the disgrace of what is called 
 civilization, are checked to a perceptible degree. 
 And the next generation has reason to hope that 
 democracy may find out how to manage cities as 
 well as they were managed two thousand years 
 ago. 
 
 Between the date of the paper relative to the 
 housing of the people of Boston and the study of 
 co-operation which is made at length under the 
 title " How They Lived in Hampton," a period 
 of twenty years passed. But the studies for the 
 Hampton book were made as early as 1873. At 
 page 208 of this volume the reader will find an 
 account, not only of that book and its origin, but 
 of some progress which has been made in carry- 
 
viii Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 ing out in practice the principles and theories on 
 which it is founded. 
 
 I dedicated the first edition of Sybaris to the 
 Suffolk Union for Christian Work. This Union 
 formed a regular meeting of gentlemen and ladies 
 interested in plans where each lives for all and 
 all for each. Its name and organization ceased 
 with the organization of the Associated Chanties, 
 the Municipal Club, the Twentieth Century Club, 
 and some other similar societies; but I like to 
 recall here its efficiency in endeavors for " The 
 Possible Boston." 
 
 EDWARD E. HALE. 
 
 ROXBURY, June 19, 1900. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 SYBARIS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1900 v 
 
 DEDICATION 3 
 
 PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1869 5 
 
 MY VISIT TO SYBARIS 15 
 
 How THEY LIVED AT NAGUADAVICK 102 
 
 How THEY LIVE IN VINELAND 136 
 
 How THEY LIVE IN BOSTON, AND HOW THEY DIE 
 
 THERE .... . . 170 
 
 HOMES FOR BOSTON LABORERS 193 
 
 APPENDIX 205 
 
 HOW THEY LIVED IN HAMPTON 
 
 PREFACE TO NEW EDITION . . 211 
 
 PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1888 221 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. How THEY LIVED IN HAMPTON .... 223 
 
 II. THE PLAN 244 
 
 III. THE RESULTS 250 
 
 IV. THE STORE 273 
 
x Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 V. THE ENTERPRISER 300 
 
 VI. CHILDREN'S WORK 316 
 
 VII. THE SCHOOL 331 
 
 VIII. HOURS OF WORK 346 
 
 IX. THE CHURCH 358 
 
 X. THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 375 
 
 XI. ENTERTAINMENT 382 
 
 XII. TEMPERANCE 399 
 
 XIII. THE SAVINGS-BANK 407 
 
 XIV. WORK AND LABOR 425 
 
 XV. COMMUNISM . . ... 442 
 
 XVI. CONCLUSION 451 
 
SYBARIS 
 AND OTHER HOMES 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 
 
 TO THE 
 
 SUFFOLK UNION FOR CHRISTIAN WORK 
 
 At the meeting which formed that Society the provision for better 
 homes in cities was publicly declared to be the first work of Christian 
 reform. At every meeting since some person has enforced the same 
 necessity. 
 
 EDWARD E. HALE 
 
 SOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, BOSTON, 
 September 18, 1869. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE EDITION OF 1869 
 
 f I V HE reader will see that the papers in this 
 * book have a single object, whether cast in 
 the form of fiction, or whether statistical narra 
 tives of fact. If I should classify them as the 
 papers were classified in an earlier volume of this 
 little series, the account of Naguadavick is the 
 account of what ought to be ; the account of 
 Vineland is the account of what is; and the 
 account of Boston is the account of what ought 
 not to be. In the narrative of Sybaris the reade 
 will find something of " if," something of "yes," 
 something of " perhaps ; " some possibility, much 
 fact, and some exaggeration. 
 
 I have, perhaps, a right to explain the earnest 
 ness with which I try to enforce the necessity of 
 better homes for laboring men by stating a sin 
 gle circumstance in my own history. For nearly 
 twenty-five years I have been constantly engaged 
 in the Christian ministry. About half that time 
 was spent in Worcester, Massachusetts; about 
 half of it in Boston. When I went to Worcester 
 it was a town of about eight thousand people; 
 when I left it, it had three times that number. 
 
6 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 Boston is a crowded town of a quarter-million 
 inhabitants. It is impossible for me not to notice, 
 in every hour of my life, the contrast between the 
 homes of the working people in these two places. 
 I might almost say that there is no other differ 
 ence of importance between the social oppor 
 tunities of the two places. They are not far apart ; 
 both are active places of business, employing in 
 about equal proportions people of enterprise and 
 energy in the varied work of manufacture, com 
 merce, and transportation. But in one of these 
 places almost every man can own his house, and 
 half the men do. In the other hardly any man 
 can own his house, and half the people are 
 crowded into quarters where no man should be 
 compelled to live. 
 
 To watch over and improve the charities of any 
 town is the special duty of a Christian minister 
 in it, to feed its hungry and clothe its naked, 
 to open the eyes of its blind and the ears of its 
 deaf, to make its lame walk, to cleanse its lepers, 
 and to preach good tidings to its poor. Will the 
 reader imagine to himself the position of the man 
 engaged in that duty, when he finds his sick in 
 such tenements as they must live in, in our present 
 system, his blind, for instance, born so, perhaps, 
 in rooms with no window, and all his poor in such 
 homes that the only truly good tidings are tidings 
 which send them away from him? Where a con 
 siderable part of the people live in such homes, 
 our best-devised charities, either for moral culture 
 
Preface 7 
 
 or physical relief, work at terrible odds. Your 
 City Missions, your Ministry at Large, your Indus 
 trial Aid Society, or your Overseers of the Poor 
 are all working against the steady dead weight 
 which, as we all know, presses down and holds 
 down the man who is in an unhealthy or unhappy 
 home. 
 
 The contrast in my own life between life in a 
 small manufacturing and commercial town and life 
 in a large one makes me feel the bitterness of 
 these odds the more. I am sure that the suffering 
 thus involved is unnecessary, as I am sure the 
 labor which tries to relieve its symptoms must be 
 in large measure thrown away. With an intense 
 personal interest, therefore, have I attempted 
 to show in this book how these evils may be 
 remedied. 
 
 I do not know but Colonel Ingham's sug 
 gestions as to his imagined Sybaris may be 
 thought too roseate and ideal for our Western 
 longitudes. They have been already published in 
 the " Atlantic Monthly," and, in his absence in 
 Siberia, I have been once and again favored 
 with criticisms upon them. It is but fair to him 
 to say that, so far as the paper refers to ancient 
 Sybaris or Thurii, it is a very careful study of the 
 best authorities regarding that interesting state, 
 a study which I wish might be pushed further by 
 somebody. And I incorporate the paper in this 
 volume because it seems to me that we have a 
 great deal to learn from the ancient cities and 
 
8 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 from their methods of government, were it only 
 the great lesson of the value of training in 
 administration. 
 
 There is a very odd habit of speech about 
 republican government, which, like most careless 
 habits of speech, hurts our practice. When the 
 theory of a republic is discussed, everybody says 
 that it worked admirably in cities of compact ter 
 ritory, but that it failed when it had to be ex 
 tended over wider regions. This is really a 
 commonplace in the old-fashioned sturdy books 
 on political institutions. But when you come to 
 talk politics with practical people to-day, the 
 chances are nine in ten that they say, " Ah, repub 
 lican institutions are admirable for the country at 
 large ; they work perfectly for a scattered popu 
 lation ; but when you come to compact cities you 
 want something very different. Must have one 
 head there, one head there," &c., &c., &c. Now, 
 certainly this is very odd, that just as we have all 
 learned to repeat one of these lessons from old 
 Greek and Roman history, illustrated in the his 
 tory of Greek and Roman colonies, we should all 
 have to turn round and say exactly the other 
 thing. Is it not probable that there is some mis 
 understanding? 
 
 I believe that a careful study of the history of 
 the Greek and Roman cities shows that their suc 
 cess is largely due to their attention to the science 
 of administration. The men who discharged spe 
 cific functions were trained to those functions and 
 
Preface 9 
 
 knew how to discharge them. In the Roman cities 
 no man could be a candidate for the higher grades 
 of service unless he had served so many years in 
 the lower. Any old Roman, asked to vote in our 
 city elections, would take it for granted that no 
 man could be an alderman who had not been a 
 common councilman for a certain number of 
 years, nor a mayor unless he had been an alder 
 man for a certain number. In Athens they were 
 even more careful, and all officers were as dis 
 tinctly trained to their duties as with us civil engi 
 neers are or architects. What followed was, that 
 when the right man got into place, there was a 
 reasonable probability that he stayed in. 
 
 In our elective city governments, on the other 
 hand, with a great deal of good feeling and a great 
 deal of public spirit, we find uncertainty, hurry 
 sometimes, and delay in others, frequent changes 
 in system, shyness about responsibility, and, in 
 consequence, a great deal of discomfort and grum 
 bling. I once asked a very able and pure man, 
 Alexander A. Rice, then Mayor of Boston, why the 
 city did not undertake a duty which seemed im 
 portant. " How should I know?" said he, with a 
 sigh. "I was chosen to this place eight months 
 ago, with no experience in city affairs. If I am 
 chosen again in December, I may have heart to 
 start on some such proposal as you name. But 
 really, the first year of a man's service as mayor 
 must be given to learning where he stands." This 
 is perfectly true. 
 
io Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 Now, at the end of the first year who determines 
 whether such a man shall or shall not go on? Al 
 most always, five hundred men, united, can settle 
 that thing one way or another. If he have wounded 
 the feelings of the policemen, if he have made a 
 change in the management of the fire companies, 
 if in any way he have crossed the track of any 
 compact organization, he is put out and some other 
 new man is put in, for his apprenticeship. I do 
 not believe that this system of neophyte mayors is 
 necessary. And I believe that whenever the public 
 is roused to study it, it will be changed. 
 
 It does not make so much difference in Boston, 
 however, because the Mayor has no great power, 
 after all. He is not much more than a chairman 
 of selectmen. The same difficulty, as it seems to 
 me, comes in, in the choice of the aldermen, who 
 have, collectively, some power. I read a great 
 deal of insulting language and bitter sneering 
 about aldermen. I suppose there are bad alder 
 men, as I know there are bad ministers, bad paint 
 ers, and bad bootblacks. But, in my experience, 
 the aldermen with whom I have had to confer on 
 the affairs of the city have been hardworking, up 
 right, intelligent, public-spirited men, doing a great 
 deal of work, for which they got no pay and no 
 thanks ; and doing it, under our lumbering system, 
 very well. But they were all doing it by instinct, 
 and not after training. They had happened upon 
 the situation which made them a directory of 
 twelve, governing, in nice details of administra- 
 
Preface 1 1 
 
 tion, a city of a quarter-million people. They 
 had never been trained in advance to do that 
 duty. And by the time they had learned it, in 
 presence of the enemy, they were heartily sick 
 of it, and were glad to resign. 
 
 It seems to me, that as long as we govern cities 
 in that way, we shall have bad horse-cars, bad tene 
 ment-houses, bad streets, bad theatres, bad liquor- 
 shops, and a great many other bad things, which, 
 in a city where administration was a science, and 
 no man chosen to office until he had been trained 
 to it, Colonel Ingham did not find in Sybaris. 
 
 I observe that the newspapers are a good deal 
 exercised when a committee of the city govern 
 ment, or when any city officers, go to study the 
 systems of some other cities. For my part, I wish 
 they went a great deal oftener than they do, and 
 studied such systems a great deal more. I believe 
 the city of Boston could make no wiser expendi 
 ture than it would make in sending to Europe, 
 once in five years, an intelligent officer from each 
 great department to study French, English, Ger 
 man, Italian, and Russian administration of streets ; 
 of hackney-coaches, omnibuses, and railroad sta 
 tions; of prisons; of the detective and general 
 police ; of health ; of markets ; and of education. 
 There is hardly a large city in the civilized world 
 which has not some hints of value which it could 
 give to every other city. 
 
 Colonel Ingham has received many protests 
 against the arbitrary and unprincipled action of 
 
1 2 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 the government of Sybaris in compelling marriage 
 among its people. He had already made his own 
 protest, as he could, in his journal. Nor would he 
 wish to be understood as desiring to enforce any 
 where statutes so tyrannical. But, as I understand 
 him, he is convinced, by what he has seen in Sybaris 
 and in the rest of the world, that every artificial ob 
 stacle to marriage is so much multiplication of all 
 other evil in the world, and whether that obstacle 
 come in the form of fashion, of custom, of senti 
 ment, of gossip, of political economy, or of law, it 
 is to be deprecated and set aside. 
 
 I may add that I do not know why such views 
 have not a larger place than they have in the cur 
 rent discussions of female suffrage. The married 
 woman and the married man being one, she now 
 has suffrage. How would it answer to withdraw 
 suffrage from the unmarried men? This would 
 put them on an equality with the unmarried 
 women; and there would be a possibility, if they 
 are troubled by the loss, of their regaining the 
 privilege. 
 
 But I will not, in a preface, discuss the details of 
 any of the experiments in city administration here 
 suggested. My chief wish is accomplished, if I 
 can call attention to the delicacy and difficulty of 
 these questions, and to the necessity of studying 
 them with scientific and conscientious precision. 
 When our best men study the details of local ad 
 ministration with the care with which Themistocles, 
 Aristides, and Pericles studied them in Athens, 
 
Preface 1 3 
 
 with which Metellus, the Catos, Pompey the Great, 
 and Julius Caesar were willing to study them in 
 Rome, we shall find, as I believe, no difficulty 
 in the republican government of cities. 
 
 The shorter essays in this book are devoted to 
 the single subject of the homes of laborers at work 
 in large cities, and, as I trust, require no further 
 explanation. 
 
 As the last sheets of this book leave my hands, 
 the watchful kindness of a friend enables me to add 
 the last word regarding Sybaris. 
 
 Under the title " De Paris a Sybaris " (Paris : A. 
 Lemerre, 1868) M. Leon Palustre de Montifaut 
 publishes his studies of art and literature in Rome 
 and Southern Italy. And here is his record of 
 what he saw of Sybaris. He speaks first of Cas- 
 sano, the last Italian town which looks down upon 
 the valley of ancient Sybaris. 
 
 " Cassano, with its beautiful gardens, its tranquil 
 aspect, and its gray mountains, reminds one of the 
 ancient Sichem. It has its freshness and its poetry, 
 if it has not the same reminiscences. 
 
 " Still, I hastened my departure, for I was eager 
 to cross before night those broad and marshy ex 
 panses over which the eye travelled without an 
 obstacle, a vast semicircle cut into the thickness 
 of the Apennine, or fertile intervals left by the sea. 
 
 " And what was I going to see? Not so much 
 as a ruin, an uncertain region over which lay 
 loose the voluptuous name of Sybaris. And I had 
 
14 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 made a long journey. I had undergone incredible 
 fatigue to give myself this empty satisfaction. How 
 the inhabitants of this easy city would have laughed 
 at me ! They could not understand, says Athenaeus, 
 why one should quit his country. For themselves 
 they gloried in growing old where they first saw the 
 light. Yet this people practised the broadest hos 
 pitality, and, contrary to the policy of most of the 
 Greek states, they readily admitted the colonists 
 of other nations to the rank of citizens. May not 
 this liberal spirit and the astonishing fertility of the 
 soil explain the prosperity of this prosperous town, 
 which is so strangely kept in obscurity by all anti 
 quity? Varro tells us that wheat produced a hun 
 dredfold on the whole territory of Sybaris. At 
 the present time the uplands produce the richest 
 harvests." 
 
 And this, I am sorry to say, is the only contri 
 bution to the history or topography of Sybaris 
 made since the date of Mr. Ingham's voyage. Mon 
 sieur Montifaut, alas ! like all the others, hurried 
 across the upland six miles back from the sea. It 
 is as if a traveller from Providence, coming up to 
 Readville, should cross to Watertown and Waltham, 
 and then, going through the Notch of the White 
 Mountains to Montreal, should publish his observa 
 tions on Boston. 
 
 And these notes, alas ! as late as 1867, are dated 
 like Colonel Ingham's, on the 1st of April! 
 
MY VISIT TO SYBARIS 
 
 FROM REV. FREDERIC INGHAM'S PAPERS 
 
 IT is a great while since I first took an interest in 
 Sybaris. Sybarites have a bad name. But 
 before I had heard of them anywhere else, I had 
 painfully looked out the words in the three or four 
 precious anecdotes about Sybaris in the old Greek 
 Reader ; and I had made up my boy's mind about 
 the Sybarites. When I came to know the name 
 they had got elsewhere, I could not but say that 
 the world had been very unjust to them ! 
 
 Oh, dear ! I can see it now, the old Latin 
 School room where we used to sit and hammer 
 over that Greek, after the small boys had gone. 
 They went at eleven ; we because we were twelve 
 or more stayed till twelve. From eleven to 
 twelve we sat, with only those small boys who had 
 been " kept " for their sins, and Mr. Dillaway. 
 The room was long and narrow ; how long and how 
 narrow you may see, if you will go and examine 
 M. Duchesne's model of " Boston as it was," and 
 pay twenty-five cents to the Richmond schools. 
 For all this is of the past ; and in the same spot in 
 space where once a month the Examiner Club now 
 
1 6 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 meets at Parker's and discusses the difference be 
 tween religion and superstition, the folly of copy 
 right, and the origin of things, the boys who did 
 not then belong to the Examiner Club, say Fox 
 and Clarke and Furness and Waldo Emerson, 
 thumbed their Grseca Minora or their Greek Read 
 ers in " Boston as it was," and learned the truth 
 about Sybaris ! A long, narrow room, I say, whose 
 walls, when I knew them first, were of that tawny 
 orange wash which is appropriated to kitchens. 
 But, by a master stroke of Mr. Dillaway's, these 
 walls were made lilac or purple one summer vaca 
 tion. We sat, to recite, on long settees, pea-green 
 in color, which would teeter slightly on the well- 
 worn floor. There, for an hour daily, while brighter 
 boys than I recited, I sat an hour musing, looking 
 at the immense Jacobs's Greek Reader, and waiting 
 my turn to come. If you did not look off your 
 book much, no harm came to you. So, in the 
 hour, you got fifty-three minutes and a few odd 
 seconds of day-dream, for six minutes and two- 
 thirds of reciting, unless, which was unusual, some 
 fellow above you broke down, and a question, 
 passed along of a sudden, recalled you to modern 
 life. I have been sitting on that old green settee, 
 and at the same time riding on horseback in Vir 
 ginia, through an open wooded country, with one 
 of Lord Fairfax's grandsons and two pretty cousins 
 of his, and a fallow deer has just appeared in the 
 distance, when, by the failure of Hutchinson or 
 Wheeler, just above me, poor Mr. Dillaway has had 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 17 
 
 to ask me, " Ingham, what verbs omit the redu 
 plication?" Talk of war! Where is versatility, 
 otherwise called presence of mind, so needed as 
 in recitation at a public school? 
 
 Well, there, I say, I made acquaintance with 
 Sybaris. Nay, strictly speaking, my first visits to 
 Sybaris were made there and then. What the 
 Greek Reader tells of Sybaris is in three or four 
 anecdotes, woven into that strange, incoherent 
 patchwork of " Geography." In that place are 
 patched together a statement of Strabo and one of 
 Athenaeus about two things in Sybaris which may 
 have belonged some eight hundred years apart. 
 But what of that to a school-boy ! Will your 
 descendants, dear reader, in the year 3579 A. D., 
 be much troubled if, in the English Reader of 
 their day, Queen Victoria shall be made to drink 
 Spartan black broth with William the Conqueror 
 out of a conch-shell in New Zealand? 
 
 With regard to Sybaris, then, the old Jacobs's 
 Greek Reader tells the following stories : " The 
 Sybarites were distinguished for luxury. They 
 did not permit the trades which made a loud noise, 
 such as those of brass-workers, carpenters, and the 
 like, to be carried on in the heart of the city, so 
 that their sleep might be wholly undisturbed by 
 noise. . . . And a Sybarite who had gone to 
 Lacedaemon, and had been invited to the public 
 meal, after he had sat on their wooden benches 
 and partaken of their fare, said that he had been 
 astonished at the fearlessness of the Lacedaemo- 
 
1 8 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 nians when he knew it only by report ; but now 
 that he had seen them, he thought that they did 
 not excel other men, for he thought that any brave 
 man had much rather die than be obliged to live 
 such a life as they did." Then there is another 
 story, among the " miscellaneous anecdotes," of a 
 Sybarite who was asked if he had slept well. He 
 said, No, that he believed he had a crumpled rose- 
 leaf under him in the night. And there is yet 
 another, of one of them who said that it made his 
 back ache to see another man digging. 
 
 I have asked Polly, as I write, to look in Mark 
 Lemon's Jest-Book for these stories. They are 
 not in the index there. But I dare say they are 
 in Cotton Mather and Jeremy Taylor. Anyway, 
 they are bits of very cheap Greek. Now, it is on 
 such stories that the reputation of the Sybarites in 
 modern times appears to depend. 
 
 Now look at them. This Sybarite at Sparta 
 said, that in war death was often easier than the 
 hardships of life. Well, is not that true? Have 
 not thousands of brave men said it? When the 
 English and French got themselves established 
 on the wrong side of Sebastopol, what did that 
 engineer officer of the French say to somebody 
 who came to inspect his works? He was talking 
 of St. Arnaud, their first commander. " Cunning 
 dog," said he, " he went and died." Death was 
 easier than life. But nobody ever said he was a 
 coward or effeminate because he said this. W 7 hy, 
 if our purpose would permit an excursus of two 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 19 
 
 hundred pages here, on this theme, we would 
 defer Sybaris to the 1st of April, 1870, while we 
 illustrated the Sybarite's manly epigram, which 
 these stupid Spartans could only gape at, but 
 could not understand. 
 
 Then take the rose-leaf story. Suppose by 
 good luck you were breakfasting with General 
 Grant, or Pelissier, or the Duke of Wellington. 
 Suppose you said, " I hope you slept well," and 
 the great soldier said, "No, I did not; I think a 
 rose-leaf must have stood up edgewise under me." 
 Would you go off and say in your book of travels 
 that the Americans, or the French, or the English 
 are all effeminate pleasure-seekers, because one of 
 them made this nice little joke ? Would you like 
 to have the name " American " go down to all 
 time, defined as Webster 1 defines Sybarite? 
 
 A-MER'I-CAN, n. [Fr. Amtricain, Lat. Atnericanus, from 
 Lat. America, a continent noted for the effeminacy and 
 voluptuousness of its inhabitants.] A person devoted to 
 luxury and pleasure. 
 
 Should you think that was quite fair for your 
 great-grandson's grandson's descendant in the 
 twenty-seventh remove to read, who is going to 
 be instructed about Queen Victoria and William 
 the Conqueror? 
 
 Worst of all, and most frequently quoted, is the 
 
 1 I am writing in Westerly's snuggery, and in Providence 
 they believe in Webster's dictionary. I dare say it is worse in 
 Worcester's. A good many things are. 
 
2O Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 story of the coppersmiths. The Sybarites, it is 
 said, ordered that the coppersmiths and brass- 
 founders should all reside in one part of the city, 
 and bang their respective metals where the neigh 
 bors had voluntarily chosen to listening to bang 
 ing. What if they did? Does not every manu 
 facturing city practically do the same thing? 
 What did Nicholas Tillinghast use to say to the 
 boys and girls at Bridgewater? "The tendency of 
 cities is to resolve themselves into order." 
 
 Is not Wall Street at this hour a street of 
 bankers? Is not the Boston Pearl Street a street 
 of leather men? Is not the bridge at Florence 
 given over to jewellers? Was not my valise, 
 there, bought in Rome at the street of trunk- 
 makers? Do not all booksellers like to huddle 
 together as long as they can? And when Ticknor 
 and Fields move a few inches from Washington 
 Street to Tremont Street, do not Russell and Bates 
 and Childs and Jenks, and De Vries and Ibarra 
 follow them as soon as the shops can be got ready? 
 
 " But it is the motive," pipes up the old gray 
 ghost of propriety, who started this abuse of the 
 Sybarites in some stupid Spartan black-broth shop 
 (English that for caft), two thousand two hundred 
 and twenty-two years ago, which ghost I am 
 now belaboring, " it is the motive. The Syba 
 rites moved the brass-founders, because they 
 wanted to sleep after the brass-founders got up in 
 the morning." What if they did, you old rat in the 
 arras? Is there any law, human or divine, which 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 21 
 
 says that at one and the same hour all men shall 
 rise from bed in this world? My excellent milk 
 man, Mr. Whit, rises from bed daily at two o'clock. 
 If he does not, my family, including Matthew, 
 Mark, Luke, John, and Acts, will not have their 
 fresh milk at 7.37, at which time we breakfast or 
 pretend to. But because he rises at two, must we 
 all rise at two, and sit wretchedly whining on our 
 respective campstools, waiting for Mr. Whit to 
 arrive with the grateful beverage? Many is the 
 time, when I have been watching with a sick child 
 at five in a summer morning, when the little fellow 
 had just dropped into a grateful morning doze, 
 that I have listened and waited, dreading the 
 arrival of the Providence morning express. For I 
 knew that a mile and a half out of Boston, the 
 engine would begin to blow its shrill whistle, for 
 the purpose, I believe, of calling the Boston 
 station-men to their duty. Three or four minutes 
 of that skre-e-e-e must there be, as that train swept 
 by our end of the town. And hoping and wishing 
 never did any good; the train would come, and 
 the child would wake. Is not that a magnificent 
 power for one engine-man to have over the morn 
 ing rest of fifty thousand sleeping people, because 
 you, old Spartan croaker, who can't sleep easy 
 underground, it seems, want to have everybody 
 waked up at the same hour in the morning? When 
 I hear that whistle, and the fifty other whistles of 
 the factories that have since followed its wayward 
 and unlicensed example, I have wished more than 
 
22 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 once that we had in Boston a little more of the 
 firm government of Sybaris. 
 
 For if, as it would appear from these instances, 
 Sybaris were a city which grew to wealth and 
 strength by the recognition of the personal rights 
 of each individual in the state, if Sybaris were a 
 republic, where the individual was respected, had 
 his rights, and was not left to the average chances 
 of the majority of men, then Sybaris had found 
 out something which no modern city has found out, 
 and which it is a pity we have all forgotten. 
 
 I do not say that I went through all this specu 
 lation at the Latin School. I got no further there 
 than to see that the Sybarites had got a very 
 bad name, and that the causes did not appear in 
 the Greek Reader. I supposed there were causes 
 somewhere which it was not proper to put into 
 the Greek Reader. Perhaps there were. But if 
 there were, I have never found them since, not 
 being indeed very well acquainted with the lines 
 of reading in which those who wanted to find 
 them should look for them. 
 
 What I did find of Sybaris, when I could read 
 Greek rather more easily, and could get access to 
 some decent atlases, was briefly this. 
 
 Well forward in the hollow of the arched foot of 
 the boot of Italy, two little rivers run into the Gulf 
 of Tarentum. One was once named Crathis ; one 
 was named Sybaris. Here stood the ancient city 
 of Sybaris, founded about the time of Romulus or 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 23 
 
 Numa Pompilius, by a colony from Greece. For 
 two hundred years and more almost as long, 
 dear Atlantic, as your beloved Boston has sub 
 sisted Sybaris flourished, and was the Rome of 
 that region, ruling it from sea to sea. 
 
 It was the capital of four states, a sort of New 
 England, if you will observe, and could send 
 three hundred thousand armed men into the field, 
 more, I will observe in passing, than New England 
 has as yet ever had occasion to send at one 
 moment. The walls of the city were six miles in 
 circumference, while the suburbs covered the 
 banks of the Crathis for a space of seven miles. 
 At last the neighboring state of Crotona, under 
 the lead of Milon the Athlete (he of the calf and 
 ox and split log), the Heenan or John Morrissey 
 of his day, vanquished the more refined Sybarites, 
 turned the waters of the Crathis upon their pros 
 perous city, and destroyed it. But the Sybarites 
 had had that thing happen too often to be dis 
 couraged. Five times, say the historians, had 
 Sybaris been destroyed, and five times they built 
 it up. This time (444 B.C.) the Athenians sent ten 
 vessels, with men to help them, under Lampon 
 and Xenocritus. And they, with those who stood 
 by the wreck, gave their new city the name of 
 Thurii. Among the new colonists were Herodotus 
 and Lysias the orator, who was then a boy. The 
 spirit that had given Sybaris its comfort and its 
 immense population appeared in the legislation of 
 the new state. It received its laws from CHARON- 
 
24 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 DAS, one of the noblest legislators of the world. 
 Study these laws and you will see that in the 
 young Sybaris the individual had his rights, which 
 the public preserved for him, though he were 
 wholly in a minority. There is an evident deter 
 mination that a man shall live while he lives, and 
 that, too, in no sensual interpretation of the words. 
 Of the laws made by Charondas for the new 
 Sybaris a few are preserved. 
 
 1. A calumniator was marched round the city 
 in disgrace, crowned with tamarisk. " In conse 
 quence," says the Scholiast, "they all left the 
 city." Oh for such a result, from whatever legisla 
 tion, in our modern Pedlingtons, great or little ! 
 
 2. All persons were forbidden to associate with 
 the bad. 
 
 3. "He made another law, better than these, 
 and neglected by the older legislators. For he 
 enacted that all the sons of the citizens should be 
 instructed in letters, the city paying the salaries of 
 the teachers. For he held that the poor, not being 
 able to pay their teachers from their own property, 
 would be deprived of the most valuable discipline." 
 There is FREE EDUCATION for you, two thousand 
 and seventy-six years before the date of your first 
 Massachusetts free school ; and the theory of free 
 education completely stated. 
 
 4. Deserters or cowards in battle had to sit in 
 women's dresses in the Forum three days. 
 
 5. With regard to the amendment of laws, any 
 man or woman who moved one did it with a noose 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 25 
 
 round his neck, and was hanged if the people re 
 fused it. Only three laws were ever amended, 
 therefore, all of which are recorded in the history. 
 Observe that the women might move amendments, 
 and think of the simplicity of legislation ! 
 
 6. The law provided for cash payments, and the 
 government gave no protection for those who sold 
 on credit. 
 
 7. Their communication with other nations was 
 perfectly free. 
 
 I might give more instances. I should like to 
 tell some of the curious stories which illustrate this 
 simple legislation. Poor Charondas himself fell 
 a victim to it. One of the laws provided that no 
 man should wear a sword into the public assembly. 
 No Cromwells there ! Unfortunately, by accident, 
 Charondas wore his own there one day. Brave 
 fellow ! when the fault was pointed out, he killed 
 himself with it. 
 
 Now, do you wonder that a city, where there 
 were no calumniators, no long credit, no bills at 
 the grocers, no fighting at town-meetings, no 
 amendments to the laws, no intentional and open 
 association with profligates, and where everybody 
 was educated by the state to letters, proved a com 
 fortable place to live in ? It is of the old Sybaris 
 that the coppersmith and the rose-leaf stories are 
 told; and it was the new Sybaris that made the 
 laws. But do you not see that there is one spirit 
 in the whole? Here was a nation which believed 
 that the highest work of a nation was to train its 
 
26 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 people. It did not believe in fight, like Milon or 
 Heenan or the old Spartans ; it did not believe in 
 legislation, like Massachusetts and New York; it 
 did not believe in commerce, like Carthage and 
 England. It believed in men and women. It 
 respected men and women. It educated men and 
 women. It gave their rights to men and women. 
 And so the Spartans called them effeminate. 
 And the Greek Reader made fun of them. But 
 perhaps the people who lived there were indifferent 
 to the opinions of the Spartans and of the Greek 
 Reader. Herodotus lived there till he died ; wrote 
 his history there, among other things. Lysias, 
 the orator, took part in the administration. It is 
 not from them, you may be sure, that you get 
 the anecdotes which ridicule the old city of 
 Sybaris ! 
 
 You and I would probably be satisfied with such 
 company as that of Herodotus and Charondas and 
 Lysias. So we hunt the history down to see if 
 there may be lodgings to let there this summer, 
 but only to find that it all pales out in the 
 ignorance of our modern days. The name gets 
 changed into Lupiae; but there it turns out that 
 Pausanias made a " strange mistake," and should 
 have written Copia, which was perhaps Cossa, 
 or sometimes Cosa. Pyrrhus appears, and Hadrian 
 rebuilds something, and the " Oltramontani," who 
 ever they may have been, ravage it, and finally the 
 Saracens fire and sack it; and so, in the latest 
 Italian itinerary you can find, there is no post-road 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 27 
 
 goes near it, only a strada rotabile (wheel-track) 
 upon the hills ; and, alas ! even the rotabile gives 
 way at last, and all the map will own to is a strada 
 pedonale, or footpath. But the map is of the less 
 consequence when you find that the man who 
 edited it had no later dates than the beginning of 
 the last century, when the family of Serra had 
 transferred the title to Sybaris to a Genoese family 
 without a name, who received from it forty thou 
 sand ducats yearly, and would have received more, 
 if their agents had been more faithful. There the 
 place fades out of history, and you find in your 
 Swinburne " that the locality has never been 
 thoroughly examined ; " in your Smith's Dic 
 tionary, that "the whole subject is very obscure, 
 and a careful examination still much needed ; " in 
 the Cyclopedia, that the site of Sybaris is lost. 
 Craven saw the rivers Crathis and Sybaris. He 
 seems not to have seen the wall. of Sybaris, which 
 he supposed to be under water. He does say of 
 Cassano, the nearest town he came to, that "no 
 other spot can boast of such advantages." In 
 short, no man living who has written any book 
 about it dares say that anybody has looked upon 
 the certain site of Sybaris for more than a hundred 
 years. 1 If a man wanted to write a mythical story, 
 where could he find a better scene? 
 
 1 The reader who cares to follow the detail is referred to Dio- 
 dorus Siculus, xii. 9 et seq. ; Strabo, vi. ; yElian, v. H. 9, c. 
 24; Athenseus, xii. 518-520; Plutarch in Pelopidas ; Herodotus, 
 v. and vi. Compare Laurent's Geographical Notes, and Wheeler 
 
28 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 Now is not this a very remarkable thing? Here 
 was a city which, under its two names of Sybaris 
 or of Thurii, was for centuries the regnant city 
 of all that part of the world. It could call into the 
 field three hundred thousand men, an army 
 enough larger than Athens ever furnished, or 
 Sparta. It was a far more populous and powerful 
 state than ever Athens was, or Sparta, or the whole 
 of Hellas. It invented and carried into effect free 
 popular education, a gift to the administration 
 of free government larger than ever Rome ren 
 dered. It received and honored Charondas, the 
 great practical legislator, from whose laws no man 
 shall say how much has trickled down into the 
 Code Napoleon or the Revised Statutes of New 
 York, through the humble studies of the Roman 
 jurists. It maintained in peace, prosperity, happi 
 ness, and, as its maligners say, in comfort, an 
 immense population. If they had not been as 
 
 and Gainsford; Pliny, iii. 15; vii. 22; xvi. 33; viii. 64; xxxi. 
 9, 10 ; Aristotle, Polit. iv. 12; v. 3; Heyne's Opuscula, ii. 74; 
 Bentley's Phalaris, 367; Solinus, 2, 10, "luxuries grossly ex 
 aggerated;" Scymnus, 337-360; Aristophanes, Vesp. 1427, 1436; 
 Lycophron, Alex. 1079 Pausanias at Lupias ; Polybius, Gen. 
 Hist. ii. 3, on the confederation of Sybaris, Kroton, and Kau- 
 lonia, "a perplexing statement," says Grote, " showing that he 
 must have conceived the history of Sybaris in a very different 
 form from that in which it is commonly represented ; " third volume 
 of De Non, who disagrees with Magnan as to the site of Sybaris, 
 and says the seashore is uninhabitable ! Tuccagni Orlandini, vol. 
 xi., Supplement, p. 294; besides the dictionaries and books of 
 travels, including Murray. I have availed myself, without other 
 reference, of most of these authorities. 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 29 
 
 comfortable as they were, if a tenth part of them 
 had received alms every year, and a tenth part 
 were flogged in the public schools every year, and 
 one in forty had been sent to prison every year, as 
 in the happy city which publishes these humble 
 studies, then Sybaris, perhaps, would never have 
 got its bad name for luxury. Such a city lived, 
 flourished, ruled, for hundreds of years. Of such 
 a city all that you know now with certainty is, that 
 its coin is " the most beautifully finished in the 
 cabinets of ancient coinage ; " and that no traveller 
 pretends to be sure that he has been to the site of 
 it for more than a hundred years. That speaks 
 well for your nineteenth century. 
 
 Now the reader who has come thus far will un 
 derstand that I, having come thus far, in twenty 
 odd years since those days of teetering on the 
 pea-green settee, had always kept Sybaris in the 
 background of my head, as a problem to be solved, 
 and an inquiry to be followed to its completion. 
 There could hardly have been a man in the world 
 better satisfied than I to be the hero of the adven 
 ture which I am now about to describe. 
 
 If the reader remembers anything about Gari 
 baldi's triumphal entry into Porto Cavallo in Sicily 
 in the spring of 1859, he will remember that, be 
 tween the months of March and April in that year, 
 the great chieftain made, in that wretched little 
 fishing haven, a long pause, which was not at 
 the time understood by the journals or by their 
 
30 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 military critics, and which, indeed, to this hour 
 has never been publicly explained. I suppose I 
 know as much about it as any man now living. 
 But I am not writing Garibaldi's memoirs, nor in 
 deed, my own, excepting so far as they relate to 
 Sybaris; and it is strictly nobody's business to 
 inquire as to that detention, unless it interest the 
 ex-king of Naples, who may write to me, if he 
 chooses, addressing Frederic Ingham, Esq., Water- 
 ville, N. H. Nor is it anybody's business how long 
 I had then been on Garibaldi's staff. From the 
 number of his staff officers who have since visited 
 me in America, very much in want of a pair of 
 pantaloons, or a ticket to New York, or something 
 with which they might buy a glass of whiskey, I 
 should think that his staff alone must have made 
 up a much more considerable army than Naples, 
 or even Sybaris, ever brought into the field. But 
 where these men were when I was with him, I do 
 not know. I only know that there was but a hand 
 ful of us then, hardworked fellows, good-natured, 
 and not above our duty. Of its military details we 
 knew wretchedly little. But as we had no artillery, 
 ignorance was less dangerous in the chief of 
 artillery ; as we had no maps to draw, poor drafts 
 manship did not much embarrass the engineer in 
 chief. For me, I was nothing but an aid, and I 
 was glad to do anything that fell to me as well as I 
 knew how. And, as usual in human life, I found 
 that a cool head, a steady resolve, a concentrated 
 purpose, and an unselfish readiness to obey carried 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 31 
 
 me a great way. I listened instead of talking, and 
 thus got a reputation for knowing a great deal. 
 When the time to act came, I acted without waiting 
 for the wave to recede ; and thus I sprang into 
 many a boat dry-shod, while people who believed 
 in what is popularly called prudence missed their 
 chance, and either lost the boat or fell into the 
 water. 
 
 This is by the way. It was under these circum 
 stances that I received my orders, wholly secret 
 and unexpected, to take a boat at once, pass the 
 straits, and cross the Bay of Tarentum, to com 
 municate at Gallipoli with no matter whom. 
 Perhaps I was going to the " Castle of Otranto." 
 A hundred years hence anybody who chooses will 
 know. Meanwhile, if there should be a reaction in 
 Otranto, I do not choose to shorten anybody's 
 neck for him. 
 
 Well, it was five in the afternoon, near sun 
 down at that season. I went to dear old Frank 
 Chancy, the jolliest of jolly Englishmen, who 
 was acting quartermaster-general, and told him 
 I must have transportation. I can see him and 
 hear him now, as he sat on his barrel-head, and 
 smoked his vile Tunisian tobacco in his beloved 
 short meerschaum, which was left to him ever 
 since he was at Bonn, a student with Prince Albert 
 as he pretended. He did not swear, I don't 
 think he ever did. But he looked perplexed 
 enough to swear. And very droll was the twinkle 
 of his eye. 
 
32 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 The truth was, that every sort of a thing that 
 would sail, and every wretch of a fisherman that 
 could sail her, had been, as he knew, and as I 
 knew, sent off that very morning to rendezvous at 
 Carrara, for the contingent which we were hoping 
 had slipped through Cavour's pretended neutrality. 
 And here was an order for him to furnish me 
 " transportation " in exactly the opposite direction. 
 
 " Do you know of anything, yourself, Fred ? " said 
 he. 
 
 " Not a coffin," said I. 
 
 "Did the chief suggest anything? " 
 
 " Not a nutshell," said I. 
 
 " Could not you go by telegraph ? " said Frank, 
 pointing up to the dumb old semaphore in whose 
 tower he had established himself. " Or has not 
 the chief got a wishing carpet? Or can't you ride 
 to Gallipoli? Here are some excellent white- 
 tailed mules, good enough for Pindar, whom Col- 
 vocoressis has just brought in from the monastery. 
 ' Transportation for one ! ' Is there anything to be 
 brought back? Nitre, powder, lead, junk, hard 
 tack, mules, horses, pigs, polenta or olla podrida, 
 or other of the stores of war?" 
 
 No ; there was nothing to bring back except my 
 self. Lucky enough if I came back to tell my own 
 story. And so we walked up on the tower deck to 
 take a look. 
 
 Blessed Saint Lazarus, chief of Naples and of 
 beggars ! a little felucca was just rounding the 
 Horse Head and coming into the bay, wing-wing. 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 33 
 
 The fishermen in her had no thought that they 
 were ever going to get into the Atlantic. Maybe 
 they had never heard of the Ocean or of the 
 Monthly. Can that be possible? Frank nodded, 
 and I. He filled up with more Tunisian, beckoned 
 to an orderly, and we walked down to the landing- 
 jetty to meet them. 
 
 " Viva Italia ! " shouted Frank, as they drew 
 near enough to hear. 
 
 " Viva Garibaldi / " cried the skipper, as he let 
 his sheet fly and rounded to the well-worn stones. 
 A good voyage had they made of it, he and his two 
 brown, ragged boys. Large fish and small, pink 
 fish, blue, yellow, orange, striped fish and mottled, 
 wriggled together, and flapped their tails in the 
 well of the little boat. There were even too many 
 to lie there and wriggle. The bottom of the boat 
 was well covered with them, and if she had not 
 shipped waves enough to keep them cool, the boy 
 Battista had bailed a plenty on them. Father and 
 son hurried on shore, and Battista on board began 
 to fling the scaly fellows out to them. 
 
 A very small craft it was to double all those 
 capes in, run the straits, and stretch across the bay. 
 If it had been mine " to make reply," I should 
 undoubtedly have made this, that I would see the 
 quartermaster hanged, and his superiors, before I 
 risked myself in any such rattletrap. But as, unfor 
 tunately, it was mine to go where I was sent, I 
 merely set the orderly to throwing out fish with 
 the boys, and began to talk with the father. 
 
 3 
 
34 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 Queer enough, just at that moment, there came 
 over me the feeling that, as a graduate of the Uni 
 versity, it was my duty to put up those red, white, 
 and blue scaly fellows, who were flopping about 
 there so briskly, and send them in alcohol to 
 Agassiz. But there are so many duties of that 
 kind which one neglects in a hardworked world ! 
 As a graduate, it is my duty to send annually to 
 the College Librarian a list of all the graduates 
 who have died in the town I live in, with their 
 fathers' and mothers' names, and the motives that 
 led them to College, with anecdotes of their career, 
 and the date of their death. There are two thou 
 sand three hundred and forty-five of them, I be 
 lieve, and I have never sent one-half anecdote 
 about one ! Such failure in duty made me grimly 
 smile as I omitted to stop and put up these fish in 
 alcohol, and as I plied the unconscious skipper with 
 inquiries about his boat. " Had she ever been 
 outside? " " Oh, signer, she had been outside this 
 very day. You cannot catch tonno till you have 
 passed both capes, least of all, such fine fish as 
 that is," and he kicked the poor wretch. Can 
 it be true, as Channing says, that those dying flaps 
 of theirs are exquisite luxury to them, because for 
 the first time they have their fill of oxygen ? " Had 
 he ever been beyond Peloro? " " Oh, yes, signer; 
 my wife, Catarina, was herself from Messina," 
 and on great saints' days they had gone there often. 
 Poor fellow, his great saint's day sealed his fate. 
 I nodded to Frank, Frank nodded to me, and 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 35 
 
 Frank blandly informed him that, by order of 
 General Garibaldi, he would take the gentleman at 
 once on board, pass the strait with him, " and then 
 go where he tells you." 
 
 The Southern Italian has the reputation, derived 
 from Tom Moore, of being a coward. When I 
 used to speak at school, 
 
 " Ay, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are ! " 
 
 stamping my foot at " dust," I certainly thought 
 they were a very mean crew. But I dare say that 
 Neapolitan school-boys have some similar school 
 piece about the risings of Tom Moore's country 
 men, which certainly have not been much more 
 successful than the poor little Neapolitan revolu 
 tion which he was pleased to satirize. Somehow 
 or other, Victor Emanuel is, at this hour, King of 
 Naples. Coward or not, this fine fellow of a fisher 
 man did not flinch. It is my private opinion that he 
 was not nearly as much afraid of the enterprise as I 
 was. I made this observation at the moment with 
 some satisfaction, sent Frank's man up to my lodg 
 ings with a note ordering my own traps sent down, 
 and in an hour we were stretching out, under the 
 twilight, across the little bay. 
 
 No ! I spare you the voyage. Sybaris is what 
 we are after, all this time, if we can only get there. 
 Very easy it would be for me to give you cheap 
 scholarship from the ALneid, about Palinurus and 
 Scylla and Charybdis. Neither Scylla nor Cha- 
 rybdis bothered me, as we passed wing-wing be- 
 
36 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 tween them before a smart north wind. I had a 
 little Hunter's Virgil with me, and read the whole 
 voyage, and confused Battista utterly by trying 
 to make him remember something about Palinuro, 
 of whom he had never heard. It was much as I 
 afterwards asked my negro waiter at Fort Monroe 
 about General Washington at Yorktown. " Never 
 heard of him, sir, was he in the Regular Army?" 
 So Battista thought Palinuro must have fished in 
 the Italian fleet, with which the Sicilian boatmen 
 were not well acquainted. Messina made no ob 
 jections to us. Perhaps, if the sloop of war which 
 lay there had known who was lying in the boat 
 under her guns, I might not be writing these words 
 to-day. Battista went ashore, got lemons, maca 
 roni, hard bread, polenta, for themselves, the Gior- 
 nale di Messina for me, and more Tunisian ; and, 
 not to lose that splendid breeze, we cracked on all 
 day, past Reggio, hugged the shore bravely, 
 though it was rough, ran close under those cliffs 
 which are the very end of the Apennines, will it 
 shock the modest reader if I say the very toe-nails 
 of the Italian foot? hauled more and more east 
 ward, made Spartivento blue in the distance, made 
 it purple, made it brown, made it green, still run 
 ning admirably, ten knots an hour we must have 
 got between four and five that afternoon, and, 
 by the time the lighthouse at Spartivento was 
 well ablaze, we were abreast of it, and might be 
 gin to haul more northward, so that, though we 
 had a long course before us, we should at last be 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 37 
 
 sailing almost directly toward our voyage's end, 
 Gallipoli. 
 
 At that moment as in any sea often happens, 
 if you come out from the more land-locked chan 
 nel into the larger body of water the wind ap 
 peared to change. Really, I suppose, we came 
 into the steady southwest wind which had probably 
 been drawing all day up toward the Adriatic. In 
 two hours more we made the lighthouse of Stilo, and 
 I was then tired enough to crawl down into the fear 
 fully smelling little cuddy, and, wrapping Battista's 
 heavy storm-jacket round my feet, I caught some 
 sort of sleep. 
 
 But not for very long. I struck my watch at 
 three in the morning. And the air was so un 
 worthy of that name it was such a thick paste, 
 seeming to me more like a mixture of tar and oil 
 and fresh fish and decayed fish and bilge-water than 
 air itself that I voted three to be morning, and 
 crawled up into the clear starlight, how wonder 
 ful it was, and the fresh wet breeze that washed my 
 face so cheerily ! and I bade Battista take his 
 turn below, while I would lie there and mind the 
 helm. If if he had done what I proposed, I 
 suppose I should not be writing these lines ; but 
 his father, good fellow, said : " No, signer, not 
 yet. We leave the shore now for the broad bay, 
 you see ; and if the wind haul southward, we may 
 need to go on the other tack. We will all stay 
 here till we see what the deep-sea wind may be." 
 So we lay there, humming, singing, and telling 
 
38 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 stories, still this rampant southwest wind behind, as 
 if all the powers of the Mediterranean meant to 
 favor my mission to Gallipoli. The boat was now 
 running straight before it. We stretched out 
 bravely into the gulf; but, before the wind, it was 
 astonishing how easily the lugger ran. He said 
 to me at last, however, that on that course we were 
 running to leeward of our object ; but that it was 
 the best point for his boat, and if the wind held, 
 he would keep on so an hour longer, and trust to 
 the land breeze in the morning to run down the 
 opposite shore of the bay. 
 
 " If" again. The wind did not keep on. Either 
 the pole-star, and the dipper, and all the rest of 
 them, had rebelled and were drifting westward, 
 and so it seemed, or this steady southwest gale 
 was giving out ; or, as I said before, we had come 
 into the sweep of a current even stronger, pouring 
 from the Levantine shores of the Mediterranean 
 full up the Gulf of Tarentum. Not ten minutes 
 after the skipper spoke, it was clear enough to 
 both of us that the boat must go about, whether 
 we wanted to or not, and we waked the other boy, 
 to send him forward, before we accepted the neces 
 sity. Half asleep, he got up, courteously declined 
 my effort to help him by me as he crossed the 
 boat, stepped round on the gunwale behind me as 
 I sat, and then, either in a lurch or in some mis 
 step, caught his foot in the tiller as his father held 
 it firm, and pitched down directly behind Battista 
 himself, and, as I thought, into the sea. I sprang 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 39 
 
 to leeward to throw something after him, and 
 found him in the sea indeed, but hanging by both 
 hands to the gunwale, safe enough, and in a 
 minute, with Battista's help and mine, on board 
 again. I remember how pleased I was that his 
 father did not swear at him, but only laughed 
 prettily, and bade him be quick, and step forward ; 
 and then turning to the helm, which he had left 
 free for the moment, he did not swear indeed, 
 but he did cry, " Santa Madre ! " when he found 
 there was no tiller there. The boy's foot had fairly 
 wrenched it, not only from his father's hand, but 
 from the rudder-head, and it was gone ! 
 
 We held the old fellow firmly by his feet and 
 legs, as he lay over the stern of the boat, head 
 down, examining the condition of the rudder-head. 
 The report was not favorable. I renewed the in 
 vestigation myself in the same uncomfortable atti 
 tude. The phosphorescence of the sea was but an 
 unsteady light, but light enough there was to reveal 
 what daylight made hardly more certain, that 
 the wrench which had been given to the rotten old 
 fixtures, shaky enough at best, had split the head 
 of the rudder, so that the pintle hung but loosely 
 in its bed, and that there was nothing available for 
 us to rig a jury tiller on. This discovery, as it be 
 came more and more clear to each of us four in 
 succession, abated successively the volleys of 
 advice which we were offering, and sent us back to 
 our more quiet " Santa Madres " or to meditations 
 on "what was next to best." 
 
40 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 Meanwhile the boat was flying, under the sail she 
 had before, straight before the wind, up the Gulf 
 of Tarentum. 
 
 If you cannot have what you like, it is best, in a 
 finite world, to like what you have. And while 
 the old man brought up from the cuddy his 
 wretched and worthless stock of staves, rope-ends, 
 and bits of iron, and contemplated them ruefully, 
 as if asking them which would like to assume the 
 shape of a rudder-head and tiller, if his fairy god 
 mother would appear on the top of the mast for a 
 moment, I was plying the boys with questions, 
 what would happen to us if we held on at this tear 
 ing rate, and rushed up the bay to the head there 
 of. The boys knew no more than they knew of 
 Palinuro. Far enough, indeed, were we from their 
 parish. The old man at last laid down the bit of 
 brass which he had saved from some old waif, and 
 listened to me as I pointed out to them on my 
 map the course we were making, and, without an 
 swering me a word, fell on his knees and broke 
 into most voluble prayer, only interrupted by 
 sobs of undisguised agony. The boys were almost 
 as much surprised as I was. And as he prayed 
 and sobbed, the boat rushed on ! 
 
 Santa Madre, San Giovanni, and Sant 1 Antonio, 
 we needed all their help, if it were only to keep 
 him quiet; and when at last he rose from his 
 knees, and came to himself enough to tend the 
 sheets a little, I asked, as modestly as I could, 
 what put this keen edge on his grief or his devo- 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 41 
 
 tions. Then came such stones of hobgoblins, 
 witches, devils, giants, elves, and fairies, at this 
 head of the bay ! no man ever returned who 
 landed there ; his father and his father's father had 
 charged him, and his brothers and his cousins, 
 never to be lured to make a voyage there, and 
 never to run for those coves, though schools of 
 golden fish should lead the way. It was not till 
 this moment that, trying to make him look upon 
 the map, I read myself there the words, at the 
 mouth of the Crathis River, " Sybari Ruine." 
 
 Surely enough, this howling Euroclydon for 
 Euroclydon it now was was bearing me and 
 mine directly to Sybaris ! 
 
 And here was this devout old fisherman con 
 firming the words of Smith's Dictionary, when it 
 said that nobody had been there and returned, for 
 generation upon generation. 
 
 At a dozen knots an hour, as things were, I was 
 going to Sybaris ! Nor was I many hours from 
 it. For at that moment we cannot have been more 
 than five-and-thirty miles from the beach, where, in 
 less than five hours, Euroclydon flung us on shore. 
 
 The memory of the old green settees, and of 
 Hutchinson and Wheeler and the other Latin- 
 School boys, sustained me beneath the calamity 
 which impended. Nor do I think at heart the 
 boys felt so bad as their father about the djinns and 
 the devils, the powers of the earth and the powers 
 of the air. Is there, perhaps, in the youthful mind, 
 rather a passion for " seeing the folly " of life a 
 
42 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 little in that direction? None the less did we join 
 him in rigging out the longest sweep we had aft, 
 lashing it tight under the little rail which we had 
 been leaning on, and trying gentle experiments, 
 how far this extemporized rudder might bring the 
 boat round to the wind. Nonsense the whole ! 
 By that time Euroclydon was on us, so that I 
 would never have tried to put her about if we had 
 had the best gear I ever handled, and our experi 
 ments only succeeded far enough to show that we 
 were as utterly powerless as men could be. Mean 
 while day was just beginning to break. I soothed 
 the old man with such devout expressions as here 
 tic might venture. I tried to turn him from the 
 coming evil to the present necessity. I counselled 
 with him whether it might not be safer to take in 
 sail and drift along. But from this he dissented. 
 Time enough to take in sail when we knew what 
 shore we were coming to. He had no kedge or 
 grapple or cord, indeed, that would pretend to 
 hold this boat against this gale. We would beach 
 her, if it pleased the Virgin ; and if we could not, 
 shaking his head, why, that would please the 
 Virgin, too. 
 
 And so Euroclydon hurried us on to Sybaris. 
 
 The sun rose, oh, how magnificently ! Is there 
 anywhere to see sunrise like the Mediterranean? 
 And if one may not be on the top of Katahdin, is 
 there any place for sunrise like the very level of 
 the sea? Already the Calabrian mountains of our 
 western horizon were gray against the sky. One 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 43 
 
 or another of us was forward all the time, trying 
 to make out by what slopes the hills descended to 
 the sea. Was it cliff of basalt, or was it reedy 
 swamp, that was to receive us? I insisted at last 
 on his reducing sail. For I felt sure that he was 
 driving on under a sort of fatality which made 
 him dare the worst. I was wholly right, for the 
 boat now rose easier on the water, and was much 
 more dry. 
 
 Perhaps the wind flagged a little as the sun rose. 
 At all events, he took courage, which I had never 
 lost. I made his boy find us some oranges. I 
 made them laugh by eating their cold polenta with 
 them. I even made him confess, when I called 
 him aft and sent Battista forward, that the shore 
 we were nearing looked low. For we were near 
 enough now to see stone-pines and chestnut-trees. 
 Did anybody see the towers of Sybaris ? 
 
 Not a tower ! But, on the other hand, not a 
 gnome, witch, Norna's Head, or other intimation 
 of the underworld. The shore looked like many 
 other Italian shores. It looked not very unlike 
 what we Yankees call salt-marsh. At all events, 
 we should not break our heads against a wall ! 
 Nor will I draw out the story of our anxieties, 
 varying as the waves did on which we rose and fell 
 so easily. As she forged on, it was clear at last that 
 to some wanderers, at least, Sybaris had some hos 
 pitality. A long, low spit made out into the sea, 
 with never a house on it, but brown with storm- 
 worn shrubs, above the line of which were the 
 
44 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 stone-pines and chestnuts which had first given 
 character to the shore. Hard for us, if we had 
 been flung on the outside of this spit. But we 
 were not. Else I had not been writing here to 
 day. We passed it by fifty fathom clear. Of 
 course under its lee was our harbor. Battista let 
 go the halyards in a moment, and the wet sails 
 came rattling down. The old man, the boy, Bat 
 tista, and I seized the best sweeps he had left. 
 Two of us at each, working on the same side, we 
 brought her head round as fast as she would bear 
 it in that fearful sea. Inch by inch we wrought 
 along to the smoother water, and breathed free at 
 last as we came under the partial protection of 
 the friendly shore. 
 
 Battista and his brother then hauled up the sail 
 enough to give such headway to the boat as we 
 thought our sweeps would control. And we crept 
 along the shore for an hour, seeing nothing but 
 reeds, and now and then a distant buffalo, when at 
 last a very hard knock on a rock the boy ahead 
 had not seen under water started the planks so 
 that we knew that was dangerous play ; and, with 
 out more solicitation, the old man beached the 
 boat in a little cove where the reeds gave place 
 for a trickling stream. I told them they might 
 land or not, as they pleased. I would go ashore 
 and get assistance or information. The old man 
 clearly thought I was going to ask my assistance 
 from the father of lies himself. But he was re 
 signed to my will, said he would wait for my 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 45 
 
 return. I stripped and waded ashore with my 
 clothes upon my head, dressed as quickly as I 
 could, and pushed up from the beach to the low 
 upland. 
 
 Clearly enough I was in a civilized country. 
 Not that there was a gallows, as the old joke 
 says ; but there were tracks in the shingle of the 
 beach showing where wheels had been, and these 
 led me to a cart-track between high growths of 
 that Mediterranean reed which grows all along in 
 those low flats. There is one of the reeds on the 
 hooks above my gun in the hall as you came in. 
 I followed up the track, but without seeing barn, 
 house, horse, or man, for a quarter of a mile, 
 perhaps, when behold, 
 
 Not the footprint of a man ! as to Robinson 
 Crusoe ; 
 
 Not a gallows and man hanging ! as in the 
 sailor story above named ; 
 
 But a railroad track ! Evidently a horse-rail 
 road. 
 
 " A horse-railroad in Italy ! " said I, aloud. " A 
 horse-railroad in Sybaris ! It must have changed 
 since the days of the coppersmiths ! " And I flung 
 myself on a heap of reeds which lay there, and 
 waited. 
 
 In two minutes I heard the fast step of horses, 
 as I supposed ; in a minute more four mules 
 rounded the corner, and a " horse-car " came 
 dashing along the road. I stepped forward and 
 waved my hand, but the driver bowed respectfully, 
 
46 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 pointed back, and then to a board on top of his 
 car, and I read, as he dashed by me, the word 
 
 displayed full above him ; as one may read Complet 
 on a Paris omnibus. 
 
 Now nx^/oe? is the Greek for full. " In Sybaris 
 they do not let the horse-railroads grind the faces 
 of the passengers," said I. " Not so wholly changed 
 since the coppersmiths," And, within the minute, 
 more quadrupedantal noises, more mules, and an 
 other car, which stopped at my signal. I entered, 
 and found a dozen or more passengers, sitting back 
 to back on a seat which ran up the middle of the 
 car, as you might ride in an Irish jaunting-car. 
 In this way it was impossible for the conductor to 
 smuggle in a standing passenger, impossible for a 
 passenger to catch cold from a cracked window, 
 and possible for a passenger to see the scenery 
 from the window. "Can it be possible," said 
 I, " that the traditions of Sybaris really linger 
 here?" 
 
 I sat quite in the front of the car, so that I could 
 see the fate of my first friend IlX?}/>e9, the full 
 car. In a very few minutes it switched off from our 
 track, leaving us still to pick up our complement, 
 and then I saw that it dropped its mules, and was 
 attached, on a side track, to an endless chain, 
 which took it along at a much greater rapidity, 
 so that it was soon out of sight. I addressed my 
 next neighbor on the subject in Greek which 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 47 
 
 would have made my fortune in those old days 
 of the pea-green settees. But he did not seem 
 to make much of that, but in sufficiently good 
 Italian told me that as soon as we were full, we 
 should be attached in the same way to the chain, 
 which was driven by stationary engines five or six 
 stadia apart, and so indeed it proved. We picked 
 up one or two market-women, a young artist or 
 two, and a little boy. When the child got in, there 
 was a nod and smile on people's faces ; my next 
 neighbor said to me, IlXrJpe?, as if with an air of 
 relief; and, sure enough, in a minute more, we 
 were flying along at a 2.20 pace, with neither 
 mule nor engine in sight, stopping about once a 
 mile to drop passengers, if there was need, and 
 evidently approaching Sybaris. 
 
 All along now were houses, each with its pretty 
 garden of perhaps an acre, no fences, because no 
 cattle at large. I wonder if the Vineland people 
 know they caught that idea from Sybaris ! All 
 the houses were of one story, stretching out as 
 you remember Pliny's villa did, if Ware and Van 
 Brunt ever showed you the plans, or as Erastus 
 Bigelow builds factories at Clinton. I learned 
 afterwards that stair-builders and slaveholders are 
 forbidden to live in Sybaris by the same article in 
 the fundamental law. This accounts, with other 
 things, for the vigorous health of their women. I 
 supposed that this was a mere suburban habit, and, 
 though the houses came nearer and nearer, yet as 
 no two houses touched in a block, I did not know 
 
48 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 we had come into the city till all the passengers 
 left the car, and the conductor courteously told me 
 we were at our journey's end. 
 
 When this happens to you in Boston, and you 
 leave your car, you find yourself huddled on a 
 steep, sloping sidewalk, under the rain or snow, 
 with a hundred or more other passengers, all eager, 
 all wondering, all unprovided for. But I found in 
 Sybaris a large glass-roofed station, from which 
 the other lines of neighborhood cars radiated, in 
 which women and even little children were passing 
 from route to route, under the guidance of civil 
 and intelligent persons, who, strange enough, made 
 it their business to conduct these people to and 
 fro, and did not consider it their duty to insult the 
 traveller. For a moment my mind reverted to the 
 contrast at home ; but not long. As I stood ad 
 miring and amused at once, a bright, brisk little 
 fellow stepped up to me, and asked what my pur 
 pose was, and which way I would go. He spoke 
 in Greek first, but, seeing I did not catch his mean 
 ing, relapsed into very passable Italian, quite as 
 good as mine. 
 
 I told him that I was shipwrecked, and had come 
 into town for assistance. He expressed sympathy, 
 but wasted not a moment, led me to his chief at an 
 office on one side, who gave me a card with the 
 address of an officer whose duty it was to see to 
 strangers, and said that he would in turn introduce 
 me to the chief of the boat-builders ; and then said, 
 as if in apology for his promptness, 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 49 
 
 " Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest." 
 
 He called to me a conductor of the red line, said 
 HeVo?, which we translate guest, but which I found 
 in this case means " dead-head," or " free," bowed, 
 and I saw him no more. 
 
 " Strange country have I come to, indeed," said 
 I, as I thought of the passports of Civita Vecchia, 
 of the indifference of Scollay's Buildings, and 
 of the surliness of Springfield. "And this is 
 Sybaris ! " 
 
 We sent down a tug to the cove which I indi 
 cated on their topographical map, and to the terror 
 of the old fisherman and his sons, to whom I had 
 sent a note, which they could not read, our boat 
 was towed up to the city quay, and was put under 
 repairs. That last thump on the hidden rock was 
 her worst injury, and it was a week before I could 
 get away. It was in this time that I got the in 
 formation I am now to give, partly from my own 
 observations, partly from what George the Proxe- 
 nus or his brother Philip told me, more from 
 what I got from a very pleasing person, the wife 
 of another brother, at whose house I used to visit 
 freely, and whose boys, fine fellows, were very fond 
 of talking about America with me. They spoke 
 English very funnily, and like little school-books. 
 The ship-carpenter, a man named Alexander, was 
 a very intelligent person ; and, indeed, the whole 
 social arrangement of the place was so simple that 
 
 4 
 
50 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 it seemed to me that I got on very fast and knew 
 a great deal of them in a very short time. 
 
 At this point I will, for greater convenience, 
 quote directly from my journal. It has the fault 
 which all journals have, that their memoranda are 
 apt to be fullest when one has the most time to 
 write, and that they are therefore most barren just 
 at those points of crisis when the writer really has 
 most to tell. This remark will be found near the 
 beginning of " John Adams's Journal," of which it 
 is signally true. I will, however, copy what there 
 is in mine. When I find that it fails, I will do my 
 best to supply the deficiency. 
 
 JOURNAL. 
 
 The TT/ao'fei/o?, Proxenus, as this officer is called 
 (officer whose business is to care for strangers, 
 quite after the old Athenian system), was very 
 civil, though a short-metre kind of person, used 
 evidently to affairs in the time of affairs, and to 
 nothing else. He offered Greek at first for talk, as 
 the man had done at the station; but finding I 
 preferred Italian, fell into that readily. I am too 
 tired to-night, not to say sleepy, to try to write out 
 much of what he told me, or I told him. He was 
 very expeditious, when he heard about the boat, in 
 sending to her relief. He led me to a good map of 
 the city and harbor which hung on the office wall, 
 and in five minutes had sent a despatch which he 
 said would fit out a tug which would bring the old 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 51 
 
 man and the boys up to the city. I offered to go 
 with them. But he said no, that I should be of 
 no use there, or rather of none which a note 
 from me would not serve as well ; and that, as I 
 must have had a fatiguing night, I should be much 
 better off at my inn. I observed he used the tele 
 graph constantly, even sending his own despatches 
 by his own instrument, at his office desk, writ 
 ing as readily so as I do these words. In answer 
 to a question of mine, he said there were delivery 
 offices almost everywhere, and that they hardly 
 ever had occasion to use a special messenger. 
 But when he wanted to send my note to the tug, 
 and afterwards to send me here, he beckoned to 
 his son, a tall, pleasant-looking boy, who brought 
 me, to show me the way. 1 
 
 The inn covers a good deal of ground for the 
 number of rooms, but there is not a staircase in it. 
 It is not larger than a generous private house. 
 The whole is of one story, as is every other house 
 I have so far seen in Sybaris. The mistress is a 
 
 1 After I knew the Proxenus better, I told him that this ready 
 and constant use of the telegraph was one of the first of their con 
 veniences I noticed. He said the telegraph was an old affair with 
 them, and he wondered other nations had been so slow in copy 
 ing it ; that they used it as long ago as what he called their day of 
 horrors, when Sybaris was crushed by the Crotoniates more than 
 five centuries before Christ. I was amazed at this, but in their 
 public library afterward I found in Pliny that that defeat was 
 known at Olympia in Greece on the day it happened, and the same 
 statement is in Cicero De Naturd Deorum. See Pliny, vii. 22 (i), 
 and compare Plutarch in Paulus j&milius, where he names four 
 such incidents, 
 
52 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 jolly-looking person, who for all her jollity seems 
 careful and thoughtful, and desirous to be of ser 
 vice; and, without worrying me, she has really 
 made me very comfortable. She knocked just 
 now herself, and in quite a studied speech said 
 that I was the first American she had ever had 
 here ; that she was wholly unacquainted with our 
 customs, but that she would be much obliged to 
 me if I would indicate to her any improvements 
 which the inns of my own country might suggest 
 to me. The poor soul had been at the pains to 
 look up " United States " in some book of travels, 
 and had even written to the Proxenus to ask how 
 she should cook pork and beans for me, and what 
 she should give me instead of salt codfish. He 
 had written her a funny note, which she showed 
 me, in which he said that I should be satisfied with 
 pheasants and quails for a day, and that the next 
 day he would tell her. 
 
 Experience of my own country indeed ! There 
 was not a fly in the room where the table d'hote is 
 served, nor is there in this apartment. This con 
 sists of a pretty, airy sitting-room with a veranda 
 opening from it, and in the next room the bed and 
 its appurtenances. I found on the table pen, ink, 
 and paper, which I never found ready in my own 
 room at the Brevoort ; I found in the bedroom a 
 foot-tub, a shower-bath, more towels than I could 
 count, and hot and cold water ready to run for me. 
 I have not smelled a smell since I came into the 
 house, excepting the savory breakfast and dinner 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 53 
 
 which she gave me, and these lovely Italian violets 
 which stand on the writing-table ; and, of course, 
 my cigar on the veranda. But I shall write no 
 more. Now we will see if there are any smooth 
 rose-leaves in the beds of Sybaris. 
 
 That is the end of that day's entry. 
 
 The Proxenus came round to see me that first 
 evening, and we sat, smoking, on the piazza 
 together. I remember I spoke with pleasure of 
 the horse-railroad management, and asked as to 
 the methods they took to secure such personal 
 comfort. 
 
 He said that my question cut pretty low down, 
 for that the answer really involved the study of 
 their whole system. " I have thought of it a good 
 deal," said he, "when I have been in St. Peters 
 burg, and in England and America; and as far as 
 I can find out, our peculiarity in everything is, 
 that we respect I have sometimes thought we 
 almost worshipped the rights, even the notions 
 or whims, of the individual citizen. With us the 
 first object of the state, as an organization, is to 
 care for the individual citizen, be he man, woman, 
 or child. We consider the state to be made for 
 the better and higher training of men, much as 
 your divines say that the Church is. Instead of 
 our lumping our citizens, therefore, and treating 
 Jenny Lind and Tom Heenan to the same dose of 
 public schooling, instead of saying that what is 
 sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, we 
 
54 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 try to see that each individual is protected in the 
 enjoyment, not of what the majority likes, but of 
 what he chooses, so long as his choice injures no 
 other man." 
 
 I thought, in one whiff, of Stuart Mill, and of 
 the coppersmiths. 
 
 " Our horse-railroad system grew out of this 
 theory," continued he. " As long ago as Herodo 
 tus, people lived here in houses one story high, 
 with these gardens between. But some genera 
 tions ago, a young fellow named Apollidorus, who 
 had been to Edinburgh, pulled down his father's 
 house and built a block of what you call houses on 
 the site of it. They were five stories high, had 
 basements, and so on, with windows fore and aft, 
 and, of course, none on the sides. The old fogies 
 looked aghast. But he found plenty of fools to 
 hire them. But the tenants had not been in a 
 week when the Kategoros, district attorney, had 
 him up ' for taking away from a citizen what he 
 could not restore/ This, you must know, is one 
 of the severest charges in our criminal code. 
 
 " Of course, it was easy enough to show that 
 the tenants went willingly; he showed dumb 
 waiters, and I know not what infernal contrivances 
 of convenience within. But he could not show 
 that the tenants had north windows and south 
 windows, because they did not. The government, 
 on their side, showed that men were made to 
 breathe fresh air, and that he could not ventilate 
 his houses as if they were open on all sides ; they 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 55 
 
 showed that women were not made to climb up 
 and down ladders, and to live on stages at the tops 
 of them ; and he tried in vain to persuade the jury 
 that this climbing was good for little children. He 
 had lured these citizens into places dangerous for 
 health, growth, strength, and comfort And so he 
 was compelled to erect a statue typical of strength, 
 and a small hospital for infants, as his penalty. 
 That spirited Hercules, which stands in front of 
 the market, was a part of his fine. 
 
 " Of course, after a decision like this, concentra 
 tion of inhabitants was out of the question. Every 
 pulpit in Sybaris blazed with sermons on the text, 
 ' Every man dwelt safely under his vine and under 
 his fig-tree.' Everybody saw that a house without 
 its own garden was an abomination, and easy com 
 munication with the suburbs was a necessity. 
 
 " It was, indeed, easy enough to show, as the 
 city engineer did, that the power wasted in lifting 
 people up, and, for that matter, down stairs, in a 
 five-story house, in one day, would carry all those 
 people I do not know how many miles on a level 
 railroad track in less time. What you call horse- 
 railroads, therefore, became a necessity." 
 
 I said they made a great row with us. 
 
 " Yes," said he, " I saw they did. With us the 
 government owns and repairs the track, as you do 
 the track of any common road. We never have 
 any difficulty. 
 
 " You see," he added after a pause, " with us, if 
 a conductor sprains the ankle of a citizen, it is a 
 
56 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 matter the state looks after. With you, the citi 
 zen must himself be the prosecutor, and virtually 
 never is. Did you notice a pretty winged Mer 
 cury outside the station-house you came to ? " 
 
 I had noticed it. 
 
 " That was put up, I don't know how long ago, 
 in. the infancy of these things. They took a car 
 off one night, without public notice beforehand. 
 One old man was coming in on it, to his daughter's 
 wedding. He missed his connection out at Little 
 Krastis, and lost half an hour. Down came the 
 Kategoros. The company had taken from a citi 
 zen what they could not restore ; namely, half an 
 hour." 
 
 George lighted another cigar, and laughed very 
 heartily. " That 's a great case in our reports," 
 he said. "The company ventured to go to trial 
 on it. They hoped they might overturn the old 
 decisions, which were so old that nobody knows 
 when they were made, as old as the dancing 
 horses," said he, laughing. " They said time was 
 not a thing, it was a relation of ideas ; that it 
 did not exist in heaven ; that they could not be 
 made to suffer because they did not deliver back 
 what no man ever saw, or touched, or tasted. 
 What was half an hour? But the jury was piti 
 less. A lot of business men, you know, they 
 knew the value of time. What did they care for 
 the metaphysics? And the company was bidden 
 to put up an appropriate statue worth ten talents 
 in front of their station-house, as a reminder to all 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 57 
 
 their people that a citizen's time was worth some 
 thing." 
 
 I observed a queer thing two or three times in 
 this visit of the Proxenus. Just at this point he 
 rose rather suddenly and bade me good-evening. 
 I begged him to stay, but had to repeat my invita 
 tion twice. His hand was on the handle of the door 
 before he turned back. Then he sat down, and 
 we went on talking; but before long he did the 
 same thing again, and then again. 
 
 At last I was provoked, and said : " What is the 
 custom of your country? Do you have to take a 
 walk every eleven minutes and a quarter?" 
 
 George laughed again, and indeed blushed. " Do 
 you know what a bore is? " said he. 
 
 " Alas ! I do," said I. 
 
 "Well," said he, " the universal custom here is, 
 that an uninvited guest, who calls on another man 
 on his own business, rises at the end of eleven 
 minutes, and offers to go. And the courts have 
 ruled, very firmly, that there must be a bona fide 
 effort. We get into such a habit of it that, with 
 you, I really did it unawares. The custom is as old 
 as Cleisthenes and his wedding. But some of the 
 decisions are not more than two or three centuries 
 old, anoj they are very funny. 
 
 " On the whole," he added, " I think it works 
 well. Of course, between friends it is absurd, but 
 it is a great protection against a class of people 
 who think their own concerns are the only things 
 of value. You see you have only to say, when a 
 
58 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 man comes in, that you thank him for coming, that 
 you wish he would stay, or to take his hat or his 
 stick, you have only to make him an invited 
 guest, and then the rule does not hold." 
 
 " Ah ! " said I ; " then I invite you to spend 
 every evening with me while I am here." 
 
 " Take care," said he ; " the Government Almanac 
 is printed and distributed gratuitously from the fines 
 on bores. Their funds are getting very low up at 
 the department, and they will be very sharp on 
 your friends. So you need not be profuse in your 
 invitations." 
 
 This conversation was a clew to a good many 
 things which I saw while I was in the city. I 
 never was in a place where there were so many 
 tasteful pretty little conveniences for everybody. 
 At the quadrants, where the streets cross, there 
 was always a pretty little sheltered seat for four or 
 five people, shaded, stuffed, dry, and always the 
 morning and evening papers, and an advertisement 
 of the times of boats and trains, for any one who 
 might be waiting for a car or for a friend. Some 
 times these were votive offerings, where public spirit 
 had spoken in gratitude. More often they had 
 been ordered at the cost of some one who had 
 taken from a citizen what he could not repay. 
 The private citizen might often hesitate about 
 prosecuting a bore, or a nuisance, or a conceited 
 company officer. But the Kategoroi made no 
 bones about it. They called the citizen as a wit- 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 59 
 
 ness, and gave the criminal a reminder which 
 posterity held in awe. Their point, as they always 
 explained it to me, is, that the citizen's health and 
 strength are essential to the state. The state can 
 not afford to have him maimed, any more than it 
 can afford to have him drunk or ignorant. The 
 individual, of course, cannot be following up his 
 separate grievances with people who abridge his 
 rights. But the public accuser can and does. 
 
 With us, public servants, who know they are 
 public servants, are always obliging and civil. I 
 would not ask better treatment in my own home 
 than I am sure of in Capitol, State-House, or City 
 Hall. It is only when you get to some miserable 
 sub-bureau, where the servant of the servant of a 
 creature of the state can bully you, that you come 
 to grief. For instance, the State of Massachusetts 
 just now forbids corporations to work children more 
 than ten hours a day. The corporations obey. 
 But the overseers in the rooms whom the cor 
 porations employ, work children eleven hours, or 
 as many as they choose. They would not stand 
 that in Sybaris. 
 
 Such were my first day's observations. I now 
 resume the Journal of which I have spoken. 
 
 Friday , 9th Kal. apyr]\ia)v. Everything seems 
 to be new here. Place, language, and all are 
 changed, and so my old book for these mem 
 oranda gave out last night, and I have had to 
 rummage up another from my stores. Fortunately 
 
60 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 the traps came up from the boat even before I was 
 awake this morning. One does sleep well in such 
 a bed, without steam-whistles or cockerels or 
 brass-founders. It was as quiet as the mid-country. 
 
 The calendar is as new as the book (of which 
 the paper is not half as good as the old was). It 
 seems an odd mixture of Italian and Greek, and I 
 do not yet understand it. But I put at the top of 
 the page what the Proxenus tells me to, were it 
 only for practice. This is, he says, the ninth of the 
 Kalends of Thargelion, but he counts it Friday, as 
 I did. For my part, I thought the Greeks had no 
 Kalends; but it would seem that the Sybarites 
 have. 
 
 It has been a rainy day, but I have managed with 
 their convenient arrangements here to do about ten 
 times as much as I should have done at home. If 
 I do not get too sleepy, I will go into a little more 
 detail than I have been apt to do since the cam 
 paign began. The peculiarity of this place seems 
 to be that everybody has plenty of time. 
 
 I slept late after the excitement of the night 
 before, and if the lady Myrtis's nice mattresses 
 are made of rose-leaves, none of the leaves were 
 crumpled. I rang, as I had been bidden, as soon 
 as I woke ; and a ravishing cup of coffee appeared 
 almost on the moment, on the strength of which I 
 dressed slowly, and went down to the table d'hote. 
 Breakfast was very nicely served; but I do not 
 stop to describe it, because some rainy day I will 
 make a chapter on the cookery of Sybaris, so dif- 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 61 
 
 ferent from that of our Sicilian allies ; alas ! so dif 
 ferent from the taverns of my beloved New England. 
 While I was at breakfast there came in this clever 
 little note in this pretty Greek Handschrift from the 
 Proxenus, whose name, it appears, is George : 
 
 [Translation.] 
 
 OFFICE OF THE PROXENUS, 
 Sybaris, Qth Kal. Thar. 
 
 COLONEL INGHAM, &c., &c. : 
 
 DEAR SIR, The report from Pylades, chief of boat- 
 builders, is that your boat will require a new stern-post as 
 well as rudder, and that one whole streak on her larboard 
 side must be renewed. She was ordered to the govern 
 ment works last night, and the men undoubtedly went to 
 work on her this morning. 
 
 I shall have the pleasure of calling on you at seven 
 minutes after noon, when I shall be relieved from office 
 duty here. If you have no pleasanter engagement, let 
 me take you in my carriage to see our granite quarries 
 and to bathe. We can do this before dinner. My wife 
 will be very happy if you will join our family party at four. 
 Farewell, 
 
 GEORGE, the Proxenus. 
 
 What his other name is, I do not yet know. 
 They seem to sign like English bishops. 
 
 I strayed round a little before noon, and made a 
 little sketch of a seat for passengers waiting for the 
 street railroad cars. At twelve I rendered myself 
 on the hotel veranda, and at seven minutes past 
 the Proxenus drove up in a pretty covered buggy, 
 
62 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 with a nice little trotting mare. He apologized 
 for the cover; said if the day had been fine he 
 could have shown me more of the country, but as 
 it rained, why, we must e'en bear it as we could. 
 
 We drove first to the granite quarries, which are 
 worked with great precision by a fine-looking set 
 of men, who have much more of the Lombard, not 
 to say Yankee, look about them in their prompt 
 ness of movement than I have seen anywhere else 
 in Southern Italy. Then the Proxenus asked me 
 if I were used to swimming as early as this in the 
 season. When I said there were few seasons and 
 few waters in which I did not swim, and that I 
 should greatly enjoy a plunge, he turned his 
 horse's head, and we drove, by a charming up-and- 
 down-hill drive, I should think six miles, down the 
 old course of the Crastis River till we came to a 
 signal-station, what one might call Watch Hill, 
 where was a beautiful view of the gulf, grand 
 bluffs, smooth beaches, and a fine surf for bathers. 
 It almost seemed as if we had been expected. A 
 quaint old fisherman fastened the horse to a fence, 
 provided towels, pointed out two little sheds for 
 undressing, and we had a brisk swim in the surf. 
 How delicious this Mediterranean water is, swept 
 off the Syrtes by that tremendous Euroclydon ! I 
 hardly thought yesterday morning that I should 
 be speaking of it so good-naturedly. 
 
 Home to dinner. The Proxenus said his wife 
 would excuse my frock-coat. And at his house, at 
 dinner, and in the garden, and on the veranda, I 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 63 
 
 have stayed ever since, till now. The family was 
 charming, his wife sweet pretty (reminds you of 
 
 S G ), and seven children, four boys, 
 
 three girls, my friend James, who showed me 
 the way yesterday, being the second son. He and 
 I are great friends, and his father says I may take 
 him from the office any day when I want a guide. 
 The girls have pretty Greek faces, the youngest 
 about as big as little Fan-fan, only her name is 
 Anna, say nine years old. 
 
 As for the dinner, I leave that till I can write the 
 essay on cookery into which the breakfast is to go. 
 But I do not wonder that that old fellow took his 
 cooks with him when he went from here to Athens. 
 
 It was not exactly the family party which the 
 note promised. The Chief Justice was there 
 who, if I understand, is the cousin of my hostess, 
 and his pretty wife ; a young man named 
 Joannes Isocrates, whom I accused of being a 
 great-grandson of the orator; and Philip, the 
 brother of the Proxenus. It was a round table for 
 twelve. Some of the children had to sit at a side 
 table, and they were very merry there. 
 
 The talk was very ready and free, generally 
 general; but sometimes I got off into a separate 
 private talk with Kleone as I shall begin to call 
 George's wife and with the Chief Justice's wife. 
 Her husband calls her Lois. We sat long at table, 
 spending more than half the time over the fruit 
 and coffee. There was no wine. The dessert, 
 however, had been served in another room than 
 
64 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 that we ate the meats in. We passed from room 
 to room, as we used to when we dined with How- 
 qua, at Canton. And in the new room we did not 
 take the same places as before. 
 
 I said, in the course of talk, that either they 
 were all very much at leisure here, or that I had 
 taken an unconscionable amount of George's 
 time. . . . 
 
 He laughed, and said he could well believe that, 
 as I had said that I was brought up in Boston. 
 " When I was there," said he, " I could see that 
 your people were all hospitable enough, but that 
 the people who were good for anything were made 
 to do all the work of the vauriens, and really had 
 no time for friendship or hospitality. I remember 
 an historian of yours, who crossed with me, said 
 that there should be a motto stretched across 
 Boston Bay, from one fort to another, with the 
 words, ' No admittance, except on business.' " 
 
 I did not more than half like this chaffing at 
 Boston, and asked how they managed things. 1 
 
 " Why, you see," said he, " we hold pretty stiffly 
 to the old Charondian laws, of which perhaps you 
 know something ; here 's a copy of the code, if you 
 would like to look over it," and he took one out 
 of his pocket. " We are still very chary about 
 amendments to statutes, so that very little time is 
 spent in legislation ; we have no bills at shops, and 
 but little debt, and that is all on honor, so that 
 there is not much account-keeping or litigation ; 
 
 1 I am afraid this was Mr. Motley. E. E. H. 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 65 
 
 you know what happens to gossips, gossip takes 
 a good deal of time elsewhere, and somehow 
 everybody does his share of work, so that all of us 
 do have a good deal of what you call ' leisure.' 
 Whether," he added pensively, " in a world God 
 put us into that we might love each other, and 
 learn to love, whether the time we spend in so 
 ciety, or the time we spend caged behind our office 
 desks, is the time which should be called devoted 
 to the ' business of life/ that remains to be seen." 
 
 " How came you to Boston," said I, " and 
 when?" 
 
 " Oh, we all have to travel," said George, " if we 
 mean to go into the administration. And I liked 
 administration. I observe that you appoint a for 
 eign ambassador because he can make a good 
 stump speech in Kentucky. But, since Charondas's 
 time, training has been at the bottom of our system. 
 And no man could offer himself here to serve on 
 the school committee unless he knew how other 
 nations managed their schools." 
 
 "Not if he had himself made school-books?" 
 said I. 
 
 " No ! " laughed George, " for he might introduce 
 them. With us no professor may teach from a 
 text-book he has made himself, unless the highest 
 council of education order it ; and on the same 
 principle we should never choose a bookseller on 
 the school committee. And so, to go back," he 
 said, " when my father found that administration 
 was my passion, he sent me on the grand tour. I 
 
 5 
 
66 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 learned a great deal in America, and am very fond 
 of the Americans. But I never saw one here be 
 fore." 
 
 I did not ask what he learned in America, for I 
 was more anxious to learn myself how they admin 
 istered government in Sybaris. 
 
 The Chief Justice said that he thought George 
 hardly answered my question. He said that their 
 system compelled everybody to do what he could 
 do best, and to a large extent secured this by in 
 viting people to do what they could do best. A 
 messenger in a public office, for instance, is invari 
 ably a man who has legs and a tongue, but who has 
 no arms. That is, if such a place is vacant, search is 
 at once made for some person who shall fill this 
 place well ; and if he can show that there is no 
 other place he can fill, on that showing he is almost 
 sure of the appointment. " We have not a copy 
 ing clerk in the Court House," said the Chief Justice, 
 " who has two legs. Most of them, in fact, have no 
 tongues, which is a convenience." Starting from 
 this, as George had said, it followed that there were 
 no vauriens y and of course the amount of work fell 
 lighter on each. But this is not the whole. Custom 
 in part, statute in part, and in part this terrible 
 verdict which they all so dread, the verdict of 
 they call it, 1 have so wrought on them 
 
 1 The verdict of apiray/j.6s is that alluded to above. It is given 
 on an indictment brought by the state's attorney in a criminal 
 court. It means, " He has taken from a citizen what he cannot 
 restore." The derivation reminds one of our action of assumpsit, 
 but they carry it further than we do. 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 67 
 
 that they destroy very little which they have once 
 created. " Time will do that for us," said Philip, 
 laughing. " My rear wall tumbles down fast enough 
 without my helping the fall." 
 
 I said I remembered that Judge Merrick said 
 that, if the thousand million men now in the world 
 could be set to work in intelligent organized labor, 
 they could in a generation duplicate the present 
 monuments of the race of men. The existing farms, 
 roads, bridges, ships, piers, cities, villages, and all 
 the rest, could be produced in one generation. All 
 the other generations have been spent in men's 
 cutting each other's throats, and in destroying what 
 other people have been at work upon. 
 
 The Chief Justice said this was undoubtedly 
 true. They tried as far as they could to prevent 
 such waste of life, and to a large extent he thought 
 they succeeded. The solidity of their building is 
 such that they have dwelling-houses which have 
 been occupied as such for two thousand years. 
 
 I said that in London they had told me their 
 houses tumbled down in eighty. 
 
 " Exactly," said the Chief Justice, " and what a 
 waste that is! When my father was in London, 
 they were greatly delighted with a system of sewers 
 they had just turned into the Thames. When I 
 was there, they were as much delighted, because 
 they had discovered a method of leading their con 
 tents away from the Thames." 
 
 " When my father was in Boston," said George, 
 " they were all very proud to show him their success 
 
68 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 in digging down their highest hill. When I was 
 there they were building it up to the old height, to 
 make a reservoir on top of it." 1 
 
 " We have come to the conclusion," said the 
 Chief Justice, "that it is rather dangerous interfer 
 ing much with nature. That is to say, when a 
 large body of men have nestled down in a region, 
 it was probably about what they wanted. If one of 
 them tries to mend, he is apt t6 mar. We had a 
 fellow over on the Crastis there, who was stingy 
 about using steam-power; so he made a great 
 high dam on the river, and, by Jupiter, Colonel 
 Ingham, five hundred thousand people lost their 
 fish because that fellow chose to spin cotton a 
 millionth part of a drachma cheaper than the rest. 
 
 " He got dpTrary/Aos with a vengeance," growled 
 Philip, who is a little touchy. 
 
 " He got a/07ra7/409," said the Chief Justice, " and 
 he had to put in fish-ways. You must take our 
 friend out to see the fish go up his stairways, 
 George. But what happened at Paestum was worse 
 than that. They had some salt marshes there, 
 what they call flats. They undertook to fill them 
 up so as to get land in place of water. They got 
 more than they bargained for. They disturbed the 
 natural flow of the currents, and they lost their 
 harbor. Land is plenty in Paestum now. The 
 last time I was there the population was two owls 
 and four lizards, and there was never a rose within 
 five miles ! 
 
 1 Since 1879 the Y ^ ave pulled this down. E. E. H., 1900. 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 69 
 
 I called him back to talk of this universal occu 
 pation, resulting in universal leisure. He said I 
 should understand it better after I had been about 
 a little. I said we had difficulty at both ends, 
 the poorest people did not know how to work, and 
 the richest people were apt not to want to, and 
 did not know what to do. I said I was at one time 
 secretary of the " Society for providing Occupation 
 for the Higher Classes." He said, as to the first 
 they clung to the old apprenticeship system. 
 Every child must be taught to do something. If 
 the parents cannot teach, somebody else does. 
 The other difficulty he ha,d seen in travelling, but 
 he did not believe it was necessary. They have 
 here but few very large fortunes transmitted from 
 father to son. They have no such transmission by 
 will, and unless a man has given away his property 
 before his death the state becomes his executor. 
 Of course in practice, except in cases of sudden 
 death, people are their own executors. Then they 
 give every man and woman who is over sixty-five 
 a small pension, enough to save anybody from 
 absolute want. They insist on it that this is the 
 most convenient arrangement. They know almost 
 nothing of drunkenness ; and what follows is, that 
 everybody does something somewhere. 
 
 As the chief explained this to me, I saw his wife 
 and Philip were laughing about something, and 
 when the learned talk was done Philip made her 
 tell me what it was. It was the story of one of their 
 attempts to save time, which had not succeeded so 
 
70 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 well. Two or three enterprising fellows, in those 
 arts which rank as the disagreeable necessities, 
 went into partnership, offering to their customers 
 the saving of time gained by getting through the 
 minor miseries together. You sat in a chair to 
 have your hair cut, and a dentist at the same 
 time filled your teeth. 1 Then you were permitted 
 at the same time to have any man up who wanted 
 to read his poems to you, and you could hear them 
 as you sat. While the dentist was rolling up the 
 gold, they had a photograph man ready to take your 
 likeness. Lois declared she would show me a like 
 ness of her husband that was so savage she was 
 sure it was taken there. But of course this was 
 running the thing into the ground. It was only 
 an exaggeration, and did not last after the novelty 
 was gone. 
 
 I said they certainly had got the right men in 
 the right places in administration, as far as I had 
 seen, bowing to the Proxenus. 
 
 He parried the compliment by pretending to 
 think I meant the railroad people, and said I was 
 right there, that they had a very good staff in the 
 transportation department. 
 
 I said that we had tried the experiment, in some 
 cases, of placing idiots in charge of the minor rail 
 way stations, and to drive the little railway cabs or 
 flies from such stations. He said he had observed 
 this in America, but he should not think it would 
 
 1 I believe a part of that plan was to have a chiropodist look at 
 your feet ; but at table they did not speak of that. 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 71 
 
 work well. I said the passengers generally knew 
 what they wanted, that we had an excellent class 
 of men as train conductors, and that these idiots 
 must be put somewhere. Yes, he said, but that 
 you never could tell what station might be impor 
 tant ; that I might depend upon it, it was cheaper 
 in the long run to have a man competent for the 
 full conceivable duty of the place, even if we had 
 to pay him something more. 
 
 About eight o'clock I bowed myself out. George 
 walked home with me, and again we had a cigar 
 on the veranda. They raise their own tobacco, in 
 some cross valleys they have, running east and 
 west, and the cigars are splendid, real Vuelta 
 d'Abajo, I should have thought them. But, of 
 course, under such laws, no man can smoke in 
 the streets or in a crowd. 
 
 Saturday, apyr]\ia)v, 8th Kal. A fine day. 
 But I find one does not rise very early in the 
 morning. 
 
 Spent the morning from nine to twelve with the 
 Chief Justice in court. Business very prompt, very 
 interesting, of which more at another time. I have 
 full notes of all the cases, in the printed briefs 
 which the Judge gave me. At twelve the court 
 closed with absolute promptness. All their public 
 offices of administration work four public hours, as 
 they say. But an office where one calls for infor 
 mation as the Post-Office, the Public Library, 
 or any of the charities is open night and day the 
 
72 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 century round The Public Library has not been 
 closed, they say, since Herodotus wrote there. 
 They showed me his pen, and the place where he 
 sat. This seems a little mythical. Of course the 
 same people are not on duty. But they say there 
 is no harm in changing clerks on duty. There can 
 be no secrets then, no false accounts, no peculation, 
 and no ruts. At all events, they say that if a man 
 chooses to go and read at three in the morning, he 
 has a right to ; and that the Post-Office is estab 
 lished for the convenience of the citizen, and not 
 for that of the clerks, which certainly seems true. 
 The Chief Justice, at twelve, said he was at my 
 service ; and at my request he took me to the Pub 
 lic Library, where we spent a couple of hours, 
 of which at another time. We then called at his 
 house, where we found his wife and daughters just 
 entering their carriage. We did not leave his 
 little wagon, but all drove off together. The ob 
 ject was again a bath, with a chowder and fish 
 dinner at a little extemporized seashore place. 
 The drive was charming, and the bath Elysium. 
 The ladies bathed with us. I complimented Mrs. 
 Lois, as I led her down into the surf, on their 
 punctuality, saying that they had not kept us 
 waiting an instant. But she hardly understood me. 
 " Why should we have kept you ? " said she. " I 
 had a despatch at noon from my husband, propos 
 ing that we should all start at two." And when I 
 asked if they had been waiting, " Why should we 
 have been waiting?" said she. "We all knew you 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 73 
 
 were not to be at home before two." The Chief 
 Justice laughed and said : " People are so used to 
 punctuality here, that Lois, who is a home-body, 
 hardly knows what you are talking about. The 
 truth is, that, if she had kept you thirty seconds, 
 while she went back for her gloves, she would have 
 been afraid of dpTray/jids ; and these girls, why, 
 if one of their watches had been a twenty-thou 
 sandth part of a second wrong when the ball fell at 
 noon to-day, I should have had no peace till I had 
 bought such a love of a diamond-mounted little 
 repeater that there is at Archippus's." And he 
 laughed at his joke heartily, and the girls said, " Oh, 
 papa ! " 
 
 Girls and boys, men and women, all swim like 
 fishes, taught at a very early age. No scholar 
 is permitted to go forward in any school after 
 seven years of age, unless he can swim, just as we 
 require vaccination. " If you mean to be at the 
 charge of training them," said the Chief Justice, 
 " it is a pity to have them drowned, just when 
 they are fit for anything." And so we had a 
 brisk, jolly swim, and dressed, and went to old 
 Strepsiades's little cabin, where were fish baked, 
 fish broiled, fish cooked in every which way con 
 ceivable, hot from the coals, and we with the real 
 sea appetite. We lounged round on the bluffs and 
 shore for an hour or two, the girls sketched and 
 botanized a little, and by another pretty drive we 
 came home. I took a cup of tea with them, came 
 back here to dress, and they then called for me 
 
74 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 and took me to a pretty dancing-party. But I am 
 too tired to write it out to-night. Xcupe. 
 
 Sunday, 7th Kal. Tharg. We have a lovely 
 morning. I have this pretty little note from the 
 charming Kleone, asking me whether I will go 
 to their little parish church or to the more grand 
 cathedral service. Of course I have elected the 
 parish church with them at eleven. Meanwhile, 
 I seize this half-hour to fill out one or two gaps 
 above. 
 
 I see I have said nothing about their going and 
 coming. The sidewalks are all well laid ; and I 
 have thus far been nowhere where, on one side of 
 the way at least, there was not one in perfect 
 order. But I can see that they are very much 
 tempted not to walk; and I think they get their 
 exercise more in rowing, swimming, riding, drill, 
 and so on. This shows itself in the fine chests of 
 boys and girls, men and women. Not only are 
 the public conveyances admirable, and dog-cheap, 
 very rapid too, so that you feel as if you could 
 hardly afford to walk, but they have any num 
 ber of little steam dog-carts, which run on the 
 public rail, or, if necessary, on the hard macadam 
 road. The fuel is naphtha, or what we call petro 
 leum ; the engines are really high pressure, but 
 the discharge-pipe opens into a chamber kept 
 very cold by freezing mixtures, which you can 
 change at any inn. Philip, who told me about 
 these things, says they are used, not so much as 
 being better than horses, but as an economy for 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 75 
 
 that immense class of people who keep no ser 
 vants, do not choose to be slaves to a coachman, 
 have no one to care for a horse, or indeed do not 
 want the bother. This little steam-wagon stands 
 in a shed at the back of the house. Whoever fills 
 the other lamps fills and trims the wicks of their 
 burners. When you sit down to breakfast, you 
 light the lamps. And when your breakfast is done, 
 steam is up, and you can drive directly to your 
 store or office. While you are there, it stands a 
 month if you choose, and is a bill of expense to 
 nobody. It gives the roads a very brisk look to 
 see these little things spinning along everywhere. 
 The party last night was charming in the fresh 
 ness and variety and ease of the whole thing. I 
 hope the host and hostess enjoyed it as much as 
 I did, and they seemed to. How queer the effect 
 of this individuality is when you come to see it in 
 costume ! Of course the whole thing was Greek. 
 You saw that, from the girls' faces down to the 
 buckles of their slippers. But then the individual 
 right, to which everything I have seen in Sybaris 
 seems dedicated, appeared all through, and fairly 
 made the whole seem like a fancy ball. If I 
 thought of Cell's Greek costumes, it was only 
 to think how he would have stared if anybody 
 had told him that a hundred and fifty miles from 
 Naples, would he only risk the cutting of his 
 throat by brigands, he might see the thing illus 
 trated so prettily. I danced with . Philip has 
 
 come to take me to church. 
 
76 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 Finished the same evening. It was a pretty 
 little church, quite open and airy it would seem 
 to us, excellent chance to see dancing vines, or 
 flying birds, or falling rains, or other " meteors 
 outside," if the preacher proved dull or the hymns 
 undevout. But I found my attention was well 
 held within. Not that the preaching was anything 
 to be repeated. The sermon was short, unpre 
 tending, but alive and devout. It was a sonnet, 
 all on one theme ; that theme pressed, and pressed, 
 and pressed, again, and of a sudden the preacher 
 was done. " You say you know God loves you," 
 he said. " I hope you do, but I am going to tell 
 you once more that he loves you, and once more 
 and once more." What pleased me in it all was 
 a certain unity of service, from the beginning to 
 the end. The congregation's singing seemed to 
 suggest the prayer; the prayer seemed to con 
 tinue in the symphony of the organ ; and while 
 I was in revery, the organ ceased ; but as it was 
 ordered, the sermon took up the theme of my 
 revery, and so that one theme ran through the 
 whole. The service was not ten things, like the 
 ten parts of a concert, it was one act of communion 
 or worship. Part of this was due, I guess, to this, 
 that we were in a small church, sitting or kneeling 
 near each other, close enough to get the feeling 
 of communion, not parted, indeed, in any way. 
 We had been talking together, as we stood in the 
 churchyard before the service began, and when 
 we assembled in the church the sense of sympathy 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 77 
 
 continued. I told Kleone that I liked the home 
 feeling of the church, and she was pleased. She 
 said she was afraid I should have preferred the 
 cathedral. There were four large cathedrals, open, 
 as the churches were, to all the town ; and all the 
 clergy, of whatever order, took turns in conducting 
 the service in them. There were seven successive 
 services in each of them that Sunday. But each 
 clergyman had his own special charge beside, 
 I should think of not more than a hundred fam 
 ilies. And these families, generally neighbors in 
 the town indeed, seemed, naturally enough, to grow 
 into very familiar personal relations with each other. 
 Father Thomas, as they all call him, took me 
 home to his house to dinner. He had one of those 
 little steam-wagons which I have described, of 
 which there were sixty-five standing in the grounds 
 around the church. His wife and children went 
 home in a large one. As soon as the doxology 
 was sung and the benediction pronounced, the 
 sexton went round with a lantern and lighted their 
 lamps, and while we stood round talking in the 
 porch, the steam was got up, so that I suppose 
 everybody was off in twenty minutes. Father 
 Thomas said the talk then and there, in the church 
 and in the porch, was one of the most satisfactory 
 parts of the whole service, and was pleased when 
 I quoted firj e<y/caTa\ei7rovTes rrjv eTriavvaycoyrjv 
 eavrwv. 1 I said I had never heard the Greek of 
 the Greek Testament read in service before. He 
 
 1 " Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together." 
 
78 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 said that the people all followed, with entire interest 
 and understanding of it, though it is not as near 
 their Greek as our Bible is to modern English, and 
 probably never would be. For they regard their 
 Greek as being better than the Attic Greek of 
 Demosthenes's time, and of course they will not 
 cede an inch toward the Alexandrianisms of late 
 centuries. "Indeed," said he, u the Academy and 
 the Aristarchs are a deal too stiff about it. They 
 are very hard on us theologues, and seem to 
 me absurd." 
 
 Father Thomas's house is one such as they say 
 there are a great many of, which show their only 
 concession to a community system. With all this 
 intense individualism, one can see that Robert 
 Owen would hang himself here. But Father 
 Thomas says this arrangement works well, and is 
 a great economy both in time and money. Four 
 houses, each with its half-acre garden, standing 
 near each other, there is built, just on the corner 
 where the lots meet, a central house, pea-oiicia, 
 they call it, for the common purposes of the 
 four. There is one kitchen, and they unite in 
 hiring one cook, who gets up all the meals for the 
 four several families in their own homes, accord 
 ing to their several directions. There is one 
 large play-room for the children. I asked if there 
 were one nurse ; but he said, not generally, though 
 families settled that as they chose. What he laid 
 most stress on was one book-room or library for 
 the four. And certainly this was a lovely room. 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 79 
 
 There were four bookcases, one on each side, 
 which held severally the books of the four families. 
 All Father Thomas's were together. But, in the 
 long run, it happened that none of them duplicated 
 the other's books, so far as they kept them in this 
 room. There would be but one Herodotus, one 
 Dante, one Shakespeare, one French Dictionary, 
 for the four. Then this room made a pleasant 
 place of reunion among the families, without 
 mutual invitation, and without the feeling that you 
 might be boring the others. Indeed, I spent the 
 evening there, as will appear, if this narrative 
 ever comes down to the evening. 
 
 In the afternoon I had a long walk with Father 
 Thomas in his parish. We went first to one of the 
 four cathedrals, where he had the three o'clock 
 service. The congregation was from all parts of 
 the town and neighborhood, many people at 
 tending there, he said, who never went to any 
 of the parish churches. The different clergymen 
 take these services in order. I should think there 
 were four or five thousand persons here. The ser 
 vice lasted an hour, and he then took me from 
 place to place with him, showing me, as he said, 
 how people lived. And so I have had, in very 
 short time, insight into a wider range of homes 
 than I have ever had in Europe. Everywhere 
 comfort, and the most curious illustrations of what 
 comfort is. 
 
 Their system seems to give more definiteness to 
 the work of the clergy and of the churches than 
 
8o Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 ours does. Thus Father Thomas preaches regu 
 larly in the church I was in this morning (TT}<? ZCOTJS 
 al&vfov is its name, the Church of Life Eternal). 
 There gather perhaps a hundred families, from all 
 parts of the city and neighborhood. And as I 
 understand it, his relations to them are much like 
 those of one of our Congregational ministers to his 
 flock, say Haliburton's to his in Cairo, or mine 
 to my people when I was settled in Naguadavick. 
 But this is rather a personal relation between him 
 and these people, who have, so to speak, gravitated 
 toward him. He preaches there usually once 
 every Sunday, and, as I understand it, our practice 
 of exchanging pulpits is wholly unknown. They 
 would be as much surprised, on going into the 
 " Church of Life Eternal," to find any minister but 
 Father Thomas, as they would be, on going into 
 court for the trial of a case, to find that the counsel 
 they had engaged had made an "exchange" with 
 some other man, who had come to plead in his 
 place. As I have said, the service here seems to 
 be regarded, at law at least, as a secondary part of 
 the matter. This Church of Life Eternal is re 
 garded as in a thousand ways responsible for a 
 whole vo/xo? or territorial district, in one corner 
 of which, indeed, it stands. It is exactly like the 
 theory of our territorial parish; but they do not 
 use the word " parish," irapoiKia, or rather they use 
 it for a different thing. Everybody in the nomos 
 of "Life Eternal," numbering say four hundred 
 families, is under the oversight, not so much of 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 8 1 
 
 Father Thomas, as of all the committees, visitors, 
 deacons, deaconesses, and people with names un 
 known to me, who are the workers of this church. 
 "Under the oversight" means that this church 
 would be disgraced if there were a typhus-fever 
 district in this nomos, or if a family starved to 
 death here, or if there were a drunken row. It 
 would be considered that the church of the nomos 
 was not doing the thing for which churches are 
 established here. 
 
 Father Thomas reminded me that, in the news 
 paper reports of criminal trials, I always see, next 
 the name of the offender, the name of his nomos, 
 as " South Congregational," " St. Paul's," " Old 
 North," " Disciples'," " Life Eternal," said he, 
 " if we had been so unlucky. But none of our 
 people have been before the court for thirty-one 
 years. In consequence," he said, " if such a mis 
 fortune did happen to us, I should not hear the 
 last of it for a month. Every man I met in the 
 street would stop me to sympathize with me ; and 
 I should know that people considered that we had 
 made some bad mistake in our arrangements, if we 
 should have a series of such things happen. Of 
 course, we cannot help people's throwing them 
 selves away. But if it is supposed that, if Chris 
 tianity means anything, it means that Jesus Christ 
 came to take away the sins of the world; and this 
 church is regarded as his representative, at least 
 so far as that vulgar or concrete form of sin goes 
 which men call crime." 
 
 6 
 
82 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 I take it this arrangement by which a fixed 
 organization is responsible in every locality for the 
 prevention of poverty and the prevention of crime 
 has a great deal to do with the curious insignifi 
 cance of their criminal business in the courts. 
 
 I am terribly tired, but feel as if I understood 
 them a little better than I did yesterday. 
 
 Monday, 6th. A busy day; but, warned by 
 yesterday, I have not fagged myself out as I did 
 then. Or, rather, I ought to say, I have taken their 
 advice, instead of living in my own fashion. I am 
 really becoming a Sybarite myself, and therefore sit 
 down here at 9.30 at night, not dead knocked up 
 by the day's work, as a Yankee would be, and as I 
 was yesterday. 
 
 The programme was, breakfast with the boat- 
 builder Pylades ; then to go through the schools 
 with Kleone, who takes a good deal of interest in 
 them ; to drive and bathe with Philip's people ; to 
 dine with the Angelides, nice people whom I 
 met at the party, Friday, and with them go to 
 their theatre, where their daughters were to act. 
 All this is over, and I am here at 9.30, as before 
 said. 
 
 They make much account of breakfast parties, 
 I noticed on Saturday that the Chief Justice said 
 he liked to see people before they had begun to 
 go to sleep, and that most people did begin to go 
 to sleep at noon. Here was, at eight o'clock in the 
 morning, a charming party, just evenly divided 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 83 
 
 between men and women, round a large, circular 
 table, in a beautiful room opening on a veranda. 
 The table blazed with flowers, and even with early 
 fruit from the forcing-houses. I took out Kleone, 
 but the talk was general. 
 
 I asked Philip how long his brother would 
 remain in the office of Proxenus. Philip turned a 
 little sharply on me, and asked if I had any com 
 plaints to make. I soothed him by explaining 
 that all that I asked about was the term of office 
 in their system, and he apologized. 
 
 " He will be in as long as he chooses, probably. 
 In theory he remains in until a majority of the 
 voters, which is to say the adult men and women, 
 join in a petition for his removal. Then he will be 
 removed at once. The government will appoint a 
 temporary substitute, and order an election of his 
 successor." 
 
 " Do you mean there is no fixed election-day? " 
 
 " None at all/' said Philip. " We are always 
 voting. When I left you yesterday afternoon I 
 went in to vote for an alderman of our ward, in 
 place of a man who has resigned. I wish I had 
 taken you in with me, though there was nothing to 
 see. Only three or four great books, each headed 
 with the name of a candidate. I wrote my name 
 in Andrew Second's book. He is, on the whole, the 
 best man. The books will be open three months. 
 No one, of course, can vote more than once, 
 and at the end of that time there will be a count, 
 and a proclamation will be made. Then about 
 
84 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 removal ; any one who is dissatisfied with a public 
 officer puts his name up at the head of a book in 
 the election office. Of course there are dozens of 
 books all the time. But unless there is real in 
 capacity, nobody cares. Sometimes, when one 
 man wants another's place, he gets up a great 
 breeze, the newspapers get hold of it, and every 
 body is canvassed who can be got to the spot. 
 But it is very hard to turn out a competent officer. 
 If in three months, however, at all the registries, a 
 majority of the voters express a wish for a man's 
 removal, he has to go out. Practically, I look in 
 once a week at that office to see what is going on. 
 It is something as you vote at your clubs." 
 
 " Did you say women as well as men? " said I. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Philip, " unless a woman or a man 
 has formally withdrawn from the roll. You see, 
 the roll is the list, not only of voters, but of sol 
 diers. For a man to withdraw, is to say he is a 
 coward and dares not take his chance in war. 
 Sometimes a woman does not like military service, 
 and if she takes her name off I do not think the 
 public feeling about it is quite the same as with 
 a man. She may have things to do at home." 
 
 " But do you mean that most of the women serve 
 in the army? " said I. 
 
 " Of course they do," said he. " They wanted 
 to vote, so we put them on the roll. You do not 
 see them much. Most of the women's regiments 
 are heavy artillery, in the forts, which can be 
 worked just as well by persons of less as of more 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 85 
 
 muscle, if you have enough of them. Each regi 
 ment in our service is on duty a month, and in 
 reserve six. You know we have no distant posts." 
 
 " We have a great many near-sighted men in 
 America," said I, " who cannot serve in the army." 
 
 " We make our near-sighted men work heavy 
 guns, serve in light artillery, or, in very bad cases 
 we detail them to the police work of the camps," 
 said he. " The deaf and dumb men we detail to 
 serve the military telegraphs. They keep secrets 
 well. The blind men serve in the bands. And 
 the men without legs ride in barouches in state 
 processions. Everybody serves somewhere." 
 
 " That is always the reason," said I, with a sigh, 
 " why everybody has so much time in Sybaris ! " 
 
 Being so much with Kleone, spending, indeed, 
 an hour quietly at their house, after our school 
 tramp, and before we went to bathe, I got a 
 chance to ask her about household administration. 
 I did not know whether things did go as easily as 
 they seemed, or whether, as with most households, 
 when strangers are visiting for a time, they seemed 
 to go easier than they did. But I think there can 
 not be much deception about it. Kleone is not in 
 the least an actress, and she certainly wondered 
 that I thought there could be so much difficulty. 
 She finally took me out into her kitchen, pantry, 
 and so on, and showed me the whole machine. 
 
 I do not understand it a great deal better than I 
 did before. But here are a few central facts. First, 
 no washing of clothes is done in any private 
 
86 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 house. For every thirty or forty families there is 
 one laundry, \ovrpdv, they call it ; and the peo 
 ple there send twice a week for the soiled linen, 
 and return it clean at the end of forty-eight hours. 
 Kleone said that these establishments were so 
 small that she knew all the work-people at that 
 near hers; and if she had any special directions to 
 give, she ran in and told what she wanted. Of 
 course they could have all the mechanism they 
 wanted, large mangles, steam-dryers, folding 
 machines, and so on. Next, I should think their 
 public baking establishments must be better than 
 ours. Kleone no more thought of making her own 
 bread than my Polly thinks of making her own 
 candles. " I can make it," said she, with a pretty 
 air ; " but what 's the good (ro> /eaXo>), when I know 
 they do it as well as I?" For other provant, 
 there is the universal trattoria system of all Italy, 
 carried on with a neatness and care of individual 
 right, not to say whim, which I find everywhere 
 here. 
 
 I took care to ask specially about servants, and 
 the ease or difficulty of finding and of training 
 them. Here Kleone was puzzled. It was evident 
 she had never thought of the matter at all, any 
 more than she had thought of water-supply, or of 
 who kept the streets clean. But after a good deal 
 of pumping and cross-questioning, I came at some 
 notion of why this was all so easy. In the first 
 place, there is not a very great amount of what we 
 call menial service to be done in establishments 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 87 
 
 where there are no stairs, no washing, no ironing, 
 no baking, no moving, few lamps to fill, little dust 
 ing or sweeping (because all roads and streets here 
 are watered), few errands, and little sickness. But 
 Kleone did not in the least wink out of sight the 
 fact that there was regular service to be done, and 
 that it did not do itself. But, as she said, " as no 
 girl goes to school between fourteen and eighteen, 
 and no boy or girl ever goes to school more than 
 half the time, as no girl under eighteen or boy 
 under twenty-one is permitted to work in the fac 
 tories, or indeed anywhere unless at home, there 
 is an immense force of young folks who must be 
 doing something, and must be trained to do some 
 thing. You see," said Kleone, " no girl is married 
 before she is eighteen, and perhaps she may not 
 be married before she is twenty-five. From these 
 unmarried women, who are of age after they are 
 eighteen, we may hire servants. And we may re 
 ceive into our houses girls under that age, if only 
 we exact no duties of them but those of home. 
 Now, if you will think," said she, " in any circle of 
 a hundred people, say in any family of brothers, 
 sisters, and cousins, there are enough young 
 people to do all this work you ask about. All we 
 have to do is to exchange a little. That pretty 
 girl who let you in at the door is a cousin of my 
 husband's who is making a long three months' visit 
 here, glad to come, indeed, for it is a little quiet, 
 I think, at Trcezene, where her people live. I do 
 not pretend to be a notable housekeeper, you 
 
88 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 know; but if I were, I should have any number 
 of girls' mothers asking me if I would not have 
 them here to stay, and they would do most of my 
 dusting and bed-making for me. Elizabeth, whom 
 I believe you have not seen, is the only person I 
 hire, in the house. She will be married next year, 
 but there are plenty more when she goes." 
 
 Speaking of Sophia's letting me in at the door, 
 there is a pretty custom about door-bells. To 
 save you from fumbling round of a dark evening, 
 the bell-pulls are made from phosphorescent wood, 
 or some of them of glass with a glow-worm on a 
 leaf inside, so that you always see this little knob, 
 and know where to put your hand. 
 
 The plays were as good and bright as they 
 could be. The theatre is small, but large enough 
 for ordinary voices and ordinary eyes. There are 
 ever so many of them. Then the actors and 
 actresses were these very people whom I have 
 been meeting, or their children, or their friends. 
 The Chief Justice himself took a little part this 
 evening, and that pretty Lydia, his daughter, sang 
 magnificently. She would be a prima donna as- 
 soluta over at Naples yonder. Father Thomas's 
 daughter is a contralto. She does not sing so 
 well. I do not suppose the Chief is often on the 
 stage ; but he was there to-night, just as he might 
 be at a Christmas party in his own house. He 
 said to me as he walked home with me : " We are 
 not going to let this thing slip into the hands of a 
 lot of irresponsible people. As it stands, it brings 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 89 
 
 the children pleasantly together ; and they always 
 have their entertainments where their fathers and 
 mothers do." 
 
 A funny thing happened as we left the play. A 
 sudden April shower had sprung up, and so we 
 found the porches and passage-ways lined with 
 close-stacked umbrellas ; they looked like mus 
 kets in an armory. Every gentleman took one, 
 and those of the ladies who needed. Angelides 
 handed one to me. It seems that the city owns 
 and provides the umbrellas. When I came to the 
 inn, I put mine in the hall, and that was the last I 
 shall see of it. But I have inquired, and it seems 
 that, as soon as the rain is over, the agent for this 
 district will come round in a wagon and collect 
 them. If it rain any day when I am here, a waiter 
 from the inn will run and fetch me one. I shall 
 carry it till the rain is over, and then leave it any 
 where I choose. The agent for that district will 
 pick it up and place it in the umbrella-stand for 
 the nomos. In case of a sudden shower, as this 
 to-night, it is, of course, their business to supply 
 churches or theatres. 
 
 I have noticed another good thing about um 
 brellas. A man in front of me that day it rained 
 had a letter to post at a box which was on a street- 
 lamp. If he had had to hold his umbrella with 
 one hand, to open the box with another, and to 
 drop in the letter with a third, it would have been 
 awkward, for he had but two hands. So they had 
 made the cover of the box with a ring-handle, 
 
90 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 he opened it with his umbrella hand, catching the 
 ring with the hook of the umbrella, and posted 
 his letter with his other hand. 
 
 Tuesday, 5th. Fine again. I have been with 
 the boys a good deal to-day. They took me to 
 one or two of the gymnasiums, to one of the swim 
 ming-schools, to the market for their nomos, and 
 afterward to an up-town market, to the picture- 
 gallery, TrivaKoOrjfcr], and museum of yet another 
 nomos, which they thought was finer than theirs, 
 and to their own sculpture-gallery. 
 
 As we walked I asked one of them if I was not 
 keeping him from school. 
 
 " No," said he ; " this is my off-term." 
 
 "Pray, what is that?" 
 
 "Don't you know? We only go to school three 
 months in winter and three in summer. I thought 
 you did so in America. I know Mr. Webster did. 
 I read it in his Life." 
 
 I was on the point of saying that we knew now 
 how to train more powerful men than Mr. Webster, 
 but the words stuck in my throat, and the boy 
 rattled on. 
 
 " The teachers have to be there all the time, ex 
 cept when they go in retreat. They take turns 
 about retreat. But we are in two choroi; I am 
 choros-boy now, James is anti-choros. Choros 
 have school in January, February, March, July, 
 August, September. Next year I shall be anti- 
 choros." 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 91 
 
 " Which do you like best, off-term or school? " 
 said I. 
 
 " Oh, both is as good as one. When either be 
 gins, we like it. We get rather sick of either before 
 the three months are over." 
 
 " What do you do in your off-terms? " said I, 
 " go fishing? " 
 
 " No, of course not," said he, " except Strep, and 
 Hipp, and Chal, and those boys, because their 
 fathers are fishermen. No, we have to be in our 
 fathers' offices, we big boys ; the little fellows, they 
 let them stay at home. If I was here without you 
 now, that truant-officer we passed just now would 
 have had me at home before this time. Well, you 
 see they think we learn about business, and I guess 
 we do. I know I do," said he, " and sometimes I 
 think I should like to be a Proxenus when I am 
 grown up, but I do not know." 
 
 I asked George about this, this evening. He 
 said the boy was pretty nearly right about it. 
 They had come round to the determination that 
 the employment of children, merely because their 
 wages were lower than men's, was very dangerous 
 economy. The chances were that the children 
 were overworked, and that their constitution was 
 fatally impaired. "We do not want any Man 
 chester-trained children here." Then they had 
 found that steady brainwork on girls, at the grow 
 ing age, was pretty nearly slow murder in the long 
 run. They did not let girls go to school with any 
 persistency after they were twelve or fourteen. 
 
92 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 After they were twenty they might study what 
 they chose. 
 
 " But the main difference between our schools 
 and yours," said he, " is that your teacher is only 
 expected to hear the lesson recited. Our teacher 
 is expected to teach it also. You have in America, 
 therefore, sixty scholars to one teacher. We do 
 not pretend to have more than twenty to one 
 teacher. We do this the easier because we let no 
 child go to school more than half the time ; nor, even 
 with the strongest, more than four hours a day. 
 
 " Why,'* said he, " I was at a college in America 
 once, where, with splendid mathematicians, they had 
 had but one man teach any mathematics for thirty 
 years. And he was travelling in Europe when I 
 was there. The others only heard the recitations 
 of those who could learn without being taught." 
 
 " I was once there," said I. 
 
 . . . We bathed in the public bath for this 
 nomos, which is not the same as George's. The 
 boys took me home with them to dine, and 
 George came round here this evening. We have 
 had pleasant talk with some lemon and orange 
 farmers from the country. 
 
 I have not said anywhere that their acquajuoli 
 are everywhere in the streets ; and a little acid in 
 the water, with plenty of ice and snow, seems to 
 take away the mania for wine or liquor, just as it 
 does in Naples. The temperance of Naples is due, 
 not to the sour wine people talk of, for the labor- 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 93 
 
 ing men do not drink that, but to the attractive 
 provision made of other drinks. And it is very 
 much so here. These acquajuoli are just like 
 those in Naples. 
 
 But here no street cuts another at right angles. 
 There is always a curve at the corner, with a chord 
 of a full hundred feet. This enables them to have 
 narrower streets, no street is more than fifty feet 
 between the sidewalks, and it gives pretty stands 
 for the fruit-sellers and lemonade-sellers at the 
 quadrants. There is iced water free everywhere, 
 and delicious coffee almost free. 
 
 Wednesday, fyth. As soon as breakfast was 
 over, I went down to Pylades, the boat-builder. I 
 own it, I am distressed to say that he is exactly in 
 time, and the boat, to all purposes, is repaired. 
 She is a much better boat than she ever was 
 before. They know no such thing as a mechanic 
 being an hour late in his performance of a contract. 
 " The man does not know his business if he cannot 
 tell when he will be done," said Pylades to me. 
 And when I asked what would have happened if 
 his men had not finished this job in time, he shook 
 his head and said : " dpTrayfios. I should have 
 taken from a citizen what I could not restore ; 
 namely, the time you had to wait beyond my 
 promise." I said it was very kind in him to count 
 me as a citizen. 
 
 As to that, he said fevta, or the duties of hospi 
 tality were even more sacred than those of citizen- 
 
94 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 ship ; and he quoted the Greek proverb, which I 
 had noticed on the city seal: Alo-^vvrj TroXetw? 
 TToXiVft) dpapTia, " The shame of the city is the 
 fault of the citizen." 
 
 I cannot see that there is any sort of excuse for 
 my loitering here longer than to-morrow. The 
 paint will be dry and the stores (what a contrast 
 to what I sailed with!) will be on board to-night. 
 Among them all, I believe they will sink her with 
 oranges and cigars, sent as personal presents to 
 me by my friends. 
 
 Andrew took me through some of the registra 
 tion offices. They carry their statistics out to a 
 charm ; I could not but think how fascinated Dr. 
 Jarvis would be. But they say, and truly enough, 
 that nothing can be well done in administration 
 unless you know the facts. Take railroads, for 
 instance ; if you know exactly how many people 
 are going to come down town from a particular 
 nomos, you can provide for them. But if you do 
 not, they must trust to chance. They know here, 
 and can show you, how many men they have who 
 are twenty-three years and seven days old, or any 
 other age ; and every night, of course, they know 
 what is the population of the country in every 
 ward of the whole government. 
 
 By appointment, I met the Chief Justice as he 
 adjourned the court, and we rode to the Pier for 
 our last bath. Delicious surf! 
 
 I asked him about something which Kleone said, 
 which had surprised me. She said no woman was 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 95 
 
 married till she was eighteen, and that she might 
 not be till she was twenty-five. I did not like to 
 question her; but he tells me everything, and I 
 asked him. He went into the whole history of 
 the matter in his reply, and the system is certainly 
 very curious. 
 
 He bade me remember the fundamental import 
 ance, as long ago as the laws of Charondas, of 
 marriage in the state. " The unit with us," he 
 said, " is the ' one flesh,' the married man and 
 woman. We consider no unmarried man as more 
 than a half, and so with woman." Then he went 
 on to say that they had formerly a hopeless im 
 broglio of suits, breach-of-promise cases, divorce 
 cases, cases of gossip, and so on, which had resulted 
 in the present system ; and, without quoting words, 
 I will try to describe it. Kleone was right. No 
 woman may marry before she is eighteen. They 
 hold it as certain that, before she is twenty-five, 
 she will have met her destiny. They say that, if 
 no gossip, or manoeuvring, or misunderstanding 
 intervene, it is certain that before she is twenty- 
 five, in a simple state of society like this, which 
 places no bar on the free companionship of men 
 and women, the husband appointed for her in 
 heaven will have seen her and made himself 
 known to her. They say that there is no unfair 
 compulsion to his free-will if they intimate to him 
 that he must do this within a certain time. If it 
 happen that she do not find this man before that 
 age, she must travel away from Sybaris for thirty 
 
96 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 years, or until she has married abroad. They 
 regard this as exile, which these people, so used 
 to a comfortable life, consider the most horrible 
 of punishments. To tell the truth, I do not won 
 der. Practically, however, it appears that the 
 punishment is never pronounced. More male 
 children are born into the state than female. This 
 alone indicates that the age of marriage for men 
 must be somewhat higher than that of women. 
 Their custom is, keeping the maximum age of 
 men's marriage at thirty, for the Statistical Board 
 to issue every three months a bulletin, stating what 
 is the minimum age. Just now it is twenty-three 
 years, one month, and eleven days. If a man does 
 not choose to marry here when he is thirty, he 
 spends thirty years in travel, looking for the wife 
 he has not found at home. But, as I say of the 
 women, practically no one goes." 
 
 I said that I thought this was a very stern statute, 
 and that it interfered completely with the right of 
 the individual citizen, which they pretend was at 
 the bottom of their system. The Chief Justice 
 said, in reply, that everybody said so. " L'Estrange 
 said so to me in England, and Kleber said so to 
 me in Germany, and Chenowith said so to me in 
 America, and Juarez said so to me in Bolivia. But 
 the truth is, that it is absolutely certain that before 
 a woman is twenty-five, and before a man is thirty, 
 each of them has met his destiny or hers. If the 
 two destinies do not run into one, it is because 
 some infernal gossip, or misunderstanding, or 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 97 
 
 ignorance, or other cause, I care not what, 
 intervenes. Now," said he, "you know how 
 hard we are on gossip, since Charondas's time, 
 ' No tale-bearer shall live.' What is left is to see 
 that sentiment, or modesty, or self-denial, or the 
 other curse, as above, shall not intervene to defeat 
 the will of Heaven. For in heaven this thing is 
 done. I can assure you," said he, " that this calm, 
 steady pressure of an expressed determination that 
 people shall carry out their destiny, saves myriads 
 of people from misunderstanding and misery ; and 
 that, in practice, no individual right is sacrificed. 
 I know it," he added, after a moment, " for I am 
 the person who must know it. It is not true that 
 all marriages are made here by the Lord Chancellor, 
 as Dr. Johnson proposed. But it is true that I 
 send into exile the people who will not marry. 
 How many do you think I have exiled, now, in 
 thirteen years? " 
 
 I guessed, for a guess' sake, five hundred. 
 
 " Not one," said the Chief Justice. " No, nor 
 ever seemed to come near it but once. Every 
 three months there is a special day set apart when 
 the Statistical Board shall send me the lists. For 
 a fortnight before the day there are a great many 
 marriages. When the day comes, I go, Colonel 
 Ingham, into an empty court-room, and sit there 
 for three hours. No officers of court are per 
 mitted to be present but myself. Once it happened 
 that when I went in I found a fine young officer, a 
 man whom I knew by sight, sitting there waiting 
 
 7 
 
98 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 his sentence. I bowed, but said nothing. I took 
 my papers, and asked him if he would come in 
 again at eleven. At half-past ten came in a 
 woman whom I had watched since she was a child, 
 one of those calm, even-balanced people, who are 
 capable of blessing the world, but are so unselfish 
 that they may be pushed one side into washing 
 dishes for beggars. She had her veil down, but 
 walked to the bench, and laid her card before me. 
 I pointed her a seat, and went on with my writing. 
 As the clock struck eleven, I asked her to excuse 
 me for a moment, and I withdrew. I stayed in 
 my private room an hour. I came back at noon, 
 and my lieutenant-colonel and my queenly 
 Hebe were both gone. It was the victory of a 
 young love. He had worshipped her since they 
 were at school together, and she him. But some 
 tattling aunt she died just in time to save her 
 self from the galleys put in some spoke or 
 other, I know not what, that blocked their wheels ; 
 she had calmly said ' No ' to a hundred men, and 
 he had passed like a blind, deaf man among a 
 thousand women. Both pf them were ready to go 
 into exile, rather than surrender the true loyalty 
 of youth. But I had the wit to leave them to 
 each other. They were married that afternoon, 
 and all is well ! " 
 
 And to-morrow night I shall be jotting my 
 entries here as the sea pitches me up and down 
 in the gulf. When shall I see all these nice friends 
 
My Visit to Sybaris 99 
 
 again? I feel as if I had known them since we 
 were born. I cannot yet analyze the charm. I 
 believe I do not want to. They certainly do not 
 pretend to be saints. They have rather the com 
 plete self-respect of people who do not think of 
 themselves at all. The state cares for the citizen, 
 and for nothing else. There is no thought of con 
 quest ; nay, they court separation from the world 
 outside. But, on the other hand, the citizen cares 
 for the state, seems to see that he is lost if this 
 majestic administration is not watching over him 
 and defending him. Because the law guards their 
 individual rights, even their individual caprices, 
 there is certainly less tyranny of Mrs. Grundy and 
 of fashion. But yet I never lived among people 
 who had so little to say about their own success, 
 about " I said," " I told him," or " my way," or 
 " I told my wife." 
 
 When I spoke to the Chief the other day of 
 their homage to individual right, he said they 
 made the citizen strong because they would make 
 the state strong, and made the state strong that it 
 might make the citizen strong. I quoted Fichte : 
 " The human race is the individual, of which men 
 and women are the separate members." " Fichte 
 got it from Paul," said he. " If you mean to have 
 a sound mind in a sound body, you must have a 
 sound little finger and a clear eye. But you will 
 not have a clear eye, or a sound little finger, 
 unless you have a sound mind in a sound body. 
 Colonel Ingham, Love is the whole ! " 
 
i oo Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 It has been a pretty bleak evening. I have 
 been running round with George to say good-bye. 
 Kleone asked me, so prettily, when I would come 
 with MapidSiov. It was half a minute before I 
 reflected that MapidSiov is Greek for Polly. 
 
 Thiirsday, 3d Kal. @apyrj\. At the boat at 
 8.30. The old man was there without the boys. 
 He said they wanted to stay here. 
 
 " Among the devils ? " said I. 
 
 The old man confessed that the place for poor 
 men was the best place he ever saw ; the markets 
 were cheap, the work was light, the inns were 
 neat, the people were civil, the music was good, 
 the churches were free, and the priests did not lie. 
 He believed the reason that nobody ever came 
 back from Sybaris was, that nobody wanted to. 
 
 The Proxenus nodded, well pleased. 
 
 " So Battista and his brother would like to stay 
 a few months ; and he found he might bring Cat- 
 erina too, when my Excellency had returned from 
 Gallipoli ; or did my Excellency think that, when 
 Garibaldi had driven out the Bourbons, all the 
 world would be like Sybaris?" 
 
 My Excellency hoped so, but did not dare 
 promise. 
 
 " You see now," said George, " why you hear 
 so little of Sybaris. Enough people come to us. 
 But you are the only man I ever saw leave Sybaris 
 who did not mean to return." 
 
My Visit to Sybaris i o i 
 
 " And I," said I, " do you think I am never 
 coming here again?" 
 
 " You found it a hard harbor to make," said the 
 Proxenus. " We have published no sailing direc 
 tions since Saint Paul touched here, and those 
 which he wrote he sent them to the Corinthians 
 yonder neither they nor any one else have 
 seemed to understand." 
 
 4< Good-bye." 
 
 " God bless you ! Good-bye." And I sailed 
 for Gallipoli. 
 
 Wind N. N. W. strong. I have been pretty 
 blue all day. And the old man is too. It is just 
 7.30 P. M. The lights of the Castle of Otranto are 
 in sight, and I shall turn in. Xat/oe. 
 
HOW THEY LIVED AT NAGUADAVICK 
 
 FROM REV. FREDERIC INGHAM'S PAPERS 
 
 NAGUADAVICK was in itself, of nature, like 
 any other town, only a good deal worse. I 
 mean that the lake took up all one side of it, so 
 nobody could live there. Then on the river front 
 nobody would live if he could. Out on the roads 
 to Assabet and Plimquoddy you could get no 
 water that anybody would drink. So it happened 
 that in the town proper everybody had to live on 
 the north side. This made land there dear, and 
 would have made rents very high if we had not 
 found out a much better way to live, of which 
 I am now going to give you the history. 
 
 "In balloons?" 
 
 Not a bit of it. There is no word of nonsense 
 in what I am going to tell you. It is only a thing 
 perfectly practicable in every spirited American 
 town which needs it, and the only wonder is that 
 it was not done in every such town long ago. It 
 has been tried for, everywhere, in a fashion, and it 
 only needs brains, and enterprise, and faith in men, 
 to carry it out everywhere with success. 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 103 
 
 It all began at a meeting of their Union. 
 "Trade's Union?" Not exactly. In a Trade's 
 Union only one trade meets. This was a meeting 
 of all sorts of people, with trades and without, with 
 money and without, some with one idea and 
 some with seven, a union which they used to 
 have in a decent sort of club-house they had. 
 Men and women could go, and did. You played 
 checkers, or euchre, or billiards, or you went up 
 stairs and danced, or you read in the reading- 
 room, or you talked in the drawing-room. And in 
 the committee-room there was almost every even 
 ing what they called a Section, where something 
 or other was up, maybe a tableau, maybe a 
 debating-club, maybe a paper on the legs of cock 
 chafers. They called it all the " Union for Chris 
 tian Work." Well, one night in the committee- 
 room they had had rather a dreary pow-wow about 
 the future of Naguadavick. Pretty much all of 
 them agreed Naguadavick was going to the dogs. 
 They could not raise pine-apples, and it was evi 
 dently unhealthy for cats. All the merchants 
 went to Boston for their spring and fall supplies, 
 instead of buying them of each other. The 
 manufacture of horn gun-flints had proved success 
 ful, but they cost more when they were made than 
 the stone ones ; and, worst of all, as I have 
 remarked, there was no chance for anybody to live 
 anywhere, if the population of the town should en 
 large by one. For every house was occupied, and 
 it was known to the presiding officer that at Mrs. 
 
104 Sybaris and .Other Homes 
 
 Varnum's boarding-house the mistress had that 
 day refused to receive a family from out of town 
 because they had eleven children. 
 
 So it was generally agreed that Naguadavick 
 was going to the dogs as fast as it could go. I 
 never was in but one thoroughly prosperous town 
 that was not, if you could trust the talking 
 kind. 
 
 Meanwhile, in fact, Naguadavick was a driving, 
 thriving, striving, hiving, wiving, and living town 
 of 23,456 people by the last United States census, 
 with " probably at the present time rising 36,000, 
 if only the beggarly and miserly city council had 
 not refused to take a special count when they levied 
 the tax last spring." 
 
 Ogden went home from that meeting red-hot, he 
 was so mad. He told his wife all they had said, 
 and said he could not stand it. She said she 
 should not think he could. He said it was all 
 nonsense. She said it certainly was, but she 
 wished he would not swear so. He said he would 
 not again, but it was enough to make the minister 
 swear and burn his books too. She said she 
 hoped the minister would not burn " Consuelo " 
 till she had a chance to finish it. This made 
 Ogden laugh, it was old Elkanah's nephew : did 
 you know him? and they went to bed. But Ogden 
 was thoroughly mad this time ; he said he would 
 not stand it, and he would not have any more such 
 talk at the Union. And he did not. They have 
 talked nonsense there since. But they never 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 105 
 
 talked this same nonsense. And this was the 
 way he managed it. 
 
 As soon as he had read his letters the next 
 morning at the mill, and had just walked through 
 all the rooms (Ogden made whips for export, 
 Boothia Felix, immense demand for sea-horses), 
 he told his boy he should be out for two hours, 
 went across to the offices of the Great Eastern 
 Railway, and charged right in on Greenleaf. Cap 
 ital fellow, Greenleaf, the best man, I think, and the 
 most spirited and most spiritual, and the most to be 
 loved, of all men I have ever known. Greenleaf 
 had done his letters too, had seen all his heads of 
 department, and he put down the " Advertiser," 
 gave Ogden two chairs, and put his feet in one. 
 
 " Why did you not stay in the Section Room, 
 last night?" said Ogden. 
 
 " You know," said Greenleaf. " Why did 
 you?" 
 
 "Why, indeed," said Ogden again, "unless to 
 see how far the infernal tomfoolery of croaking 
 may lead men. It seems to be literally and really 
 supposed that these people, who have known 
 enough to dam this river, where there is a quick 
 sand bottom, who know enough to make fine 
 sewing-thread in air so dry that it sparkles, who 
 know enough to split a flint into ten thousand mil 
 lion billion flinders no bigger than the mustache 
 of a mosquito, don't know how to live, and will 
 go off to Death's Hollow, because the boarding- 
 houses are full. Jove ! Why don't they send us 
 
106 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 all back to the Lincolnshire Fens and to what 
 you call it old Brewster's place, Ansterfield 
 Scrooby in the edge of York, to-morrow? Why, 
 the monkeys know more, for they know enough, if 
 they can't live in one place, to live in another ! " 
 
 Thus far, remembering his wife's warning, Ogden 
 went on, and sinned not with his tongue, nor weak 
 ened the force of what he said, by any profane ex 
 aggeration. 
 
 Greenleaf laughed, and said he had not heard so 
 much twaddle as he heard in the five minutes he 
 was there, and Ogden was much comforted. 
 
 So soothed, he began again. " Now, Frank, I 
 want to stop all this. If it goes on, it may do seri 
 ous injury. In the first place, such talk will ruin 
 the Union. Who is going there if that whining, 
 canting, drivelling old fool is going to talk such 
 stuff? What 's worse is, it will get into the papers. 
 They would not put it in the ' Spy ; ' but old Martin 
 at the ' Courant' is just ass enough to put in some 
 thing about the decline of our population, and the 
 unhealthy condition of the muskrats who live under 
 the long dike. I had to go round there this morn 
 ing to stop him off this time. Well, of course, 
 nobody reads their trash ; but, after they have put 
 it in a few million times, it gets copied somewhere, 
 and it sticks, and then people will really think this 
 place has gone up, and not an owl or a jackal will 
 come here to rear jackets or owlets ! " 
 
 "Who is croaking now?" said Greenleaf, laugh 
 ing. " You did not come here to say that." 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 107 
 
 " No," said Ogden, standing up, " I did not." 
 And he walked to the large scale map of the Great 
 Eastern road. " I came here to show you this." 
 And he pointed out a spot eleven miles from 
 Naguadavick, on the line of that road. "What 
 could you buy the Lemon property here for? " 
 
 "House and land, there are four hundred 
 acres ; I suppose thirty-five thousand dollars would 
 be the asking price." 
 
 "Yes, and out here, the Gregory place?" 
 
 Greenleaf said that was not worth so much. 
 There was more land, but it was poor land, and 
 the house had been burned down. Ogden said he 
 did not care how poor the land was, and he sat 
 down again. 
 
 " Tell your directors to buy those two places to 
 morrow. If you have not got any money, issue 
 some bonds and get some. Open a new station 
 where the Sudbury road crosses yours. Cut up 
 the nine hundred acres into lots of a quarter acre, a 
 half-acre, and an acre, say, in all, two thousand lots. 
 These lots will cost you rather less than fifty dollars 
 apiece, on the average. Fix the price of each lot on 
 your lithograph plan, and never vary from it. Then 
 advertise that for twenty years you will run special 
 trains in, from your new station, at 6, 6.30, and 7 
 in the morning, and as many more as you choose, 
 that you will run them out at 6, 6.30, 7, and 8 in 
 the evening, and as many more as you choose. Not 
 one train shall stop on the way, and every man 
 shall be in town in twenty-two minutes from the 
 
io8 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 time he started. Before you are five years older, 
 if you keep your promises, that station will do a 
 business of two thousand tickets a day, each way. 
 In ten years its business will be five thousand 
 tickets. And your rascally railroad will be blest 
 of men and angels as a corporation with a soul." 
 
 Greenleaf laughed, and locked the door. Then 
 he opened a large drawer. " Look here," said he. 
 " When I left you, last night, I came home here 
 and drew out this plan, not for the Lemon place, 
 but for the Chenery farm, which is better. We 
 may take the Gregory property if we like. I have 
 seen the chief, and he says, ' Go ahead.' He says 
 he will take it on his own shoulders, that the 
 company may not like to carry it long enough. 
 He says he shall lose nothing on the investment, 
 and that it will bring up his stock. And so it 
 will. 
 
 " We shall put the lots at twice what they cost us, 
 for there must be a sure profit, and we shall sell them 
 as the Illinois Central sells lots, ten per cent down 
 and ten per cent each year for ten years, on our 
 asking price, without other interest. The company 
 guarantees, as you say, fast trains for twenty 
 years. That will make room for ten thousand 
 people, Elk." 
 
 Elkanah was very much pleased, and they went 
 into the detail. His two hours went by very fast, 
 and then he went away. When he had been five 
 minutes gone, Greenleaf sent for him. " Ogden," 
 said he, " don't you think you had better get up a 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 109 
 
 little earlier in the morning the next time you 
 advise this road ? " Ogden was good-natured, and 
 stood the chaff like a man. 
 
 II 
 
 As soon as Greenleaf had bought the Chenery 
 farm, and got a bond for a deed of the Gregory 
 property, if he wanted it, he published the details 
 of his plan. 
 
 Of course all the croakers were sure it would 
 fail. It had been tried ten thousand times, they 
 said, and had failed. " Canton, East Boston, 
 Mount Bellingham, Hyde Park," said the croakers, 
 who knew nothing at all about the success or 
 failure of either of these enterprises, " when did not 
 this plan fail? People won't go where you want 
 to send them." 
 
 " Tell me," said Greenleaf, cheerfully, he was 
 the only man worth anything who never got mad 
 by any accident, and this, as above, because he 
 was so spirited and spiritual at once, " tell me, 
 when this ship has not sailed, if she was built 
 before she was launched? I have heard of old 
 Dutchmen, who built the forecastle of a ship, and 
 launched it, and it went to the bottom, and of 
 cousins of theirs who built the stern first, and 
 launched that, and were surprised that it did not 
 sail ten knots an hour. So, I have heard of people 
 who laid out cities on paper for their own advan 
 tage, and forgot the advantage of their settlers. 
 
1 1 o Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 And I have heard of railroads who opened stations 
 where no people lived, and then sold no tickets. 
 I have heard of new towns opened at way stations, 
 and people did not choose to churn along in 
 snuffy old accommodation trains. But I have 
 never heard of a place where a man was sure of 
 four fast trains every morning and four more every 
 night, that did not fill up in no time." 
 
 Down at the Union, one night, Ogden got talk 
 ing about the new place, and somebody told him 
 the Parisians would not sleep out of Paris. " No," 
 said he, " nor will the people of this place sleep 
 outside of Naguadavick, if sleeping outside means 
 that they are to have no fun out there. If there 
 are to be no parties, no theatre, no concert, no 
 Union, no chance to croak together, nobody is 
 going to live there. That is another reason why 
 you must begin on a large scale. You must have 
 people enough to make it worth Greenleaf s while 
 to run four fast trains for you, morning and even 
 ing. If you have them, you will have people 
 enough to persuade Blitz to juggle for you, Mrs. 
 Wood to sing to you, Wendell Phillips and Henry 
 Beecher to lecture for you, and the French com 
 pany to act for you. The people who will go to 
 this place to live are exactly the sort of people 
 who will put all that thing through. You will have 
 a better public hall there than we have got here." 
 And so, indeed, it proved. 
 
 I was at that time the minister of the Sande- 
 manian church at Naguadavick. I believed in 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 1 1 1 
 
 Greenleaf, and indeed I rather believed in this 
 thing. So I went round one day and asked him if 
 they did not mean to reserve lots for churches, 
 and if they would not let me secure one. " Look 
 at the plan, Mr. Ingham," said Greenleaf. " You 
 will see some red crosses there on half-acre lots, 
 which will be convenient for churches." 
 
 I looked, compared, and called his attention to 
 one which seemed to me the best. I said I did not 
 know if we could or would do anything about it, 
 but would they not give us a deed of that lot, on 
 condition we would use it for a house of worship. 
 
 ' We will give you a deed," said Greenleaf, " on 
 exactly the same terms as we would give the gov 
 ernment one for a post-office. Those terms you 
 will find in brief on the plan. That lot is worth 
 one hundred and twenty dollars, and for that sum 
 the Sandemanian Consistory can have it. Look 
 here, Mr. Ingham," said he, " religion, as I under 
 stand it, is the most essential reality in earth or in 
 heaven. The institutions of religion, then, as 
 churches or Sunday-schools, will in no wise put 
 themselves on the plane of inferior organizations, 
 as if they must beg for a living or for right to be. 
 They will assert their right. We shall treat all 
 institutions of religion with precisely equal respect. 
 And I believe that the Sandemanians will find it 
 desirable to buy a lot here now, while they can, to 
 build by and by, when they want to." 
 
 I told him he was quite right ; that the Sandema 
 nian church, at least, was in no position to ask alms 
 
T i 2 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 like a beggar. And so the next Sunday morning 
 I spoke of the thing from the pulpit. I said it 
 seemed to me we ought to secure a lot there 
 before the most available situations were taken 
 up by others. I said that any money I found 
 in the charity boxes that evening after the two 
 services would be applied to this purpose. And, 
 as it happened, I found one hundred and nineteen 
 dollars and nineteen cents there. Polly had eighty- 
 one cents lying by, which she added, and we 
 bought the lot the next morning. A very curious 
 thing followed. The " Spy " and the " Courant " 
 mentioned this fact, and before a fortnight was 
 over the Unitarians, and the Universalists, and the 
 Methodists, and Free Will Baptists, and Orthodox 
 Congregationalists, and Baptists, and Episcopalians, 
 and even Roman Catholics, had each bought lots. 
 " They did not mean," they said, " to have those 
 proselyting Sandemanians stepping in before them." 
 So there seemed to be no danger but Aboo-Goosh, 
 as they called the new town, would have enough 
 religious privileges. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Elkanah Ogden talked so much about the 
 " Suburb of Ease " at the Union, and in all social 
 circles, he explained away so many difficulties, and 
 pooh-poohed down so many objections, that he 
 came to be considered as a sort of godfather to the 
 plan ; and all sorts of people consulted him about 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 1 1 3 
 
 it. After the lithographic plans were printed by 
 the Great Eastern, and the demand for their house- 
 lots became very spirited, people began to wake 
 up who had been very drowsy before, or had said 
 it was all nonsense, and that nothing could ever 
 come of it. And all sorts of contrivers came to 
 Ogden with their plans, and bored him awfully. 
 
 Among others there came in one day an old 
 farmer, whom Ogden did not know from Adam. 
 But he supposed he had seen him before ; so he 
 said, " Good-morning, Mr. Jones. Take a chair." 
 
 But the old man said, " My name is not Jones. 
 I live next the Jones farm. My name is Tenny, 
 Elbridge Tenny. I live out in Knox." 
 
 Elkanah apologized. 
 
 Then the old man said that he had come to talk 
 to him about his place. It was a beautiful farm, 
 he said, sloping down each side of the north branch 
 which ran right through the place. Putting his 
 father's place and his together, and throwing in the 
 jointure property, there was nigh seven hundred 
 acres in all. By this time Ogden understood that 
 here was another man who would like to sell by 
 the foot what had been bought by the acre. 
 
 " You see," said the old man, " if you want 
 horse-cars, the grade is beautiful from each side 
 down to the Great Northern Road, and the flat, 
 where the stream bends, is just the place for a 
 station." 
 
 " I dare say, Mr. Jones," said Ogden. " I beg 
 your pardon, Mr. Eldridge, I dare say. But all 
 
 8 
 
ii4 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 this depends on what the ' Great Northern ' says. 
 I have never found them very bright, or, which is 
 much the same thing, very humane." 
 
 Mr. Tenny said his name was not Eldridge, and 
 Ogden apologized again. Tenny had not been to 
 the Great Northern people ; he had begun by 
 drawing out his plan for streets, which perhaps 
 Ogden would like to see. And then he had 
 thought he would come and consult Mr. Ogden 
 before he went any further. 
 
 " Well, sir," said Elkanah, " I am very much 
 obliged to you. Now I tell you that your farm 
 may be as beautiful as the Garden of Eden, and as 
 well laid out as Alexander's city in Egypt, but 
 unless the Great Northern does the right thing, 
 which is to say, the handsome thing, you can do 
 nothing with the farm in this way. More than 
 that, Mr. Tenny [this time he was quite correct], 
 more than that, they may be as handsome as as 
 the Chevalier Crichton, and if you, up there, 
 are the least bit short-sighted, or try to skin these 
 workingmen whom you want to plant there, the 
 whole thing fails again. As I have said forty 
 times, the enterprise is one combined enterprise, 
 which seeks everybody's good. It seeks the good 
 of the honest day-laborer, who is now paying a 
 dollar a week for his tenement here, it seeks the 
 good of his children not yet born, it seeks the 
 good of the Great Northern Railroad and its 
 stockholders, and it seeks your good. But if any 
 one of the parties undertakes to overreach any of 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 1 15 
 
 the others, the whole thing fails and deserves to 
 fail." 
 
 By this time Ogden was unduly excited, and Mr. 
 Tenny was a little alarmed. But he declared that 
 he felt all this also, and only wanted to make a 
 reasonable profit in the business, which he was 
 willing everybody else concerned should share. 
 Ogden cooled down, and told him that the merit 
 of the enterprise was that it offered, not fabulous 
 profit to anybody, but a perfectly steady and sure 
 remuneration, steady and sure, as he proposed 
 to show. So they walked over together to the 
 house of the president of the Great Northern. It 
 was afternoon, and they knew he would not be at 
 the office. They also knew that in that establish 
 ment responsibility was very badly divided, and 
 that he would take it very ill if any such proposal 
 as this were made to any of his subordinates before 
 he had heard of it. In fact, if he could be per 
 suaded, before the week were over, that he had 
 devised the whole thing, that would be best of 
 all. 
 
 It was very slow work, and, to a person as im 
 petuous as Elkanah, very tedious. But he kept 
 his temper like a saint, knowing how much de 
 pended on that. He let the President ramble off 
 into endless histories of his own former successes 
 in dealings with lumbermen, with politicians, and 
 with owners of water-power, in all of which, he, 
 being the painter of the picture, came off victori 
 ous, and these several lions crouched at his feet. 
 
1 1 6 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 After many of these rambles into the forests of 
 facts gilded by memory, he said, well pleased : 
 
 "Then your object is to persuade us to open a 
 new station at the Bates Crossing? We might, 
 perhaps, let the milk-trains stop there, and the 
 Montaigne special. How would that answer? 
 That would give you two trains in winter, and three 
 in summer each way." 
 
 Elbridge Tenny looked round dubersome on 
 Elkanah Ogden, and this time Elkanah blazed 
 away. 
 
 " It would not answer at all, Mr. Chauncey. This 
 is one of those enterprises where you must do 
 everything or nothing. The railroads of this part 
 of the country have steadily cut off their best rev 
 enue the most reliable because not subject to 
 competition by that policy of leaving their sub 
 urb travel to their accommodation trains. Unless 
 we can have at least three morning expresses and 
 three in the evening, we can do nothing." 
 
 It was a wonder Mr. Chauncey did not faint 
 away, or show them the door as madmen. But 
 Ogden had expected, even had intended, this sur 
 prise. 
 
 " The people who are to come and go on these 
 trains, Mr. Chauncey," said he, " are not women 
 going a-shopping, to whom ten minutes more or 
 less is of no account. They are not even bank 
 clerks, or dry-goods dealers, to whom all is gained 
 if they are on the street here at nine in the morn 
 ing. We want to provide for the day-laborer, who 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 1 17 
 
 must get to his work at eight in the winter and at 
 seven in the summer. We mean to have him, and 
 his employer, as certain that he will be there, as if 
 he had only to walk, in fifteen minutes from his 
 home. You cannot give him that certainty, if he 
 must wait till your Montaigne train has made its 
 connections above, and come down to Bates's. 
 Besides this, we want to promise him a seat sure, 
 while he goes and while he comes. He must 
 not be dependent on the chances of your up-travel. 
 And when he takes his nap, if he chooses to, 
 riding out, he is not to be waked at six or eight 
 way stations. He is to be put through." 
 
 Mr. Chauncey smiled, sublime, amused, and 
 incredulous. But the smile faded when Ogden 
 proceeded : " These fast trains are promised by 
 the Great Eastern for the next twenty years, to 
 people who take lots at Aboo Goosh, and that is 
 the reason that they have already sold seven hun 
 dred lots. Offer nothing but way trains, stopping 
 at all your near stations, and Mr. Tenny here need 
 take no trouble about surveying his lands. He 
 will not sell five acres ! " 
 
 The President became more thoughtful at this. 
 "Have you thought what you should offer us?" 
 said he ; " what bonus would be reasonable to in 
 duce us to try the experiment? We might put 
 on one express for three months, and see how it 
 would work." 
 
 " And you would not have passengers enough to 
 pay for your oil," replied Elkanah. "No, Mr. 
 
i T 8 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 Chauncey, it is a twenty years' business, or it is 
 nothing, that we propose to you. There is nobody 
 now at Bates's but Mr. Eldridge here, and he and 
 his family will not want many tickets. This busi 
 ness is to be made. When it is made, it is sure." 
 
 " And what inducement do you suggest?" said 
 the President again, blandly. 
 
 " Simply what I have named. Mr. Eldridge 
 here will be glad to sell you land for your station, 
 at exactly the same price that he will sell me mine 
 for my cottage, or the Widow Conley for hers. 
 On the other hand, if he sells his two thousand 
 lots, and see his two thousand houses go up in the 
 next ten years, you can guess how many tickets 
 you will sell daily." 
 
 " But they are tickets sold at a reduced price," 
 persisted Mr. Chauncey. " I hate these excur 
 sions! " 
 
 " Pardon me," said Ogden, " there is no reason 
 why you should put them at a reduced price. Put 
 them at the price that will pay you best on the 
 whole. Only announce the price before Mr. Tenny 
 [name right this time] puts a surveyor on the land, 
 and never change it for twenty years. The system 
 is everything." 
 
 " Where is not the system everything?" said the 
 President, pleased with himself for saying some 
 thing. And he promised to think of it carefully, 
 for in three hours he had really got interested in 
 the prospects the plan unfolded, and his visitors 
 withdrew. 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 1 1 9 
 
 Two days after, Mr. Chauncey went down to the 
 office and had a long talk with Plinlimmon, his 
 superintendent, and Pariss his treasurer. Plinlim 
 mon was fretting to death, as he heard from day to 
 day about Aboo Goosh, and thought what golden 
 chances the Great Northern was losing. But he 
 knew it would be madness for him to broach any 
 such plan. Imagine his relief when, after infinite 
 preface and explanation, Mr. Chauncey told him 
 how he had been long wishing that they might 
 build up a local business of their own, so that they 
 should not be so dependent on those cut-throats of 
 the Mad River line and the Canadian connection ; 
 how he had turned over many plans, and finally 
 had concluded that if they established a station 
 with several fast trains, say at Bates's cross-roads, 
 they might build up really a large town there ; how 
 he had talked with that Mr. Tenny, whom they had 
 to compromise with, about the land at the Sias 
 cutting, and found him well disposed to such an 
 undertaking; and, in short, how he, Chauncey, had 
 now come down to talk it over with him, Plinlim 
 mon, and him, Pariss, and if he, Pariss, and he, 
 Plinlimmon, saw no objections, which did not occur 
 to him, Chauncey, he, Chauncey, believed he 
 should send Mr. Stephenson up to make a little 
 survey, and should bring it before the Board the 
 next Monday. The two young men were im 
 mensely interested, immensely sympathetic, asked 
 very intelligent questions, proposed very modest 
 objections, and were then driven from these objec- 
 
i 20 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 tions ; and by the time Mr. Chauncey left them, he 
 was satisfied that he had planned the village of 
 Rosedale, at least five years ago. He had left its 
 name to Mrs. Chauncey, and this was her selec 
 tion. 
 
 As for our other railroad, the Cattaraugus and 
 Katahdin, it never occurred to anybody to sug 
 gest anything to any of their people; and they 
 have never had a fast special train from that hour 
 to this, nor ever will. The only thoroughly origi 
 nal thing they ever did was to pay in currency 
 in Naguadavick the interest they had promised 
 to pay in gold in London. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was astonishing to see these two towns grow. 
 You see, it was not the ordinary speculation of sell 
 ing house-lots to other people, while you do not 
 go yourself to live there. But both towns were 
 based on that ingenious Vineland principle. It is 
 the principle on which Uncle Sam sells his farm- 
 lots at the West. The price of the lots, once es 
 tablished, was established forever, so far as the first 
 holder went. Of course they became more valu 
 able every day. Of course every man who bought 
 one whispered to his next friend that there was an 
 admirable chance next him, if he only seized at 
 once. Everybody tried to seize at once, and 
 Aboo Goosh and Rosedale were soon alive with 
 the hum of the hammer and the buzz of the mortis- 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 121 
 
 ing-machine. By the time we dedicated the San- 
 demanian church at Aboo Goosh, and that was 
 really as soon as we could get up a respectable 
 church edifice, there were five hundred houses in 
 habited there. In two years more there were two 
 thousand. 
 
 Anybody will understand how the people with 
 comfortable incomes lived there. That sort of 
 people live outside the towns they work in every 
 where. London, Boston, New York, all places of 
 size, let the men who receive salaries, and who 
 begin to work at nine in the morning, live in their 
 suburbs, and they all know how to provide for 
 that class of people. The good fortune of Nagua 
 davick was, that in these Aboo Goosh and Rosedale 
 enterprises we provided for the day-laborers also. 
 The people who worked in the mills, the mere 
 diggers and builders, who had to stand in rows to 
 be hired on the blind side of the Phenix Bank, 
 opposite the Common, the women who sewed in 
 the cloak-shops, all found it cheapest and best to 
 live in the country, and to do their work in town. 
 
 I had myself to leave Naguadavick when these 
 towns had been four years under way. I left it for 
 no fault on either side, but in consequence of an 
 unfortunate misunderstanding and entente at a pub 
 lic meeting, called for the purpose of teaching the 
 children to hold their knives better at table. But up 
 till that time I was intimate in both these new towns. 
 And I may close this account of them with the 
 notes of my last visit in Rosedale. 
 
122 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 I called there on an old parishioner of mine, 
 named Mary Quinn. She hailed originally from 
 Carrick-on-Suir, but had married Michael Quinn, 
 who was from a village just outside of Tipperary, 
 some years before I knew her. She had six or 
 eight children here, and two in heaven. I hunted 
 her up in Rosedale, found her a mile from the 
 station, on the horse-railroad. They had a regular 
 system of horse-railroad tracks there, that virtually 
 passed every man's house. There was a nice 
 garden round the house, of half an acre, no 
 fence, which seemed odd ; but there was hardly a 
 fence in Rosedale. They had some side hedges, 
 but made up for stronger fences by strict cattle 
 laws. The house itself was a clever story-and-a- 
 half house, such as costs in a country town five 
 hundred dollars. I found this had cost Quinn 
 rather more than seven hundred. The lot had cost 
 him seventy-five. He had paid for that clear, with 
 money he had in bank. He and his wife had paid 
 a third part of the cost of the house, and there was 
 a mortgage on it of four hundred and sixty dollars. 
 Their Savings Bank there took such mortgages, if 
 they knew the people. The truth was, that the 
 land was worth now ten times what the original 
 price was. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Quinn," said I, "I am glad to see 
 the little girl so nicely*" 
 
 The child, when I saw her last, in one of our 
 back streets, had been white and puny, worrying 
 along with the relics of scarlet fever. She was 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 123 
 
 now rugged, sunburned, freckled, and looked as if 
 she would like to eat a tenpenny nail. 
 
 " Indade she is, your Riverince, and it is hard to 
 say why, for the medicines are all gone, and we 
 have not sent for the new doctor since we came 
 here." 
 
 This was a stroke of humor on Mrs. Quinn's part. 
 She knew well enough that her children were 
 growing up to a constitution like her own because 
 they were growing up in the same way as she did. 
 
 "But the boys, your Riverince, they are the 
 handsomest sight, if you could only see them. 
 They 're all gone now for blackberries, or for 
 I don't know what ; for, indeed, the fields here are not 
 like what we had at Carrick-on-Suir, but they 
 are grown so big and so brown that you would not 
 know them." 
 
 " And how does there come enough to eat, if 
 they are so big and hungry?" 
 
 "There, again," said she, with the pride with 
 which the hunter praises his hounds, and the 
 farmer his grounds, and the bishop his lawn. She 
 flung open the door of the neat kitchen we were 
 sitting in, and pointed to the well-hoed potato- 
 patch behind the house, and to the rows of comely 
 cabbages behind them, as if she had compassed 
 sea and land, lived at the Five Points and in North 
 Street, and now in Bak-street-court-place in 
 Naguadavick, not in vain, if she could only have 
 her own potatoes at the last. Of them she said 
 nothing ; but, with that speaking wave of the hand 
 
1 24 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 which would have become Rachel herself: "And 
 the milk, your Riverince, which cost us ten cents a 
 quart in town, is only six cents here. Half the 
 neighbors have cows, and it is handier for them to 
 let my boys milk for them, and pay them in milk, 
 than to hire for money. For they don't all have 
 boys as fine as mine," said Mary, who had her 
 weak points, like the rest of us. "For butcher's 
 meat we have more than ever, and it costs us less. 
 Two pigs my man brought up last year on the 
 place here, and though they said the pork was not 
 the fattest, it made a big place in the bill anyway, 
 for the butcher allowed us all it was worth, or he 
 said he did, and surely that was a good deal more 
 than nothing." 
 
 Then I cross-questioned Mary about their social 
 life, tried to make her own that she felt the want 
 and the excitements and amusements open to her 
 in Back-street-court-place ; but there was no crav 
 ing for their flesh-pots. Pretty clearly, her " man " 
 was more of a man here, and she was more of 
 a woman. Why? Why, because they held Real 
 Estate. Real very emphatic, and with a very large 
 R, and Estate with a very large E. What is it 
 Jupiter ordains? I am writing at No. 9, in the 3d 
 range, and must quote from memory : 
 
 " The day 
 That makes a man a slave takes half his life away." 
 
 Well, he might have added, if it were he, and I 
 believe it was not, he might have added : 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 125 
 
 " When he can 
 Say, * This lot of land is mine,' he 's twice a man." 
 
 There is no need to be sentimental about it, 
 but that is the living fact. The glory of New 
 England as she was, was that every man was a 
 freeholder. 
 
 " My man," said Mary, affecting not to boast, but 
 really running over with pride, " my man does not 
 have much time for the garden. He just cuts at 
 the trees a little, and looks at the boys' work, and 
 taches them a little about the pig; but after supper 
 he has to dress himself and go to the meeting of 
 the co-operative store, where he is manager, or he 
 sings in the bass in the International Club, or he 
 takes his turn on the sanitary committee of the 
 Union." Poor Mike, too, then, he had come to 
 enjoy the sweets of " eventful living," and his wife 
 had come to the pride of having her husband 
 " sough t-arter," second only to the pride of being 
 " sought-arter," herself, in the not forgotten days 
 of seventeen. 
 
 Boys and girls both might now be trusted out 
 doors; and outdoors was a joy and delight to 
 their mother as to them. There was no longer 
 the horrid watch and anxiety there had been in 
 the wynds and courts of the city. Every summer 
 the large market farmers who surrounded them at 
 Rosedale were glad enough to hire the children on 
 jobs to pick peas and beans and the small fruits ; 
 and, in fact, we got our vegetables the better in 
 the city market, because we had sent, not an orna- 
 
1 26 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 mental, but a working population, to our suburbs. 
 It was their gain, and it was ours too. 
 
 Mary's grandest moment was when she asked 
 me to tea. When I got up to go she said, with a 
 reality far beyond any of the tones of artificial 
 civility, that I must stay to see the children and 
 take a cup of tea. In Back-street-court-place she 
 would have welcomed me had I looked into the 
 crowded kitchen parlor bed-room at tea-time, but 
 had I come in before tea-time she would no more 
 have asked me to stay than she would have asked 
 me to hear her square the hypothenuse. But now 
 I should not see the children, nor Mike, she said, 
 unless I stayed to tea. And she was sure I should 
 be late at home, which was true ; and I was glad I 
 stayed, because I saw the children, which was best 
 of all. 
 
 In they came, clattering and explaining, the 
 youngest first, by some miraculous law, then two 
 or three of the biggest, then a miscellaneous assort 
 ment, wound up with him, always the last, who had 
 on this occasion got into the brook, and brought 
 in his shoes in his hand. Clattering and enthusi 
 astic were all the party, each telling his part of the 
 story on a somewhat high key, and all explaining 
 about the quantity and quality of the berries, 
 which were indeed manifold. Mary sympathized, 
 applauded, wondered, and quieted, tried to bring 
 them to consciousness that the old minister was 
 there, promised that they should have the black 
 berries for tea and for breakfast, bade Phelim and 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick i 27 
 
 Owen go quick for the milk, whispered to Mary 
 Ann that she was to run to the baker's and buy 
 some tea-cakes, and bade the others go quick to 
 their rooms and wash themselves and brush their 
 hair that they might be ready. 
 
 Their rooms ! Why did not she say their thrones 
 or their palaces? Heavens! had not I seen all 
 those children lying asleep together in one room, 
 fifteen feet by twelve, in which all the cooking of 
 that family had been done that day, all Mrs. 
 Aminidab Johnson's family washing done, and 
 in which the white muslin dress that Selina John 
 son wore to a birthday ball the next night was 
 ironed while those children slept, so that Phelim 
 and Owen might carry it home in the morning? 
 Such, dear reader, is the stowage in every Back- 
 street-court-place within half a mile of where you 
 read these lines ! Their rooms, indeed ! 
 
 " And come into the sitting-room yourself, ' your 
 Riverence,' " continued Mary. " I would have 
 asked you in before, but it seems more sociable 
 here, and more like old times." Nor had she rea 
 son to apologize for her well-blacked Banner, her 
 neat kitchen table, and brilliant tin ware, nor for 
 the pretty garden view before which I had been 
 sitting. But I went into the sitting-room, knowing 
 1 must be out of the way now while she " got tea." 
 
 Reader, I have taken tea with that same woman's 
 sister Margaret in the cabin both were born in, 
 outside Carrick-on-Suir. It was a stone cabin with 
 a mud floor ; a partition of board partly separated 
 
128 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 us from the pig, who had the front of the doorway, 
 but who was visible to the inquiring eye. I made 
 my call at twilight, and found Mary's nieces and 
 nephews seated on low blocks, or on their heels, 
 looking in the fire of peat. One of them ran for 
 Margaret, to whom I had come to bring a message 
 three thousand miles, from Mary. Instantly, when 
 she appeared, had a troop of ravens been sent out 
 to borrow tea and sugar, that I might feast; in 
 stantly had two oat-cakes been set up against the 
 stones on the hearth ; soon had the kettle boiled 
 and the tea been ready, and then we had all re 
 paired into Margaret's bedroom, size, as I live, 
 six feet by five, my Reverence carrying with me 
 the only chair in the house, while John, the hus 
 band sat on the bed, while the tea-pot and oat-cake 
 smoked at the little table, and Margaret, having in 
 fact nothing to sit upon, stood and served. That 
 grandeur of one chair, borrowed tea, and a barefoot 
 life by a peat-fire was what this Mary Quinn was 
 born to. Yes, and for my notion, I think it was 
 better for her and her brothers and sisters than the 
 tenement life, upper story, three flights, in Back- 
 street-court-place, where the children feasted and 
 slept in the corners left by Mrs. Johnson's and 
 Selina's spotless drapery. But to be ushered out 
 by this same Mary, not into the five-foot-six bed 
 room, to feast from a groaning taper-stand, but 
 into the comely sitting-room, with its six painted 
 chairs, its sofa and ornamented centre-table (shade 
 of Saint Patrick), its portraits of Dan O'Connell, 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick i 29 
 
 Theobald Mathew, George Washington on his 
 death-bed, and framed testimony of membership 
 of the Siloam Division ; to see the cheer and joy 
 with which that woman remembered that she was 
 not living either in a pig-sty or in a barrack, and 
 the sweet saintliness with which she thanked God 
 that she was not ; to see this, and to know this, 
 and to remember this, was to make Rosedale glow 
 indeed with the true roseate hue. I should not 
 have selected the pictures, or furniture, but she 
 had. They were her taste, if not mine, and there 
 was the glory. " Excuse me for a moment," said 
 the matron ; " Honora will be downstairs presently," 
 and retired, intent on hospitable cares. I had 
 enough to think of to make it unnecessary for 
 me to read the last " Harper," or Mr. Hoadley's 
 " Genghis Khan and his Coadjutors." I only had 
 the " Harper " in my hand that I might not seem 
 neglected when my pretty little Honora came in. 
 And that was really the same child whom I had 
 seen faded and dead in the alley-ways of the town ! 
 She remembered the things she said then, and had 
 the book Polly gave her then for a Christmas 
 present. The same child? What one thing in 
 her was the same? This nut-brown face against 
 that limy-white skin, these hard round arms against 
 those skinny fagots of muscle and tendon, this 
 modest, simple look against that eager, inquiring, 
 dissatisfied, anxious glare ! And when I talked 
 with her (the child knew me as well as she 
 knew her father), when I talked with her, here 
 
 9 
 
130 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 were undertakings, and friends, books, walks, col 
 lections of butterflies, a party to Mount Green 
 back, a picnic at Paradise, all this against the 
 stupid town life of such a child, who has gone to 
 school and come back if she is good, and gone 
 again and come back again; but to whom one 
 day has been as another, because her mother can 
 not trust her much in the streets, and there is for 
 her no possibility of society in its forms of simple, 
 light-hearted pleasure ! Dear reader, if you care 
 to go into Back-street-court-place in Boston or in 
 New York, you may find as many hundred 
 Honoras as you choose, who never saw the sea on 
 the beach, never picked shell from sand, never 
 planted seed in ground, never watched bird's nest 
 on tree, never crunched moss with foot, never 
 sailed chip on stream, never hunted butterfly over 
 grass, never rested under shady tree, never waded 
 across mountain-brook, never picked berry from 
 bough, never ate peach or pear, never rode on 
 horse or ass, never sat in wagon or sleigh, never 
 enjoyed one of the little pleasures which are as 
 the daily food of your children, which they think 
 of so little that they are begging you to-day for 
 something more, because these are things of 
 course to everybody. 
 
 So, you see, Honora was herself the heroine of 
 a romance to me. There is the reason why I read 
 so few novels, dear boy; it is because I see so 
 many. And here comes in the great shy Frederic, 
 my Riverince's godson, who has endued him- 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 1 3 1 
 
 self rapidly in his Sunday jacket because of my 
 staying to tea, and who is shy and ill at ease both 
 because I am there and because he has on the 
 jacket. But I administer a story of the good 
 fortune of Dick McKelvy, who has gone to Mexico 
 with the army, and I show Fred a burning-glass of 
 a pattern he has never seen, and he becomes com 
 municative. Can it be possible ! This godson, 
 who was erst a little wild, you must know, who 
 really, if you will not mention it, got into the 
 lock-up one day because he threw marbles at an 
 auctioneer, and, which was ten thousand times 
 worse, at the common law, slapped the policeman 
 who tried to stop him, this godson, for whom I 
 then and there had to go bail that he should keep 
 the peace of the State, else he would have been 
 sent to the house of correction, this wild godson 
 of mine is the most sedate, if the most enterprising, 
 of human beings. He has formed alliance, offen 
 sive and defensive, with Hod Bates (Hod is short 
 for Horace). "You know Hod Bates?" My 
 Reverence had not that pleasure. " Well, Hod is 
 a first-rate fellow, and his father owns a saw-mill 
 up at Number Nine and two townships in the 
 Seventh, and Hod is going up with the men next 
 winter to take care of one of the camps, and he 
 has asked his father to let me go up and take care 
 of the other ; and if he likes and I like, I am to 
 have a chance at the mill when it begins running 
 in April, the fellow that is there now is going to 
 Illinois," &c., &c., &c. Fred is on a larger stage 
 
132 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 now, and the accumulated steam which erst fired 
 marbles, as from a Perkins gun, on my excellent 
 friend Cunningham with his hammer, is now to 
 drive the mill which is to cut the plank, which is 
 to lay the floor of the court-house, in which you, 
 my dear Frisbie, are to lay down the law which is 
 to save from ruin these States in all coming time ! 
 This is the house that Fred built ! 
 
 A slight commotion, and it is announced that 
 Mike's train passes the window. Ten minutes 
 more (for the horse-cars are not Metropolitan, let 
 us be thankful), and Mike's step is heard at the 
 side door. Two minutes for a second wash, for 
 brushing the hair even with Methodistical pre 
 cision, and for a Sunday coat, and Mike emerges 
 into the sitting-room. His ride out of town has 
 been his visit to his club-room ; he has picked up 
 all the gossip of Naguadavick and of Rosedale. 
 He tells me more news than I have heard in a 
 week, and does the honors with infinite volubility. 
 Thirty seconds more, and Mary's tea-bell rings. 
 That Mary Quinn should need a tea-bell ! that the 
 little hawks are not sitting on their perches waiting 
 to descend on the visible meal ! And we go in 
 to sit, not on the bed of her bedroom, but in the 
 neat kitchen, at her pretty table, where everything, 
 dear Amphitryon, is served a great deal hotter 
 from the stove than you will ever have it in 
 your palace, for all your patent contrived double 
 dishes and covers, and for all your very noisy 
 dumb-waiters. 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 133 
 
 On that hospitable meal let the curtain fall. It 
 was the eaters, not the eaten, that had the fascina 
 tion for me. As it happened, it was only the day 
 before that I had walked through A Street in 
 South Boston. It was vacation, and the wretched 
 Irish children were sitting on their haunches as 
 Baker describes the Abyssinians, looking across the 
 street at nothing with their poor lack-lustre eyes. 
 What should they do? Mr. Nash had given them 
 baths. But they could not swim all day ! The 
 city had given schools, but they could not go to 
 school all the year ! Poor wretches, afternoon 
 had come, and supper-time had not come, what 
 room was there in those heated tenements, what 
 play for them outdoors? And these miserable, 
 pseudo-Abyssinian children were of the same blood 
 as Phelim and Honora and Owen. Nay, maybe 
 they were their cousins. Maybe ; and what is 
 certain, dear reader, is that they were your 
 brothers and sisters, and were mine ! 
 
 So I drank Mary's tea from her wonderful new 
 service of " chaney." I ate, in the right order, of 
 bread, toast, gingerbread, pie, and tea-cake; I 
 praised the children's berries and had a quart put 
 up for Polly and the children ; I kissed the little 
 ones good-bye, I shook hands with the eldest, cried 
 " All right ! " to Phelim as he stopped the horse- 
 car, entered it, crossed to the steam station, and in 
 thirty-seven minutes and nineteen seconds, from 
 house to house, I was at home in Polly's arms. 
 
 They did not sell season tickets on the Great 
 
134 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 Northern ; they sold package tickets, and for his 
 six hundred and twenty-four passages yearly Mike 
 had to pay sixty-two dollars and forty cents. His 
 interest money on his house was forty-six dollars 
 and fifty cents. These two amounts made one 
 hundred and eight dollars and ninety cents a year 
 against the three dollars a week which Mike used 
 to pay for two nasty and deadly rooms over the 
 open drain in Back-street-court-place. He had, 
 thrown in beside, the steady improvement in his 
 property, his children's health, the value of their 
 work, as it appeared in the garden and the results 
 of the garden, and, above all, the feeling that no 
 man was his master, that he was independent, was 
 subduing the world, and in short was one of the 
 governing classes. Mike was not the only work 
 man in Naguadavick who saw the advantage of 
 that line of life. 
 
 " This is certainly better," I said to myself, as I 
 rode into town, " than having to crowd Mike and 
 Mary and their friends as we did five years ago. 
 All our ministry at large, and all our home mis 
 sions, and all our provident associations, and all 
 our relief organizations, and all our soup kitchens, 
 were but a poor apology for such a success as this. 
 We are getting back here on the true American 
 principle, ' where every rood of ground maintains 
 its man,' woman, and child, nay, is it not the 
 principle of the prophet : ' Every man shall sit 
 under his own vine and fig-tree'?" 
 
 " We must have land enough too," I said. " In 
 
How They Lived at Naguadavick 135 
 
 a circle of fifteen miles' radius around Naguada 
 vick there are about four hundred and fifty thou 
 sand acres. So many acre homesteads, supposing 
 an acre were the average. That gives homes for 
 two million persons, and Naguadavick will not 
 need two million inhabitants, while there are only 
 one million people in the whole State." 
 
 And so I returned home. 
 
 To live thus, near Boston, and to let our labor 
 ing men live thus, we need to provide for the 
 laboring men as carefully as we have already 
 provided for the men who live on salaries. For 
 this, we need express trains from points so distant 
 that land is yet cheap. And we need unswerving 
 regularity in the administration of these trains. 
 These requisites granted, such an arrangement be 
 comes a blessing to Boston, to the neighborhood, 
 to the laborer, and to the railroad or common 
 carrier, who intervenes among them all. 
 
HOW THEY LIVE IN VINELAND 
 
 VINELAND is a village of about three thou 
 sand inhabitants, closely surrounded by 
 farms, where there reside nine thousand more, 
 thirty-five miles from Philadelphia, on the way to 
 Cape May.^ 
 
 Eight years ago no person lived in the village 
 thus occupied at the present time (1869) and 
 hardly six families on the lands now used for farms. 
 
 No extensive manufacture has called these peo 
 ple together. There has been no discovery of 
 mines, mineral spring, or other marvel. The rail 
 road gives them no new facility, or any which is 
 not shared by a dozen other places. Nor is the 
 soil any better than in a hundred others. 
 
 Vineland has become what it is, a busy, thriving 
 place of twelve thousand people, by the steady de 
 velopment of two or three simple principles, which 
 might be tried anywhere, if there were a scale 
 sufficiently large for the experiment. 
 
 I contribute to this book, therefore, a brief study 
 of these principles as they have been illustrated by 
 the growth of Vineland. For I believe that in the 
 
How They Live in Vineland 137 
 
 application of such principles to the settlement of 
 small towns as cities of refuge near our large cities 
 is the salvation of our large cities to be found. I 
 believe these principles are of general application, 
 and that the success of Vineland need be by no 
 means exceptional. They are substantially the 
 same principles which, in the sketch here at 
 tempted of the life of the people of Naguadavick, 
 are relied upon for the success of the colonies 
 which they established in their railroad villages. 
 As I am well aware, however, that the possibility 
 of founding such villages on these principles will 
 be doubted, I am glad to sustain it by a sketch of 
 the origin and success ^f Vineland. I ask any 
 person who is incredulous to go and visit that 
 town. 
 
 First, and chiefly, Vineland relies as the im 
 agined towns of Rosedale and Aboo Goosh rely 
 on what I may call the natural passion for 
 holding LAND, and the beneficial effects of FREE 
 HOLD on the Freeholder. We have forgotten 
 these effects in America, simply because land was 
 to be got for the asking in our fathers' days, and 
 is to be got for the asking now in many regions. 
 Therefore, in a social condition formed by men 
 who were almost all freeholders, we neglect the 
 advantages of FREEHOLD as we do those of air, 
 water, light, and the salt sea. But, as we pile 
 people together in cities, as we separate them 
 from their mother earth, as we make them ten 
 ants of one and another landlord, we do our best 
 
138 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 to unmake the virtues of two centuries' growth, 
 which sprang from the holding of one's own home 
 in fee-simple. The freeholders of New England, 
 in 1775, were a different race of beings from the 
 privates in the English regiments under the com 
 mand of General Gage whom they met in battle. 
 The institutions which they made, when they 
 established, in 1780, the Constitution of Massa 
 chusetts, and when they established afterward 
 the other constitutions which on that were pat 
 terned, were all well based on a supposed state 
 of society, where almost every man owned his 
 home, had a stake in the country, as the English 
 say, and had that steadfast desire to improve the 
 town in which he lived, in all of its institutions, 
 which to such real estate belongs. Real estate, 
 indeed ! It is the only estate which gives man 
 firm foothold. It represents the only wealth which 
 does not easily take wings and fly away ! 
 
 So long as the American systems are tested in 
 States where most men still have freehold, as in 
 the State of Vermont, for instance, they work as 
 regularly and as precisely as they ever did. Let 
 me copy literally the opinion of one whose opin 
 ion in such a matter is worth much more than 
 mine. I take it from a note on my table addressed 
 to me, which I copy literally, only omitting the 
 name of the town in Illinois where it is written. 
 It is from a boy now seventeen years old, who in 
 Massachusetts knew the inside of at least one jail, 
 and was always in hot water. 
 
How They Live in Vineland 139 
 
 JULY 27, 1869. 
 
 Mr. Hale Dear Sir i Write these few lines to let you 
 know that i am Well and hope you and your family are 
 the same i have been west onwards two years i have 
 been living on a farm since i came out here i have 
 clothed myself and laid up my money i have been geting 
 $250 a year i have thought of buying a farm and takeing 
 my mother out here if i thought she would come i like 
 this state very well the reason is that a poor man can get 
 a home in a little while if he uses his means proper more 
 so than in the east i wich you would give me some infor 
 mation where my mother is and tell her to write to me as 
 soon as possible as i am anxious about her if you think i 
 am worth noticeing i wich you would write to me as soon 
 as you get this letter and give me some advice on this 
 matter and tell me what you think i had ought to do. 
 
 Now that letter is a little deficient in commas, 
 but the spelling speaks sufficiently well for the 
 two or three winters' schools to which this boy 
 was sent in a mountain town in Massachusetts. 
 And I would give more for the letter as an exposi 
 tion of the real worth of Illinois than I would for 
 fifty " hifalutin " articles in the Chicago or the 
 Springfield newspapers. That Irish boy of seven 
 teen has found the root of this matter. He can 
 get a home in Illinois, though he is poor, and he 
 can send for the half-cracked mother, who spent 
 the best of her life, after her husband deserted 
 them both, in taking care of him. 
 
 Land, or Freehold, in short, is really a 
 prime necessity. It is necessary that almost every 
 
140 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 man should have a fair chance at Land, held in 
 his own right, if you mean to govern America 
 by its original institutions. 
 
 Now, if a man means to be a farmer, there is no 
 trouble about his getting this land. Between Lord 
 Ashburton's line on the northeast and Cape Flor 
 ida on the south, and Nootka Sound and the rest 
 of the Pacific Ocean on the west, there is plenty 
 of land and the best of land, if a man wants 
 literally to subdue the earth to raise the food 
 from it for his own household, and to sell to the 
 more civilized lands the surplus he has left. Ac 
 cording to the free-traders this is what we all 
 ought to be doing. We ought to stop this singing 
 of songs, wearing of clothes, printing of books, 
 carving of statues, digging in mines, and ought 
 to devote ourselves to the " providential duty " of 
 America in raising breadstuff's and cotton for the 
 rest of the world. But even Adam Smith made 
 books, instead of working at a loom in Glasgow, 
 as by his own theory he should have done. And 
 the good sense of the people of America prefers 
 God's order to the order of the Economists. It 
 prefers to develop each human gift, as it appears, 
 and so to vary human industry that, on our own 
 soil, there shall be fair chance for each class of 
 human power. If Jonathan Edwards happens to 
 be born here, we give him a chance as a meta 
 physician, though by the theory he should be rais 
 ing Indian corn. If Allston is born here, we give 
 him a chance as a painter, though he should be 
 
How They Live in Vineland 141 
 
 raising indigo. We once let Eli Whitney try his 
 hand as an inventor, though he should have been 
 laying stone wall in Worcester County, by the 
 theory. By our latitude in that one case we created 
 the cotton crop of America. We let Fulton build 
 steamboats, and Norris and Ross and Winans build 
 locomotives, and De Witt Clinton build canals, 
 and Nathan Hale build railroads, though by the 
 theory all of them should be hoeing, or at the 
 best grinding. And so, after two or three cen 
 turies of varied industry, we have a civilization of 
 the highest grade, wholly different from the low 
 agricultural civilization of Southern Russia, of 
 Poland, and of Ireland. We have millions of 
 people gathering in and near large towns for 
 purposes of commerce and manufacture ; and 
 yet we have and we love institutions which are 
 based essentially on the idea that the very great 
 majority of the people of the State shall be free 
 holders, and shall be controlled, in their motives 
 and in their action, by those considerations which 
 to the possession of Land infallibly belong. 
 
 Nobody but Mrs. Partington expects to sweep 
 back these thronging millions from the towns to 
 the prairies by nice little half-column articles in 
 the daily papers, on the joys of Agricultural Life. 
 If the men who write these idyls like the prairies, 
 why do not they go to them themselves? That is 
 the fierce question which young men from the 
 country and young girls from the country ask, 
 men and girls who have forced their way to the 
 
142 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 large towns and their excitements and occupations, 
 precisely because their own tastes or aptitudes lay 
 in the direction of commerce or of handiwork or 
 of fine art, and precisely because they did not 
 choose to continue in the duties which the life of a 
 farmer compelled. We cannot undo the eternal 
 laws of our civilization. We cannot keep our bread 
 and eat it too. We cannot have large cities, with 
 the stimulus they give in civilization, and at the 
 same time send all our young people to fence in 
 prairies, and raise breadstuffs. The plaintive ap 
 peals addressed by those who have got their seats 
 for the spectacle to those who are crowding on the 
 outside that they will all be pleased to go away 
 are scarcely heard. When they are heard it is 
 by those who are quite incredulous, though they are 
 told that there is not even standing room within. 
 
 I. FREEHOLD is taken for granted in the theory 
 of American institutions. 
 
 II. COMPACT CITIES are necessary for modern 
 civilization. 
 
 How are these two necessities to be reconciled ? 
 
 Where the cities are not large the tendency and 
 habit of American institutions asserts itself, and 
 the workmen in the shops of cities are at the same 
 time freeholders in the immediate neighborhood of 
 their work. In the city of Worcester, in Massa 
 chusetts, there are about thirty-five thousand per 
 sons at the present time, of whom I suppose 
 nine tenths are engaged in manufacture. As in all 
 
How They Live in Vineland 143 
 
 manufacturing towns, the proportion of persons 
 not living in families is large. There were in May, 
 1868, 9137 men over eighteen years of age. I sup 
 pose five thousand of these may have been heads 
 of families. To live in, these families had 3,849 
 houses, the average number of inhabitants to a 
 house being as low as eight and nine tenths, 
 singularly low for a manufacturing town. The 
 number of resident persons, firms, and corporations 
 which pay taxes on real estate was as high as 
 2,924. It would probably be safe to say that in 
 that manufacturing town one half the voters are 
 freeholders, own their own houses and reside in 
 them, having obtained freehold in the neighbor 
 hood of their work. A circle of four miles diam 
 eter, of which each point would be within two miles 
 of the city hall, would give twenty-four thousand 
 lots of a quarter-acre each, allowing a quarter of 
 the space for roads and parks. On the usual com 
 putation of seven persons to a family, a city whose 
 workshops occupied a square mile might give a 
 freehold of a quarter-acre to one hundred and 
 thirty thousand people, all within a mile and a half 
 of the workshop square ; and yet no person should 
 live in a house with more than seven inhabitants. 
 
 The advantage which newly formed towns like 
 Worcester have in such regards is very great. In 
 old towns like Boston it is very difficult for the 
 laboring man to get freehold near his work; he 
 becomes a tenant, and the tenement-house system 
 comes in, with all its disadvantages. 
 
144 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 But at this point the invention of railroads re 
 lieves, or may relieve, the crowd upon the towns. 
 
 Any village within fifteen miles of a commercial 
 or manufacturing town is within half an hour of it 
 by express train. Now half an hour between home 
 and work meets the requisition of a laboring man. 
 
 A circle of fifteen miles' radius includes rather 
 
 more than 433-58o acres 
 
 Give a quarter of this, or 108.395 " 
 
 to roads and parks, and you have left . . 325.185 acres 
 for workshops and homes. 
 
 Give eight thousand acres to shops and ware 
 houses, that is, a block three miles by four miles 
 in the middle of the circle, and you have left 
 three hundred and seventeen thousand acres. This, 
 if you chose to divide it so, would be a freehold 
 acre-lot for so many families; for a population, 
 that is to say, of two millions and a quarter, none 
 of whom should live in the "business part of the 
 town," none of them in a house of more than seven 
 inhabitants, and each of them with a garden of an 
 acre. 
 
 This is the theoretical combination of the advan 
 tages of freehold and the advantages of compact 
 cities. 
 
 But, as every reader knows, the practice does 
 not approach this theory. 
 
 I. In cases of seaboard cities a large deduction 
 must be made for that part of the circle which is 
 covered by water. 
 
How They Live in Vineland 145 
 
 2. The railroad companies in general are com 
 passing sea and land to get another barrel of flour 
 or another passenger from a thousand miles away, 
 unconscious that they can make their richer mar 
 ket at their doors. One passenger from New 
 York is shot into Boston with the highest speed 
 science can give, for a thousand who are left to 
 linger along in the doldrums of local trains. But 
 the time of the distant traveller is not a whit more 
 important than that of the neighbor. 
 
 3. The landholder thinks his duty done when he 
 cuts his land into small lots and offers it for sale. 
 The truth is that land of itself is the most worthless 
 of commodities. To induce the laborer from the 
 city to buy the land, many intermediate steps must 
 be taken. Of many of these steps we have val 
 uable suggestion in the experience of VlNELAND. 
 
 It is perfectly true that in the neighborhood of 
 all large cities may be seen tracts with the lines of 
 paper roads dimly shadowed on them, with one or 
 two cottages orne"es tumbling to ruin, which are 
 held up as the illustrations of the failure of efforts 
 to induce laboring men to live in the country. In 
 truth, they are only illustrations of the folly which 
 supposes that, in a country of intelligent men, any 
 man can sell by the foot at high prices what he 
 bought by the acre at low, without doing anything 
 himself to improve the condition of the property. 
 
 I. People will not establish themselves in any 
 village of small holdings, unless it is large enough, 
 or promises to be large enough, to give them 
 
 10 
 
146 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 society, and, with society, the amusements, the in 
 struction, and mutual advantages of other kinds 
 which society affords. The town must be large 
 enough for two or three churches at least, for good 
 schools, for public entertainments of different 
 grades, and for the vivacity which belongs to city 
 life, or the laboring men will stay in the city. This 
 requires an enterprise involving at least one thou 
 sand families. Six hundred acres of land, at the 
 very least, are needed to offer to each settler the 
 attractions which are indispensable. One or two 
 thousand would be better. 
 
 In the establishment of VlNELAND, Mr. Landis, 
 the founder, was not looking to draw men out from 
 cities. I suppose he would be quite as willing that 
 men used to city life should not come. He was 
 trying to build up a community of small farmers. 
 But even he saw the necessity of compact village 
 life. The centre of Vineland is a village of six 
 hundred acres, crossed by eight streets, running 
 one way, and in the middle of all, by the broad 
 avenue of which the railroad is the middle ; and 
 across the other way by nine streets, with Landis 
 Avenue. The village lots were originally fifty feet 
 wide. Mr. Landis gave land for the erection of 
 churches ; and, as he could, encouraged horticul 
 tural, scientific, and other societies, which aimed at 
 entertainment and mutual improvement. Outside 
 of this village, Mr. Landis laid off farm lots, from 
 five to twenty acres and upwards, which now cover 
 a tract of more than forty thousand acres. 
 
How They Live in Vineland 147 
 
 I am confident that the success of Vineland is 
 due, first, to the very magnitude of the scale on 
 which it is planned. Most of us would be will 
 ing to live in a community of ten thousand people. 
 But it is only exceptional persons who really pre 
 fer the solitude of a hamlet of twenty or thirty. 
 
 2. The new-fledged freeholder, who has bought 
 himself a half-acre lot in some Mount Vernon or 
 Mount Bellingham speculation near a large city, is 
 apt to find that all the hardships of land-owning 
 come upon him long before the advantages can 
 develop. The day of the auction sale he was quite 
 a hero. He had a free ticket to ride to the spot. 
 He had champagne, crackers, and cheese without 
 charge. He was, that day, the companion and 
 friend of all the directors. The new roads were in 
 perfect order. The trains came and went exactly 
 as the exigencies of the sale required. But before 
 he has owned his land a month he has learned 
 that the fence to it will cost him more than the 
 land cost him. The road has washed badly in a 
 shower, and he cannot find anybody whose busi 
 ness it is to repair it. No grocer is yet established 
 in the neighborhood. And the railroad no longer 
 runs a train in and out when it is wanted. He 
 does not know any of the other new land-owners. 
 He finds that the directors of the land company no 
 longer know him ; and that they are naturally quite 
 indifferent to his difficulties. The only new ac 
 quaintance he makes is the tax collector, who 
 begins assessing his real estate at the auction 
 
148 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 price. And when he talks with a mason about 
 building, he is told they must begin by digging a 
 well on each of these little lots, for which he begins 
 to think they have all paid very high. 
 
 In Vineland Mr. Landis met most of these diffi 
 culties in advance, by methods which, as I believe, 
 must be imitated by any one who wishes for suc 
 cess. He went and lived in his own town, and 
 made the establishment of the town his business. 
 There was at least somebody on hand who wanted 
 to have the establishment succeed. By a master 
 stroke of policy, fortunately easily imitated under 
 the law of Massachusetts, he took away all neces 
 sity for fencing, by keeping all cattle closely 
 confined. On the other hand, he bound each 
 purchaser to make certain improvements within 
 twelve months ; so that there cannot be in Vine- 
 land many of the odious empty corner lots, waiting 
 to become valuable, which disgrace most new 
 towns. Among the improvements required of each 
 purchaser was the seeding with grass of the sides 
 of the highway, the planting of shade-trees along 
 the streets and avenues, and a fixed line was given, 
 before which the fronts of the houses must not be 
 carried. By these arrangements alone many of 
 the drawbacks which sicken a new freeholder of 
 his bargain are effectually removed. 
 
 If you go to Vineland, you find near the station 
 a decent-looking hotel, which, when I saw it, made 
 no pretence, but seemed comfortable enough, 
 which is, clearly enough, in the interest of the pro- 
 
How They Live in Vineland 149 
 
 prietor. You enter your name on the book, and 
 before long a man accosts you, who asks if you 
 wish to see the place. If you say you do, he says 
 it is his business to show it to you, and that if you 
 like to take his guidance, he will be ready with a 
 carriage when you say, without charge to you. 
 Meanwhile you can look at the plans, where you 
 will find the prices of unimproved property marked. 
 He will own that he shall try to make you see the 
 place to advantage, that he has a commission on 
 each sale he makes ; but you are of course at lib 
 erty to go with or without his guidance. Probably 
 you take his guidance. He drives you up and 
 down well-built avenues and roads, shows you vil 
 lage lots, farm lots, the general plan of the settle 
 ment, and answers your questions as well as he 
 can. 
 
 You finally think you should like such or such 
 a place which you have seen, and say you will go 
 home and ask your wife. " As you please," says 
 the agent, " but if you buy at first hand you must 
 take your chances. If another purchaser appears 
 to-morrow, why, we shall sell to him." If you 
 agree to purchase to-day, favorable terms are given 
 as to times of payment, which extend over four 
 years; but invariably the conditions which have 
 been alluded to are exacted. No person buys 
 unless he expects to become himself a settler. It 
 is evident, from all conversation with the people 
 of the place, that they have taught themselves to 
 regard any land speculator who comes between 
 
150 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 the original holder and the inhabitant of the land 
 as an unendurable nuisance. But they do not re 
 gard Mr. Landis so, I think. Their purchases 
 have made him rich, and they know it. But he 
 has identified himself with the success of the place. 
 He has kept up the highways at his own charge. 
 The business of the town is raising fruit. Mr. 
 Landis appoints an agent who carries all fruit for 
 the settlers to Philadelphia or New York, sells it, 
 and remits the full proceeds to the producer, with 
 out any charge on them. This is, of course, in 
 theory, false political economy. But see at how 
 low a charge it encourages the beginnings of the 
 industry on which the town is to rest. Under a 
 similar policy he has borne the principal part of 
 the expense of draining three hundred acres of 
 swamp, from which muck can be drawn for manure, 
 and has given to each settler the privilege of draw 
 ing for his own use as much as he needed. During 
 the winter of 1866-67 fifty thousand wagon-loads 
 of this muck were removed thus by the settlers 
 from the lands of the proprietor for manure for 
 their own farms and gardens. I was told that the 
 settlers went with confidence to Mr. Landis as a 
 friend who would pull industrious men out of diffi 
 culties. I see that he is an officer in almost every 
 one of the innumerable societies. 
 
 In the year 1866 the Agricultural Society paid an ag 
 gregate amount in premiums of two hundred and twelve 
 dollars, while the Floral Society distributed in premiums 
 twenty-three dollars. 
 
How They Live in Vineland 1 5 1 
 
 In the same year (1866) Mr. Landis distributed the 
 following list of premiums : 
 
 One hundred dollars to be divided in two sums, for the 
 best essay upon the history of the place ; to be deter 
 mined under the supervision of the Historical Society. 
 
 One hundred dollars, to be divided in two sums, for 
 the best essay in Prose, and the best in Poetry. 
 
 One hundred dollars to the Agricultural and Horticul 
 tural Society, to be distributed as premiums for the best 
 specimens in Produce. 
 
 One hundred dollars to the Agricultural and Horticul 
 tural Society, to be distributed as premiums for the best 
 specimen of Fruit. 
 
 One hundred dollars, to be divided into two prize gold 
 medals with proper inscriptions, to the two male and fe 
 male scholars who shall each be pronounced the most 
 proficient scholar, independent of any other consideration. 
 
 One hundred dollars to the two male and female schol 
 ars over fourteen years of age, and not over eighteen 
 years of age, who shall each be pronounced the most pro 
 ficient scholar, independent of any other consideration. 
 
 One hundred dollars to the Band of Music, for which 
 they are to give six public concerts, three in the open 
 air in summer, and three in winter. 
 
 One hundred dollars, in two gold medals, with proper 
 inscriptions, to the persons most graceful in and proficient 
 in gymnastics. 
 
 Fifty dollars, in a gold medal, to the lady who culti 
 vated the best flower-garden with her own hands. 
 
 In addition to the premiums offered by the Agri 
 cultural Society in 1867, Mr. Landis offered the 
 following : 
 
152 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 Twenty dollars and certificate for the best acre of 
 broom-corn. 
 
 Twenty dollars and certificate for the best acre of field 
 carrots. i 
 
 Twenty dollars and certificate for the best acre of field 
 turnips. 
 
 Twenty dollars for the best-kept farm. 
 
 Twenty dollars for the best-kept orchard, not less than 
 two acres. 
 
 Fifty dollars to the lady who cultivates the best flower- 
 garden with her own hands. 
 
 One hundred dollars, to be divided between the two 
 male and female scholars, not over eighteen years of age, 
 who shall be pronounced the most proficient scholars. 
 
 One hundred dollars, to be divided between the three 
 persons who are the best players on the violin, cornet or 
 bugle, and flute ; to be played at the Fair, and decided 
 by the committee. 
 
 Fifty dollars to the lady most proficient in gymnastics. 
 
 Fifty dollars to the gentleman most proficient in heavy 
 gymnastics. 
 
 I may say, in brief, as a summary of this part of 
 my observations on Vineland, that it is the only 
 new place I ever visited where I have found the 
 greater part of the women satisfied. Pioneer life 
 the establishing of new communities comes 
 very hard upon the women. The men have the 
 excitement ; the women generally have hard work 
 at home without excitement. The men find their 
 society as they do their daily work. The women 
 generally are left alone to theirs. But in Vineland, 
 even when it was but four years old, I found in- 
 
How They Live in Vineland 153 
 
 tense activity everywhere, and I spoke to no 
 woman who was not well satisfied with the social 
 experiment which was undertaken there. 
 
 3. It will not unfrequently happen that the pur 
 chaser fails to make the improvement to which he 
 is pledged, and that the land therefore recurs to 
 Mr. Landis. In this case, when he offers the land 
 again for sale, he changes the price from what it 
 was, as the circumstances may justify. But in 
 general the price of unimproved land remains un 
 changed, Mr. Landis relying for his profits on the 
 continual improvements of the settlement, which of 
 course quickens sales, as the population enlarges. 
 What reason he has for such reliance may be 
 judged from the following record of progress. 
 
 In 1 86 1 one shanty was built on the new village 
 lot. 
 
 In 1862 twenty-five houses were built, a store, 
 and a schoolhouse. 
 
 In 1863 one hundred and fifteen houses were 
 built, and at the end of the year three hundred and 
 sixty-nine purchases of land had been made. 
 
 At the end of 1864 six hundred and seventy 
 farms had been sold; and on the 1st of January, 
 1865, nearly two thousand persons attended Mr. 
 Landis's annual reception. As a token of regard 
 they presented to him " Appleton's Cyclopaedia." 
 
 In 1865 about two hundred buildings were 
 erected, and at the end Mr. Landis had sold 
 about fourteen hundred properties. Nearly one 
 thousand contracts to build were made in this year. 
 
154 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 At the end of 1867 nearly two thousand farms 
 had been sold. 
 
 The following table, recently published, shows 
 what various institutions had come into being in 
 this period. Many of these are doubtless larger 
 on paper than anywhere else, still they represent 
 something. 
 
 I. MANUFACTURING INTERESTS. 
 
 1. American Building Block Factory. 
 
 2. Twelve Stone Quarries. 
 
 3. Three Brick Yards. 
 
 4. Six Steam Mills, Planing Mills, and three Lumber 
 Yards. 
 
 5. Door, Blind, and Sash Factories. 
 
 6. Carriage Factories. 
 
 7. Saw and Plane Handle Manufactory. 
 
 8. Wood-turning and Scroll-sawing Manufactory. 
 
 9. Shoe Factory. 
 
 10. Pottery and Stone- Ware Manufactory. 
 u. Straw-sewing Business. 
 
 12. Crates and Fruit-Boxes Business. 
 
 13. Bookbinding and Paper-Box and Fancy Varieties 
 Business. 
 
 14. Clothing Business. 
 
 15. Hoop- Skirt Manufacturing. 
 
 1 6. Button Business. 
 
 II. AGRICULTURAL AND KINDRED SOCIETIES. 
 
 1. Vineland Agricultural and Horticultural Associ 
 ation. 
 
 2. Ladies' Floral Society. 
 
How They Live in Vineland 155 
 
 [Strawberry Festivals and annual Fair and Exhibition 
 under the auspices of the above.] 
 
 3. Pomological Association. 
 
 4. Fruit-Growers' Association. 
 4. Co-operative Association. 
 
 6. Landis Avenue Improvement Association. 
 
 7. East Vineland Agricultural and Pomological 
 Society. 
 
 8. South Vineland Fruit- Growers' Club. 
 
 9. Lincoln Mutual Benefit Farmers' Club. 
 
 10. North Vineland Agricultural and Horticultural 
 Society. 
 
 11. Forest Grove Agricultural Society. 
 
 III. 'CHANGE AND BUSINESS FACILITIES. 
 
 1. Private Bank. 
 
 2. Safe Deposit Company. 
 
 3. Mercantile Association. 
 
 4. Vineland Loan and Improvement Association. 
 
 5. Three Post- Offices, one of which does a far larger 
 business than any other in West Jersey. 
 
 IV. TEMPERANCE AND PHYSICAL REFORM. 
 f Intoxicating Liquors Voted out of Vineland, July 
 10, 1863. 
 Township law to that effect. 
 
 1. Independent Order of Good Templars. 
 
 a. Alpha Temple. 
 
 b. Liberty, Excelsior, Rising Sun, and Koh-i-noor 
 
 Lodges. 
 
 2. Health Association. 
 
 3. Phil- Athletic Club. 
 
 4. Base Club. 
 
156 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 V. EDUCATIONAL PRIVILEGES. 
 
 1. Sixteen District Schools, at convenient distances 
 from all parts of the Tract. 
 
 2. Four private Schools. 
 
 3. Classical Institute. 
 
 4. Young Ladies' and Gentlemen's Academy. 
 
 5. Methodist Conference Seminary, now building, 142 
 feet long, 56 feet wide at the ends, and 44 feet in the 
 centre. Height from ground to top of cornice, 50 feet. 
 Lofty French roof, spacious cupola, porticoes, piazzas, 
 balconies, &c. Style, Large Italian (whatever that 
 may be). 
 
 6. SOCIETIES OF ART AND LEARNING. 
 
 a. Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society. 
 
 b. Pioneers' Association. 
 
 c. Literary Association. 
 
 d. The People's Lyceum. 
 
 e. Hamilton Mutual Benefit Society. 
 
 f. Vineland Library Association. 
 
 g. Harmonic Society, Glee Clubs, and Cornet and 
 
 other bands, &c. 
 
 h. Dramatic Association. 
 
 /. Social Science Association. 
 
 j. Lectures, exhibitions, festivals, and other varied 
 intellectual entertainments, periodical and ex 
 traordinary. 
 
 VI. BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES, &c. 
 
 1. A. F. of A. M. : Masonic Hall. 
 
 2. I. O. of O. F. 
 
 3. Philanthropic Loan Association. 
 
How They Live in Vineland 157 
 
 VII. PUBLIC HALLS, PARKS, SQUARES, &c. 
 
 1. Plum Street Hall. 
 
 2. Mechanics' Hall. 
 
 3. Union Hall. 
 
 4. The Park, covering forty-eight acres. 
 
 5. Thirteen Public Squares. 
 
 6. Siloam Cemetery, covering fourteen acres, beauti 
 fully laid out. 
 
 7. Public Adornments. 
 
 VIII. RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES. 
 
 1. Episcopalian. Trinity Church (Gothic), on Elmer 
 Street. 
 
 2. Presbyterian. Church (Light Italian), on Landis 
 Avenue. 
 
 3. Methodist. Church (Romanesque), on Landis 
 Avenue. 
 
 4. Baptist. Reed's Hall. Large Church (Byzantine 
 Romanesque), now being erected on Landis Avenue. 
 
 5. Free-Will Baptists. 
 
 6. Sabbatarian. 
 
 7. Baptist Congregational. Church (Italesque), in 
 South Vineland. 
 
 8. Union. Church (Italesque), in South Vineland. 
 
 9. Adventist. 
 
 10. Unitarian. Church (Plain Gothic), on Sixth and 
 Elmer streets. 
 
 11. Friends of Progress. Plum Street Hall. 
 
 12. Catholic. Church soon to be erected. 
 
 13. Young People's Union Christian Association. 
 
158 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 IX. MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 1. Journalistic. 
 
 a. Two weekly newspapers: "Vineland Weekly" 
 
 and "Vineland Independent." 
 
 b. One bi-weekly: " Vineland Democrat." 
 
 c. Two monthly : " Vineland Rural " and " Farmers' 
 
 Friend." 
 
 2. Political. 
 
 a. Union League. 
 
 b. Grand Army of the Republic. 
 
 c. Two Campaign Clubs. 
 
 The steadiness of the price of unimproved lots 
 is an inducement to every resident to persuade his 
 friends and relatives to come and assist in the enter 
 prise. Almost all settlers, in this way, begin to 
 feel a pecuniary interest in the success of the 
 whole. If a settler and his wife are pleased, if 
 they see the rapid advance of the value of land, 
 given by some improvement, they become them 
 selves the best advertising agents; they write to 
 relatives or friends to show to them the advantages 
 of an investment here, and thus add to the growth 
 of the establishment. They cannot invest in un 
 improved lands themselves without making the 
 required improvements. But they can invite their 
 friends to come and make them, and it is evident, 
 from the rapid growth of the place, that this is 
 what they have done. 
 
 That Mr. Landis is himself kindly regarded by 
 the people who have come together in the town 
 
How They Live in Vineland 159 
 
 which he has founded seems evident from the 
 direction which a thousand straws take, blown by 
 the wind of its popular opinion. 
 
 4. Early in the settlement of Vineland the people 
 of the town, led undoubtedly by Mr. Landis, deter 
 mined, with great unanimity, that they would not 
 have the sale of intoxicating liquor, or what they 
 call " saloons," and we call " bar-rooms." They 
 sent out of town the first dealer who sold beer to 
 the boys and wood-choppers, and called a meeting 
 which passed resolutions and formed an organi 
 zation to prevent the sale of intoxicating liquors. 
 This was July 10, 1863. 
 
 They then, by a very curious arrangement, peti 
 tioned the Legislature of New Jersey to pass a 
 special law precluding the sale of any intoxicating 
 liquor, beer, or wine, within the limit of Landis 
 township. The Legislature did this by a vote of 
 sixty-three to four, on the ground, probably, that 
 the people asked for it, as the State of New Jersey 
 has no such general policy. Each offence against 
 this law is punishable by a fine of fifty dollars 
 or by imprisonment or both. 
 
 Of course this peculiarity keeps from Vineland 
 all settlers who wish to have the privilege of buying 
 and drinking liquors in public. There is no re 
 striction on a man's buying liquors elsewhere and 
 bringing them to his house to use. But he must 
 not sell them in Vineland. Mr. Landis, and the 
 great majority of the people there, are very willing 
 to give up any settlers whom they thus lose. 
 
160 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 There is, indeed, in most new enterprises of land- 
 settlement, no lack of openings for them. The 
 result of the policy is shown succinctly in the 
 following report from the Town Constable and 
 Overseer of the Poor, published in the spring 
 of 1869. 
 
 As Constable and Overseer of the Poor there are some 
 things in my department which show so conclusively the 
 favorable working of the system upon which Vineland is 
 founded, that I will give the information to the public, so 
 that the facts may be known and the example of this 
 system followed. 
 
 The two principles in Vineland which we recognize as 
 uppermost are: First, That land shall not be sold to 
 speculators ; second, By the decision of the people that 
 there shall be no grog-shops, liquor saloons, licensed 
 taverns, or lager-beer shops. 
 
 What is the practical working of these principles ? I 
 will state a few facts which are probably unexampled in 
 the United States, at least. Though we have a popu 
 lation of ten thousand people, for the period of six months 
 no settler or citizen of Vineland has required relief at my 
 hands as Overseer of the Poor. Within seventy days 
 there has been only one case, among what we call the 
 floating population, at the expense of four dollars. 
 
 During the entire year there has been only one indict 
 ment, and that a trifling case of assault and battery among 
 our colored population. 
 
 So few are the fires in Vineland that we have no need 
 of a fire department. There has only been one house 
 burnt down in a year, and two slight fires, which were 
 soon put out. 
 
How They Live in Vineland 161 
 
 We practically have no debt, and our taxes are only one 
 per cent on the valuation. 
 
 The police expenses of Vineland amount to seventy- 
 five dollars per year, the sum paid to me, and our poor 
 expenses are a mere trifle. 
 
 I ascribe this remarkable state of things, so nearly ap 
 proaching the Golden Age, to the industry of our people 
 and the absence of King Alcohol. 
 
 Let me give you, in contrast to this, the state of things 
 in the town from which I came, in New England. The 
 population of the town was 9,500, a little less than Vine- 
 land. It maintained forty liquor-shops. These kept 
 busy a police judge, city marshal, assistant marshal, four 
 night watchmen, six policemen. Fires were almost con 
 tinual. That small place maintained a paid fire depart 
 ment of four companies, of forty men each, at an expense 
 of three thousand dollars per annum. I belonged to this 
 department for six years, and the fires averaged about one 
 every two weeks, and mostly incendiary. The support of 
 the poor cost two thousand five hundred dollars per 
 annum. The debt of the township was one hundred and 
 twenty thousand dollars. The condition of things in this 
 New England town is as favorable in that country as many 
 other places where liquor is sold. 
 
 T. T. CORTIS, 
 
 Constable and Overseer of Poor of Landis Township. 
 
 5. The aim of Mr. Landis, from the beginning, 
 has been to build up a community of which the 
 central business should be small farming. He has 
 no such aims as had the founders of the villages 
 described in this volume, who wished to make 
 homes for the laborers of Naguadavick. His 
 
 ii 
 
162 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 advertisements, his reports, and his plans all refer 
 to the advantages of the place for light farming, 
 or market gardening, or the raising of fruit. To 
 this object he has applied himself, and in his 
 effort he has succeeded. Of course a great many 
 people are dissatisfied and go away. In the Vine- 
 land papers are long advertisements of improved 
 property offered for sale. But this will happen in 
 all new places. The restless people go to them ; 
 the restless people leave them. People who suc 
 ceed in them leave them for a larger field. People 
 who fail leave them to try other circumstances. 
 Indeed, I think I could show that of a given num 
 ber of persons in a community, even as settled as 
 is Boston, the chances are, taking the average of 
 years, that one twelfth will have removed from 
 that city before one year is over. Vineland is no 
 Eden or Fairyland. It requires work, perhaps as 
 much as any place in the world. But by a few 
 simple arrangements it is made easy for people 
 with small capital to establish themselves there. 
 It follows that large numbers do establish them 
 selves, and that, of those numbers, a large pro 
 portion remains. The following letter from a 
 " comparative cripple " a carpenter-farmer 
 will show what has been done in a single instance, 
 which seems to be in no way exceptional. 
 
 VINELAND, LANDIS AVENUE, 
 near Main Road, May 6, 1868. 
 
 MR. EDITOR, I have thought that a truthful record 
 of my farming and " getting along " experience generally 
 
How They Live in Vineland 163 
 
 in Vineland would be of some importance, especially as 
 bearing on the prospects of success which have hitherto 
 opened, and still continue open here, to an industrious 
 person of small capital. To that effect I hereby treat 
 you to the following " fireside talk," which can be any 
 day fully verified by the closest investigation. 
 
 I have resided in Vineland for four years. I came 
 here with my family, consisting of my wife, one son, who 
 lost an arm at Gettysburg, and two grown-up daughters, 
 from Canaan, Maine. My occupation there was the 
 manufacturing of bedsteads and general teaming, with 
 some little farming. This brought me in, during six 
 years, an average of one hundred dollars clear annually ; 
 but I must say that my ambition was but very poorly 
 satisfied with such small " pay " for very heavy work. 
 
 As it happened, my daughter came across a " Vineland 
 Rural." We all perused it attentively, and, after careful 
 deliberation, unanimously decided that we would give a 
 fair trial to Vineland, more on account of our health than 
 anything else, as we had for some time come to the con 
 clusion that a milder latitude than that of Maine would 
 be decidedly beneficial to us all. And I would here say 
 that I was then a comparative cripple, and have been for 
 a long time constantly suffering from a most annoying 
 chronic disease, which all people, professional and other 
 wise, naturally pronounced irremediable. 
 
 Well, I came and saw Vineland, travelled some over 
 the track, investigated, thought, pondered, and finally 
 made up my mind to settle. After paying my debts in 
 Maine, and moving my family here, I found that we had 
 left, in all, two horses and one fifty-dollar bill. But we 
 made up our minds not to feel discouraged, come what 
 will. I went at once to work with my horses, stump- 
 
164 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 pulling, at four dollars per day. After a while, and by 
 pretty strict economy, I bought the machine, improved it 
 somewhat, and pulled all the stumps put in my way, " on 
 my own hook." As we had in the mean time (as well as 
 for some time after) no house to go into, I hired two 
 rooms at two dollars per week ; bought a small cook- 
 stove and a few other necessary utensils ; " kept house in 
 a small way," and got along pretty comfortably, on the 
 whole. In a short time, comparatively, I was enabled to 
 pay one fourth cash down ; namely, one hundred and 
 twenty-five dollars for twenty-five acres of wild land, five 
 acres on Landis Avenue, on which I reside, and twenty 
 on Chestnut Avenue. Then I bought me another ma 
 chine, continued to stump for my neighbors and to clear 
 my own land, bought another pair of horses, and also a 
 pair of mules. From then till now, I " kept at it " pretty 
 closely. We all of us lived well enough, got supremely 
 satisfied with the capacities of the soil, raised excellent 
 truck and fruit, and this day I have all my land cleared, 
 thirteen acres thoroughly stumped, three acres set to 
 grape-vines; three acres in blackberries, two acres in 
 blackcap raspberries, half an acre in Philadelphia rasp 
 berries, beside four hundred and twenty-five apple-trees, 
 three hundred and seventy-six pear-trees, twenty peach- 
 trees, with some currant and gooseberry bushes, all in 
 fine growing condition. From what I have tested in the 
 cultivation of sweet and Irish potatoes I have determined 
 to set four acres in each. I also raise every year lots of 
 garden vegetables, onions, beets, carrots, parsnips, 
 cabbages, &c., and with this garden produce we are 
 highly satisfied. 
 
 My dwelling-house, which I intend to enlarge and 
 trim up generally as we go along, is of wood, sixteen feet 
 
How They Live in Vineland 165 
 
 by twenty-six main building, with an L thirteen feet by 
 twenty-three, all one story and a half. The stables are 
 thirty-six by twenty-eight. And, by the bye, this leads 
 me to state that I intend going into raising grass and hay 
 at no distant day, having already been duly deliberating 
 on that subject, as a thing which, by proper attention, will 
 pay and pay well in Vineland. The nearest calculation I 
 can make, as to what I have done in Vineland, and 
 what Vineland has done to me, is simply this : I know 
 full well, from comparison and the offers which have at 
 times been made to me, that my land and buildings in 
 their present state show a market value of at least Ten 
 Thousand Dollars ($10,000), and that my machines, teams, 
 and farming implements are worth at least Two Thou 
 sand Dollars ($2,000), making up a total of Twelve Thou 
 sand Dollars ($12,000), which I call my Vineland Industrial 
 Luck. In fact, we would not by any means sell out at a 
 much higher figure. 
 
 I have never found any place like Vineland for an in 
 dustrial man to get along in. Besides, it has proven itself 
 to my experience and knowledge, to be a very healthy 
 place, particularly in my lung diseases. I am myself, 
 for all my hard work, in a much better condition than 
 I had been for long years before moving here. I need 
 not praise our pure, sweet, soft water. The working 
 season, as compared with that of Maine, is just this : you 
 can work out from May to October, or November, at 
 farthest, in that " upper region ; " here you can, on a 
 fair average, improve your land from February to Christ 
 mas, and sometimes even to New- Year's Day. 
 
 My son and daughters have helped me considerably in 
 work ; but they were all well paid. In fact, except a 
 little during my first summer here, I have had no work 
 
1 66 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 whatever done for me which has not been strictly paid 
 for. 
 
 My family has not had one single fit of homesickness 
 since we arrived. They are so highly satisfied with Vine- 
 land that none of them would leave on any account. Be 
 sides, all my children have been well married in Vineland. 
 
 There are no two ways about it. A man that has a 
 mind to work, and has some ambition in him, will surely 
 get rich, even if partially crippled, and quite as poor as I 
 was when commencing operations here. But if a man will 
 put his little all in a house to begin with, and will not keep 
 up his industry and ambition, why, then he deserves not 
 to get rich anywhere, and he has only himself to blame. 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 CHAS. B. WASHBURNE. 
 
 I have said that I know of nothing exceptional 
 in this case. I do not, however, fail to remark, 
 that the name of the writer is that of a family 
 many of the members of whom, when they have 
 emigrated from Maine, have done so to some 
 purpose, for themselves and for their country. 
 
 Here is a most condensed statement, from which 
 I have attempted carefully to prune the enthusiastic 
 declarations which old Vineland settlers always 
 make, of how much they like the place. It is 
 the history of a town, which has been made out of 
 nothing in eight years, without remarkable phy 
 sical advantages. This town now contains twelve 
 thousand people, living in great comfort, none of 
 whom had large means when they went there. It 
 
How They Live in Vineland 167 
 
 is a town which evidently is established, and has 
 remarkable prospects in the future. To speak of 
 a single point only, which settlers will appreciate, 
 here are two hundred miles of well-built roads, 
 in this little tract of say forty thousand acres. 
 
 It seems to owe its growth and beauty and pros 
 perity to a few general principles which might be 
 carried out anywhere. In the statement of a Com 
 mittee at the Paris Exposition of 1867, which gave 
 Mr. Landis a medal as the founder of Vineland, 
 these principles were stated as four. 
 
 I. That the land should be laid out with refer 
 ence to practical convenience. 
 
 II. That it should be laid out with reference to 
 beauty. 
 
 III. That societies for mutual improvement and 
 entertainment must be formed, and temperance 
 enforced, in order to promote the physical pros 
 perity and mental improvement and happiness of 
 the people. For this, also, small farming and 
 compact population are considered necessary. 
 
 IV. The lands and town lots are sold to actual 
 colonists only. 
 
 From these principles spring the details thus 
 described in the same paper by Mr. Landis : 
 
 MATERIAL ELEMENTS. 
 
 i. The general plan of laying out the land, by which 
 peculiar facilities were afforded to industrious people to 
 obtain land for homesteads. To accomplish this it was 
 laid out in five, ten, and twenty acre lots and upwards, 
 
1 68 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 at a small price, payable in one, two, three, and four 
 years. 
 
 2. The requirements that the houses in the town plot 
 be set back from the roadside at least twenty feet, and on 
 the farm lots at least seventy-five feet, in order to afford 
 room for flowers and shrubbery. 
 
 3. Requiring all colonists to plant shade-trees upon 
 the roadside, and to grass the roadsides. 
 
 4. Requiring colonists to build and settle upon their 
 lands within one year, and selling no land to other than 
 actual colonists. 
 
 5. The introduction of fruit-growing and the general 
 improvement of agriculture and horticulture. 
 
 6. The introduction of American manufactures. 
 
 7. The making of roads and other improvements at my 
 individual expense. 
 
 MORAL ELEMENTS. 
 
 1. The introduction of good and convenient schools. 
 
 2. The formation of agricultural and horticultural 
 societies. 
 
 3. The formation of church societies, for the en 
 couragement of morality and religion. 
 
 4. The formation of literary societies and libraries. 
 
 5. The introduction of a new temperance reform, which, 
 in its practical operation, appears to do away with all the 
 evils of intemperance. 
 
 To this statement, which includes the secret of 
 the prosperity of this place, I add the following 
 words from Mr. Landis himself. 
 
 " The reason why many settlements fail is be 
 cause the projectors expect to make an easy specu 
 lation of them without much labor and time, and 
 
How They Live in Vineland 169 
 
 because they have no definite system which will 
 insure the increase of the value of lands upon the 
 hands of the purchasers, as well as the general pros 
 perity of the settlers. 
 
 " No prosperous settlement can be made with 
 out the personal application by the proprietor of 
 much care and labor over a period of many years. 
 He must expect to make the enterprise an exclu 
 sive and legitimate business." 
 
 I believe the last statement to embody a most 
 essential suggestion. 
 
 Vineland, in short, is a wilderness settlement in 
 the heart of civilization. You have not to carry 
 your family, your furniture, and your stores a 
 week's journey toward the West. You have not 
 to wait a week for your letters from the home you 
 have left behind. I have never forgotten the mo 
 ment when I first stepped on the platform of the 
 station there. I was in a new settlement, four years 
 only from the wilderness. The people were that 
 day grubbing up the brush where a new church 
 was to stand, in a spot which but just before had 
 been forest. From the car there landed with me 
 two families of the settlers. A woman with one 
 carried a canary-bird. A man of the other waited 
 at the baggage-car for a mould of Philadelphia ice 
 cream. They were new settlers, acting like new 
 settlers. But, if they chose, they had canary-birds 
 and ice-cream as well. The incident suggested to 
 me the contrast between Vineland and a log-cabin 
 in township No. 9, in the seventh range. 
 
HOW THEY LIVE IN BOSTON, AND 
 HOW THEY DIE THERE 
 
 " A T A HERE is not one word in the paper," said 
 -* Laura, as she threw it over to her husband, 
 both of them sitting on the piazza, above the sea 
 at Manchester. " I do not see why they choose 
 to print so much trash from day to day." So she 
 took up " Littell's Living Age," and began reading 
 some of Crabb Robinson's bons-mots. 
 
 For fifteen minutes there was silence. 
 
 Bernard laid down the paper in his turn. " I 
 hardly see why you say there is nothing in the 
 paper," said he, looking a little pale and worried. 
 " It is true there is no battle, and there has been 
 no accident on the Erie Railroad for three days ; 
 but this account of the death of these poor little 
 children, whose fathers and mothers loved them as 
 much as you and I love Ben, is to me as terrible 
 as a battle, and cuts as near home as a railroad 
 smash." 
 
 " Children, my dear child," said Laura, pale 
 in her turn now. " I saw nothing about children. 
 What is it? Whose children were they? " 
 
 Bernard read : 
 
How They Live and Die in Boston 171 
 
 From Our Own Correspondent. 
 
 The mortality of the infants in Bethlehem, which has 
 made every Christian mother curse the name of Herod, 
 is more than equalled in the terrible suffering which I do 
 not venture to describe. The ayuntamiento appears 
 powerless in the havoc ; the physicians give me no 
 encouragement that the plague is stayed. With my 
 companions, I have in the last week attended at the 
 funeral rites of seventy-five of these little innocents ; and 
 unless we receive some relief, which we do not anticipate, 
 I shall be obliged often to send to you the same melan 
 choly information. 
 
 " Melancholy information ! " said Laura, bitterly. 
 " Is the man a stone? is the agony of a baby 
 and is the wretchedness of the mother only a 
 paragraph in his string of news? Where is this, - 
 in Mexico or in Spain? Why did not I see it? 
 Give me the paper ! " And she took it. 
 
 " Why, Bernard," she said, after a moment, 
 reproachfully, " you are not making fun of me ! 
 You could not make that up to quiz me ! " 
 
 " No, darling," said Bernard, sadly, looking 
 over her shoulder; " I only added the words for 
 the want of which it missed your eye. There is 
 the story, enough sadder than I made it, and the 
 story will be there next week, and next week, if you 
 take pains to look for it. Only now you know where 
 to look, and you did not know before. The trim 
 ming which ladies wear on their summer dresses in 
 Wiesbaden is so important that these people can 
 give a quarter-column to describe that; but the 
 
172 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 death of seventy-five infants in their own town is 
 only worth half a line of minion. I will make it 
 a little clearer for you." And then with his pencil 
 he drew a line around the words, CHOLERA 
 INFANTUM, 75, in the table which I copy 
 below : 
 
 CITY MORTALITY. The deaths in Boston during the 
 week ending at noon to-day numbered 196, 102 males, 
 94 females. Americans, 149 ; Irish, 36 ; English, 3 ; 
 Scotch, i ; Provinces, 4 ; Germans, 2 . Consumption 
 had 20 victims ; cholera infantum, 75 ; dysentery and 
 marasmus, 1 1 each ; brain diseases, 9 ; cancer, 5 ; diar 
 rhoea and lung disease, 4 each ; accident, apoplexy, con 
 vulsions, intemperance, peritonitis, and rheumatism, 3 
 each ; diphtheria, debility, infantile and puerperal diseases, 
 typhoid and scarlet fever, old age, premature birth, 2 each ; 
 anaemia, inflammation of bowels, croup, dropsy, fistula, 
 exposure, heart disease, measles, necrosis, paralysis, scald, 
 and syphilis, i each. American parentage, 73 ; foreign 
 parentage, 123. July 31, 1869. 
 
 " That means, dearest, that there were seventy- 
 five households fighting death over the cradles of 
 their babies last week, and that seventy-five fathers 
 and seventy-five mothers were defeated, and that 
 life is hardly worth living to them now, because 
 their little ones are not. If it were half round the 
 world, and if it were an ayuntamiento that was 
 puzzled, it would make a paragraph; but seeing 
 it is only in Suffolk Street and B Street, it is not 
 of so much consequence." 
 
 " Oh," said Laura, through her tears, " do not be 
 
How They Live and Die in Boston 173 
 
 bitter about it, these people, as you call them, 
 are no more careless or negligent about them than 
 I am. We are so happy here and the children are 
 so well," and she looked anxiously at big, bounc 
 ing Ben in his wagon, " that we forget there are 
 other people in the world. Who are these children? 
 I read the deaths in the papers every day, and 
 there have not been many names of children, 
 nobody's name that I knew." 
 
 "No, dear," said Bernard again, "you did not 
 know them, and I did not, and they are not the 
 kind of people who send their deaths or their 
 marriages to the newspaper. They are the chil 
 dren of the people, who stand up to their knees in 
 water, that the stones may be laid firm that support 
 the causeway on which is laid the gravel that your 
 and my carriage rolls smoothly over. They are 
 the people who, with naked skins in a temperature 
 of a hundred and ten degrees, wheel the coal to 
 the retorts that there may be gas enough at 
 Selwyn's to-night, if you and I fancy we should 
 like to go and see Laura Keene in ' Midsummer.' 
 I do not know," he added after a pause, " how I 
 should have this cigar in my mouth at this moment 
 if there were not a good many of such people 
 somewhere. But, for all that, their names do not 
 get put into the newspapers when they die, unless, 
 by bad luck, somebody kills them." 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me," said Laura, rousing 
 herself with something almost of agony in her 
 manner, " that it is sickly in Boston, and that I 
 
174 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 have not known it all this time? That Emily is 
 there with all her children, in the midst of an 
 epidemic, and that I have not known a word about 
 it? That was not kind!" 
 
 " No, dearest," said Bernard again, more sadly 
 than before, " no, dearest. Emily's children are 
 as safe as yours, probably safer, so far as human 
 wisdom goes. There is no epidemic in Chestnut 
 Street, or Mount Vernon Street, or Beacon Street, 
 or in Worcester Street, or Chester Square, or on 
 Telegraph Hill, or on the Highlands. There is no 
 epidemic anywhere. Only where people live six 
 teen families in one house, with their swill-barrels in 
 their entries and their water draining on the floors, 
 the chances for life are not as good as they are at 
 Emily's house, where each child has a bath before 
 she goes to bed and a room of its own to sleep in. 
 All I mean is that these people live so that it be 
 comes a very easy matter for their children to die." 
 
 Laura sat in silence a few minutes, pushing by 
 Crabb Robinson and the paper both. Then she said 
 to Bernard, " Why is it, Bernard, that I, who have 
 lived all my life in Boston, know nothing about these 
 places that these poor children live and die in ? " 
 
 "Why is it," said he, "that I know nothing 
 about them, that I take all I tell you from the 
 printed report of some poor fellow who is trying to 
 thorn up me and the other governors of this 
 country to do something about it? It is simply 
 the old story; as somebody said in London, 
 ' When the nice people of Belgravia and the rest 
 
How They Live and Die in Boston 175 
 
 of the West End shall be making their answers at 
 the day of judgment, they will have some reason 
 to say, " When saw we thee sick or in prison, and 
 did not minister to thee? " even after it has been 
 explained to them that seeing one of the least of 
 his brethren is seeing the Lord. For in Belgravia 
 they do not see St. Giles, and as for visiting the 
 prisoners, they would find it hard to get a permit; 
 and as to feeding the hungry, they are afraid to 
 give them potatoes lest they should turn them into 
 beer.' " 
 
 " I don't care for that," said Laura. " I do not 
 mean to be cynical or satirical about this thing. I 
 do not live in Belgravia, and there is no place in 
 Boston that I dare not go to, if you go with me. 
 I move we go and see some of the people to 
 morrow. There is no danger that it would hurt 
 Ben, is there?" 
 
 " Not the slightest, child," said Bernard ; " we 
 will go as soon as you like. Will you be ready at 
 the 10.28?" 
 
 " Yes, or earlier. I will be ready for the early 
 train at 8.40. We will drive up to Beverly and 
 take it there." 
 
 So was it that Laura and Bernard made the fol 
 lowing observations. 
 
 After endless charges to Katy that Ben should be 
 kept out-doors till he took his nap ; and that after 
 his nap there should be this and that and the other, 
 they drove to Beverly in time for the early train. 
 
176 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 It was not more than ten minutes late in Boston ; 
 and before ten o'clock they were on their way to 
 the City Hall. Laura felt all the excitement that 
 she felt when she first entered Paris. For, because 
 she had lived in Boston all her life, almost of 
 course, she knew nothing about it. In Paris she 
 had been taken to see the Hotel de Ville, and there 
 was a good deal about it in her journal ; in Flor 
 ence she had, of course, gone to Uffizi ; in Lon 
 don she had been taken to Guild Hall to see Gog 
 and Magog, but it had never occurred to any one 
 who managed the education of this really well- 
 trained young lady to take her either to the State 
 House in Boston, to see the machinery of the 
 government of the State, or to the City Hall, to 
 see how that of her native city was carried on. 
 There were pictures at the Uffizi, and only some 
 photographs at the City Hall. 
 
 So there was all the interest of novelty to Laura, 
 as her husband led her up the palatial stair 
 way, and brought her into the City Registrar's 
 handsome office. There was a little of the fear 
 that she was out of her place ; but this vanished 
 at once when the Registrar so courteously re 
 ceived her and her husband, though they were 
 both strangers to him. Bernard introduced him 
 self, and said, almost abruptly, being himself per 
 haps a little nervous, " I am sorry to see you had 
 a bad week last week." The Registrar understood 
 him on the moment, spoke of the seventy-five 
 cholera-infantum deaths, and gave to his visitors 
 
How They Live and Die in Boston 177 
 
 such detail as showed to them at once that he was 
 no mere man of figures, and that his tables had to 
 him the terrible interest which Bernard had given 
 to them when he read to Laura. The Registrar 
 stood there and sounded the trumpet week by 
 week, and that with no uncertain sound. If those 
 children died when there was no necessity, his at 
 least was not the reponsibility. 
 
 He had at once invited Laura into his airy and 
 elegant office, and had given her a chair. In a 
 moment more he brought to her husband the large 
 folio, in which every detail reported to him of the 
 deaths of the last week was written down. Bernard 
 having gained his permission to use these tables, 
 explained to Laura what they were to do. 
 
 He had brought with him a little memorandum- 
 book, which he gave to her, that she might copy 
 upon it each of the names of the seventy-five little 
 children who had died from this single disease. 
 She selected these from all the other deaths. She 
 did not enter the birthplaces of the children, nor 
 the names of their fathers and mothers, nor the 
 other facts which she found in the Registry. Her 
 little table, which I will only copy in part, assumed 
 this aspect: 
 
 BOSTON. CHOLERA INFANTUM. July 24-July 31, 1869. 
 
 No. i. Mary A. Murphy, i y. 7 mos., 22 Davenport Street, Ward 15 
 
 2. Sarah Eaton, 2 mos., 102 Portland Street, " 4 
 
 3. Edith M. Dillman, 5 mos., iQTrask Place, " 13 
 
 4. Gertie F. Tucker, 6 mos., Eutaw Street, " i 
 
 5. John McLaughlin, 8 mos., 61 Prince Street, " 3. 
 
 6. Mary McCarty, 2 mos., 225 Havre Street, " i. 
 and so on. 12 
 
178 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 While she was copying, Bernard, on a little map 
 of the city he had with him, was making red crosses 
 with a pencil, midway in the streets where the 
 deaths occurred. He had finished almost as soon 
 as she had. Then he returned the Registry to the 
 office, with his thanks, and they both went down 
 again to the carriage, leaving for some future day 
 an investigation of the various curiosities of the 
 City Hall. 
 
 " Drive to Suffolk Street," said Bernard, as he 
 entered the carriage ; and then to his wife, " Well, 
 darling, it begins to look real now. How much 
 more one feels it when he sees the names of the 
 little things ! " 
 
 " Do we ever feel anything, Bernard, till we look 
 at it piecemeal, or in the detail? Did you notice, 
 no, the figures were not on your side of the 
 book, but, Bernard, almost all of these children are 
 less than a year old. Now we always thought that 
 the second year, while they were teething, was the 
 dangerous year for children. But see there," and 
 she took out her note-book, " in my first twenty- 
 two names there is Will Sullivan, three years old ; 
 one boy of one year, and one girl of one year and 
 seven months ; and all the others are less than a 
 year." She found afterwards that on her whole 
 register there were but eight who had passed twelve 
 months. 
 
 " Now," said Bernard, " look at my little map." 
 And he showed her the map. " The worst street," 
 said he, " is Island Street, down on the flats in Rox- 
 
How They Live and Die in Boston 179 
 
 bury, where the bad smells come from. If you 
 had ever been there you would wonder that any of 
 them were left alive. But of old Boston, which is 
 all we can do to-day, here are the places." 
 
 "Queer," said Laura; " they are in two rows, 
 with a white belt, half a mile wide between." 
 
 " Yes ; but that belt, you see, is the business part 
 of the town, where nobody lives, and Fort Hill, 
 which they are digging down, and the Com 
 mon and Beacon Hill. Here at the North End 
 is Copp's Hill ; you see nobody has died there. 
 On the original three mountains of Boston, on its 
 high lands, not one of our seventy-five babies 
 lived or died." 
 
 Laura studied the list then with some care. 
 There was not one child on her list from Beacon 
 Street, Chestnut Street, or Pinckney Street. And 
 it was not merely hillsides that were exempt. 
 There were no deaths in Union Park, Worcester 
 Street, Springfield Street, Chester Square ; not one 
 death in any of the very nice streets where most 
 of her friends lived and she visited most. And the 
 largest parts, as she had said, were in two clumps 
 together. 
 
 "What are these clumps? " said she. 
 
 " This on the north is what used to be called the 
 Millpond. It was filled up half a century ago. Of 
 the thirty-seven children whose homes I could find, 
 seven lived there. 
 
 " This on the south is the Church Street district, 
 joined to the region north of Dover Street. They 
 
180 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 are trying now to raise the Church Street district. 
 In this clump there are fifteen children. 
 
 " This death in Eliot Street must have been on 
 upland ; these in Russell Place and Phillips Place, 
 and these in Prince Street, Cooper Street, Holden 
 Court, Langdon Place, and Samoset Place, at the 
 North End. But of all the other thirty, I think 
 the homes were where God Almighty made the 
 water flow. But it is not that so much. It is that 
 the poor wretches have no air. What was it Sar 
 gent used to tell us, that the science of health was 
 the science of getting people into pure air. You 
 shall see as soon as we set foot on the ground what 
 chance there is for breathing, night or day. They 
 have fared well enough in Rutland Street, Waltham 
 Street, Tremont Street, on Commonwealth Avenue, 
 Newbury Street, and Marlborough Street, though 
 these streets are all on made land. These are 
 well-drained and well-aired streets. Air is what 
 you want. Now look here." 
 
 The carriage stopped at the corner of Dover and 
 Suffolk Streets, and the coachman asked, "What 
 number?" But Bernard dismissed him, telling 
 Laura that for what was left they had better go on 
 foot. So they came to a wooden house, with rooms 
 each side of the door, two stones high with attics; 
 not so large, as he bade her observe, as the house 
 they had left in Manchester. 
 
 "How in the world are you going to get in?" 
 said Laura, timidly. 
 
 " Oh, I shall walk in," said Bernard, and he did, 
 
How They Live and Die in Boston 1 8 1 
 
 the door being wide open. He tapped at the first 
 door, and immediately a stout Irishwoman ap 
 peared, to whom Bernard addressed himself. The 
 moment there was any evidence of conversation, 
 she was joined by another and another. 
 
 Bernard whipped out a little note-book and 
 pencil. 
 
 " Can you tell me, ma'am, how many families 
 there are on this floor? " 
 
 " There 's four, sir, live in here, and this woman 
 lives in the room opposite." 
 
 " And how many children are there? " 
 
 " I 've got one girl, and Mrs. McDaniel here, she 
 has two boys, and Mrs. McEna she has one girl 
 and two boys, and Mrs. Liener here, she has one 
 boy," and Mrs. Liener blushed and was pleased 
 and confirmed the statement. Bernard asked if 
 they had all been vaccinated, and was assured they 
 had, with the additional assurance that the Mc 
 Daniel boys were men grown. Meanwhile Laura 
 availed herself of the freedom of a free country to 
 look into the rooms right and left of her which the 
 interlocutors had left open that they might enjoy 
 the colloquy. 
 
 Upstairs then proceeded Bernard, Laura follow 
 ing. The first door gave no answer to his tap, the 
 second was wide open, and Laura saw a woman 
 lying on the bed, not asleep, however. Laura took 
 the census here, there was this woman, who had 
 two boys, Mrs. O'Brien, who had one girl, and 
 Jerry Regan, who had no children, who occupied 
 
1 82 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 the four rooms on this floor. Upstairs in the 
 attics were only the McDonalds (other McDonalds 
 from the first floor), and the Farnums, each with 
 one boy. Here were nine families, but none of 
 them were named K . 
 
 So Bernard asked the second Mrs. McDonald if 
 
 there were not a little child named K who 
 
 died here last week. 
 
 " Oh, that, sir, was in the basement," said Mrs. 
 McDonald. And it proved that they had let the 
 basement go by, not suspecting that there was 
 any. 
 
 Thus far the twelve rooms, of which they had in 
 spected eight, were almost exactly alike, but that 
 four were attics. Rooms nearly square and about 
 ten feet by twelve. Some of them had two bed 
 steads, always with high, cumbrous head and 
 foot boards, while in one, as Laura observed, which 
 had a cooking-stove, there was no bedstead. Some 
 of them were tolerably neat, one, in which the 
 woman was lying down, hopelessly dirty. Of the 
 children spoken of, they had only seen one. He 
 was the junior McDonald, in the attic, who, under 
 the auspices of Mrs. McDonald and Mrs. Farnum, 
 was walking his first steps, and crowed and laughed 
 at the visitors very prettily. All the other children 
 had sought wider quarters. From this inspection 
 they went down the narrow stairways into what 
 was called the basement. It was almost wholly 
 below the street, and in no way differed from what 
 is usually called a cellar. Here they found Mr. 
 
How They Live and Die in Boston 183 
 
 Kellarin and Mrs. West, but still no Mrs. K . 
 
 The floor of the entry was wet from the overrunning 
 of the water-faucet which supplied the house, and 
 all the region was damp, as a cellar is apt to be 
 which is much below the tide level. Bernard asked 
 Mr. Kellarin, who seemed to be rather cross, if 
 
 Mrs. K did not live here. " No, no such 
 
 woman here ! " 
 
 " But did not a little child die here last week? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, that was in the back room ; no one 
 is there now. She has moved next door." 
 
 "Thank God for that," said Laura to her hus 
 band, as they crossed the wretched alley. " Noth 
 ing can be worse than where she was." 
 
 True enough. That floor was wet from the slop 
 of the water. The air was wet, because the sun 
 never kissed it. The rooms were so chilly and so 
 dark ! And the smell ! 
 
 Across the alley was a little brown house about 
 as big as the coachman's house at Manchester. It 
 was every way nicer than that they had left, though 
 
 so small. Here poor Mrs. K came to meet 
 
 them at the first door. Laura felt that it was she, 
 she looked so sad and so sick. Just a black rag 
 of some kind she had put around her, and when 
 Laura spoke to her kindly and asked about her 
 little boy, and the poor woman told her it was her 
 only child, and that he was sick such a little while, 
 the two women were sisters. The four families in 
 
 this house were all young. K , Leonard, 
 
 Driscoll, Agin, with their wives, they all had 
 
184 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 but two boys and one girl, only seven people to 
 live in four rooms, which if you had put them 
 together would have made a room twenty feet 
 square. 
 
 In the house opposite, which they had visited 
 first, were thirty-one persons in fourteen so-called 
 rooms. What had been the yard of this house 
 had been taken up by another tenement building. 
 
 I must not attempt to tell in such detail of each 
 of the visits which Laura made this busy morning. 
 Bernard told her, as they drove back to the train 
 at ten o'clock, that she had knocked off more calls 
 in her three hours than he ever did in his most 
 successful work of his most successful New Year's 
 Day of his bachelor life in New York. " You have 
 added to your visiting list," said he, " as nearly as 
 I can make it up at this moment, thirteen Mrs. 
 Flahertys and twelve gentlemen of that name, 
 eleven Mrs. Sullivans, six Mrs. Feenans and 
 their husbands, three Mrs. McLanes, and two 
 Mrs. McTanes, besides miscellaneous names not 
 to be mentioned." 
 
 " Well," replied Laura, stoutly, " I wish all my 
 other friends were as cordial to me as these good 
 women have been, I wish they would be half as 
 well employed when I called on them, and I 
 wish, on the whole, that they made as much of 
 their advantages as these people do of what we 
 cannot call their advantages." 
 
 It is certainly true, that in many instances the 
 instinctive vigor of a woman, and that Divine 
 
How They Live and Die in Boston 185 
 
 Principle which has given to a wife the establish 
 ment and the comfort of a home, which among 
 this class of persons is a principle still respected 
 and accepted, sustain the women who are forced 
 to live in these crowded cells with their husbands 
 and children, so that they often retain decency, 
 order, and even neatness, where one would say it 
 is impossible. Sweetness of air, freshness, or 
 cheerfulness, it is, of course, wholly beyond their 
 power to give. 
 
 Laura and Bernard had been snubbed scarcely 
 anywhere. Once, when Laura was the spokes 
 woman, and asked timidly, " Does not Mrs. Weiss 
 live here?" she got a very sharp "No." When 
 poor Laura varied her question, the answer was, 
 " No, she died here ; " and Laura, who had 
 only taken note of children's death on her 
 memorandum-book, found that mother and child 
 had died together. The landlady, to whom she 
 was talking, knew nothing of her tenants, or pre 
 tended to know nothing, and made haste to usher 
 her guests out of the wretched grocer-shop, where, 
 if they had asked for bad whiskey, they would 
 have had good chance for more cordial welcome. 
 
 They called at one house which always reminds 
 me, as I go to my train, of the front of a menagerie 
 cage, where the little monkeys may be seen among 
 a few of larger growth, performing behind. It is 
 four stories high, and has no entry or hall in it, 
 every room opening by its one door on the four 
 front piazzas which rise above each other. Each 
 
1 86 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 room has, in the rear, two closets only lighted from 
 the doors, one of which may be eight feet square ; 
 the other is narrower. The front room, which 
 opens on the piazza, is fifteen by thirteen perhaps. 
 This is a suite for a family. And any day you 
 pass you may see the children of forty such 
 families disporting themselves on the piazzas. The 
 reason why there are no windows in the back wall 
 is that there is another similar building, which has 
 been squeezed in there in a space so narrow that 
 it is not nine feet from the windows and doors to 
 the wall opposite, and, of that nine feet, four or 
 five must be given to the piazza. Stop on your 
 way down Lincoln Street, Mr. Alderman, and look 
 at that building; do not be satisfied with the 
 Lincoln Street front, but try the other front, and 
 guess what are the chances for life there. As the 
 building is arranged, it will " accommodate," I 
 believe, sixty families, nearly as many human 
 beings as would be permitted by the United States 
 statute on an emigrant vessel of the same size. 
 Yet on the emigrant vessel there are windsails to 
 pump out the air, there is the certainty of fresh 
 air on deck, and the best of it. And there, at the 
 worst, the imprisonment is but for a few weeks. 
 But, in this anchored hell, the child who is born 
 must live five years before he has wit enough and 
 strength enough to run away. 
 
 Here are Bernard's notes on the houses where 
 he and his wife first called. I have only described 
 the first tenement of the first two. 
 
How They Live and Die in Boston 187 
 
 13 EMERALD STREET. Two tenement-houses adjoin 
 ing each other. There are thirteen families in one and 
 ten in the other. The water-pipes are put up in the 
 most shameful manner. They must of necessity freeze 
 up at the very first frost. Only one faucet for each tene 
 ment-house, /. <?., twenty-three families have two faucets 
 to draw from. There is no way of getting to the faucet 
 without wading in dirty water, the drains being all out of 
 order. Two of the most filthy privies entirely open for 
 these twenty-three families, so much out of repair as to 
 be dangerous to enter. The boards are broken away, 
 so that you can see into the vaults. The only reason 
 why the people in the house are not all dead is because 
 they keep their own places much cleaner than anybody 
 could naturally expect. Miserable places, out of repair, 
 the plastering off the walls and ceilings, no chance to 
 whitewash, for there is no place to whitewash in many of 
 the rooms. 
 
 TENEMENT- HOUSE 72 MIDDLESEX STREET. Sixteen 
 families live in this house. The staircase is so narrow 
 and dark that it is a wonder how the children, with 
 whom it abounds, are not daily injured. In the event of 
 a fire it might be that not one of the families upstairs 
 could be saved. There is very fair accommodation here 
 for water. No water-closets, however, and but one privy 
 in four compartments for the whole sixteen families. 
 The passages below are in a filthy condition, owing to 
 unsuitable arrangements for the refuse. 
 
 Their whole inspection was on the southern side 
 of the white stripe across Bernard's map. And 
 they had not time that day to go to Island Street. 
 Once or twice they came upon nice, cheerful 
 
1 88 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 houses, where Laura said the people had good 
 friends, she was sure, and she would not offer her 
 sympathy. But there were many of these poor 
 Irishwomen who were glad of her visit, and with 
 whom she will keep up her visiting acquaintance 
 long. 
 
 " I know," said Laura, as they rode home, " that 
 you hate to be constantly making laws, and con 
 trolling people by laws, and I know how your father 
 says that the best government is that which gov 
 erns least; but I should think something might be 
 done to give such people as these a better chance." 
 
 " My dear," said Bernard, " our system in Mas 
 sachusetts about laws is that of Ensign Stebbins. 
 We take great pains about making the laws, and 
 we take equal pains to let them alone when we 
 have made them." And Bernard took from his 
 pocket a little blue pamphlet which contained the 
 tenement law of 1868. 
 
 " How many of these houses had a fire-escape? 
 Did you notice? " said he. 
 
 " What is a fire-escape? " replied Laura. " Did 
 any of them have one?" 
 
 " Not that I saw," said Bernard. " But here is 
 the act : ' Every such house shall have a fire- 
 escape/ That is Section 3. From Section 4 I 
 learn that these water-closets in Emerald and 
 Middlesex Streets must have been ' approved by 
 the Board of Health.' From Section 6, that that 
 basement in Emerald Street could not have been 
 occupied ' without a permit from the Board of 
 
How They Live and Die in Boston 189 
 
 Health ; ' nor at all unless it was ' perfectly drained.' 
 From Section 8 I learn that all these houses must 
 ( have suitable conveniences for garbage,' and 
 so on, and so on. 
 
 " How many times have you noticed the owners' 
 names to-day? " 
 
 " Not once," stared Laura. 
 
 "Nor I. But listen: 'Every tenement or lodg 
 ing house shall have legibly posted or painted on 
 the wall or door in the entry the name and address 
 of the owner/ that is the law, dear Portia. And 
 here is the law about whitewash : ' Every house 
 thus occupied shall be whitewashed every April 
 and October.' My dear, the law might have been 
 made for Sybaris. But the only time I ever heard 
 of a prosecution under it, an ex-mayor defended 
 the landlord, knew how to rip up the indictment, 
 and that was the end of that. Oh, there is law 
 enough, dear child." 
 
 " Well, what can we do? " persisted Laura. 
 
 " Do, child ? We can make public opinion. The 
 first time Dr. Shurtleff asks you to go to ride, ask 
 him to stop and call with you on some friends 
 of yours in the Crystal Palace. That is the best 
 thing you can do." 
 
 But for himself, Bernard sent me his observa 
 tions, and I determined to print them. 
 
 I confess that I was surprised, when I first 
 looked over this list of seventy-five deaths by 
 cholera infantum in the last week of July, to see 
 
190 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 that, of the whole number, twelve were in the 
 three wards which are made of the territory of 
 Roxbury. It seemed curious, at first sight, that 
 the mortality in a so-called country town, just now 
 annexed to the compact city, should be even 
 larger in proportion to the population than that 
 of the more compact section. But a moment's 
 examination of the localities removed my surprise. 
 These eleven deaths were all of them in houses 
 on the low, flat land, which would once have been 
 called saltmarsh, which ought, perhaps, never to 
 have been built upon at all, without such elevation 
 of the streets as should give proper drainage to 
 the houses. All of them but two or three proved, 
 on inquiry, to be in tenement-houses of the most 
 crowded character. 
 
 My first visit among them was in Island Street; 
 it is not yet accepted by the city, which takes no 
 responsibility for its drainage or its grading. It 
 will be known by residents in Boston as the street 
 which leads to the so-called " Island " where were 
 the odious bone-burning establishments. Here 
 twin children had died in a hut, standing by itself, 
 worth its annual rental perhaps, which I think 
 would be considered in any comfortable country 
 town in New England unfit for the residence of 
 men, but which here was regarded by its occupants 
 as particularly desirable because they were alone. 
 Two of the other deaths were in Adams Street 
 and Chadwick Street, which, though they run 
 down upon the flats, are occupied by a class of 
 
How They Live and Die in Boston 191 
 
 tenements much superior to the others. I visited 
 every tenement in Phoenix Place, which is a fair 
 enough illustration, in its melancholy uniformity, 
 of the whole class. It is a narrow court of eight 
 houses, four on each side. They are lightly 
 built of wood, all on the same plan. The two end 
 houses have each a shop in one side. All the 
 houses are parted in the middle by an entry with a 
 staircase ; on each side of this entry is a " suite " 
 of rooms, always two. In no case did I find any 
 family occupying more than these two rooms. 
 Deducting the shops, then, here were thirty tene 
 ments, each of two rooms, and these were 
 occupied by thirty families, of which the smallest 
 was a man and his wife, the largest a man and 
 his wife with eight children. The population was 
 sixty adults and sixty-five children in the sixty 
 rooms, each of which was perhaps twelve feet 
 square. The summer atmosphere of these places 
 is odious, but I believe it is better than the winter 
 atmosphere. The houses have the great advantage 
 of standing separately from each other, so as to ad 
 mit of end windows, and ventilation between every 
 series of four tenements. But the lots are so small 
 that all privy arrangements and deposits of offals 
 are horribly near the open windows. The wretched 
 way in which a woman in such a house tells you 
 that her baby died yesterday, as if the child died of 
 course, and she never ought to have expected that 
 it would live, is a sad enough intimation that the 
 tenants themselves know the risk they are running. 
 
192 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 I have not cared to go into detail, however. 
 My object is accomplished in calling attention to 
 the single fact that of these eleven deaths in Rox- 
 bury, by cholera infantum, not one took place on 
 the proper upland. In the mortality of the same 
 week in the peninsula of old Boston, out of thirty- 
 eight such deaths, none took place on either of 
 the hills, and only eight on land which had never 
 been flowed over by the sea. 
 
 In the epidemic among children in the summer 
 of 1864 one thousand children of less than five 
 years of age died in Boston in one hundred days. 
 I suppose that of the Boston people who read 
 these pages not one in ten knows that there was 
 any such epidemic. It did not rage among the chil 
 dren of people who read Fields and Osgood's books ; 
 it raged in such places as I have been describing. 
 
 If the deaths had been proportional among all 
 classes of society, at least ten of these deaths 
 would have taken away infants from the parish of 
 which I am a minister, which embraces about one 
 per cent of the population of the city. 
 
 But that is a body of people in comfortable cir 
 cumstances, living in comfortable homes. And, 
 in fact, in that epidemic not one of our children 
 died. So untrue is it that 
 
 " Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas 
 regumque turres." x 
 
 1 " Pale death steps on with equal step ; although 
 A hut or palace is the scene of woe." 
 
HOMES FOR BOSTON LABORERS 
 
 IN addition to the statement I have made, 
 as to the houses in which the greater part of 
 the laboring men of Boston live with their families 
 at the present moment, I am tempted to add some 
 facts as to the details of the arrangements which 
 might be made for them. They might all own 
 their houses, as so many of the laboring men do 
 in our smaller cities, and yet, at the same time, 
 follow up their daily work in the very heart of 
 Boston. To illustrate this possibility, I have pub 
 lished here the ideal sketch of the life of the 
 suburbs of Naguadavick. To show some of the 
 detail in practice, I have published the historical 
 sketch of Vineland and its neighborhood. The 
 object of this volume is not fulfilled, unless it shows 
 how similar arrangements may be carried out for 
 the laboring men of Boston. 
 
 I know very well that many persons suppose that 
 such arrangements are made thoroughly well now. 
 They know that there are a great many pretty 
 villages around Boston, from which crowded special 
 trains run in every morning, and to which they 
 return at night. And people who will read this 
 
 13 
 
194 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 book will be apt to say that anybody who wants to 
 live in Melrose or Newton or Hyde Park now can 
 do so ; that there needs no urging either of capi 
 talist or of laborer ; that the residence of laboring 
 men in the suburbs is a thing which will settle 
 itself, and may be left to settle itself. 
 
 I am to reply, 'then, to this comfortable laissez 
 faire notion first of all. I have to say, that, as 
 matter of fact, it is not true that what we call, 
 popularly, the laboring men and women of Bos 
 ton live in any considerable numbers in the suburbs 
 reached by railway. Many of them live in Charles- 
 town, Roxbury, and South Boston, where they can 
 use the short lines of street cars to go to their 
 morning work. But this number, even, is incon 
 siderable, compared with the large number of day- 
 laborers needed for the day's work of the city. 
 Of the classes of skilled workmen, of whom we do 
 not speak as day-laborers, a considerable propor 
 tion live in the suburbs accessible by steam, the 
 places where they can obtain freehold. Mechanics, 
 clerks in retail or wholesale stores, bankers' clerks, 
 and other persons whose incomes are a little above 
 the wages of the day-laborer, so called, avail them 
 selves freely of the relief which even in their pres 
 ent management the steam railroads give, and 
 bring up their children thus, where only, per 
 haps, children should be brought up, in the 
 country. But the number even of these who are 
 thus provided for is much smaller than could be 
 wished; and the arrangements in many regards 
 
Homes for Boston Laborers 195 
 
 are cumbrous and inconvenient. Granting, how 
 ever, that they can take care of themselves, there 
 is left the much larger class of women who work 
 in shops or stores, and the class, yet larger, of men 
 who work as porters, or stevedores, or as hod-car 
 riers, or at other hard labor in building or in fac 
 tories, who live, as they suppose from necessity, 
 in such hired tenements as have been described. 
 They no more think of the possibility of their 
 purchasing their own homes than they think of 
 translating the Hebrew Bible. Of one hundred 
 and thirty sewing-women engaged at Jordan & 
 Marsh's sewing-rooms, September 7, 1869, ninety- 
 three lived in Boston proper, twenty-three in South 
 Boston and East Boston, and only fourteen out 
 of town. Of eighty- two the same day at work at 
 Hovey & Co.'s, forty-five lived in Boston proper, 
 twenty-seven in South Boston and East Boston, 
 and only ten out of town. 
 
 I have to say, next, that emigration, though it 
 be only emigration for ten miles, has, in fact, never 
 thriven in this world, unless it has been well led. 
 Unless, at one or another period of the emigration, 
 the way has been smoothed and prepared by men 
 of intelligence, and by the union of the several 
 interests engaged, no emigration has ever gone 
 forward prosperously. The people of this country 
 are utterly indifferent to what they owe to the men 
 who contrived the magnificent system of the Land 
 Laws of the United States, which of themselves 
 give exactly the encouragement to the Western 
 
196 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 emigrant that I would secure for the emigrant 
 whom I would lead from Lucas Street into 
 Dorchester to-day. And, for an instance on 
 the other side, the reason that the South, eager for 
 emigration to-day, cannot lure the laboring men 
 it needs into its waste field by all its magnificent 
 promises, is because no set of men care enough 
 for that wave of civilization to put themselves hu 
 manely and deliberately at work, on a large scale, 
 for the organization of emigration southward. 
 
 In the old communities of Greece this thing was 
 better understood. To lead a colony, and thus 
 to establish a state, was considered by Miltiades, 
 and Themistocles, and Alcibiades, and Lysias, and 
 Isocrates, not to name a hundred others, as 
 being an honor as great as man could claim. I 
 wish there were more of such ambition among the 
 young men of spirit, of fortune, or of education, 
 whom I meet every day, wondering and even ask 
 ing what America has for them to do, now that 
 the war is over. I am told that Lord Bacon 
 classed the founders of cities among the first of 
 men. 
 
 As the people of Naguadavick found, in the 
 experience of their history contained in this vol 
 ume, the enterprise of establishing a" suburb of 
 ease " for laboring men near a great city requires 
 the co-operation of three sets of people, who are 
 wholly unused to act together. It requires the 
 co-operation of the owner of land, of the managers 
 of the railway, and of the settlers who are to buy 
 
Homes for Boston Laborers 197 
 
 their homes. Neither of these will move, if he 
 have not confidence in the other. 
 
 1. The owner of the land must be willing to de 
 vote from six hundred to a thousand acres within 
 half an hour's ride by steam of the city to the 
 enterprise. He must look for sure but not exor 
 bitant profits, to be secured within ten years. 
 
 2. The railroad managers must look to the grow 
 ing up of traffic where at the beginning there is 
 absolutely nothing ; and, because that traffic is to 
 be all their own, they must at the outset provide for 
 it much more accommodation than its present re 
 turns will warrant. It is at this point, as I believe, 
 that most such plans break down. The companies 
 are willing to sell their tickets cheap enough, but 
 they are not willing to run their trains at the out 
 set often enough or fast enough. They want the 
 village to exist before they grant the trains. But 
 nobody will go to the village until they grant the 
 trains. 
 
 3. No one laboring man will bell the cat in such 
 an enterprise. No one will go alone, nor will 
 ten families go alone. The provisions must be 
 generous enough to induce at once general atten 
 tion among large numbers of people, or they will 
 none of them move. The reasons for their hesi 
 tation are obvious. 
 
 I am glad to believe that at the present time 
 there are good reasons for expecting the frank and 
 generous co-operation of all these classes in the 
 neighborhood of Boston upon the true principles 
 
198 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 which may insure success. The questions con 
 nected with such emigration have been discussed 
 more than any others at the meetings of the Suf 
 folk Union for Christian Work. They never came 
 up for discussion there, but some intelligent man, 
 who had watched the present difficulties, brought 
 forward some important contribution toward their 
 solution. The lines of railway running from Bos 
 ton are so many, and pass through country so 
 favorable for the purposes proposed, that every 
 thoughtful traveller sees the possibility of relieving 
 the city by colonies in its neighborhood. Fortu 
 nately these railways are under the management of 
 men who, in general, understand that their interests 
 and the interests of the public are identical in 
 these matters. And the present condition of the 
 worst tenement-houses in Boston is such as to 
 compel the attention of laboring men and their 
 families to any well-considered arrangements for 
 their relief. Indeed, if the trade and manufacture 
 of Boston are to enlarge in the next twenty years 
 in the same proportion as in the last twenty, some 
 systematic provision of healthy homes for her 
 laboring men and women is the very first neces 
 sity of all. 
 
 I have attempted in this volume to show that 
 that provision may be made by a system which 
 shall involve the following details : 
 
 I. A village site of say a thousand acres. 
 
 II. This must be generously laid out by the pro 
 prietors, who must maintain on the spot active 
 
Homes for Boston Laborers 199 
 
 agents, to care for the proper condition of the 
 town till it can go alone. 
 
 1. These agents must keep the roads in condi 
 tion. 
 
 2. They must see that drainage is systematically 
 cared for. 
 
 3. In some localities it may be necessary that 
 the first owners sink the wells. 
 
 4. All negotiations with the railroads must, at 
 the outset, be made by the first owners. 
 
 III. The land should be divided, for our purpose 
 near Boston, into lots of about 10,000, 20,000, and 
 40,000 feet, to provide for settlers of various re 
 sources. These lots should be offered for sale on 
 easy terms, with great encouragement, however, for 
 cash payments. Mr. Landis requires one fourth 
 down, and the remainder in three payments in 
 three successive years. The Illinois railroads re 
 quire one tenth down, and the remainder in nine 
 payments in nine successive years. Probably the 
 first arrangement is the better for our purpose 
 here. 
 
 The price of lots having been fixed at the out 
 set, so as to give a handsome profit to the original 
 landholder, should never be changed by him. 
 
 All sales should be made on condition of con 
 siderable improvements to be made within twelve 
 months. This is necessary to assure the first 
 settlers of neighbors and society, and to prevent 
 land speculation. 
 
 IV. The co-operation of the original holders 
 
200 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 with the settlers in all enterprises of social im 
 provement, education, and amusement must be 
 heartily and intelligently granted. 
 
 V. The railroad companies, looking to the 
 steady growth of such a village, must provide from 
 the first, and must assure trains of cars which will 
 place the laboring man at his work in Boston at 
 seven in summer and at eight in winter. 
 
 It has been proposed by Mr. Quincy, who has 
 taken so cordial an interest in such plans, that 
 most of these companies, for the foundation of a 
 new village in the view here advocated, shall give 
 a free ticket for five years to each head of a family 
 who will build a house in such a town. Then rely 
 on the travel of the members of his family, and of 
 other persons, for their profit. This seems to me 
 honorable, simple, and satisfactory. I should ask 
 nothing more in addition but careful study of the 
 hours of trains required by laboring men, and 
 some security for their permanence. 
 
 As to the methods by which such men are to 
 get the money with which to build their houses, I 
 will add a few words; but I do not believe the 
 difficulty in the business will be found there. 
 
 Mr. Quincy has published in the daily journals 
 details of the co-operative house-building systems 
 of Philadelphia and of England, which have worked 
 so satisfactorily that I need only refer readers who 
 are interested to them. 1 
 
 1 See, for one of such plans, Appendix A. 
 
Homes for Boston Laborers 201 
 
 I am assured that at Hyde Park, near Boston, 
 the public offer is made by responsible parties, 
 that they will lend to any person who proposes to 
 build there three thousand dollars for that purpose, 
 if he invest, besides, three hundred dollars of his 
 own, and pledge the whole to them. They are so 
 confident of the increase of the value of real prop 
 erty in that town, that they are ready to lend on 
 mortgage of real estate, with so small a margin, at 
 the present time. This is an illustration of the 
 facilities offered in such places. 
 
 In the German savings-banks there is a system 
 which carries out with great simplicity the co 
 operative idea. The managers of those banks dis 
 count regularly to their depositors, on a regulation 
 universally understood. It is this : Any depositor 
 who can get two fellow-depositors to indorse for 
 him can obtain a discount from the savings-bank, 
 which thus becomes, not a bank of deposit for 
 small sums only, but a bank of discount for small 
 sums. In the town of Worcester, to which I have 
 already alluded in these pages, its prosperity 
 is largely due to the readiness with which the 
 capitalists of the town have assisted the young 
 mechanics and laborers in establishing themselves. 
 It is this readiness to give credit on fair terms 
 which has done so much to make that a place of 
 FREEHOLD. 
 
 The details of the German system are given by 
 Mr. Godkin in his valuable paper published in the 
 " North American Review " two years ago. 
 
202 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 I apprehend, therefore, that working men and 
 working women will have no real difficulty in build 
 ing houses for themselves or in buying houses 
 ready built, so soon as the places are arranged 
 where these houses shall stand. The social con 
 dition might return of the agricultural New 
 England town of two generations ago, in which a 
 rented house was an exception to the general rule 
 and habit of the community. The large rents 
 which laboring men are now accustomed to pay 
 have trained their families in habits of economy 
 which will make it very easy for them to obtain 
 dwellings of their own, as soon as these dwellings 
 are offered to them. For the cells which have 
 been described on page 186 the weekly rent is two 
 dollars for one room and the two dark closets ad 
 joining. This is about the lowest rent which any 
 laboring man with a family pays for a home in 
 Boston. Most of them pay more. It is easy to 
 see how fast an annual payment of only one hun 
 dred and four dollars a year will eat up the princi 
 pal and the interest of such a home as such a man 
 may build for himself the moment land is offered 
 him at a fair price. And the passion for Freehold 
 is not extinguished among these people by a gen 
 eration or more of tenant life. It is pleasant to 
 conceive the ready response they would make to a 
 programme like this, put in their way in the 
 columns of their friends, the " Boston Herald " or 
 "Boston Pilot," handed in to their doors on a 
 broadside, or posted at the street corners : 
 
Homes for Boston Laborers 203 
 
 Buy Yourself a Home 
 
 One Hundred neat Houses are for sale in the 
 new Village of 
 
 MONTGOMERY 
 
 ONLY TWENTY MINUTES' RIDE FROM BOSTON! 
 
 By a weekly payment of 
 ONLY THREE DOLLARS, 
 
 any man may own, in six years' time, a pretty 
 House and a Garden 
 
 RENT FREE! 
 
 Large deductions can be made to purchasers who 
 have cash in hand. 
 
 Free Railroad Ticket for Five Years ! 
 
 An announcement like this would show very 
 soon that the laboring class of people are not with 
 out reserved funds to draw upon, if they have only 
 a simple and safe way to place them in real estate 
 for their own uses. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 THE Constitution of a Co-operative Society for 
 Building, which has worked well in Philadelphia, 
 is explained in the following letters from Mr. Quincy and 
 Mr. Davis. 
 
 MODERATE HOUSES FOR MODERATE MEANS 
 
 I would now call your attention to a communication 
 sent to me by Edward M. Davis, of Philadelphia, de 
 scribing the workings of an association of which he is 
 President, calculated to aid the frugal and industrious in 
 securing homes now payable otit of future earnings; 
 
 It is called a Building Association, but should^ called a 
 " Co-operative Deposit and Loan Company," as it does not 
 have homes built, but does receive and loan money. 
 
 There are 74 members and 1,000 shares. None of the 
 officers receive pay, except the Secretary, and he only $2 a 
 month. The Treasurer gives bonds for $1,000, but seldom 
 has over $50 to $100 on hand, as the money is generally 
 loaned the same night it is paid in to the association, We 
 meet in a schoolhouse and have no rent to pay. Fuel and 
 a janitor costs us about $15 a year. It is conducted for the 
 benefit of the members, and not for the benefit of the officers, 
 as is the case with many loan associations. 
 
206 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 The receipts of the association are : 
 
 i st. " Dues " of members, consisting of fifty cents a share, 
 payable monthly. 
 
 2d. Fines of five cents a share each month as penalty for 
 failure to pay punctually. 
 
 3d. Premiums on money loaned paid by members who 
 borrow. 
 
 4th. Interest received monthly at the rate of six per cent 
 per annum on money loaned. When from these sources the 
 shares are worth $100 each, a distribution is made in the 
 proportion in which the stock is held, and the association 
 comes to an end. 
 
 Only members can borrow money, Each one can borrow 
 $100 for each and every share, but not over $1,500 at one 
 time. The borrower must give to the association as security 
 a first mortgage on real estate for the amount borrowed, and 
 if there are buildings, they must be insured and the policy 
 transferred to the association. The borrower must also 
 transfer the stock on which he borrows ; must pay the 
 premium cash; pay his dues and interest punctually, and 
 all expenses of conveyancing. 
 
 Our association was started twenty-two months since. As 
 fifty cents each month has been paid on each share, the 
 amount paid in is $11, but the shares are worth $14.10 ; the 
 difference has been made out of premium, interest, and fines. 
 Judging from the operations of other similar associations, by 
 the time $60 has been paid in by members as " monthly dues," 
 the shares will be worth $100 each; that is, the association 
 will hold claims on the real estate of the members, and cash 
 on hand, amounting to $100,000. 
 
 The loans are made by the President, stating that there 
 are, say, $500 in the treasury, but that he will sell $1,500 if 
 it is wanted, payable out of the first money in the treasury. 
 Some one is willing to pay five per cent premium for it, 
 another eight per cent, others more, and so on until it 
 reaches, say, twenty per cent. The buyer has fifteen shares, 
 and says he will take the $1,500. He gives security for 
 
Appendix 207 
 
 $1,500, and pays interest monthly on the $i ,500, but the 
 premium of $300 is deducted, and he gets only $1,200 in 
 money. His monthly dues are $7.50 and his interest $7.50. 
 He therefore pays $15 a month until the shares are worth on 
 the books $100 ; then his mortgage is handed back, marked 
 paid, his policy retransferred, and his home is clear. This 
 occurs at the same time necessarily with every borrower, for 
 it is not regulated by what he pays for his money, or when 
 he gets it, but by \he period when the shares amount to $100. 
 When they do, all the borrowers are out of debt. If there is 
 cash on hand, it belongs to those who have not borrowed, 
 and will be just $100 a share for them. 
 
 The time that it takes for a society to " run out," as it is 
 called, depends mainly on \h.z premiums paid. If they are 
 low, the period is over ten years. If they could average 
 twenty per cent, the period would be much shorter. Money 
 borrowed in the first year of the association at twenty-five 
 per cent premium does not cost the borrower quite eight per 
 cent per annum. Then he has these great advantages : he 
 can borrow an amount almost equal to the cost of his prop 
 erty; can return it in small sums, and in addition partici 
 pate in the profits made by the association. It is the true 
 mode of getting a home out of future earnings. Being the 
 prospective owner of the place occupied, all the improve 
 ments inure to him. This system makes our small houses 
 more tastily and insures their being kept in better order, 
 because a home that is owned is more cared for than one 
 that is rented. I think that what are called building asso 
 ciations contribute much more towards securing homes to our 
 mechanics and laboring people than our ground-rent system. 
 
 A person paying $15 a month by this system at the end 
 of about ten years has his house clear, but if he pays the $15 
 as rent, at the end of the ten years the landlord has the rent 
 and the house too* 
 
 To carry out a plan like this it is necessary at first that 
 some philanthropic persons in whom the people have con- 
 
208 Sybaris and Other Homes 
 
 fidence should, like Mr. Davis, be willing gratuitously to 
 devote a few hours every month to the management of 
 such an organization. As in the case of savings-banks, 
 the success of one might lead to results in the highest 
 degree beneficial both to the public and individuals. 
 
 JOSIAH QUINCY. 
 
HOW THEY LIVED IN HAMPTON 
 
 A STUDY IN PRACTICAL 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
PREFACE TO NEW EDITION 
 
 1DO not know that the principle dwelt upon 
 in " Hampton " has been illustrated in detail 
 in any of the other books on co-operative manu 
 facture. When my friend, Mr. George Holyoake, 
 republished the book in London, he did me the 
 honor to say that it was the most satisfactory 
 statement which he had seen of the application 
 to manufacture of the principles of co-operation. 
 Mr. Holyoake, the father of co-operative trade, is 
 a high authority. As the reader will see, I am 
 not entitled to the credit of this handsome com 
 pliment ; and I am glad to place that credit 
 where it belongs. 
 
 As I believe, the emphasis here given to the 
 importance of the work of the " manufacturer," 
 as the link between the capitalist on the one side 
 and the workman on the other, is of central and 
 essential importance in all such undertakings. I 
 shall therefore state here in some detail the his 
 tory of this book. It was first published in 1888. 
 
 My friend, Mr. William Babcock Weeden, of 
 Providence, is well known among all students of 
 American history by his valuable book on " The 
 Economic and Social History of New England." 
 
212 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 All his readers do not know, perhaps, that this is 
 the same Mr. Weeden who, at the head of the 
 Weybosset and other woollen mills, has, in the 
 last generation, clothed millions on millions of 
 people who have not known to whom they were 
 indebted. He is so intimately acquainted with the 
 principles and details of the sciences involved in 
 the woollen manufacture that in such matters he 
 is one of the first authorities. 
 
 Now, there is a great deal of loose talk about 
 what is called " co-operation." In mixed circles, 
 especially in circles where people talk about sub 
 jects of which they know nothing, there is a con 
 venient habit of using the word " co-operation " as 
 a sort of spell. Especially when there is friction 
 between capitalist and workmen, as between the 
 man who owns the land and the man who guides 
 the plough, it is very convenient to say, in an 
 oracular way, that all difficulties must be settled 
 by co-operation. Then the talk drifts off either 
 into rhapsodies as to the cleanness of the streets 
 in Paris, or into guesses as to the fortunes of wheat, 
 three months afterward. 
 
 Mr. Weeden, as an intelligent manufacturer, 
 really knew what were the possibilities and the 
 impossibilities in such matters. He took the 
 pains to state them in a vigorous scientific paper 
 which he read before the " Examiner Club " of 
 Boston not long after the terrible pecuniary crisis 
 of 1873-74. He pointed out in it the various ele 
 ments of energy and of intelligence which must 
 
Preface to New Edition 2 1 3 
 
 combine in the manufacture of all textile articles. 
 And he showed what I may call the absurdity of 
 supposing that because a man knows how to spin 
 yarn well, he should know how to place a bale of 
 flannel on the New York market. In reading 
 this paper before the " Examiner Club " he pre 
 sented to a thoughtful and intelligent jury his 
 view of the recognition as an important factor of 
 the duty of the " enterpriser," or " undertaker." 
 
 After hearing this statement, I told him that 
 it ought to be presented, not only to such a 
 circle as that, but to the " general public," to all 
 sorts and conditions of men. I said that this 
 could only be done in the concrete, I suppose 
 I said that nothing is ever really taught to the 
 average man which has not been presented in 
 the concrete, as well as in abstract or theoreti 
 cal forms. I told him that if we put this under 
 the eye of a million readers, it would have a bet 
 ter chance of being fairly tested than if we left 
 it to the study of scientific sociologists. Mr. 
 Weeden was not displeased at the suggestion ; 
 and when I offered to furnish the ink, paper, and 
 pen work, and to work out the drama, so to 
 speak, with persons who should, as far as I could 
 make them, present the scheme in living action 
 before those who would read, Mr. Weeden agreed 
 to contribute the details of the working plan, 
 so that there need be no danger that in the 
 enthusiasm of authorship I should overstate or 
 understate any possibilities or probabilities, or 
 
214 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 expectations, or dangers. I therefore dressed up 
 this plan of co-operation, not between two par 
 ties, capitalist and workman, but between three, 
 
 capitalist, " enterpriser," and workman, in a 
 short story called 
 
 BACK TO BACK. 
 
 It was published in two numbers in " Harper's 
 Magazine." Here it met its million readers. 
 Messrs. Harper reprinted it at once in their Half- 
 Hour Series, in a little waistcoat pocket volume 
 which the reader can command now if he will 
 send twenty-five cents to that firm, in Franklin 
 Square, New York City. 
 
 We had no reason to be disappointed in the 
 attention it received. For myself, I was addressed 
 at once by three different owners of moribund 
 woollen mills, who offered to place in my hands 
 the plant of these establishments if I would organ 
 ize and set in operation " Back to Back " com 
 panies, where capital, enterprise, and industry 
 should thus share righteously in the results. Un 
 fortunately for me, shall I say for mankind? 
 
 I had not been trained to the methods or 
 processes of manufacture, or to those of the 
 wool or woollen trade. And I was obliged to 
 decline all three flattering offers. But, as I need 
 hardly say, I have taken a personal interest ever 
 since in the fortunes of the mills which might 
 have been mine. 
 
 I have had reason to think, however, that Mr. 
 
Preface to New Edition 215 
 
 Weeden's sensible and practical suggestions were 
 not without their effect among the men who own 
 textile mills, and those who worked in them. 
 My friend, Mr. George A. Chase, now for many 
 years at the head of the Bourne Mill near Fall 
 River, has shown to the world from year to year 
 the advantages which have been derived there 
 from the system of co-operative work as far as 
 they have adopted it, and the confidence he has 
 in the system has encouraged me in attempting 
 to explain it in more detail in the description of 
 life in the imagined village of Hampton. 
 
 Mr. Nelson, the energetic and accomplished chief 
 of the co-operative works at Le Claire in Illinois, 
 is kind enough to send me from time to time the 
 accounts of the triumphs won in that Arcadia. 
 
 The common remark of persons interested in 
 social science is that co-operation in trade has 
 succeeded in England, that co-operation in bank 
 ing has succeeded in Germany, that co-operation 
 for the building of homes has succeeded in Amer 
 ica, but that there has been no successful en 
 terprise on a large scale where a large number 
 of persons have united together in the interest 
 of manufacture, or any such system of sharing in 
 the risk and sharing in the profits of the adven 
 ture, as risk and profit are shared, say, in the 
 whale fishery or mackerel fishery of America, 
 or in the Rochdale co-operation of buying and 
 selling. This familiar remark is referred to by 
 one of the characters in this book. 
 
216 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 It is to be taken with a good deal of allowance, 
 like most such remarks. Such enterprises as 
 those of Guise in France, and of the great gas 
 company in Manchester, England, as the Bourne 
 Mill in Fall River and of Le Claire in Illinois, 
 are very considerable exceptions, well worth care 
 ful study. These are all on a large scale. On 
 what would be called a small scale, that is, 
 where the co-operators are not more than eight 
 or ten in number, there are literally thousands 
 in our manufacturing States, 
 
 The phrase " Corporation is co-operation " is 
 true ; and to a very large extent an extent 
 much larger indeed than the average talker knows 
 it makes of the American working man a capi 
 talist, and allies the capitalist to the workman. 
 
 To recur to the history of the inception of 
 " Hampton," the plan of co-operation here brought 
 forward had all been made public as early as 1877 
 in " Back to Back." For that little book, as 
 I have said, Mr. Weeden had himself furnished all 
 of what I may call the working machinery. The 
 figures which show what was proposed and what 
 was achieved are all his; and the definite state 
 ments of the agreements which bound the parties 
 together. For ten years after the publication of 
 that book, I had occasion, as I have intimated, to 
 know that other people besides ourselves were in 
 terested in such figures, plans, and agreements. 
 
 In the year 1887, there was what seemed to me 
 another opportunity for presenting them formally 
 
Preface to New Edition 217 
 
 to the People of America. The Sunday School 
 Union offered a prize for the best essay on capital 
 and labor. I believed, as I still believe, that 
 the plans worked out in Max Rising's flannel mill 
 at Pigotsville would do good service even on a 
 larger scale, " for other parts of America," as 
 Thomas's Almanac says. I may say in passing 
 that the latitude and longitude of the imagined 
 Pigotsville are nearly those of my own summer 
 home in Rhode Island already known to this reader. 
 With careful conference again with Mr. Weeden, 
 who gave his cordial interest to the preparation of 
 the new book, I wrote in the summer and autumn 
 of 1887, " How They Lived in Hampton." I was 
 able to introduce into it some of my own theories 
 and practices as to libraries, churches, banks, and 
 saving institutions, as the reader will see. We 
 put the book on typewriter and sent it to the 
 Philadelphia competition. 
 
 No, it did not receive the prize. This was 
 awarded to a gentleman on the Pacific Coast. 
 
 I have never been surprised, and have never 
 been sorry. To say the truth, the book is only 
 likely to interest those who are interested in that 
 sort of thing, to borrow Abram Lincoln's in 
 imitable phrase. And I had and have no idea 
 that any committee of clergymen even though, 
 like the judges in this competition, they be much 
 above the average of their profession care much 
 about the manufacture of flannel, or dare much to 
 give an opinion about it. So we soon had the 
 
2i 8 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 manuscript on our hands again. What was well 
 was, that it had got itself written. And this would 
 not have happened but for the happy providence 
 of the competition. 
 
 My friend, Mr. Stilman Smith, at that time the 
 publisher of the magazine, " Lend a Hand," brought 
 out the book at once, and we cast it in the face 
 of a rather indifferent world. Then an interesting 
 thing happened. As the ministers had been afraid 
 of it (in my guess) because they did not know 
 about woollens, now the literary critics were 
 afraid of it because they feared it contained dyna 
 mite, anarchy, and other elements prejudicial to 
 the civilization of the century, and to Philistine 
 order in general. I do not think that any journal 
 in America took pains to give any account of its 
 contents to anybody. It might conceal socialism, 
 anarchy, as I said, and a general destruction of 
 mankind, including the counting-room of the 
 " Thunderer " or the " Busy-Body." 
 
 To a young author this would have seemed dis 
 couraging. But to an old fox like me, to one 
 who had written " book notices " in his day, 
 and who knew how badly they were written, No. 
 "The people who like that sort of thing" find 
 out. There would come a letter from a back 
 county in Kentucky, enclosing its modest post- 
 stamps or money order. There would be some 
 workman in Cincinnati who had seen another 
 workman's copy in a smoking-car. And so from 
 week to week the little book has advertised itself 
 
Preface to New Edition 2 1 9 
 
 without much help, and certainly with no hin 
 drance, from the critics. 
 
 I have a right, I believe, to speak with a certain 
 confidence, after these experiences of forty years, 
 as to the American wish or determination in 
 the management of such affairs. As is intimated 
 in the essay in the eighth volume of this series on 
 the Nationalism of New England, it is pity of 
 pities that our fathers did not carry on their first 
 experiments with the inventions of Hargreaves 
 the spinning-jenny and the power looms by the 
 same mutual laws of co-operative industry with 
 which they established the whale fishery. 
 
 It is but right, however, to note the dangers of 
 such an establishment as is imagined at our little 
 " Hampton." First, and chiefly, the inhabitants 
 of such a village, with no other occupations than 
 these here suggested, would become terribly sick 
 of each other and of life. The truth is, that the 
 making of textile fabrics is not the chief end of 
 man. My friends, Hon. Hannibal Manchester 
 and General Asdrubal Lanark, think it is; as I 
 believe Adam Smith and Robert Owen thought 
 before they were born. But all four of them, 
 happily, are mistaken; and happily the propor 
 tion of spinners and weavers grows smaller every 
 day. One man can make as much cotton cloth 
 to-day as three men could forty years ago. It 
 
220 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 is as foolish to discuss social order as if the 
 great majority of the world were mill hands, as 
 it is to discuss it as another generation did, as if 
 most men were drudges, clowns, as Shakespeare 
 would have called them, or the riff-raff of Corio- 
 lanus's scorn. 
 
 I should say, then, that the danger of such an 
 establishment as is described at Hampton is the 
 monotony or uniformity of the life there. It is a 
 pity to have a village made from one industry and 
 only one. 
 
 If Mr. Spinner or Mr. Workman could import 
 into their Arcadia Mr. Smith, or Mr. Sole, or Mr. 
 Upperleather, or Mr. Pansy, or Mr. Cabbage, so 
 as to vary the industries of the place, they would 
 make a much more attractive Hampton. 
 
 I suppose that the weak spot in an establishment 
 so well intended as Pullman, in the neighborhood 
 of Chicago, was the monotony. I suppose that 
 varying industries give an opportunity for the 
 genius or native make-up of each child, which is 
 quite necessary for the best civilization. 
 
 It may be said in passing, perhaps, that the 
 chief end of man is to live to the glory of God. 
 
 EDWARD E. HALE. 
 
 ROXBURY,/#tt 26, I9OO. 
 
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1888 
 
 THE author supposes that this essay on the 
 Christian relations of the capitalist and the 
 workman will be more generally read if it is 
 presented in narrative form. 
 
 It is proper to say that the details bearing on 
 the business of manufacture have the authority 
 of a well-known and successful manufacturer of 
 woollens. 
 
 I am myself the person who was invited, in 1873, 
 by the proprietors of three different woollen mills, to 
 take them and carry them on, on the plan proposed. 
 I received these invitations because I had blocked 
 out this plan, or rather a manufacturer of large ex 
 perience had blocked it out for me, in a story which 
 I published at that time in " Harper's Magazine " 
 called " Back to Back." 
 
 Unfortunately for me, I was not trained to the 
 woollen manufacture, and could not take, therefore, 
 the difficult part which Mr. Spinner takes in this 
 book, as Max Rising took it in that. I was there 
 fore obliged to decline the three proposals. But 
 in this book, as the reader will see, I have supposed 
 that Mr. Spinner accepted one. 
 
 EDWARD E. HALE. 
 
HOW THEY LIVED IN 
 HAMPTON 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HOW THEY LIVED IN HAMPTON 
 
 HAMPTON was a little factory town where 
 was one woollen mill, which represented 
 an investment of perhaps sixty thousand dollars. 
 The village was pretty, a little more four-square 
 and set in its plan than I should have made it, 
 but with evident arrangements of comfort for the 
 workingmen and workingwomen. Lines of maples, 
 about twenty years old, or rather less, shaded the 
 streets, growing perhaps a little too near the fronts 
 of the houses. The houses were not in blocks. 
 They were separate from each other, and each 
 house had the command, if I may so speak, of as 
 much as an acre of land, as a home garden. I 
 noticed, as I walked about the village and pushed 
 my explorations into the back streets, that, in 
 many instances, the lots connected with back lots, 
 so that these gardens were considerably more than 
 an acre. The mill was just off the village street, 
 built close to the Beaver Brook, which was dammed 
 up to make the waterfall which provided power. 
 
224 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 A church, a town hall, and a schoolhouse faced 
 three sides of a little public square, which was 
 planted with trees and flowers, in the midst of 
 which there was a fountain. I noticed a stand 
 for a band on one side of the square. 
 
 I had been following Beaver Brook, and what 
 the geography would call its tributaries, far up 
 into the woods and hills, and had returned to a 
 late dinner, with a basket of trout quite as heavy 
 as I cared to carry. The plan had been that 
 we were to drive down the valley after dinner, 
 and see what was to be seen of a certain mound 
 in the fork of the river and brook, which either 
 was or was not built by the Aztecs, or by Chip- 
 pewas, or some other Indian tribes, and regarding 
 which we were to form an opinion while we spent 
 a pleasant afternoon. But the appearance in the 
 west of black clouds, which made a thunder-storm 
 certain, broke up these plans for a drive, and so I 
 found myself sitting with Mr. Spinner, my host, on 
 the broad eastern piazza, with the chance for a long 
 talk, which business, amusement, or the interrup 
 tion of guests had not permitted during my visit. 
 
 " Now you can tell me," said I, " how you came 
 here, what you did first, and what you did last, 
 why you did it, and where you did it, when you 
 failed, and when you succeeded." 
 
 Spinner laughed. *' I am not a story-teller," 
 said he, " and I shall be apt to put the cart before 
 the horse. The story will fail in what the maga 
 zines call artistic or aesthetic grouping or arrange- 
 
How They Lived in Hampton 225 
 
 ment. But if you put me on my hobby, I shall 
 ride him, and you will have to see his paces." 
 
 I said I wanted nothing better. 
 
 " I like to tell the story," he said. " I have seen 
 it all, I and Nancy here, and we have been a 
 good deal of it. But we should not have done 
 what we have, nor would you see what you see 
 here, but for the loyal help of the people here ; no, 
 nor if, on the whole, the country had not been be 
 hind us. At bottom, John, this is a country of 
 workingmen. The wealth in the hands of a few 
 rich men is easily seen and easily talked of. But, 
 for all that, the amount in the pockets of the People 
 the People with a large P, as that man said in 
 his speech is vastly more than the amount at the 
 bank accounts of a few nabobs. Indeed, I often 
 think of that phrase of Quincy's, that the servant- 
 girls of Boston owned the palaces on their Back 
 Bay. He meant that the servant-girls made the 
 deposits in the savings-banks, which enabled them 
 to lend to the palace-builders all the money they 
 wanted. 
 
 " So the country sympathizes with industry, with 
 contrivance, with work. That sympathy shows it 
 self in law, well in fashion, though the news 
 papers do not think so, in public sentiment. 
 And this makes, Mr. Freeman, it makes no end of 
 difference. I would not run a mill in Mexico, 
 not if you would give me forty-five ingots of silver 
 to build into the foundation. Nay ; when I re 
 member how I heard a Manchester woman from 
 
 15 
 
226 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 England once, in a New Hampshire valley, hold 
 up her hands to heaven and invoke its ' curse on 
 them that built the chimbleys which shut out God's 
 light,' from her old home, in the England she had 
 deserted ; when I heard that, I was glad I was not 
 making cloth in England. I like to work where I 
 have * the country behind me/ " 
 
 Then Spinner asked me if I remembered where 
 we had heard that phrase. I did remember it very 
 well. Captain Greely had given an account, in 
 tensely exciting, of his Arctic adventures. And he 
 told us how he encouraged the men by telling 
 them that they had " the country behind them." 
 
 " Well," said Spinner/ as he picked up the thread 
 of his history, and as little Mary Spinner brought 
 me a Bartlett pear and a fruit-knife, " to begin at 
 the beginning, we began when everything was 
 horribly depressed. I suppose that is a good time 
 to begin. If the sand and gravel has been swept 
 off the rock, you have a clean underpinning. You 
 can build on the rock, and no mistake, and for that 
 there is good Scripture. It was in the autumn of 
 1874. I had been the foreman in the dyeing-room 
 head-dyer I was called in the Andalusia Mills, 
 at Groton. Perhaps you remember how high up 
 they went," he said, rather grimly, " higher than 
 a kite. The selling agent knew as much about 
 wool as I know about quarternions. He chose to 
 buy our wool, as well as to sell our goods. He 
 left the business mostly to his sons, who knew more 
 of billiards than I know of teazles. And the up- 
 
How They Lived in Hampton 227 
 
 shot of it all was that there was that first-rate 
 smash-up. Stockholders and all were mad. An 
 dalusia Mills were sold under the hammer to some 
 Germans, and they brought in their own people to 
 run them, if and when they opened again. So I 
 and Nancy here, with our two babies, were left out 
 in the cold. 
 
 " Meanwhile the country was drugged or flooded, 
 or whatever you call it, with every sort of woollen 
 goods. And it did seem as if the man was a fool 
 who made any more. 
 
 " Just at that time I met at some sort of a com 
 mittee meeting our old friend Thankful Nourse ; 
 we were both trustees of a workingman's building 
 fund. I walked home with Nourse, and, well, yes, 
 I told him a few bottom truths on the subject of 
 investment. He had been in the Andalusia, and 
 now had the pleasure of seeing the same stock 
 quoted at '35, no buyers/ for which his father had 
 given two or three hundred a share. 
 
 " I told Nourse that it was just what the Scripture 
 said. He had had his good things, and now he 
 had his evil things. I told him that if he had 
 known how to manufacture woollens, and had 
 chosen to use his knowledge, he would have saved 
 much of his investment. 
 
 " ' Instead of which/ I said, ' you chose to go to 
 the Islands of Greece, and up the Nile, and across 
 the desert to Damascus, and you left the business 
 of manufacturing to some people who knew nothing 
 about it.' Nourse answered, rather grimly and 
 
228 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 gloomily, that he knew that very well, quite as 
 well as I did, and that he did not come to have his 
 memory refreshed. 
 
 " ' No/ I said, * I did not mean to annoy you. 
 But I meant to say this, that there are two different 
 rates by which capital ought to be paid. One is 
 the rate by which I am paid for my money when I 
 do not take care of it, and take no risks. This is a 
 much lower rate than the rate to be paid me when 
 I take care of it myself, and when I do take some 
 risk.' 
 
 " * Of course,' Nourse says ; ' every one agrees to 
 that.' 
 
 " Yes, every one agrees to that. But I have 
 not found that all people agree to what follows. 
 Yet I think it is clear. It is not very hard, in any 
 country, to find out about what capital is worth, 
 say, for idiots or fools of any sort, or for people 
 who do not want to take care of their money, if 
 they knew how. It is clear enough that the long 
 government loans, such loans as the English con 
 sols, represent the minimum rate of interest An 
 idiot or his guardian would be sure of his interest. 
 He takes no care of the investment, but his invest 
 ment is sure. And I went on to say that while 
 Nourse was going up the Nile, or was crossing the 
 desert, or even if he had a paralytic stroke which 
 lasted seventeen years, the Andalusia people ought 
 to have paid him at that rate of interest, and 
 that he had, indeed, in equity, an absolute right 
 to it. 
 
How They Lived in Hampton 229 
 
 " Nourse began to see what I was driving at ; 
 and he said that if that were all capitalists were to 
 have, nobody would ever bother to use money for 
 manufacturing. They would try government 
 bonds and be done with it. ' And you fellows,' 
 said he, ' who are now very willing to take our 
 subscriptions to your stock, would find there was 
 no money to build the mills with, or to buy the 
 first bale of wool.' 
 
 " I said I knew that; and that I did not mean 
 to limit them to that. But I said, that for what 
 followed this minimum rate, they became, to a 
 certain extent, adventurers. What followed was 
 something like a second-mortgage bond, not so 
 sure in its essence as the first. ' You are entitled,' 
 I said, ' to what we will call the Idiot Rate, the 
 average rate of " Governments," though the sky 
 should fall, in bad times or good times. But for 
 after profit, you must take the chances, just as the 
 retailer does, who sells you satinets and broad 
 cloths, or just as the tailor does, who has pieces 
 of them on his shelves, and cannot sell them. 
 When the Andalusia people paid you that swamp 
 ing dividend of eleven per cent, six or eight years 
 ago, three per cent or a little more came to you 
 because it was the worth of the money, and nearly 
 eight per cent came to you because that was a 
 good year, and because then you had some intelli 
 gent people at the fore/ 
 
 " Nourse growled that it was long since he had 
 had any such good fortune, that he was a fool 
 
230 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 not to sell out then, and that he never, he hoped, 
 should be such a fool again. 
 
 " But I went to see him the next day, and we 
 followed up the conversation. I told him, that 
 even in the depressed condition of affairs which we 
 were in, there were as good chances as ever for 
 going into the business of making woollen cloths. 
 I said that I did not believe that wearing warm 
 clothes in winter was going out of fashion. 
 
 " Nourse said that the tariff might change, and 
 England and Germany might undersell us. He 
 had burned his fingers once, and he would not 
 burn them again, and so on and so on. 
 
 " As for tariffs, I said that the country would 
 long want a large revenue, and was used to gather 
 ing it by import duties. I said that the country 
 was really governed by its workingmen, and that 
 they would be slow to injure themselves. And I 
 said that whether there was a high tariff or not, we 
 are an ingenious people, and a numerous people; 
 that the nearer the mill was to the shop on the one 
 side, and to the man who made the coat on the 
 other, the better was the chance of the man who 
 carried on the mill. Anyway, I said, I had been 
 educated to make woollen cloth, that was my pro 
 fession, and I did not expect to give it up; that 
 there were hundreds of thousands of Americans as 
 good as I, who had been trained to that profession, 
 and that we had somewhere between forty and fifty 
 million people about us who were glad to wear the 
 cloth we had made. He laughed good-naturedly, 
 
How They Lived in Hampton 231 
 
 and said he was glad I was in such good heart. 
 And I reminded him, that however much he had 
 suffered by the Andalusia, I had suffered more. 
 
 "But, indeed, those were black times in our 
 business. Oh ! I cannot tell you how many mills 
 shut down, all the weak ones, most of the 
 little ones, and indeed a good many which no 
 one would ever have called weak until then. It 
 happened that I wrote an article about manufactur 
 ing, in a weekly paper, which attracted the atten 
 tion of some business men, and from that article it 
 was that I received, through the editor's hands, 
 three letters, from three different sets of people, 
 asking me if I did not want to bring to life three 
 different broken-winded woollen mills, in three dif 
 ferent parts of the country. One of them was in 
 Ohio ; one of them was in Middlesex, in Massa 
 chusetts ; and the third was a mill here in Hamp 
 ton. I do not say it was this mill, though here is 
 the old sluice-way, the old wheel in fact, and in 
 part the old foundation. But, really, we have 
 changed almost everything, and the village, as you 
 see it, is practically new. 
 
 " If I do not tire you, or bore you, I will tell 
 you how it came about." 
 
 I said it would not bore me at all ; that, in fact, 
 I had come to Hampton to find out, if I could, the 
 secret of their success, and that the more he liked 
 to tell me, the better I should be pleased. So 
 Spinner began again. 
 
 " I do not pretend that I should have launched 
 
232 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 out into this if the Andalusia had held on. I 
 had a good salary there, and it was very con 
 venient and very pleasant to draw my pay with 
 the rest, to salt down what I wanted, and to let 
 a strong company behind me take all the risks of 
 the business. I have never wondered that men 
 are so eager to go into positions where they have 
 fixed pay, regularly paid. But the Andalusia had 
 not held on. It had been blown up ' higher than 
 a kite.' I had Nancy and the babies in a world 
 which was full of Thankful Nourses ; I mean, full 
 of men who were afraid of manufacturing, that 
 is, were afraid of the very enterprises on which my 
 bread and butter and my babies' milk and spoons 
 depended. That was really the reason why, when 
 the third of these mills was offered me, I began 
 to ask myself whether I had not better face the 
 music ; in fact, whether I must not face the music. 
 The Ohio letter I had answered right away, with a 
 civil refusal. But the Middlesex letter and this 
 Hampton letter came together, by one mail. That 
 interested me, and made me think something 
 might be done, and I sent for John Workman, and 
 asked him to come and see me. 
 
 " No. He is not one of the Worcester Work- 
 mans. That is another family. His father came 
 from Maine, and afterwards went to Wisconsin. 
 
 " I sent for John Workman, and he came to me. 
 He was out of work, as I knew he was, and I knew 
 that he would know some of the best hands we 
 had had at the Andalusia. The depression of all 
 
How They Lived in Hampton 233 
 
 business was as hard for them as it was for the 
 manufacturers. Well, I had much the same talk 
 with him that I had had with Mr. Nourse, only 
 now I began, so to speak, at the other end. But 
 I told Workman that he and I had our chance 
 now. We had often said that the rate of wages 
 ought to rise with good times, if it was to fall with 
 bad times. But I had three mills offered to me 
 to carry on, and thought I was not without hopes 
 that I could persuade Nourse to give some sinews 
 of war. So I said to Workman that if he could 
 get a lot of men together who were willing to work 
 at minimum wages, but to be so far partners in the 
 concern that if times improved their wages should 
 improve, we had our chance. I told him that the 
 ' bloated capitalists ' were, for once, as badly off 
 as the men who worked with their brains and with 
 their hands, and that for once we had a chance to 
 begin in our own way. 
 
 " Now, as I said before, in ordinary times, and 
 especially in prosperous times, this would have 
 been mere talk, and nothing more. But Workman 
 had nothing to do, and he had a family to feed. 
 He knew several of our best friends, as I have 
 said ; and they had nothing to do, and they had 
 their families to feed. He brought two or three 
 of them to me, and we had long conversations 
 It ended in my getting more promises from them, 
 which I was able to carry to Mr. Nourse. They 
 were willing to take hold with me ; I did not say 
 on shares exactly, but really it was much the same 
 
234 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 way that the fishermen, or in old days the whalers 
 at Nantucket, go, or went, for their enterprises. 
 That is to say, everybody there was to be sure of 
 his rations as far as anything could be sure; but 
 for the rest, it all depended upon whether our voy 
 age were a good one or not. The men wanted to 
 divide every three months, but I would not agree 
 to this. I said the voyage must last two years 
 before there was a division. They were rather a 
 superior class of men, they were interested in 
 the plan. They were all running behindhand, and 
 drawing on their bank accounts ; and they finally 
 agreed that our voyage should be a two years' 
 voyage before we made any dividend. That is to 
 say, they agreed to just what Nourse agreed to. 
 All that was to be absolutely promised was a ' star 
 vation payment/ and the rest was to be part of 
 the venture. 
 
 " Let me say, by the way, that in any such enter 
 prise you are able to rely on the love of adventure 
 which exists in all men's hearts. Why, Freeman, 
 if you thought it was right, you would like to buy 
 a lottery ticket yourself to-day, and you are really 
 sorry that you know it is wrong. 
 
 " As for me, I was between the two, with Work 
 man. We two were a sort of buffers, to take all 
 the pounding. We were to be scolded by both sides, 
 and have all the responsibility of everybody's fail 
 ures. We were to be responsible with the present 
 owners of the mill, whichever way we should take. 
 We were to make the engagement with Nourse, 
 
How They Lived in Hampton 235 
 
 and the engagements with the men. When we 
 were fairly running, if ever we were fairly running, 
 I was to buy the wool, and I was to sell the cloth. 
 I was to make the journeys to New York, and I 
 was to have money enough in the strong-box 
 every Saturday night to pay the starvation wages 
 we had agreed upon, and at the end of every third 
 month to pay Nourse the * idiot dividend ' on his 
 capital. Workman was to take the personal over 
 sight of the manufacture, to turn the raw wool into 
 woollen. That is to say, we were to be these 
 hated middle-men whom we had abused so often, 
 and whom we had heard cursed so often. I did 
 not much like to be a middle-man; but it was 
 very clear that Nourse did not mean to run this 
 mill, but was going off to the Sandwich Islands. 
 And the people who owned it did not mean to 
 run it. If they had meant to, they would not 
 have offered it to me. 
 
 " I showed the men's agreement to Nourse, and 
 I got a half-way promise from him that if I started 
 such a plan he might put in some money. How 
 much he would put in, I did not know. But on 
 the strength of his promise I drew fifty dollars out 
 of my bank account, and took Workman with me, 
 and we came down to see this place. I can tell 
 you that it did not look much as it does now. It 
 had been badly planned, badly managed, and had 
 come to grief. A poor broken-winded mill at the 
 best; and when we saw it, it had no wind at all. 
 The people had all gone away except an old man 
 
236 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 who was keeper, and who had his machinery, such 
 as it was, clean and in good order. But it would 
 evidently take a good deal of money, and I no 
 longer wondered that the people had written to 
 me to offer it to me. 
 
 " If you care anything about it, I will show you 
 to-morrow the papers that passed between me and 
 them, and I should like to show you some photo 
 graphs which show what it was when we took 
 hold. 
 
 "But, to make a long story short, for Nancy 
 wants us at tea, it ended in my persuading Nourse 
 to buy the whole concern, and for the present to 
 hold the deed. But he took me as partner, and 
 John Workman as another partner ; and we drew 
 out our bank accounts, I had nearly two thou 
 sand dollars then, and Workman had five or six 
 hundred, so that we might be in good faith part 
 ners with him in co-operation. And it was agreed 
 that any man who worked in the mill three months 
 might become a stockholder with us. Indeed, 
 Nourse agreed to sell out all his stock if we chose. 
 We were to allow him four per cent a year, as what 
 we all called in joke the ' idiot's dividend,' which 
 was to be paid as our first charge after we had 
 paid what we called ' starvation wages ' and our 
 other running expenses. 
 
 " For the rest, I was to be permitted, for my 
 salary as manager, to draw six hundred dollars a 
 year, as the men drew their wages. Workman 
 was to draw the same. After the end of the 
 
How They Lived in Hampton 237 
 
 second year we were to see where we were. That 
 is to say, the first voyage should then be considered 
 over. Profits, for we took it for granted there 
 would be profits, were then to be divided into 
 three equal parts. Nourse was to have one third ; 
 Workman and I, as managers, were to have one 
 third ; and the men were to have one third. Of 
 course, as fast as they bought out Nourse's stock, 
 they also became capitalists, and took their earn 
 ings as such. The scheme would work, however, 
 if none of them took any of his share. 
 
 " However, you had better see all this on paper, 
 and I will show you the articles of agreement after 
 Nancy has given you a cup of tea. 
 
 " When the papers were finally passed I had 
 Workman with me, and he brought with him one 
 of the best of the men who had agreed to try the 
 new plan at Hampton, whose name was Holmes. 
 We had gone all over the business pretty carefully, 
 and I thought Mr. Nourse wanted to get away. 
 But the other two still lingered, and finally Holmes 
 broke the silence, and said : 
 
 " ' I wanted to say to you, Mr. Nourse, and I 
 think Mr. Spinner would like to say the same 
 thing, that we are not going into this thing as 
 a mere matter of business. It is a matter of busi 
 ness, and we will hold to our promise as men of 
 business. But we like the plan really, and we like 
 it because it seems to us to be fair all round. 
 There is a great deal of bad talk you must 
 excuse me if I say I think it is on all sides about 
 
238 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 the relations of what people call labor and capital. 
 For myself, I never called myself a laborer ; I always 
 called myself a workman, and I think there is a 
 difference between work and labor. But that is 
 neither here nor there. I, for one, do not want to 
 encourage hard language between men like you, 
 Mr. Nourse, who have money, and men like me, 
 who want to do an honest day's work, who expect 
 to be paid for it, but who do not expect anything 
 more than our pay. I should think that, if you 
 will let me say so, was the Christian way of stating 
 this thing, and though I do not make much pre 
 tence as a religious man, I am a member of the 
 church, and I do want to go forward in my every 
 day work, as I do in what I say on Sunday, on 
 Christian principles. Now, if you do not think I 
 am talking too long, and my wife often tells me 
 that I do talk too much, I should like to explain 
 what I mean by Christian principle.' 
 
 " Mr. Nourse said, with a great deal of feeling, 
 that he was very much obliged to him ; that he 
 would stay all night to hear what he had to say. 
 For he said he had made this thing a matter 
 of prayer himself, and he wanted to know, if he 
 could, what were the Christian relations which 
 bound him to the men at work in the establish 
 ments where he had any interest. He said, very 
 earnestly, that anybody was unjust to him who 
 said he merely wanted to screw out of his money 
 the most that could be got for it; that he had read 
 and talked and studied, in hope of finding out what 
 
How They Lived in Hampton 239 
 
 these same Christian relations were. He would be 
 very much obliged to Mr. Holmes if he would 
 take all the time he wanted to state his view 
 about it. 
 
 " Holmes seemed somewhat encouraged by this 
 declaration* but he said, with a half laugh, that we 
 should not want to stay till midnight. * Indeed, it 
 is all in very short language in the New Testament, 
 where it says we must bear each other's burdens. 
 It says that no man is to live for himself alone, 
 and no man is to die for himself alone. For my 
 part, I do not think I should work a day if I were 
 not pleased with the thought that I was doing my 
 share to clothe a man who cannot clothe himself 
 as well as I can clothe him, some poor fellow 
 off in Dakota or catching whales in the Arctic 
 seas, maybe,' he said, laughing. ' I want to do 
 my share in the work of this world. It happens 
 that I have been trained to do this as a weaver. 
 I call myself a good weaver, and I think I am able 
 to teach other people something about weaving. 
 If I did not think so, I should go about something 
 else; I would not come with Workman to this 
 mill. But I want to do this as a disciple of Jesus 
 Christ and a child of God. I want to do it in such 
 a way that I shall not be ashamed of doing it when 
 I come to die. 
 
 " ' Now, Mr. Nourse and Mr. Spinner both,' he 
 said, ' this plan of yours is somewhat new in the 
 way in which you have set it up. It really implies, 
 as far as I can see, all that I have ever contended 
 
240 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 for when I have made speeches, as I have often 
 done, in our trade-union meetings. If you will let 
 me say so, this plan, as Mr. Spinner has drawn it 
 up, throws our business of manufacturing on very 
 much the same ground on which most business is 
 done in America. Men are used to such a union 
 as I make, and as Workman makes, with Mr. 
 Spinner and anybody he has with him to carry 
 on this mill. Men know perfectly well that there 
 must be a director or manager; there must be 
 somebody to make plans and somebody to carry 
 out plans ; and we are not such fools as to suppose 
 that that somebody is to work without being paid 
 for it. I am not such a fool as to suppose that he 
 will know how to do his work without learning 
 how. We are not, therefore, jealous at all of the 
 man who directs our industry, who manages the 
 concern, who says what is profitable and what is 
 not profitable, and who buys and sells our goods. 
 If you will think of it, that is exactly what is done 
 in every wholesale store or retail shop. There is 
 a man who buys my groceries, for instance ; he 
 knows where to buy them and how to buy them 
 cheaply, and, although he sells them to me for 
 half as much again as he gave for them, I do not 
 quarrel with him. It is a convenience for me to 
 buy a pound of sugar instead of buying a barrel 
 of sugar, and I do not quarrel with the man who 
 gives me that convenience. But, behind the grocer, 
 there is a bank, which lends him money and pro 
 vides him with the capital which he is going to 
 
How They Lived in Hampton 241 
 
 use. Now here, Mr. Nourse, I am not sure that 
 you would agree with me, but I am telling you the 
 average opinion of American workmen about the 
 relationship of that bank to that grocer. They 
 say that the bank provides him with capital at 
 certain rates, which do not vary very much from 
 time to time. There was once a time when they 
 were even fixed by law at six per cent, or there 
 abouts. No one says that was wise, and I suppose 
 it was not wise. Still, this is certain : those rates 
 do not go up and down in exact correspondence 
 with the ups and downs of business. When my 
 grocer has very little custom he does not find that 
 the banks lend him money any more readily because 
 he wants it more. In fact, he does not tell the 
 bank very accurately what the state of his business 
 is ; they do not ask him very carefully. They are 
 careful to know if his credit is good, that he 
 does not press them too hard, and if he is safe 
 they lend him money. 
 
 " ' I say that is the relationship in which people 
 are in the habit of using capital in America. That 
 is exactly the relationship which you have estab 
 lished with us in this contract you have made. 
 Please to observe, then, that it is the arrangement 
 which we are used to. It is the arrangement which 
 we see succeeds in other forms of business. That 
 is the reason why we like it better than an arrange 
 ment in which, if business happened to be very 
 prosperous, if sales were very quick, and our goods 
 particularly in demand, the capitalist should make 
 
 16 
 
242 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 the usual profit on that account, while our wages 
 would rise but slowly, if they rose at all. 
 
 " * I think Mr. Spinner said that we are not 
 above liking the excitement of good times, and 
 we are men enough to take the pressure of bad 
 times. Here is the reason why we are willing to 
 share and share. 
 
 " ' Beyond that, I should like to assure you, Mr. 
 Nourse, who seem to represent capital in this con 
 versation, and you, Mr. Spinner, who seem to rep 
 resent skill in manufacturing and in trade, I 
 should like to assure you both that we shall like 
 this plan, not simply because we think we are 
 going to have more money in our pockets at the 
 end of two years, but because it seems to us exactly 
 fair. It seems to us that now we bear your burdens, 
 and, if you will let me say so, that you bear ours. 
 When I go to church, I am apt to hear a good 
 deal of this talked about. And I find that I am 
 very apt to get thinking that this is the practical 
 side of the Christian religion ; and if we can only 
 succeed here on our part, and you on your part, 
 in keeping this in mind, why, we shall be working 
 out the Christian relations of capital to workmen. 
 It will not be a great while, as it seems to me, 
 before we cease talking about your part and our 
 part, and shall feel that we are all engaged in one 
 concern. This I can assure you of, that under 
 such a plan as this, you are certain to have picked 
 workmen and workwomen. I do not know how 
 much you have thought of it, but it is a great 
 
How They Lived in Hampton 243 
 
 thing to have a contented set of people. It is not 
 a bad thing to have a set of men who know they 
 are trying an experiment, and I can promise you 
 that while there is any hope that this experiment 
 will succeed, the workmen, whom I do not choose 
 to call laborers, will meet you gentlemen half way, 
 as you have met us.' " 
 
 Such were Mr. Holmes's views as to the " Chris 
 tian relations between capital and labor." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE PLAN 
 
 THE arrangements by which the Hampton 
 Mills were set running were, indeed, sub 
 stantially those on which they have been run from 
 that day to this day. An act of incorporation was 
 taken out, on the principle of limited liability, under 
 the general corporation law of that State. This act 
 originated, as all similar legislation in the world 
 originated, in the act framed by Mr. Theodore 
 Hinsdale in Connecticut, in the year 1837. It 
 was an act and he a man to be celebrated and 
 honored by all who believe in Christian Co-opera 
 tion, and think that the law should sustain and 
 protect all who wish to bear each other's burdens. 
 I will not print the act of incorporation here; 
 for I shall make the plan more intelligible by copy 
 ing the original agreement, as it was drawn up by 
 Nourse, Spinner, and Workman. Eventually, Spin 
 ner and Workman printed this agreement, and kept 
 copies of it in the office, to give away to people 
 like me, who came to see the operation of the 
 mills. 
 
The Plan 245 
 
 HAMPTON WOOLLEN MILL. 
 
 Thankful Nourse of Arcadia, John Workman of Hope- 
 dale, and William Spinner of Crastis agree to form a cor 
 poration for the re-establishment of the Hampton Woollen 
 Mills in the town of Hampton. This agreement is to last 
 for five years, and afterwards, until one of these three 
 parties expresses a wish to withdraw, when the partner 
 ship shall be dissolved, and the corporation, at the end of 
 one year's notice given by the dissatisfied partner. 
 
 [In fact, neither of them wished to withdraw at the end 
 of five years. And a private agreement by which they 
 were bound to each other to consent to such withdrawal 
 was, at the end of five years, cancelled by the three. 
 Either of them now has the right to sell his stock, and 
 on the death of either of the managing partners, the sur 
 viving shareholders would choose his successor.] 
 
 1. Thankful Nourse, for himself, his heirs, and repre 
 sentatives, agrees to furnish as required seventy-two 
 thousand five hundred dollars for the purchase and re 
 pairs of the property known as the Hampton Mills, and 
 for carrying on the manufacture of woollen cloth under 
 the management of the said Workman and Spinner, 
 already named. 
 
 2. John Workman, of the second part, agrees to furnish 
 five hundred dollars for the same purpose. 
 
 3. William Spinner, of the third part, agrees to furnish 
 two thousand dollars for the same purpose. 
 
 The sum of seventy-five thousand dollars thus con 
 tributed is to be the capital stock of the enterprise, and 
 when capital is spoken of in this agreement, the sum now 
 named, of seventy-five thousand dollars, is meant 
 
 John Workman and William Spinner, of the second 
 
246 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 and third part of this agreement, agree to give all their 
 time and skill to the manufacture of woollen goods at the 
 said Hampton Mills ; they are to choose the workmen 
 and appoint the foremen, and direct the manufacture. 
 They are to buy the wool and other necessary material ; 
 they are to sell the manufactured goods for the best ad 
 vantage of the concern. Acting as the firm of " Spinner 
 & Workman," they are to have the control of the mill 
 as entirely as if they had leased it from the corporation. 
 They do this for the benefit of all parties concerned, as is 
 hereinafter described. 
 
 It is understood and covenanted that the mill is to be 
 carried on with the intention that the profits are to be 
 divided between the owners, the two managers, and the 
 workmen employed by them that one third of the 
 profits shall be paid to the owners, one third to the 
 managers, and one third to the workmen. 
 
 In the estimate of profits for such division, it is agreed 
 that there shall have been first paid as necessary ex 
 penses, 
 
 1. Four per cent on the sum of $75,000 to the owners. 
 
 2. Six hundred dollars a year to each manager. 
 
 3. To each workman as may be agreed with him, but 
 on a scale of wages intended to represent three fourths of 
 the current rate of wages in his line. 
 
 4. If the mills do not earn four per cent, after paying 
 the other expenses, the owners shall receive only the 
 amount which it does earn. 
 
 It is further agreed between the said Thankful Nourse 
 of the first part and the said Spinner and Workman of the 
 second and third parts of this agreement, that, for the 
 needs of the mill in carrying forward this enterprise, if 
 said Spinner and Workman find it necessary to give their 
 
The Plan 247 
 
 notes for discount at any time, the said Thankful Nourse, 
 or his agents for him, will indorse those notes to the 
 amount of thirty thousand dollars and no more. And the 
 said Spinner and Workman shall have no power to contract 
 other debts chargeable to the corporation, except for ad 
 vances on goods manufactured. The accounts of the firm 
 and of the corporation shall be accurately kept, and at all 
 times open to examination by either of these parties or by 
 any stockholder or any person commissioned by one third 
 of the workmen in the mill, who are to be regarded as 
 having the rights of partners in the concern. 
 
 A balance-sheet shall be prepared at the end of every 
 half-year to show the profit or loss of the mills in the last 
 six months. 
 
 If any balance of profit appears, after the expenses 
 above provided for have been met, the owners represent 
 ing capital as above described shall receive two per cent 
 semi-annually on their stock invested. 
 
 The remaining profits shall be credited in three equal 
 portions, but shall not be drawn for division till the end of 
 two years. 
 
 One third shall be paid to capital as above described. 
 
 One third shall be paid to the managers. 
 
 One third shall be paid to the workmen, to be 
 divided in the proportion of the wages which they have 
 already received. In the event of the death of any work 
 man, or of his leaving the mill, his representative in 
 Hampton shall receive his share of the profits, as if he 
 remained in the employ of the corporation. 
 
 At the end of five years the mills shall be sold for the 
 benefit of all concerned, and the profit, if any, shall be 
 divided among all concerned, on the same basis as that 
 described for the division of the semi-annual profits. 
 
248 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 [At the end of five years the enterprise was so success 
 ful that this part of the agreement was cancelled by all 
 concerned.] 
 
 The part of the transaction which Spinner knew 
 was difficult, and which Nourse thought was im 
 possible, was the persuading a sufficient number 
 of workmen to take hold on such terms as those 
 described. But John Workman had always, after 
 he had once enlisted, felt sure that that part could 
 be brought about. He belonged, in particular, to 
 a workingmen's club which had often discussed 
 such subjects. The men were good fellows, who 
 did not believe that " the other fellow " in a bargain 
 was to have nothing. They had loyally tried to 
 work out the question of wages on the same plan, 
 which should not involve " knocking down and 
 dragging out." Here was a plan with money be 
 hind it. On the other hand there was nothing. 
 The Andalusia, where most of them had worked, 
 was bankrupt. Men were really trudging about on 
 foot, seeking chances as weavers and dyers, and 
 there were no such chances. 
 
 What was offered was almost starvation wages, 
 but there was no sham about it. And every man 
 was sure of a chance for success. Every man was 
 compelled to invest for two years the remaining 
 quarter of his income, which was not paid him. 
 
 Workman was able to offer his tenement-houses 
 at fabulously low rates, for the new company 
 bought them with the rest of the abandoned prop- 
 
The Plan 249 
 
 erty. And, from the beginning, Workman and 
 Spinner agreed that the money of the company 
 was to be made in manufacturing. It was not to 
 be made out of rents or stores or the improvement 
 of real estate in Hampton. The tenement-houses 
 were valued at an appraisement, and stood at very 
 low charge on the books. Workman said, there 
 fore, that he would rent them for four per cent, 
 what had been called in joke " the idiot's dividend," 
 and nothing more. This gave each hand a con 
 siderable advantage at the first, because he was a 
 partner very soon, even at " starvation wages. " 
 The men began to buy their houses from the cor 
 poration on low rates and terms which will appear 
 in another chapter. 
 
 Among Workman's friends there were several 
 enthusiasts, each of whom undertook to engage ten 
 or twelve hands in the departments needed. Much 
 discussion pro and con went forward. At the last 
 there was much shrinking of wives from the pro 
 posed removal. On the other hand, there were 
 some people who had been wrecked in the original 
 failure at Hampton. They were all too eager to 
 take hold, if in any way they might. Some ofthem 
 proved very good people for the purpose. Most of 
 them were the people who would not have suc 
 ceeded anywhere. By such means the hands were 
 got together, and the mill began to convert wool 
 into woollens. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE RESULTS 
 
 SUCH was the history of the new start of 
 Hampton, and the plan on which the several 
 adventures were formed. It is clear enough that 
 if they had not been bound together by other ties 
 than those of mere business, as it is called, the 
 enterprise would never have succeeded as it did, 
 indeed, it would never have been. But they were 
 united more closely. Every one of the leaders be 
 lieved that, in the true order of society, the order 
 which the Saviour of man lived and died to estab 
 lish, there was a right way to do whatever the 
 world needed done. They believed, therefore, 
 that there was a right way to make woollen cloth, 
 if only they could find out what it was. They 
 meant to find it out ; they were not afraid to ask 
 God's blessing on that endeavor, nor to say to each 
 otheu that they had asked it. With notions and aims 
 as high as these, Mr. Spinner had carried his plan, 
 not now conceived for the first time, to Mr. Nourse. 
 He, too, had made the whole subject a matter 
 of most serious inquiry. He had no wish to grow 
 rich from the results of other men's industry, unless 
 they, in their places, had a chance to prosper also. 
 He knew, however, that manufacturing enterprise 
 
The Results 251 
 
 or mercantile adventure have their laws, as abso 
 lute as those of rainfall or of tide-waves. He knew 
 that, as he could not overpower those laws, more 
 than King Canute could resist the flowing sea, 
 whatever his wealth and power, he could not, on 
 the other hand, withstand them by any degree of 
 sentiment or tenderness. He knew that the laws 
 of trade and of social order must be studied, and 
 that allowance must be made for them. Mr. 
 Workman, and Mr. Spinner as well, wanted to see 
 the right thing done. They were both as proud 
 that they were not born with silver spoons in their 
 mouths as was ever any prince that he was cradled 
 in purple. They were in no sort beggars for a 
 change of position. They were workmen, and 
 good workmen; they had been trained to their 
 craft, and knew how to do their work. What they 
 wanted was, that the share which they contributed 
 in the clothing of the world should be as cordially 
 recognized as every other man's share. They 
 knew that many others had a share in it, capital 
 ist, wool-grower, transporter, merchant, tailor, and 
 stitching-girl. They believed that a fair division 
 could be made somehow, which should recognize 
 how much each of these parties fairly earned and 
 deserved to have. This they wanted for them 
 selves and their associates. They asked for no 
 more. But they were satisfied with nothing less. 
 Had any one asked either of these men for charity, 
 he would have received what he asked for promptly. 
 For they all understood what the word " charity " 
 
252 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 means, and acknowledged the obligation it de 
 scribes. But all of them knew that the relations 
 between capital, which provided tools and mate 
 rials and work, which uses tools to manufacture 
 materials, should not be relations of sentiment, or 
 of charity or of force. They should be relations 
 founded on the eternal laws of God. And, as all 
 of them were Christian men, they believed that 
 these laws were revealed in the Gospel. 
 
 Recognizing, then, that for making woollen 
 cloth, and bringing it to a fit market, three co 
 adjutors were necessary, capital, work, and 
 the directing skill which should enable capital to 
 use the workman's industry, they agreed that 
 these three agencies should share equally in the 
 profit of the article produced. The reader has 
 seen the simple plan which they adopted. 
 
 It worked better than they had dared to hope. 
 For the first seven months, indeed, after the 
 machinery had been renewed, the mills repaired, 
 and the new system set going, they had uphill 
 work. The market was flooded with the stock of 
 bankrupt concerns, forced upon buyers by the as 
 signees and creditors. Never, Spinner told me, 
 had prices sunk so low, and never had the world 
 looked so blackly on such adventure. But he had 
 never given up his conviction that the world must 
 have warm clothing, at least in the zones which 
 were north of ten degrees of Northern Latitude. 
 He kept on making cloth, better and better, he 
 said, as he was able to test his machinery and to 
 
The Results 253 
 
 train his hands, without overworking them. He 
 knew, he said, to a quarter of a cent, what his 
 cloth cost him. He was not yet obliged to sell a 
 yard beneath that cost. He did sell a little at a 
 very small advance upon it. And he piled up 
 a good deal, waiting for a rise. After seven 
 months, the flood came. It wavered at first, and 
 then poured in, cheerfully and hopefully. Some 
 jobbers, who had taken a little of his cloth on com 
 mission, had received very flattering orders for 
 more, amounting almost to carte-blanche for price ; 
 so sound had the goods proved, and so well had 
 the tailors been pleased who had used them. He 
 was glad that he had insisted that the voyage 
 should be a two years' voyage. But he began 
 now to post very encouraging bulletins on his 
 news-boards. He would not make goods by 
 caucus, he said. But he did mean that men and 
 boys should know which way the stream was run 
 ning which carried the fortunes of them all. 
 
 He had, therefore, a regular habit of placing on 
 his bulletin board such correspondence or other 
 news as he thought the hands would be glad to 
 read. I saved one or two of the old bulletins 
 which he gave to me. 
 
 No. 23. 
 
 " Extract from a letter from New York : From Mer 
 cer and Goodenoagh, this despatch is just received : 
 Sold all A. A. at four eighths advance. Order for twice 
 as much." 
 
254 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 For a considerable time after the mill began to 
 run, they felt the worth of the new power enlisted. 
 People were living very economically, because they 
 had only three quarters of the wages they were 
 used to. But every one of these same people had 
 been living more economically, because they had 
 no wages. That was undoubtedly a good stepping- 
 stone for the new plan. After the beginning, how 
 ever, there came a period of terrible depression of 
 feeling. The absolute failure to sell any goods re 
 acted on the men employed. They were used to 
 receiving their pay without any great thought of 
 the run of trade which supplied it. But to meet 
 Mr. Spinner when he came back from New York, 
 or to hear him talk, if he would talk, after he had 
 received his mail, and to know that absolutely no 
 money had come into the concern, this dismayed 
 men who knew, of course, that the thing could not 
 run on forever on Mr. Nourse's original investment. 
 They felt the reflection of the depression in the 
 market, more, probably, than he would have done. 
 This was the real " Slough of Despond " of the 
 enterprise. Spinner spoke to me of it, and de 
 scribed it with a sort of shudder. And afterward 
 Holmes and Dyer and Sheridan and Workman 
 indeed, all of the older hands with whom I talked 
 spoke of it, and with bated breath, as if they 
 hoped they might never have to go through such 
 an experience again. 
 
 "But this I have noticed, Mr. Freeman," said 
 Holmes to me, " unless a man pulls through his 
 
The Results 255 
 
 Slough of Despond in any undertaking, he is no 
 good. And I say that a woollen mill must live the 
 life of a man. Anyhow, we went through it. It was 
 a good lesson for every one of us who was in it. 
 
 " We had a revival meeting, if you will let me 
 call it so, about when things were at their worst. 
 No, I do not mean what I suppose you might call 
 a religious revival, but there was a good deal of 
 religion in it, and, if there had not been, you and 
 I would not be talking here. Almost all the 
 leaders spoke. These gentlemen you know, all 
 spoke. And they put it to the hands, as you 
 might speak to the. men in a sinking ship, if you 
 were encouraging them to pump. But they put it 
 man-fashion. They made the simplest wool-picker 
 there understand that if he deserted the ship he was 
 playing false to every man and every woman in the 
 land who was hoping for better times, better wages, 
 and a better system. I know I told the men to go 
 home and pray God to help to carry it through. 
 I know I took my own advice, and I think others did. 
 
 " That meeting was the crisis. One or two fel 
 lows left us, ' for their country's good.' But 
 there was no grumbling after that, and even the 
 work of the mill seemed to be better, and I know 
 Workman said the same thing. It was some weeks 
 before the business situation of the country seemed 
 better. But we felt better as soon as we openly 
 recognized the difficulty we were in, well, and, 
 so to speak, pledged ourselves to each other. Up 
 to that time, we had all been prophesying success, 
 
256 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 ' smooth things,' as I said last night. When 
 that meeting came, we owned that the whole voy 
 age was not a summer sail, and that every man 
 had got to put his shoulder to the wheel, if we 
 were to go through, yes, and to pray God to 
 help him. That is the reason why I say that we 
 never really prospered till we had gone through 
 the ' Slough of Despond/ " 
 
 It was not the Slough of Despond, but the 
 reason of the thing, which induced Spinner and 
 Workman, with Mr. Nourse's approval, to yield 
 from the rigor of the original plan, which had 
 demanded what Spinner had called " a two years' 
 voyage." At the end of the first quarter of the 
 second year the thing was well established, and in 
 working order. Spinner had a large offer made 
 him in New York for all the goods he had been 
 piling up, and, though the market was probably 
 still to rise, he determined not to bet on the pos 
 sibility, but sold out for cash, so as to clear all his 
 warehouses. And Spinner said to me that, on the 
 whole, in his administration, he had gone on the 
 principle that they were manufacturers and not 
 speculators. " If I could sell our goods for what 
 it cost us to make them, with a fair profit, and a 
 fair margin to cover the losses on sales I was some 
 times forced to make, because I needed money, 
 why, I thought I had better sell. I do not mean 
 I had no right to hold on. Probably I had such 
 a right. But I do not think the right is the same, 
 when I am the manager, as I am here, for a hun- 
 
The Results 257 
 
 dred or two people who are joint owners in the 
 goods, as it would be, say, were I the owner of 
 the Andalusia, and owned all the goods myself. 
 Now I am a trustee. Then I should be an owner." 
 
 I took to heart what he said. And as I looked 
 over his books one day, I could see the advantages 
 the concern had derived from his rule. It need 
 not be said that the public gained a similar advan 
 tage. It is undoubtedly for the advantage of the 
 public that prices should not change by sudden 
 leaps, and that the movements of trade shall not 
 be affected by what are rightly called speculative 
 plans. The co-operators of Hampton did not, I 
 suppose, consider this advantage in making up 
 their system. But it was one of the many points 
 in which they builded better than they knew. 
 
 Acting upon this policy, Mr. Spinner emptied 
 his storehouses, and as he sold for cash on very 
 short credit, he had money in hand. Why should 
 the first voyage be a two years' voyage? They 
 were already in port. He was able to declare his 
 first dividend. Probably no person but himself 
 and Workman had believed it would come out so 
 well. They had made few losses, nothing, in 
 deed, of considerable account. And when the 
 shares came to be divided among all hands it 
 proved that, though so late a payment, it was large 
 enough to compensate every one for the waiting. 
 
 "My deary," said the old woman who washed 
 the windows, when Spinner paid her first money- 
 dividend to her, " if I had had the money, I should 
 
 17 
 
258 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 have spent it." And her simple confession was 
 doubtless true with a great many more of these 
 shareholders, whose investment in work had been 
 larger than hers. 
 
 From that time till the period of my visit the 
 quarterly balance-sheet had been printed for the 
 use of the workmen. It was theirs as much as it 
 was Mr. Nourse's. They were his partners and 
 knew they were, and by no sentimental statement 
 merely. Gradually they came to use the language 
 of owners : " We shall do this ; " " We shall do 
 that; " " We made a mistake in running so long 
 on such a pattern ; " " We made a good thing of 
 this." From the beginning they felt the need of 
 avoiding waste. " There is not a mill on this 
 stream but uses twice as much oil as I do ; " that 
 was the boast which a young man made to me 
 who met the requisitions of the different rooms for 
 the oil of their machinery. 
 
 Spinner and Workman, in giving me the 
 accounts which I have digested in these chapters, 
 both spoke as if they were going back to a time 
 far distant. In point of fact, the establishment at 
 Hampton was made only seven years before. But 
 they had seen so rapid a development since their 
 original timid plans, that they found it difficult 
 sometimes to carry themselves to those antedilu 
 vian days. More than once Spinner came to me, 
 after he had narrated something, to say that, on 
 recurring to his notes or his memory, he found 
 that he had antedated or postdated occurrences, 
 
The Results 259 
 
 and that he wanted to correct his original state 
 ment; for they both knew that I was making 
 memoranda, and that I wished to draw up some 
 such statement as I am making now. 
 
 At the time I visited them the whole establish 
 ment was running on as steadily as any manu 
 facturing town in the country. A considerable 
 part of Thankful Nourse's share in the capital had 
 been taken off his hands by purchase from differ 
 ent heads of rooms, and, in one or two instances, by 
 the widows of former workmen, who wished to re 
 main in the place themselves, and liked to feel that 
 they owned a part of the plant. " Corporation is 
 co-operation " this was a favorite saw of Spinner, 
 Workman, and of a man named Holmes, of whom I 
 have spoken, and shall have occasion to speak again. 
 
 I copy one of their balance-sheets to show 
 its form. 
 
 No. 37 
 Hampton Mills Balance-Sheet for Six Months. 
 
 CR. 
 
 By sales of manufactured goods, after commis 
 sions and expenses have been deducted . $167,892.11 
 
 DR. 
 
 To amount work of operatives . $15,297.14 
 
 To amount paid salaries, Work 
 man and Spinner .... 300.00 
 
 For repairs (machinery and mill) . 6,981.12 
 
 Wool and supplies 111,291.14 
 
 Interest paid to Thankful Nourse, 
 Esq., and to Workman and 
 Spinner 1,500.00 
 
 Balance of profit to be divided . 38,522.71 
 
 $167,982.11 
 
260 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 At the very beginning, the works had gone 
 through their share of the difficulties of a begin 
 ning. After that Slough of Despond which has 
 been described to the reader, there had come 
 along heavy depression of business, which had 
 very severely tried the temper of all these men, 
 and which they thought might try the sympathies 
 and steadiness of their friend Thankful Nourse. I 
 believe, myself, that they quite misapprehended 
 him in this impression. I did not say so to them, 
 but I am quite willing to say here, that I think 
 Mr. Nourse had had quite too much experience in 
 business to suppose that there were to be years of 
 plenty without years of famine following them. I 
 do not believe that in New Zealand, or Boothia 
 Felix, or Novgorod, or the Malayan Islands, or 
 wherever his wandering disposition had carried 
 him, he gave one anxious thought to the invest 
 ment he had made at Hampton. I suppose that, 
 like most other capitalists who have their passions 
 under control, or, why should I not say frankly, 
 who are religious men ? he was willing to take 
 the better and the worse together, and to submit 
 with modesty and with loyalty to what he would 
 frankly have called the " providence of God." I 
 knew Nourse at one time very well, and I remem 
 ber that one of his favorite axioms, borrowed from 
 Mr. Carlyle, was, " There was no act of Parliament 
 that I should be happy." And he would apply 
 this axiom in a dozen different ways. He would 
 say, there was no act of Parliament that the Anda- 
 
The Results 261 
 
 lusia should declare ten per cent; there was no 
 act of Parliament that Mr. Hayes should receive 
 two thirds of the votes for President ; there was no 
 act of Parliament that the Britannia should arrive 
 after a nine days' passage. In other words, he was 
 willing to live in God's world, subject to some 
 orders besides his own, and was not in the habit 
 of complaining, because in any one year or two 
 years things did not turn out as he would have 
 them turn out. 
 
 He had not said so to Spinner in his negotia 
 tions with Spinner, but all the same he had not 
 come to the determination to invest in this tri 
 partite arrangement without solitary thought and 
 without prayer. He believed that he had done 
 the right thing in investing his money as he had 
 done, although he had done a thing wholly new. 
 Having come to this determination, having asked 
 God's help in making this determination, he held 
 to this determination. If anybody had spoken 
 to him about it, he would have been seriously 
 annoyed; but, if it were a person to whom he 
 thought he must make an answer, as, for in 
 stance, to his wife, possibly to an old friend like 
 me, he would have said, probably, " I have put 
 my hand to the plough, and I do not propose to 
 turn back." 
 
 He would have meant that he regarded the cap 
 ital given to him as given to him in trust to use for 
 the best purposes. He had tried to use it for the 
 best purposes when he made this disposal of it, 
 
262 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 and he would not worry himself, week by week, 
 or month by month, or even year by year, in at 
 tending to the details. He would not dig up the 
 tree which he had intentionally planted for a cer 
 tain purpose in his lawn, because at the end of the 
 second year or the third year he thought that the 
 tree was not rooting itself properly. 
 
 So much for the difficulties of the enterprise as 
 they affected capital. They were not so great as 
 Spinner and Workman fancied they were. To 
 neither Spinner nor Workman could Mr. Nourse 
 say all I did, nor were they accustomed to look at 
 it from the point of view which is, I am sure, the 
 true one. 
 
 In another chapter I will show more at length 
 than is worth while here the experiences these 
 two gentlemen themselves had. They were occu 
 pying a position which appeared to be somewhat 
 new. They were subject to a great deal of criti 
 cism from the men whom they were a little apt to 
 call " sea-lawyers," although they had never been 
 to sea. They borrowed this phrase from the sailors 
 whom they knew very well in earlier life, who use 
 it as an expression of contempt, by which they 
 describe the men who are forever inciting sailors 
 to mutinous or disrespectful thoughts of their 
 employers while they are not themselves good sea 
 men. There are such men in all industries, whether 
 they go to sea or not I have no doubt that Spin 
 ner and Workman both despised them, but still 
 such critics had it in their power to make them 
 
The Results 263 
 
 very unhappy. Such critics were constantly try 
 ing to make the hands think that Workman and 
 Spinner overestimated themselves, took airs upon 
 themselves, and, when dividends were made, took 
 more than they had earned. The phrase, which 
 Spinner had himself used when he said that he was 
 to be a buffer between two cars and, if he could, 
 ameliorate the shock, seemed a very pat one to 
 describe the misfortunes which belong to the 
 midway position. Workman said to me one day, 
 half laughing, that he thought they would have 
 fared far better if there had been an old estab 
 lished name by which they could be called. In 
 point of fact, they were called " managers " of the 
 mill, and the dividend paid to them was the divi 
 dend paid to " management." He showed me a 
 little treatise on the subject, written by I do not 
 know whom, which said that in France the man 
 would be called the entrepreneur > meaning the per 
 son who took hold between one end and the other. 
 We have the same root in our word " enterprise," 
 and Workman said he was tempted to call himself 
 an " enterpriser," and he wished that somebody 
 had invented such a word two hundred years ago. 
 He said, if it could be understood when they were 
 spoken of, that the whole thing existed because 
 they were there, it would be better for them both, 
 and he felt that if some good word could express 
 this every time they were spoken of it would be a 
 good thing. " Now," he said, " the word ' man 
 ager ' has in itself not a bad sound, but when we 
 
264 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 speak of managing a thing, we sometimes imply 
 that we are managing it in an underhand way. It is 
 not always so. I believe nobody thinks the ' man 
 ager ' of a theatre is necessarily a mean man ; but 
 the moment we speak of a ' political manager,' we 
 have the idea of a trick. I could wish, therefore/' 
 he said, " that we were not called the management, 
 but we are, and we have to bear our burden as 
 well as we can." 
 
 Nor were the workmen free from their share of 
 annoyances. On the whole, the body corporate 
 of Hampton sloughed off the inferior and dissatis 
 fied people. The management was strong enough, 
 and their friends were strong enough, to say squarely 
 to the sea-lawyers and other such, that if they did 
 not like to stay at Hampton there was no act of 
 Parliament by which they need stay there. 
 
 They could be dismissed, at very short notice, 
 from the mills ; and I was amused to find that this 
 democratic management was very much more 
 peremptory in such dismissals than were the direct 
 ors of many a manufacturing establishment which 
 I had seen before, who were, to a large extent, 
 afraid of irritating or wounding the feelings of their 
 hands. There was no reason for any such fear in 
 this case, because the hands were, practically, with 
 the management, the directors of the whole con 
 cern. On the whole, as I say, the hands were 
 loyal to the plan. They were more and more 
 interested in the plan. It cultivated their self- 
 respect, and, as the reader has been told, it proved 
 
The Results 265 
 
 profitable to them. But none the less were they 
 subject to invasions from committees of inspection 
 and committees of various delegates from county 
 conventions, from " Federations of Toilers," from 
 " Organizations of Industry," from " Unions of 
 Handicraft," and from various other organizations 
 which had much more picturesque and mediaeval 
 names. And these delegates either had some 
 " wrong," showing that they were offended by 
 the somewhat independent attitude of Hamp 
 ton, or they had some new plan for the coming 
 of the kingdom of heaven which they wanted 
 to propose to the Hampton workmen. Now 
 the Hampton workmen were, in fact, the most 
 democratic set of people in the world. They 
 were not proud, they appreciated good-fellowship 
 and camaraderie as much as any men did; but 
 they were beginning to own their own mill, they 
 did have a third part of the profits of it, they 
 wanted it to succeed, and they wanted it to succeed 
 in their own way. They disliked to be lectured 
 about the conduct of their business as much as 
 any purse-proud capitalist in Lynn or in German- 
 town dislikes to be lectured about his. Still it was 
 not a nice thing, it was not an agreeable thing, to 
 be placarded in all the workmen's journals of the 
 country as being only a mitigated set of scabs, 
 or as being pretenders in wolves' clothing, or 
 as being people who, having got a snug thing 
 themselves, were trying to kick down the ladder 
 by which they had risen. All the same, they had 
 
266 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 this burden to bear ; and it was among the diffi 
 culties of the earlier days at Hampton. 
 
 It is better to speak of all those difficulties to 
 gether, than to attempt to convey, in any historical 
 narrative, the way in which they played in with 
 each other, antagonized each other, and at the 
 same time corrected each other. Gradually every 
 body, probably, came to feel that, to borrow Mr. 
 Nourse's maxim, there was no act of Parliament 
 that Hampton should go on without its rubs and 
 periods of starvation. On the whole, it had be 
 come more and more a fixed institution, with its 
 own traditions, and that is a matter of great im 
 portance, with its own habits, which sprung 
 from these traditions, and with that success which 
 belongs alike to established traditions and estab 
 lished habits. 
 
 To sum up, under a few general heads, the more 
 remarkable of these successes, I think I should 
 say, first of all, that the system had brought in and 
 kept in a very superior set of workmen and work 
 women. There were not so many women engaged 
 as there would generally have been in a mill of the 
 size, and, as will be seen in another chapter, there 
 were very few children engaged. But I knew 
 enough of the woollen manufacture to know that 
 the intelligence, quickness, promptness, and effec 
 tiveness of the slowest and poorest hands in any 
 room was well up to the standard of the better half 
 of the workmen or workwomen who would have 
 been engaged in the same room in an ordinary es- 
 
The Results 267 
 
 tablishment. I spoke to Spinner about this, and he 
 said I was certainly right. He said he had thought 
 of it a great deal ; he at one time tried to put in 
 figures some statement of the advantage which they 
 derived from the clear and undoubted superiority of 
 their work-people. He had not found it possible 
 to make any tabular or distinctive statement. " But 
 it amounts to this," he said : " they are all deter 
 mined that this thing shall succeed ; they are deter 
 mined the cloth shall be good, and shall maintain 
 the reputation that it has in the market. If there 
 is any new style, if there is a bit of new machinery, 
 if there is a new fad about dyeing, no matter 
 what it is, it is a thing that interests them as much 
 as a new baby interests the people in the house 
 where it was born. They pet the baby and cuddle 
 it and do everything they can to make the new plan 
 prove satisfactory." In the long run, this is evi 
 dently so. I am disposed to think it springs from 
 self-respect quite as much as from self-interest, 
 to which it might ordinarily be ascribed, and 
 is of great value in any work. And when you 
 come to any change, when one of the heads 
 of a room, for instance, finds it for his advantage 
 to take a higher place in some other mill, when 
 you want to promote somebody to the vacant 
 position, you find that the people who have been 
 faithful in few things are really able to be masters 
 of many things, and that you can promote them 
 without difficulty, and without injury to the run 
 ning of your organism. 
 
268 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 I am not quite sure whether I am right, but the 
 saving of material proved also to be very consider 
 able. Even in such a detail as this of oil, which is 
 a very considerable charge in a woollen mill, the 
 young men who had the care of the oil-room were 
 so careful that, very early in the affair, Workman 
 and Spinner found that these fellows had driven 
 up the others to care, amounting almost to parsi 
 mony, indeed, which involved very considerable 
 reduction. Among the papers which I brought 
 away, as memorials of my visit, is a little printed 
 bulletin, numbered 13, which is a boast that, in the 
 four weeks preceding, seventy-three gallons of oil 
 had been saved compared with the expenditure in 
 the corresponding four weeks in the preceding 
 year. In the reduction of the amount of wool 
 used, Workman himself acknowledged to me that 
 he had been surprised. They told me that, at the 
 beginning, it was not infrequent to find that, with 
 the same number of yards completed, one per cent 
 of wool had been saved in a single week. Of 
 course such improvement as this could not go 
 on forever. But it hardly ever happened that the 
 hands relaxed the care to which they were trained, 
 partly by self-interest, partly by loyalty, and partly 
 indeed by pride. They entered into the feeling of 
 an old-fashioned housekeeper, who hates to see 
 things thrown away. She even wants her children 
 to eat after their hunger is satisfied, because she 
 does not like to have anything left on the plate. 
 Everybody in every department of these mills had 
 
The Results 269 
 
 that same unwillingness to see anything lost which 
 might have been made useful. In another chapter, I 
 will describe at some length the pride which I found 
 all the leaders of the system taking in the young 
 life of their village. Seven years had changed the 
 boys and girls of ten into young men and women 
 of seventeen, the most miraculous change which 
 takes place in human life. It required no hint 
 from those who were most interested, to make me 
 see that these young men and maidens were people 
 of a type quite different from the young people of 
 their age whom one would find in a manufacturing 
 town, where everything had been neglected, and 
 where no central power was trying to bring out the 
 very best training for the young, and to surround 
 them with the most cheerful and happy influences. 
 Without going further into such details, it may 
 be said that nothing is so successful as success. 
 The financial success of Hampton appears to me, 
 now that I am looking back upon the whole, as the 
 least interesting and the least important feature in 
 its administration and in its history. I shall hardly 
 be believed, but I think that four out of five, nay, 
 perhaps that all of the leading members of the 
 community would say, that they have ceased to 
 think of the financial success as being the first 
 matter which they considered. They found them 
 selves in a place where there was no longer any 
 irritation in the discharge of their daily duty. 
 Everybody knew he was justly treated. There was 
 no longer that angry question why things were 
 
270 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 not otherwise, which, under other circumstances, 
 would have embittered the first waking at morn 
 ing, would have embittered every morsel of food, 
 would have embittered the hour when he retired 
 to bed at night. This was all gone. Whether 
 the thing succeeded or not, the thing was fair, 
 and this sense of fairness gave an evenness to 
 people's lives which the older members of the 
 community knew how to value. Next to this, I 
 should say that there was a certain enlargement 
 of life, which they could hardly define them 
 selves, perhaps, and perhaps did not compare with 
 the somewhat limited range of the life of people 
 who were taking care of themselves and taking 
 care of none beside. These people were living, 
 not a mere personal life, but in the life of the com 
 munity. They had all common interests, and 
 these interests were really large interests. To be 
 taken out of themselves, to be thinking of some 
 thing better than their own headaches and heart 
 aches, this was in itself an advantage which, 
 whether they knew how to state it in words or not, 
 affected every hour of every day. 
 
 The great essential of all society is, that the lines 
 of promotion be kept open. A man can bear even 
 a very hard life, if he has reason to think that next 
 week something is going to open before him which 
 will enable him to throw off this or that discomfort 
 of to-day. On the other hand, a man will chafe in 
 a very prosperous life, if you tell him that, by any 
 fatality, he must live on with that machinery, in 
 
The Results 271 
 
 that habit, eating that food, and doing that work 
 forever. Open promotion is the central word for 
 American society and American life. This open 
 promotion was the privilege of every man and 
 woman, boy and girl, in Hampton. It might not 
 come very soon, but every one knew that it was 
 ready and possible. It will be shown in another 
 chapter that the boys and girls were by no means 
 chained or constrained to a future in which they 
 should be operatives in a woollen factory, their life 
 long. Already there were instances where the 
 young people who had this taste or that gift, lead 
 ing them into other occupations, had followed 
 those tastes or used those gifts. Nobody felt com 
 pelled, by the law of the instrument, to accept one 
 position or another. There was, on the other 
 hand, that openness of choice which seems to be 
 the requisite of any happy life. 
 
 This is a poor enough statement of details, and 
 a poor enough effort to analyze the prosperity of 
 a successful community. Perhaps it would have 
 been as well to say that these people had, on 
 the whole, tried to meet the duties which came to 
 them, as Christian men and women. They had 
 done their best, on the whole, to carry out the 
 Christian law of love ; they certainly were living 
 daily with the loyal hope that the future was to be 
 even better than the present; and this love and 
 this faith were based on an abiding faith in God, 
 whose law they were trying to obey. I am not 
 sure that I heard any man say so while I was in 
 
272 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 Hampton, but when I look back upon their life, or 
 what pleased people to call their experiment, it 
 does not seem to me that that experiment was so 
 hazardous, for I always remember who said that, if 
 any community of brethren would trust first the 
 kingdom of God and his righteousness, all the 
 little things of time, for which petty men are sel 
 fishly anxious, will certainly be added to the 
 endeavor of that community. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE STORE 
 
 I DID not like to hang about the counting-room 
 for an unreasonable length of time, and yet I 
 was so much interested in what I saw at Hampton 
 that I did not abridge my visit. As I have in 
 timated, I could occupy myself in the woods and 
 by the brooks, but I also found that I became 
 acquainted among the workmen and their wives 
 and children; and bearing in mind all along the 
 object of my visit, I followed up such acquaint 
 ances. Travelling as long as I had been, there 
 was one and another matter which I wanted to 
 refit in my little luggage, and so I went into the 
 " store " once and again for my purchases. It is 
 the standing miracle of a place like this, when it is 
 well kept, that the clerk is able to supply you with 
 everything you need, from a heron's wing to a 
 hand-saw. I found that they could fit my watch 
 with a new crystal just as readily as I found that 
 they could sell me hooks and flies of the last 
 London patterns. Sometimes the store was wholly 
 empty, and I was the only customer. Sometimes, 
 on the other hand, there would be twenty or thirty 
 
 18 
 
274 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 people there, almost always women, for I observed 
 that the women seemed to be the purse-holders 
 and were intrusted with the buying and selling 
 of this community. I stored up many questions 
 to put to Spinner about the mechanism by which 
 these results were obtained, and one afternoon, 
 as we were driving together, I brought them all 
 out, and made him answer them all together. 
 
 " I see you have got on quite a central affair," 
 he said. " I shall make but a blundering story of 
 it, for indeed the system is one we have hit upon 
 from hand to mouth, if indeed it be a system yet, 
 and yet I think it is beginning to work well. 
 
 " When I came up here first with Workman, I 
 said to him that whatever else we did, in our new 
 capacity as manufacturers, we would wash our 
 hands of * store-pay,' with all its complications, 
 jealousies, and iniquities. You can see yourself 
 that there is a great temptation for a man who 
 comes into a new neighborhood, actually cuts 
 down trees and builds houses for a community, 
 to take upon himself the maintenance of the 
 country store. It is very easy to persuade such 
 a man that it is his duty to do so ; that he should 
 keep his workmen from being cheated; and, in 
 four cases out of five, it is very probable that he 
 does. Still the thing is false in theory. Either 
 a man is a manufacturer or he is a tradesman. 
 If he is a manufacturer, he is, so far forth, not 
 a tradesman, and if he is a tradesman, he is, so 
 far forth, not a manufacturer. Precisely as the 
 
The Store 275 
 
 head of a factory had better not be the leader 
 of a military band, or as he had better not be 
 a publisher of school-books, he had better not be 
 the man to keep a country store. At least, that 
 was what I said to Workman, and what Work 
 man said to me. We had seen endless jealousies 
 among workmen because they supposed their 
 employers were cheating them in this way, and 
 he said that, in our model town here, this diffi 
 culty should not exist. I do not think we gave 
 much thought as to what should come in its 
 place; I suppose we were too easy about that, 
 and imagined that it was one of those things 
 which would take care of itself. In which easi 
 ness of ours, however, we were much mistaken, 
 for the thing has given us as much difficulty as 
 anything has given us which we have had to 
 handle here. It has given us the more difficulty 
 because we are what you see, the only element 
 of life here ; there is absolutely nothing but what 
 we bring here, which divides this place from such 
 a wilderness as you saw yesterday when you were 
 fishing above Jotham's Ledge. 
 
 " We both saw, when we looked at the prop 
 erty we had bought, that there was a building 
 for a store, which the old company had carried 
 on. Its reputation was of the worst. They had 
 paid their workmen in orders on the store, and, 
 rightly or not, the workmen thought that these 
 orders had been the means of endless cheating. 
 When we began to talk with men about coming 
 
276 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 up, the natural question was where they were to 
 do their marketing, and how they were to buy 
 their groceries, and so on. This question we 
 could only answer by the proud statement that 
 there was to be no store-pay, -that though we 
 did not pay much we should pay cash, and that 
 they might buy where they chose. This pleased 
 the workmen very much, till they found that 
 buying where they chose meant going down to 
 Wentworth or going down to Whitby's. And 
 before long, there came a drummer up here, who 
 saw we had an empty store, and asked if we did 
 not want to have a store up here, and we said 
 we did. Before a week was over, he communi 
 cated with his employers, and they had sent up a 
 clerk who had prospected, and we had a store es 
 tablished here, purely on Adam Smith's principle, 
 that the demand created the supply. The man 
 hung out a big sign, and his goods began to come in. 
 " I found very soon that the people disliked 
 him and his quite as much as the people before 
 them disliked the store-pay of their employers. 
 Naturally enough, his principals pushed off on 
 us what they could not sell at home, and, in par 
 ticular, they pushed off on us the wares, such as 
 they were, of which they were special agents. 
 The boys laughed very much because there was 
 an immense display of canned tomatoes and 
 canned corn and other such stuff, and they said 
 they were expected to live on canned vegetables 
 that were ten years old. Somebody would take 
 
The Store 277 
 
 the cars down to Wentworth, and the next day 
 would have his groceries sent over the road here, 
 for a quarter dollar, and then would brag to the 
 others about how much he had saved by his lit 
 tle journey. So they very soon starved that man 
 out. After him, the Wentworth people tried to 
 establish a branch here, but on the whole they 
 gave that up. It was better for them, though 
 it was not so well for us, to have our men send 
 their wives over the road and do their shopping 
 at their headquarters establishment, than it was to 
 be keeping a couple of clerks alive here through 
 the machinery of a separate store. 
 
 " It happened that at that time George Holy- 
 oake was in the country. I do not think his mes 
 sage was introducing the Rochdale system here, 
 but I knew he knew all about it, and I sent to him 
 and asked him if he would come and see us in the 
 course of his travels. So it was that our people 
 had a chance to hear him talk one night, and he 
 was good enough to give them an off-hand talk on 
 the working of the Rochdale system, and said 
 something as to the reason why it had not in 
 troduced itself more fully in America. The rea 
 son is, in brief, that our people like to move from 
 place to place as much as they do, and the Rochdale 
 plan really rests, though I hardly think the English 
 men know it, on the understanding that the more 
 intelligent workmen in a mill stay by the mill from 
 the time they are born till the time they die. At the 
 bottom of his boots, the Englishman does not like 
 
278 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 to move from place to place with his family ; while 
 at the bottom of his boots an American does. 
 However, we had had a great deal of trouble 
 from the supply and demand system, and Work 
 man himself and some other of the more intelli 
 gent men were well disposed to try the Rochdale 
 system, as Holyoake explained to us. Mark my 
 words. You are going from place to place in 
 America, and you hear a great deal of talk about 
 co-operation in trade ; but I tell you that the man 
 is a fool who thinks he knows more about the 
 principles of co-operation than these hard-headed 
 Englishmen have found out in the course of 
 seventy-five years of every kind of experience. 
 They do not theorize a great deal in England, 
 but they do know facts ; and the Rochdale system, 
 which is a difficult system to explain, has come 
 into being from the observation of the failure 
 of more systems than were ever tried in Amer 
 ica. So far as I have seen, the experiments of 
 co-operations in trade in America have failed very 
 steadily, because in every instance there was a man 
 who was more or less a crank, who founded the 
 store, or whatever he called it, and he was deter 
 mined to try his own system. Now the Rochdale 
 system is not any man's system in particular; it 
 is the result of a great many failures and some suc 
 cesses, and the fact that it works as well as it does 
 in England is a certain and strong argument in its 
 favor." 
 
 I said to Spinner that I ought to know what the 
 
The Store 279 
 
 Rochdale system was, but that I did not, and asked 
 him if there was any brief statement of it. He said 
 " Oh, yes ! " and he telephoned to the store to ask 
 them to send over to me one of their little reports, 
 which had an account of the system as they meant 
 to apply it ; and I will print it in the form in which 
 they gave it to me at the end of this chapter. 
 
 " The upshot of it all is," said Spinner, " that 
 the store is well kept and not badly kept. Old 
 Randolph was right when he said that there was 
 no manure like the foot of the owner. They have 
 turned out a good many clerks, and a good many 
 have resigned because they wanted to turn them 
 out, but I am disposed to think that those young 
 fellows they have there now understand the busi 
 ness quite as well as if they had been sent up from 
 New York for the purpose. I know very well that 
 the two young women who keep the accounts and 
 write the letters understand the business a great 
 deal better than most of the people I see in similar 
 capacities, when I am in Broadway. Here is some 
 thing gained at the beginning. In the second 
 place, nobody can complain ; or, if he does com 
 plain, he carries his complaints where he ought to 
 carry them, instead of bringing them to me or to 
 you or to Workman or to anybody else who has 
 nothing to do with it. What do I care whether 
 the ' boiled shirt ' which one of my pickers buys is 
 made according to the last London fashion or not? 
 I would not be bothered with such things, and 
 
280 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 as this thing works I am not bothered with it. 
 The man who buys the shirt is to a certain extent 
 the man who sells the shirt. At all events, if the 
 person who selected the shirt has selected it wrong, 
 it is the fault of the buyer, who ought to have been 
 at the quarterly meeting and chosen somebody else 
 in the directory. You can hardly understand, liv 
 ing as you do, what a relief it is to be relieved from 
 all this nonsense. 
 
 "Then, in general, all these co-operative shops 
 have the great advantage that they have no need 
 whatever to advertise their wares or their existence. 
 You will find that the largest co-operative shops in 
 England hardly advertise at all. Every purchaser 
 is interested in making somebody else purchase, 
 and he is ' touting,' consciously or unconsciously, 
 for the shop all the time. When anybody comes 
 to make a visit here, you, for instance, the 
 visitor goes to the store and buys there. And 
 when you bought a watch-key the other day it 
 was to the advantage of every man in this village 
 that you bought it here instead of buying it in New 
 Haven. If you only take into account the relief 
 to you that you do not see the long bragging ad 
 vertisements in the village newspaper, it is a good 
 deal ; but really these people have no occasion 
 whatever to advertise. 
 
 " Of course they have no occasion whatever to 
 keep adulterated goods, or to keep anything which 
 is not what it pretends to be. Why should a man 
 cheat himself? Why should the person who is 
 
The Store 281 
 
 going to buy the goods send an agent down to 
 New York to buy pickles which are artificially 
 stained, or coffee which has been made out of 
 paste, or anything else which is not what it pre 
 tends to be? You are pleased to compliment our 
 shop ; really, this freedom from all temptation to 
 buy inferior articles has a great deal to do with 
 the merit of what you have seen. 
 
 " Whether such a system as I have described to 
 you can be made to succeed in America on a scale 
 larger than that upon which we are trying, it is 
 more doubtful. But I am quite clear about this, 
 that if some man who knows this country well, 
 and knows the habit of our workingmen, will give 
 the same pains to this subject here that Holyoake 
 has done in England, we shall get an American 
 adaptation of the Rochdale plan which will answer 
 our purpose. The adaptation which we have made 
 here may not be such as they would need some 
 where else. What we have done is to give rather 
 more capital stock to the undertaking in the begin 
 ning than could be supplied by the simple co-opera 
 tive principle. Holyoake would have rebuked us 
 for this, I think, but it was really necessary in the 
 conditions in which we were. I hope as heartily 
 as he would do, that gradually we may have the 
 affair more precisely on the English basis, but that 
 is still a matter for experiment with us. I say this 
 because I do not, as I have said, care to vary much 
 from the only successful experiment of this sort 
 which has been tried in the world. 
 
282 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 " I had been greatly impressed by what George 
 Holyoake says in all his books of the desirableness 
 of each store maintaining, as a store, its reading- 
 room and other methods of instruction. There 
 was a very decent room or hall in the second story 
 of the store building, which we had turned over to 
 them ; and, after communication with Mr. Nourse, 
 I agreed to let that room go without any additional 
 rent, and to be at the cost of fitting it up with 
 tables and chairs, for a reading-room. It serves, 
 of course, for the business meetings of the pro 
 prietors of the store, and the men bring to it such 
 newspapers, magazines, and books as they care to 
 have there. They are permitted to smoke there, 
 and it becomes a very respectable club-room for 
 the village. After a while, the women complained 
 that, although they were often stockholders in the 
 store, they could not stay where the men were 
 smoking; and it ended in my giving the use of 
 another room, which was a sort of back building, 
 which was fitted up for a general reading-room, 
 as it was called, where smoking was prohibited. 
 I think, on the whole, this has proved to be the 
 more popular room of the two, and there is a little 
 competition between them as to which shall 
 get the latest magazines and the best, and the 
 presence of the women adds the element of at 
 tractiveness to the place, which, to a considerable 
 extent, competes with the attraction of the pipes 
 and the freer rules of the original room. All this 
 you will see if you go through the store ; or, if you 
 
The Store 283 
 
 look at the accounts, you will see that something 
 not much is spent for the library and reading- 
 room in every quarterly distribution. When they 
 are prosperous, they are likely to make rather a 
 larger distribution ; then when they are poor they 
 appropriate nothing at all ; in fact, this goes more 
 or less by fancy, according as the drift of any meet 
 ing is led by a parsimonious member or by one 
 who has more liberal views." 
 
 I took an early opportunity, therefore, to go 
 into the store in the forenoon, after the women 
 had gone away. There was no one in when I 
 entered, but, at the sound of my entrance, Mr. 
 Ledger, the storekeeper, appeared from a room 
 behind, which, as I afterwards found, was the 
 reading-room. 
 
 I told him that people spoke to me about the 
 Rochdale system as if of course everybody under 
 stood it, somewhat as people speak about the 
 Christian religion as if everybody understood that. 
 But I said I had found a great many people talk 
 about the Rochdale system who knew nothing 
 about it, and that I was willing to confess that, 
 though I had bought coats and hats and slippers 
 and portfolios at the co-operative store in London, 
 I did not know why they were cheap, and indeed 
 I hardly knew why I went there. 
 
 I found Mr. Ledger was an enthusiast in the 
 matter, and was only too glad to have a hearer to 
 whom he could talk for one of the quiet hours of 
 the middle of the day, when he hardly had any 
 
284 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 customers. I observed that there was a boy, who 
 attended to the one or two children who did drop 
 in for some trifling purchase. 
 
 He said that the idea of co-operation in the 
 purchasing of necessary articles was, as I knew, 
 an idea which had been experimented upon, no 
 body knew how far back. " Nothing is easier," 
 he said, " than for a dozen families to think they 
 will buy their coal together at wholesale, will 
 divide it in the quantities they want, and so make 
 the profit which would ordinarily go to the retail 
 dealer who keeps a coalyard. But practically, you 
 know such schemes as that never continue many 
 years. There are so many conveniences in the coal- 
 yard, that after all you go back to them, and 
 persuade yourself that the profit you made was 
 not worth the trouble. I remember that when I 
 lived in Boston I could go down to a certain point, 
 perfectly well known, at half-past five in the morn 
 ing, and I could buy my fresh fish there, at the rate 
 of about a cent and a half a pound. But I never 
 did go there. I went to a fish dealer, who made 
 me pay anywhere between ten cents and twenty 
 cents a pound. I did not want more than five or 
 six pounds of fish, and it was really not worth the 
 while for me to get up, perhaps before daylight, 
 go out to the place where fish was sold at whole 
 sale, and bring it back. In that story is told the 
 whole of the reason why we pay so much as we do 
 for articles at retail, and why, on the whole, it is an 
 advantage for us to pay it. I suppose there is no 
 
The Store 285 
 
 profit more fairly made than the profit of the re 
 tailing middleman, much abused as he always is. 
 However, as I said before, nobody can say how far 
 back experiments of groups of people buying to 
 please themselves have been tried. Sometimes it 
 has been tried successfully for a good many years, 
 but nothing ever came of it. 
 
 " Now the peculiarity of the Rochdale system, 
 which has made it succeed and grow, is this. The 
 more a man purchases, and the more he can make 
 other people purchase, the larger is his interest in 
 the concern, and the larger his profit. If ten men 
 should subscribe five hundred dollars apiece, to 
 make five thousand dollars capital with which to 
 carry on this store, they would have, of course, an 
 equal interest in the profits of the store. They 
 would try, as they could, to induce as many people 
 to come there and trade. But there would be only 
 these ten people who had a personal interest in the 
 success of the store. 
 
 " If, on the other hand, every person who deals 
 with us is personally interested in making the store 
 successful, why, every one of them will bring in 
 more customers ; every one of them will buy with 
 us, rather than go down to Wentworth or to New 
 Haven to buy ; every one of them will advertise us 
 in whatever way he can. As a matter of justice, 
 or, I think, as a matter of religion, the people who 
 really sustain the store by buying goods at it, are 
 the people who ought to make the profit if there is 
 any profit to be made. It is exactly like a mutual 
 
286 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 life insurance company, you see. Supposing the 
 year is a healthy year, ought not the people to 
 have the benefit whose lives are insured? or, if it 
 is an unhealthy year, ought they not to pay for the 
 unhealthiness ? Just in the same way, if, for any 
 reason, the store is a profitable store, I think, as a 
 matter of Christian justice, the people who deal at 
 the store ought to have the advantage. What does 
 a profitable year mean ? It means that the price 
 which has been put on the retail of the goods was 
 rather higher than the necessities of the business 
 demanded. In other words, the man who bought 
 raisins and sugar here paid us rather more than we 
 need have asked him. If he paid us more, why 
 should not we give it back to him, if we mean to 
 deal as, of course, we do mean to deal on 
 terms coming as near to absolute justice as is 
 possible in human affairs? 
 
 " But this, you will say, is theoretical. Taking 
 the thing practically, here am I, managing this 
 store. I was brought up to this sort of business. 
 I have owned a store, and I have been a clerk in a 
 store. To be an owner means that I have come 
 out at the end of the year not knowing how I was 
 to meet my notes in February. This on the one 
 hand; on the other hand, I have been paid a 
 salary, once a week or once a month, from the 
 time when I had three dollars a week for sweeping 
 out a store, to the time when I had twenty-five 
 hundred dollars because I was the best person 
 they could employ at Pickering yonder. Now, I 
 
The Store 287 
 
 am working here on a salary. I am one of the 
 kind of men that like to work on a salary. Some 
 men do, and some men don't; but after one has 
 had the experience of the ups and downs the 
 good fortune and the bad fortune of what is 
 called business life, if he is such a person as I am 
 he likes the regularity of a paid salary. A paid 
 salary I have here. Besides that, I own some stock 
 in this store ; on that stock I draw my dividends. 
 Besides that, I buy almost everything I need for 
 my family here. I buy just as any other customer 
 would buy, and, according to the amount of my 
 purchases in a year, I am also entitled to a divi 
 dend." 
 
 By this time I was a little confused, and I said as 
 much to Mr. Ledger. He laughed, and said : 
 
 " The whole thing is so simple to us that we take 
 it for granted that everybody will understand it at 
 the first blush. But if you will study the little book 
 of directions of ours, and then come in and see me 
 to-morrow, I will try to make it clear to you." 
 
 Accordingly I took his book of directions, which 
 I copy here for the benefit of people as little in 
 formed as I was. 
 
 HAMPTON CO-OPERATIVE STORE. 
 
 For the information of members, of purchasers, and of 
 all concerned, the following statement is printed, copied 
 from distinguished writers on the subject of co-operation. 
 It will show the principles on which the store is con 
 ducted. 
 
288 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 Persons who wish more detailed information will receive 
 a copy of the Regulations of the Store, by application to 
 Mr. Ledger, at the store itself. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF CO-OPERATIVE TRADE. 
 
 In a properly constituted store the funds are disposed 
 of quarterly in seven ways : 
 
 1. Rent, and expenses of management. 
 
 2. Interest due on all loans. 
 
 3. An amount equal to ten per cent of the value of the 
 fixed stock, set apart to cover its annual reduction in 
 value, owing to wear and tear. 
 
 4. Dividends on subscribed capital of members. 
 
 5. Such sum as may be required for extension of 
 business. 
 
 6. Two and one half per cent of the remaining profit, 
 after all the above items are provided for, to be applied 
 to educational purposes. 
 
 7. The residue, and that only, is then divided among 
 all the persons employed, and members of the store, in 
 proportion to the amount of their wages, or of their 
 respective purchases during the quarter, varying from six 
 per cent to ten. 
 
 The peculiar distinction of a co-operative store is that 
 a fixed interest is divided upon capital, say five per cent 
 upon the shares each member holds, and then all net 
 profits are divided to the trade upon the business each 
 member has done. 
 
 No credit is allowed, of any sort, to any purchaser. 
 The store buys for cash, and its members have the 
 advantage for such purchase. It therefore sells for cash, 
 and for cash only. 
 
The Store 289 
 
 To secure the necessary capital for making a store 
 which shall meet the needs of Hampton, the first twenty 
 dollars of profit earned by any purchaser will be charged 
 to his credit, as one share of his capital. After he is 
 the owner of one share of capital, he will receive five per 
 cent annual dividend on that share, and his profits will 
 be paid to him in cash at the quarterly settlements. 
 
 The store cannot keep open accounts with persons 
 who are not regular customers. Unless purchases to the 
 amount of one dollar are made in each quarter, the pur 
 chaser loses all right to a dividend. 
 
 The prices of the store will be as low as the best stores 
 in the neighborhood. The quality of goods will always 
 be what it is represented. We have no motive to cheat 
 ourselves, and, as the purchasers are the same persons 
 who sell the goods, we have no motive to tell ourselves 
 lies. 
 
 We spend nothing for advertising. If you wish to 
 increase the business of the store, tell your neighbors the 
 truth about it, and bring them to see. 
 
 RULES AND REGULATIONS. 
 
 1. Every person above the age of 14, residing in this 
 town, may become a member of the co-operative store, 
 on the payment of twenty-five cents. 
 
 2. This money will be placed to his credit 
 
 3. Each share of the company costs twenty dollars. 
 So soon as members have paid for one share, they are 
 privileged to attend quarterly, annual, and social meet 
 ings. Members are urged to complete the payment for 
 their shares as soon as possible. 
 
 19 
 
290 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 4. For the amount of all purchases made at one 
 time, the purchaser, if a member, will receive a metal 
 check, stamped with figures indicating the amount of his 
 purchase. He must present these checks. They are the 
 only vouchers recognized for his purchases. 
 
 5. When he presents these checks, once a quarter, 
 the cashier will give him a statement, made from them, 
 of the amount of his purchases. 
 
 6. He is entitled to a dividend in proportion to the 
 amount he has bought. Thus, if he has bought one 
 hundredth part of all the shop has sold, he is entitled to 
 one hundredth part of all its profits. 
 
 7. Until his first share is paid for, his dividends are 
 passed to his credit, in payment for that share. But it is 
 a great convenience to the store for members to pay in 
 cash for their first shares, at once. 
 
 8. On each share, thus paid for, he will be paid 
 quarterly a dividend of one and a quarter per cent, 
 amounting to five per cent in a year. 
 
 9. The receipts of the store will be divided quarterly, 
 after the expenses have all been met, including rent, cost 
 of management, an allowance for depreciation of the 
 goods and furniture, and six per cent interest on capital. 
 The residue will be divided among the purchasers. 
 
 10. Purchasers who have not become members of the 
 society will receive only half the dividend to which they 
 would be entitled had they joined the society. And no 
 person will receive any dividend unless his purchases 
 have amounted to the sum of one dollar at one time. 
 
 OFFICERS. 
 
 i. The Officers of the society are a President, five 
 Directors, a Secretary, and a Treasurer. 
 
The Store 291 
 
 2. They make their own rules. 
 
 3. They appoint the Storekeeper and his Clerks. 
 
 4. They are responsible for all purchases, and for the 
 careful management of the property. 
 
 5. The books of the society are open to the inspec 
 tion of any member, on the approval of a majority of 
 the whole Board of Management. 
 
 The Quarterly Meetings are held on the afternoon of 
 Tuesday after the second Monday of February, May, 
 August, and November. The Annual Meeting is held in 
 November, at such a time as may be ordered at the 
 quarterly meeting of that month. 
 
 And when I left Hampton, Mr. Ledger, knowing 
 that I had some thoughts of establishing a co-op 
 erative store at Pigotsville, where I had an interest, 
 gave me these cautions to officers, which he had 
 digested from the English writers. 
 
 THE MANAGEMENT: OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES, THEIR 
 APPOINTMENT AND DUTIES. 
 
 i. The Committee and Officers. There is almost 
 always a Chairman and Secretary, sometimes a Treasurer, 
 and a varying number of committeemen. 
 
 Election. The Chairman or President of the society 
 is generally chosen by the members in quarterly meeting, 
 sometimes by the committee from among themselves. 
 The Secretary, if a paid servant, employed for accounts 
 and other matters of business, will be, and in the opinion 
 of most Co-operators certainly ought to be, appointed or 
 dismissed by the committee. If the Secretary is only a 
 
292 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 minute secretary for committee-meetings, etc., he will be 
 one of the committee, and will be appointed by them, or 
 might be elected, if desirable, in general meeting; and 
 in this case, all the other duties are undertaken by a paid 
 official, whether general manager, cashier, or otherwise. 
 The Treasurer may be chosen in either way. If there is 
 no Treasurer, the Secretary will discharge his duties. In 
 the opinion of some Co-operators, a Treasurer is not 
 necessary. 
 
 Auditors. It is most important that good men should 
 be selected. They ought to remember what a grave re 
 sponsibility rests upon them in signing balance-sheets. 
 They should be careful of their own reputation, and 
 not run risks or try to screen the committee. They 
 ought to have a full knowledge of accounts, which is not 
 always found. 
 
 Payment. In most societies committeemen are paid 
 for their attendance at the weekly committee ; but it is 
 most desirable, in fixing the scale of payment, to avoid 
 the likelihood of men trying to get on to the committee 
 simply for the sake of the fees. This is a danger to be 
 carefully watched in the co-operative movement. The 
 work of its managing men (not its paid officials, to whom 
 it is a profession) should be that of volunteers, who are 
 repaid in moderation for their expense of time and 
 trouble, and who will withdraw or resign their position at 
 once, without a moment's hesitation on the score of 
 money, if that is being done of which they so strongly 
 disapprove that they believe this to be the right course ; 
 otherwise they are not independent, and may tend to get 
 into the hands of men more powerful than themselves, 
 who are well aware they will not resign if they can possibly 
 help it. 
 
The Store 293 
 
 The Secretary may receive some additional fee for his 
 clerical labors. 
 
 Sub -committees. In most societies there are sub 
 committees to give special attention to the various de 
 partments of the society work, one for groceries, 
 another for bakery, another for butchery, etc. In the 
 earlier stages of a society it may not be desirable, but 
 later on it becomes almost a necessity. As a rule, work- 
 ingmen committees have only the evenings free, and the 
 whole committee could not possibly all of them go into 
 the matters requiring attention. Subdivision of the work 
 is necessary. 
 
 Duties of Committeemen and Officers. The Chairman 
 should have firmness, impartiality, coolness, keenness, and 
 tact. It is no good having a Chairman, however virtuous, 
 good-natured, or consistent, if he cannot keep a meeting 
 in order. The Secretary should be able to work hard 
 and continuously, must be well up in figures, and must 
 write well and quickly. A bad Secretary can bring a 
 society to grief very quickly. He ought not to try to 
 dictate to the committee, and, whatever his own opinions, 
 ought loyally to carry out their decisions. In a commit 
 tee there are always likely to rise up rival parties. This 
 ought to be avoided as far as possible. A member should 
 firmly state his opinion, and accept a defeat with good 
 temper, or, if the matter is serious, resign. He ought to 
 feel himself free to resign, if necessary, as has been men 
 tioned before. Party spirit on a committee is to be 
 deplored. The members should not send hot-headed 
 firebrands into office. They should send steady-going, 
 able men, who have a capacity for patient, persistent 
 enthusiasm that commands success and is not afraid of 
 difficulties. The committee should aim at keeping the 
 
294 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 confidence of their members ; should remember that the 
 constitution of the society is republican ; should not 
 mind criticism, but welcome it. It should be considered 
 a golden rule that the committee should never unneces 
 sarily keep anything back from the members, unless its 
 being known is likely to be injurious to the society. 
 Committees should desire publicity and criticism of any 
 kind within reasonable limits. They should not be thin- 
 skinned, or make too frequent appeals to the forbearance 
 of members. Members ought to have the moving power 
 in as many matters as possible, and this power should not 
 be taken from them. 
 
 Publicity and frank and full discussion of all matters 
 concerning the welfare of a society are essential to its 
 well-being. Many a society has come to a bad end 
 through the want of this. The committee should never 
 be jealous of rising talent among the members. There 
 are plenty of outlets for activity ; and, perhaps more than 
 anything else, what is needed now is that committees should 
 encourage young members to be personally interested 
 in the fuller and higher development of Co-operation 
 in many different ways. A great deal can be done in the 
 way of training up good and loyal members and active 
 and efficient officers in a society where a good spirit 
 prevails, and where the best men have an influence such 
 as they deserve. 
 
 Servants of the Society. All servants of the society 
 are almost invariably appointed and dismissed by the 
 committee. 
 
 The Manager. Upon the question what kind of per 
 son is the storekeeper, manager, or buyer, depends, to 
 a very large extent, the success or failure of the society. 
 Is he to be the master or the servant of the committee ? 
 
The Store 295 
 
 What is to be the relation between them ? A manager 
 has great opportunities of influence through much inter 
 course with the members, and he can use it well or badly. 
 Many managers of co-operative stores are first-rate men, 
 and zealous Co-operators. Yet there are great tempta 
 tions to managers to aim at personal power rather than 
 the general welfare of the society. 
 
 Checks on Managers. Some societies are content 
 with a guarantee or deposit similar to that demanded 
 from the Secretary or Treasurer. Such a guarantee merely 
 provides against certain kinds of dishonesty. It does 
 not provide against waste. 
 
 (a) The English shops have advanced so far in their 
 system that they provide for what they call Leakage Bonds. 
 To aim at lessening waste and preventing possible fraud, 
 many societies arrange for a leakage bond or agreement, 
 to be signed by the manager. In this he binds himself 
 to return as much money as is equal to the value of the 
 goods intrusted to him, subject to a deduction for leakage 
 (i. e. t waste and loss in weighing out). Opinions differ as 
 to the leakage allowable, and it depends partly on how 
 the accounts are made up ; id or $d in the pound is a 
 very ordinary average allowance. 
 
 (b) Check Systems. There are many ways in which 
 a fraudulent manager or shopkeeper can cheat a society, 
 and no methods can obviate this altogether. At the 
 same time it is very important that in order to remove 
 temptation, and keep the business up to the mark, there 
 should be a check system, with a view to seeing how 
 much cash really passes through the manager's hands. 
 
 Let it be understood that the mere having of checks 
 or tokens, metal or otherwise, as explained before, to 
 enable members to claim their dividends at the end of 
 
296 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 the quarter, is not a check system in the sense of being a 
 check upon managers and shopmen. You may or must 
 have checks, as they are called, to give to members ; but 
 it does not follow that you have any check on your man 
 ager, or that the committee know whether they get all 
 the cash which is paid over the counter. For instance, 
 non-members who know nothing about the dividend may 
 come in, (but add) pay, and go away without any check, 
 the shopman pocketing the money and not being found 
 out. It has been found also that with the metal checks 
 employees may pilfer the checks, and their friends bring 
 them in and claim dividends at the end of the quarter. 
 With the paper checks, one being given for every sale, 
 there is some security, but even this has not always 
 worked well. 
 
 In large stores, the method of the shopmen giving the 
 customer a ticket, who takes it to a boy, who gives metal 
 checks in exchange and registers each shopman's sales, 
 has been found fairly satisfactory. For the whole subject, 
 which is a difficult one, see " Manual of Checks," published 
 by the Central Board. Apparently, the ideal check system 
 has yet to be discovered. Still, it may be said generally 
 that a good committee can soon find out if a manager is 
 doing really well or not, and that, as in so many other 
 matters of management, the only thing to be done may 
 be to say to a manager, " We do not charge you with 
 dishonesty, but simply with want of managing power. 
 Experience shows every day in every kind of business, 
 that, of two men with the best intentions, one can make 
 a good profit and the other will make a serious loss. We 
 have given you a good trial, and tried to help you. We 
 propose to part with you and take another manager." 
 
 The Employees. The shopmen, baker's men with the 
 
The Store 297 
 
 cart, and others employed by the store, will be appointed 
 by the committee, who, if they are wise, will give their 
 managers and branch managers a good deal of power in 
 this matter. Get good managers, and trust them in minor 
 matters ; give them power over those below them, if you 
 think they will use it well; and while always willing to 
 investigate complaints, show the employees that you do 
 trust your manager. If the committee as individuals 
 listen to the complaints of shopmen, clerks, and others, 
 they may do a great deal of harm. Branch managers 
 should be made as far as possible responsible for what 
 goes on at the branches, and, if possible, should have a 
 pecuniary interest in the success of the branch. 
 
 Bonus to Employees. Many societies have begun this 
 plan, and under pressure from their members have given 
 it up. It may fairly be said that, if Co-operators believe 
 in the principle of workmen having a pecuniary interest in 
 their work, they ought to apply it to the shopmen in their 
 shops. Many Co-operators show by their votes in meet 
 ings and by their practice that they do not believe in this 
 principle. On the other hand, many do. Some com- 
 mitteemen would gladly apply the principle if they could 
 prove to their members that a real saving is effected by 
 it. If it is to be conceded as an abstract principle of 
 justice, not many societies will carry it on that ground. 
 It is worth considering, whether the plan which has been 
 tried in some societies, of giving a bonus on wages, at the 
 same rate as the dividend declared, e.g., is. 6d. to $s. in 
 the pound, according to the success of trade in each 
 quarter, is not a mistake, except in very small stores. 
 Rather it would seem that each small group of employees 
 should be made to feel a direct personal interest in the 
 part or branch in which they are engaged. Then they 
 
298 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 have much more chance of getting something by their 
 efforts than they have as individuals of raising the general 
 dividend for the whole store \d. or 2.d. in the pound, which 
 will bring them but little after all. Where departmental 
 accounts are kept, it ought not to be difficult. If so 
 cieties and committees would turn their attention more 
 fully to this subject, and not listen to isolated instances of 
 failure, it is probable they would find that there is a good 
 deal more in this matter of profit-sharing by employees 
 than has yet been found out. The number of employees 
 employed in distributive work in stores is about 13,000. 
 Almost all societies close the store for one half-holiday 
 in the week, generally not on Saturdays. In addition to 
 this unusual privilege, the hours of labor are usually con 
 siderably less than the hours in private shops. The Sat 
 urday half-holiday for shops was largely inaugurated by 
 Co-operators. They felt that shop-keepers had as much 
 right to the holiday as they had. For rules for shopmen, 
 see a useful paper at the end of " Model Book-keeping." 
 
 Average Working Expenses. These vary a good deal : 
 in some stores, they are as high as seven and one half per 
 cent or more, in some below five per cent ; but a great 
 deal depends on local circumstances. It is impossible to 
 lay down a rule. Inquiries should be made of societies 
 in similar circumstances. 
 
 Stock-taking. Quarterly stock-taking (or half-yearly, 
 where the accounts are only made up and dividends de 
 clared half-yearly) is a most important matter, and it may 
 become a fruitful source, not only of error but of fraud. 
 It must be done on a systematic principle, and the mem 
 bers of committees should personally superintend it. 
 Stock ought to be taken at cost price> unless the goods 
 are deteriorated, or the market value has gone down. In 
 
The Store 299 
 
 that case, they should be taken at what they would cost 
 to buy at the time stock is taken. In no case ought 
 goods to be put at more than cost price. To do so is to 
 appropriate the profits before the work of selling has been 
 done, and the expense of selling provided for. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE ENTERPRISER 
 
 I ASKED Mr. Spinner one day, with a good 
 deal of curiosity, in what consisted the dif 
 ference between their plan and other arrange 
 ments of co-operative workmen. I had always 
 been taught, at college, and by the superficial 
 writers on modern social order, that, while dif 
 ferent nations had had different forms of success 
 in Co-operation, no one could yet claim that suc 
 cess in co-operative manufacture which he felt sure 
 the Hampton plan had secured. 
 
 It is generally said that the co-operative system 
 of house-owning which in America is called the 
 Philadelphia system, by which a Philadelphia work 
 man comes to own the house he lives in, is peculiar 
 to America. 
 
 It is generally said that the co-operative system 
 of savings-banks, as it was discussed by Mr. 
 Scheffer, in which the small depositors are 
 themselves the capitalists who lend to the small 
 borrowers, is a system peculiar to Germany. 
 
 It is said also that the Rochdale system, the 
 system of co-operative buying and selling, as it 
 has been described in the chapter above, called 
 
The Enterpriser 301 
 
 "The Store," has succeeded in England, and 
 nowhere else. And it is popularly said by the 
 general writers on this subject that co-operative 
 experiments in manufacturing have been short 
 lived, or have been on too small a scale to be of 
 much account in the great exigencies of modern 
 commerce. 
 
 Mr. Spinner replied by saying that there are a 
 good many large exceptions to the statement that 
 co-operative industry has not succeeded on a large 
 scale. The fishing industry in Great Britain, in 
 France, and in America, has always been con 
 ducted on this principle. The men who go on the 
 voyage divide the profits of the voyage by a scale 
 determined long ago, in which the master's rate 
 differs from the mate's, his from the expert sea 
 men, and his from the novice or the boy. The 
 great cheese factories of the dairy towns are con 
 ducted very largely on this principle. The farmer 
 who sends in only a gallon of milk a day is a 
 shareholder in the enterprise of the year, and re 
 ceives his proportional dividend as regularly as if 
 he furnished half the milk needed for the enter 
 prise. The difficulty comes, unquestionably, 
 this was Mr. Spinner's theory, when the kind of 
 manufacturing is such as to require a large invest 
 ment of capital. In the cheese factory the raw 
 material is the principal charge. In the fisheries 
 the daily labor is the principal charge. But the 
 factory requires a much larger plant, in proportion, 
 than either fishery or cheese factory. 
 
302 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 This difficulty had been met by the Co-operators 
 at Hampton when they agreed with Mr. Nourse to 
 pay him a regular interest on the capital he fur 
 nished for this purpose. 
 
 But even then the Co-operators in manufacture 
 meet a second difficulty. They are trained to 
 make goods. But they may make as well as 
 Aladdin's genii, and this will be of no use, if 
 they cannot sell. More than this, it is of no use 
 to make well unless you can buy the material 
 cheaply and to advantage. It is clear enough that 
 a man who is weaving cloth cannot be buying 
 wool, perhaps a thousand miles away, nor 
 selling cloth, after it is made. The workman who 
 spins and weaves and dyes is another person, in 
 another business, from the manager who has to 
 buy wool in one market and to sell cloth in an 
 other. And, if the workman has to be dependent 
 upon some commission merchant who undertakes 
 for him either of these duties or both, he is in as 
 uncomfortable a position as when he was de 
 pendent upon the capitalist. In practice, in the 
 ordinary system, the capitalist undertakes this mid 
 dleman's affair. He buys the wool, and sells the 
 cloth, if the enterprise is like that at Hampton. 
 
 But there is no reason, in the nature of things, 
 why a capitalist should know how to buy wool or 
 sell cloth any better than the weaver or spinner. 
 It is a business wholly distinct from the business of 
 lending money. And, in point of fact, the failures 
 of manufacturers come in quite as often because 
 
The Enterpriser 303 
 
 the men who have this part in charge do not carry 
 on their business well, as because the goods are 
 not up to their standard when the workmen have 
 failed in their duty. 
 
 " It is here," said Mr. Spinner, " that you find the 
 distinctive part of our system. Nourse furnishes 
 the money. We pay him for it, as we would 
 pay any bank for money which we needed. The 
 workmen make the goods. We pay them for their 
 day's work, exactly as you would pay the painter 
 who painted your house. But thirdly, we make a 
 separate business of contriving the work, determin 
 ing on the patterns and plans, buying the material, 
 selling the goods. 
 
 " This is not the affair of the workman. He 
 does not know how. 
 
 " It is not the affair of the capitalist. He does 
 not know how. 
 
 " In our plan it devolves on Mr. Workman and 
 myself. We think we know how. We try to 
 learn how. And the whole thing will go to 
 destruction if we do not know how. In point 
 of historical fact, there would be no mill here 
 on this basis if we had not made the negotiation 
 with Mr. Nourse, and made him believe it possible. 
 The old workmen and their wives know this ; and 
 the hands generally understand it. In practice 
 it is so clear that ' managing/ buying, selling, 
 contriving, are different operations from spin 
 ning, weaving, and dyeing, that the thing explains 
 itself, so soon as men look into it. 
 
304 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 " Very well. As I explained to you, we are 
 recognized as interested to the amount of one 
 third on the success of the concern. That is a 
 rough average, probably not quite accurate, but 
 nearly so, and convenient. We are paid living 
 wages, as if we were foreman of rooms, perhaps, 
 head-dyers, or whatever. But, when the yearly 
 balance is made up, whatever the profit is, Nourse 
 receives one third of that profit, the workmen 
 receive a third, just in proportion to their wages, 
 
 and we receive a third. If we were paid in 
 proportion to our wages only, we should not re 
 ceive so much. But you see, that is as broad as it 
 is long. If we were not to have this fixed share, 
 
 one third of the profit, we should never 
 undertake the management of the affair. Why 
 should we ? I am as good a master-weaver as the 
 head of either of our weaving-rooms. Why should 
 I undertake all this business of buying, selling, 
 planning, and in general ordering, if I am not to 
 be paid for it?" 
 
 Thus Mr. Spinner made me understand that 
 the failure of most co-operative enterprises has 
 resulted from the badness of the general manage 
 ment. This has resulted from the unwillingness 
 to pay the general manager. The natural sugges 
 tion is that capital shall have half the profit and 
 the workingman half. This is not founded on any 
 fixed law, but it seems to be a convenient and easy 
 division. It does not work. The reason is that 
 there is a third and wholly distinct business in- 
 
The Enterpriser 305 
 
 volved. This is management. It means buying 
 and selling, planning, directing, selecting, enlarging 
 work or reducing it. It requires a different train 
 ing and a different use of time from the others. 
 
 Spinner showed me figures which he had drawn 
 out very carefully from the books of some of the 
 largest American establishments and from those of 
 some of the smallest. He had drawn them off 
 very carefully in tables. They showed what pro 
 portion of the gross earnings of these mills, year 
 in and out, went for the workmen, what proportion 
 went for material, what proportion went for the 
 profits of the owners, and what was the interest on 
 the capital at the market rates for the year. Of 
 course, one year varied from another. One figure 
 was up and another down, as the market for wool 
 varied, or that for cloth, or that for money, or that 
 for work. But, on the whole, in the average, it 
 was curious to see that his rough division into 
 thirds came out about fairly. To give to handi 
 work one third the profit, to management one 
 third, and to capital one third, after each had been 
 paid the minimum of its living rate, was evidently 
 an arrangement almost exactly just. One year 
 with another, you could hardly do better. 
 
 " In a word," he said to me once and again, 
 " co-operative enterprises generally fail because 
 they do not pay the management." 
 
 I said to him one day, that he had made this 
 sufficiently clear to me. Most business men 
 
 20 
 
306 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 would accept the statement as quite central, that 
 the managers of an enterprise must be well paid or 
 they will fail. Authors, for instance, do not find it 
 well to print and sell their own books. They find 
 it better to write them, and delegate the printing 
 and sale of them to other men who make that their 
 business. The money which the author receives 
 for his part of the work is pretty generally agreed 
 upon. In America, it is ordinarily ten per cent of 
 the gross sales at retail prices. The profit of the 
 retail dealer is also generally agreed upon. It is 
 forty per cent of the retail prices of the books he 
 sells. There is left, then, to 'the wholesale pub 
 lisher, the printer and the binder, to the freight 
 companies which carry the book from place to 
 place, and to the newspapers and magazines which 
 advertise it, fifty per cent of the gross sales. This 
 rough statement shows that in the business of the 
 manufacture and sale of books a very large part of 
 any profit is paid to management. The propor 
 tion will differ, of course, in different sorts of ad 
 venture. If I manufacture plain sheetings, I make 
 an article for which there is a steady demand. 
 The risk of putting it on the market is less than if 
 it were a volume of sonnets or a novel. But, on 
 the whole, men find that it is better to intrust the 
 sale of their work to people who are used to that 
 business, and to pay them well for it. An author 
 may print his own book, or pay the printer for 
 doing so. But he will be apt to have a very large 
 pile of his own books in his own attic or cellar. 
 
The Enterpriser 307 
 
 In the long run, he will find it best to pay for the 
 oversight of publishing. 
 
 I said to Mr. Spinner that I could well see that 
 men acquainted with general business should 
 recognize the truth of his maxim, that you must 
 pay well for management. But I said I should 
 not think that when the day for the dividend came 
 the workmen would like it. I should think they 
 would be jealous of that part of the plan. 
 
 He replied rather grimly, as if I had hit a spot 
 which it was disagreeable to him to talk about. 
 I have observed that visitors who are not quite at 
 home with their hosts are a little apt to bring up 
 the most delicate questions, as if the solution could 
 be given in an epigram. Thus, in old times, an 
 English traveller would ask a Southern planter if 
 he thought the system of slavery abstractly just; 
 and an American clergyman to-day will ask an 
 English bishop why he does not prevent the sale 
 of clerical preferments. In somewhat this way 
 inopportune, I will confess I asked Mr. Spinner 
 whether the work-people liked the arrangement by 
 which " Management " took one third of the profit. 
 I saw in a moment that it was a matter a good 
 deal discussed, and that the renewal of the discus 
 sion with a novice annoyed him. I could not help 
 that, however, and, in truth, I did not much care. 
 I was there, not to entertain him, but to find, if I 
 could, what was their solution of the problems of 
 capital and the industry it needed, or, if you 
 please, of industry and the capital it needed. Mr. 
 
308 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 Spinner had said, again and again, that the essen 
 tial part of their system was the distinct recogni 
 tion of the value of the management. I did not 
 understand the system, that was very clear, 
 until I knew whether the workmen liked the theory 
 as well as he did, who was himself a manager. 
 
 His mere manner was enough to show that this 
 was familiar ground to him, which he had had to 
 go over till he was tired, with every new inquirer. 
 Very well; I could not help that. Of course it 
 was to be often explained, if it was the distinctive 
 part of their system. 
 
 He asked pardon, however, for the annoyance on 
 his face, which he saw that I observed. Then he 
 really laughed at himself. " It is ground so famil 
 iar to me," he said, " that I forget that it is new to 
 others, as the ticket-master forgets that the 
 woman who asks him questions to-day is not the 
 same woman who asked them yesterday. 
 
 " I do not think the ' old men,' as we call them, 
 though most of them are not forty, ever have any 
 question about this part of the plan. Indeed, they 
 know, as well as I do, that it is essential. They 
 know that none of them or any of us would be 
 here, unless the managers had laid out the system. 
 As I said, they know, as a fact in history, that 
 Workman and I persuaded Nourse to come into 
 the plan. They know, also, that we are the people 
 whom he looks to, that he deals with us as far 
 as there is any dealing between him and the con 
 cern, so that we are a necessity. What is more, 
 
The Enterpriser 309 
 
 however, they know that, in fact, the thing works 
 well, that they receive, on the whole, much 
 higher wages than they ever had before they came 
 here, that the work of the mill is better than it 
 was in old times, and the reputation of our goods 
 higher in the market. They know that we work 
 with less waste and more profit, because we are 
 working on this general plan. So far, good. And 
 so far as those who began with us go, there is 
 never any discussion. 
 
 " But you are quite right in thinking that new 
 comers, who have not worked with us long, in 
 variably question this part of our arrangement at 
 first. They say that Workman and I have the 
 lion's share. The boys caricature us sometimes, 
 well; even the older ones will fling at us in the 
 club meetings and other discussions. Of course 
 there have been a thousand other plans proposed. 
 Of course, any hand new at the bellows thinks he 
 can blow better than the old hand did, and makes 
 his new suggestion. It generally amounts to this, 
 of course, that a considerable sum would be 
 saved to the workmen themselves if a committee 
 of management of their own superintended the 
 work, as Workman and I do now, if a fixed al 
 lowance were made to them for their compensa 
 tion, and then the whole profit were divided in 
 proportion to the wages. I do not see that they 
 are apt to wish to increase Nourse's share. 
 
 " But I ask nothing better than that a critic shall 
 have to put his plan on paper, and make it populai 
 
310 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 with the rest. Observe, there is no annual meet 
 ing where it can be proposed as a practical scheme. 
 Every one knows that these works are not run by 
 caucus or in town-meeting. No one is here long 
 who does not like to be here. And, unless the 
 man likes to come, and take wages at our rates, he 
 does not come. Still the whole scheme is certainly 
 democratic, and rests on the substantial satisfaction 
 of everybody. Naturally, it attracts more than an 
 average share of theorizers or schemers. So that 
 in any debating-club, as at the Union, it is very 
 likely that an Ideal Plan for its improvement shall 
 be brought forward. And in this country, particu 
 larly when times are bad, there will be a plenty of 
 broken-winded flannel mills, or other concerns 
 which have shut down, where the owners are open 
 to offers to buy cheap. There was a young man 
 here, named Crichton, who wanted to persuade 
 some of the other young fellows to go up to Eden, 
 twenty miles up the river, with him, and work out 
 a plan he had. So, in one way or another, we 
 have had plenty of plans for improving on our 
 method of sharing. 
 
 " This is the reason why I say so confidently 
 that the making an equal allowance to ' Manage 
 ment' has proved necessary, I mean an allow 
 ance of profit, equal to that assigned to Work and 
 to Capital. It has proved necessary, because so 
 many of these other plans have been proved in 
 efficient. The men will not trust themselves and 
 their families to an annual caucus. They will not 
 
The Enterpriser 311 
 
 go into a scheme which may be over-set in a 
 minute. And capital will not trust itself, unless 
 there is somebody to trust itself to. Theo. Brown 
 used to say that when you made a stocking, you 
 could not ' make believe ' round once, and then 
 knit into the ' make believe.' There must be 
 something to knit into. In practice, there must 
 be a management, which may contract with the 
 men and compact with the property owner." 
 
 I said that it was the fate of middlemen to be 
 unpopular. Spinner said that I need not tell him 
 that. But he said that that was one thing which 
 they were for; that some one must stand the 
 brunt ; and that, if he and Workman were honest 
 and impartial, and carried open accounts, which 
 every one might see, he would risk any unpopu 
 larity. 
 
 " In truth," he said, " with every year there is 
 less and less of such complaining or such criticism 
 as you inquire about. The scheme rests on its 
 substantial justice. When you buy apiece of meat 
 in the market, or hire a cab at the Forty-Second 
 Street Station, you do not complain because the 
 butcher makes a profit, or the cab-driver. You 
 do not suppose that either of them is there as a 
 philanthropist, and you do not suggest to them 
 that they shall send you a check on Christmas 
 Day, with your share of the profits of the year. 
 You recognize butchering and cab-driving as a 
 different business from your business, and do not 
 ask to share the cab-driver's profits, more than 
 
312 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 you expect him to share yours. You do share 
 profits in a Mutual Insurance Company, for there 
 you are all in the same enterprise, and you succeed 
 or fail under the same laws. And so, in the spin 
 ning and weaving, we are all in the same business, 
 and gain or lose by the same laws. But, as I said 
 in the beginning, two things are sure : (i) Manage 
 ment is a separate profession, which must be well 
 paid; and (2) Management involves permanence, 
 or there will be no confidence or security. 
 
 " I have told you," said he, " of the criticisms. 
 Now let me tell you a story on the other side. 
 When, in October two years since, the money 
 market tightened up as it did, half a dozen large 
 mill-owners chose to fail, and there was what you 
 might call a special panic in the trade in woollens, 
 besides the general panic on Wall Street, which is 
 apt to come round in the autumn. As it hap 
 pened, we were carrying an unusually large stock 
 of goods, which I did not choose to sacrifice at a 
 time when the market was badly depressed. But 
 we wanted money, we wanted it badly. In 
 ordinary times, I could have had it for the asking, 
 at one of the three or four banks where they knew 
 our paper. But they would not look at me then, 
 and, well, I do not like to go to note-shavers, 
 Now there is very little secrecy among us managers 
 here. And when I came home pretty blue, one 
 Saturday night, it was known quite soon Monday 
 morning what was the matter with me. Then it 
 was that the system was tested, Mr. Freeman. 
 
The Enterpriser 313 
 
 One of those very men who had said the hardest 
 things of me not a year before, you know the 
 man, he is that man Woodruff, whose son you took 
 a-fishing, came round to me on Monday night. 
 He told me that they had been putting their heads 
 together, and comparing their bank-books, and 
 that, if I thought twelve thousand dollars would be 
 of any use to me the next Saturday, they could 
 manage that I could have it, and as much more at 
 the end of the month. And more than this ; he 
 said if we were pinched for money, as he thought 
 we should be likely to be, he had a list, which he 
 gave me, of forty-seven of the best hands he had, 
 who would not draw their wages for four or five 
 weeks from that time. Well, long before his five 
 weeks were up, I had sold my goods at very 
 handsome prices, and I was able to address them 
 a circular note, to thank them for their loyalty." 
 
 Spinner told this pretty story with a good deal 
 of pride. He opened his desk, and took out a 
 copy of his circular note, handsomely printed, and 
 gave it to me. It was in these words : 
 
 OFFICE OF THE HAMPTON MILLS. 
 
 On behalf of the management of the Mills, and of 
 Mr. Nourse, who is absent in the Holy Land, the under 
 signed wish to express their thanks as well as his for the 
 loyalty, good sense, and courage with which all parties 
 have rendered efficient assistance to the Mills, in the late 
 severe commercial crisis. 
 
 It may be true that, in the disorganized condition of 
 
314 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 trade and commerce, such panics or crises cannot be 
 avoided. 
 
 But this is certain, that, with such good-will and de 
 votion to a common cause as have been shown by those 
 who have undertaken the enterprise of the Hampton 
 Mills, the convulsions of the money-market are not to be 
 greatly dreaded. We have had an opportunity to show 
 each other, if we did not know it before, that there is 
 strength in union. And such an experience as this of the 
 last two months is enough to prove that our enterprise is 
 on a solid foundation. 
 
 With new wishes to deserve the confidence and 
 respect of our fellow-workmen, we are 
 Their friends, 
 
 WILLIAM SPINNER. 
 JOHN WORKMAN. 
 
 "There was really nothing wonderful about it," 
 said Spinner, thoughtfully, when he saw that I had 
 twice read his circular through. " No, keep it. 
 I gave it to you to keep. I have more copies 
 here. 
 
 " There was really nothing wonderful about it, 
 if one will only remember who Jesus Christ was, 
 and what he meant to set in motion, nay, what 
 he did set in motion. Mr. Freeman, if I could tell 
 the ministers what to preach, I would have them, 
 as often as once a month, show to people, espe 
 cially young people, how practical, how efficient, 
 how business-like, if you please, this gospel of 
 our Lord is. There is apt to be so much rhetoric 
 and poetry in preaching, that I am afraid young 
 
The Enterpriser 315 
 
 people think Christianity is all outside of life, 
 that it is matter of fancy or imagination. Now, 
 if I were a preacher, I should like nothing better 
 than to show that the Saviour was the most practi 
 cal reformer, as he was certainly the most success 
 ful reformer, not only in what they call in their 
 sermons the affairs of Heaven, or the Heavenly 
 Kingdom, but in what you or I or these young 
 people would call 'Every-day life.' 
 
 " Did I ever tell you of what Mrs. Spinner said 
 to a fine lady in Warburton yonder, who was 
 troubled because she could not keep her servants? " 
 
 I said he never had. Mr. Spinner laughed. 
 "Why," said he, "Nancy heard her long story 
 about the troubles she had had ever since she 
 began housekeeping, and then she said, ' Did you 
 ever try the golden rule ? ' ' 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 CHILDREN'S WORK 
 
 I NOTICED, on the first day when I went 
 through the mills, that there were no little 
 children at work in any department. There were 
 a good many young people, whom I should call 
 boys and girls, but they were, clearly enough, more 
 than sixteen years old. 
 
 I noticed, also, however, that there were no 
 boys loafing about the village. After my first 
 day's experience in seeking trout in the ponds 
 above the town, I tried to find a boy who would 
 go with me, to carry an extra basket I had, and, 
 indeed, for companionship. And although, after 
 a day or two, I secured the service of such a boy, 
 who became a valued friend before I left Hampton, 
 this was only after rather a careful negotiation, 
 and on special terms, which, if this paper does not 
 grow too long, I may have a chance to tell. 
 
 I was talking one afternoon with a man named 
 Holmes, whom I had fallen in with in the works, 
 and of whom I have spoken once already, and I 
 asked him particularly about what he thought of 
 the labor or work of children, and what they did 
 
Children's Work 317 
 
 about it. He said that he did not know of any 
 fixed rule in the matter which would prevent Mr. 
 Spinner from hiring many more children if he 
 wished, or if he thought the work required it. 
 " But," he said, with a good deal of emphasis, 
 knocking the ashes from his pipe as a sort of 
 gesture accompanying, " he does not think the 
 work requires it, and we do not think so, I do 
 not think so, and the men generally do not." 
 It was quite clear to my mind, as he spoke, that in 
 the face of such unanimity of " the men " Mr. 
 Spinner would not be apt to change his opinion. 
 
 " You see, Mr. Freeman," said Holmes, " most 
 of the men grew up in mills, were trained in 
 them themselves, and they do not like it. I 
 was in a mill in England, so young that I hardly 
 remember anything before I went there. 
 
 " Well, there is no doubt that a boy picks up 
 something that way. He gets steady habits of 
 work, I guess, and I guess there is a certain 
 promptness, readiness, call it what you will, in 
 good hands that have been trained so, that they 
 would say came from their beginning early. But 
 then, what is that? I have plenty of men and 
 women in this mill who never saw a loom till they 
 were twenty years old, who are just as prompt and 
 just as steady. They did not get it in one way, so 
 they got it in another. 
 
 " To go back, Mr. Freeman, I do not think, on 
 the whole, that men or women who grew up from 
 childhood in a mill want to have their children 
 
3 1 8 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 grow up so, if they can help it. If they can help 
 it, that's where it is. Perhaps they think they 
 cannot help it. Perhaps the whole business is 
 counted so close I mean is carried on with so 
 narrow a margin that the wages of the family 
 only amount to enough to keep the family in 
 bread and butter. But then, what does this mean ? 
 I do not know how much you know of trade or 
 manufacturing. I know that there is no such 
 squeeze as that in the woollen business now, 
 nor has been for twenty years, nor is like to be. 
 No, indeed, Mr. Freeman ; and if there were any, 
 I would give up making cloth, and I would go to 
 Dakota and make wheat, or to Montana and make 
 wool, that's what I would do." 
 
 And Mr. Holmes laughed as he thought of 
 himself on a ranch in Montana. 
 
 " You see," he continued, filling his pipe again, 
 " you see, Mr. Freeman, there are a great many 
 other things a boy has to learn, and a girl too, 
 besides spinning and weaving, if they are to live 
 decently and comfortably in such a country as 
 America. And I do not mean school learning 
 either. That 's all very well, but my children learn 
 a good many things, and need to learn them, 
 which Miss Jane Stevens does not teach them, 
 nor any other schoolmistress or schoolmaster." 
 
 I said that I believed he had a good many 
 children. 
 
 " Ten of my own," he said with some pride, 
 " and Peter, who came in with the mail just now. 
 
Children's Work 3 1 9 
 
 He is just the same as one of ours, but he is 
 really the cousin of the others, son of a brother 
 of Mrs. Holmes, who was lost at sea. Eleven of 
 them there are. I took Tom into my own room 
 with me the day he was sixteen, and I suppose 
 I shall let Susie come in the day she is sixteen, if 
 she wants to. But maybe she will change her 
 mind before then." 
 
 And he paused a minute, as if considering this 
 question, before he went on in his rather voluble 
 conversation. 
 
 " I told them, when we came here," he then said, 
 " that if we meant to have our children grow up 
 strong men and women, they must be in the open 
 air, they must have enough to eat and drink, and 
 they must want to eat and drink it. You see, 
 Mr. Freeman, it is my notion that all mill-towns 
 have suffered from the idea that they are to be 
 nothing but mill-towns. You say ' Lowell is a 
 factory-town,' and ' Holyoke is a factory-town/ as 
 if because they are factory-towns they can be 
 nothing else. Suppose you made the people in a 
 ship into one community in this fashion. Suppose 
 that when you launched her, you said to all the 
 people that sailed her that they were to be sailors, 
 or at sea, all their lives. Suppose you said so to 
 their wives and children, just like those people 
 that live in the boats in Canton harbor. What 
 sort of men, I wonder, would grow up on your 
 ship? After all, the mill is only a ship on land. 
 And what I say is, that the boys and girls in it, 
 
320 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 even if they are, in the end, to work in it, want to 
 see and learn and know some other things, just as 
 the sailor's boys do before they go out with him, 
 and, for that matter, his girls, who never go out 
 with him. 
 
 " Now it was easier for us to act on such a plan, 
 because here, from the beginning, the men who 
 owned this plant had the courage to say that they 
 would earn their money in manufacturing and in 
 nothing else. For the rest of their investment 
 they wanted interest and not profits. Perhaps you 
 know how they gave up the store, and said they 
 did not mean to try and make money out of that ; 
 that was not their affair. So they gave up the 
 tenements." 
 
 I said that I did know this, and that I hoped to 
 know more of the Co-operative system than I did 
 when I came to Hampton. 
 
 " Well, now," he said, " the same rule works, of 
 course, about rents and gardens, houses, 
 about these places where we live. Of course, 
 when a man like our Mr. Nourse buys a property 
 like this, there is a temptation to see what the 
 rents on the houses will be. It is natural to say, 
 * They have always rented for ten per cent on the 
 valuation or cost, and that will be but a very small 
 rent,' so he will go on so. There is no great 
 oppression if he wants to do so. But I do not 
 believe it pays in the long run. To begin with, I 
 do not believe it pays any man to be in two or 
 three different trades. If he makes horseshoes, I 
 
Children's Work 321 
 
 say let him make horseshoes, and not try to sell 
 ribbons in the evenings. If a man makes woollen 
 cloth, let him sell woollen cloth, and not have 
 another account for the grocery shop, and another 
 for the rents and repairs of his houses. That 's 
 the way it looks to me. 
 
 " Anyway, as you know, these people, or rather 
 this man, were ready to let us do what we chose, 
 if we only paid him the market interest on the 
 capital, and gave him a third of the profits, if 
 profits there were. 
 
 " Now I, and Spinner, and Workman, well, a 
 good many of us, we went in for Real Estate. 
 
 " Real Estate, Mr. Freeman, with a large R and 
 a large E, a very large R, and a very large E. 
 ' Fasten a man to the ground,' says I, ' and let it 
 be worth his while to make it worth living on/ 
 No, Mr. Freeman," and he laughed, "I spent 
 a winter with the Cherokees once, at a place they 
 call Tahlequah. I saw enough of common prop 
 erty in land then and there, and I do not want to 
 see any more. ' Real Estate,' says I. And when 
 I said this to the others, I did not go back on 
 what I have been saying to you. Because when I 
 own a place, as I own this place," and here 
 Holmes looked up with a certain pride on his 
 wife's trumpet vines and Dutchman's pipe, which 
 shaded the piazza where we were sitting, " when 
 I owned this place, when I bought it, I did 
 not buy it to make money. I make money yon 
 der, I make money by making cloth, or help- 
 
322 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 ing make it. But I want a real home. I want it 
 for her, and I want it for them. And so I said 
 to Spinner and Workman, says I, ' You let these 
 boys and girls of mine live in a place I own, and 
 we shall all take care of it. You put me in a tene 
 ment somebody else owns, and for one I shall 
 be apt to let somebody else take care of it.' So 
 they fixed it, or all of us fixed it together. They 
 gave me a bond for a deed of this place ; it was 
 one acre then; I have another acre back there 
 now, and afterward I bought a wood-lot yonder. 
 I was to pay five per cent interest, and ten per 
 cent a year on the capital if I could, and I was to 
 have a deed when I had paid forty per cent. But, 
 you know, after we were sure the thing would work 
 here, it was not much money, and I drew out of 
 the savings-bank all I needed to pay up the whole. 
 Yes, it is a pretty place. But it 's a much prettier 
 place than it was when we came here. And that 
 is what I was coming at. If you do not mind, put 
 on your hat, and come round with me." 
 
 So we walked round his little domain. Yes, a 
 little domain, but his own. And he had all the 
 pride in it, and had the right to, which my friend 
 Mr. Coram has, when he takes me through his 
 grape-houses and other forcing houses. He made 
 me go into the large hen-house, and showed me 
 what he could of the methods of the hatching- 
 house. But he said he must not interfere too far, 
 or his wife and his girls would be after him. He 
 told me with pride that, excepting three days' 
 
Children's Work 323 
 
 labor, when he hired a man to help in digging some 
 post-holes, and in some other heavy work, every 
 nail had been driven, every partition framed, and 
 every sash fixed in its place by the handiwork of 
 his boys. " Let them laugh at the Industrial 
 School," said he ; " that is what comes of it." Then 
 I had to go through the back lot, which had been 
 added to the other, and I was indeed surprised 
 to see the show he had of pears, and to notice how 
 scientifically even the beds of vegetables had been 
 trained. All the potatoes of the winter, all the 
 celery, all the tomatoes of the summer, and all that 
 Mrs. Holmes and her daughters would can, were 
 the product of this garden. All the poultry they 
 ate, and all the eggs, came from this hen-house, 
 and they raised enough to pay in simple barter for 
 their milk, which came from a neighbor, who on a 
 similar lot kept a cow, though he had to hire pas 
 turage. We were still surveying the crops when 
 the bell rang for tea. He asked me to take tea 
 with them, and I was glad to do so. It gave me a 
 chance to see the family, all the way down to the 
 little curly-headed girl who sat in a high-chair, and 
 kept the table clear for a small semicircle drawn 
 from that centre. There was a younger boy in 
 the cradle. 
 
 The supper, physically speaking, did credit to 
 Mrs. Holmes and to her daughters. This is not 
 the place to describe that matter. Indeed, the 
 rugged and hearty aspect of the children, who did 
 thorough justice to their mother's provisions and 
 
324 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 previsions, was what interested me. There was no 
 hurry at table, but " when hunger both and thirst 
 were fully satisfied," we adjourned to the piazza 
 again, and Holmes took up the line of his argu 
 ment. 
 
 " What I set out to say, when we went out into 
 the garden, was this. Suppose I granted to Adam 
 Smith and the other high-flyers, that Labor, as they 
 call it, by which they generally mean work, shall 
 be divided to the bottom, if you want to make 
 money. I do not grant it, but suppose I did. Sup 
 pose that every egg in the omelette you ate to-night 
 had been bought in Michigan, as on Adam Smith's 
 theory it would and should have been, in the 
 cheapest market. Suppose even it was as fresh, 
 coming from Michigan. Suppose that honey, 
 which came from Betty's hive, had been brought 
 from Detroit, and had cost a cent a pound less 
 than it has cost me. Suppose every pear which 
 was on that dish could have been bought in Went- 
 worth market cheaper than the money it has cost 
 us to keep up the orchard. Hark you, I do not 
 grant one of these things, but suppose it was so, 
 what am I for, Mr. Freeman? What is Clarinda 
 for? What are we living for? What is this house 
 for, anyway? Certainly it is that these children 
 may grow up into strong and good and well men 
 and women. In the long run, that is the thing I 
 have most at heart, and Clarinda. Now let us sup 
 pose that since April my radishes and strawberries 
 and raspberries and currants and peas and beans 
 
Children's Work 325 
 
 and corn and cauliflower and cabbages and pota 
 toes have cost me a hundred dollars more than 
 they would have cost me in the market, what 
 should I do with this hundred dollars? Suppose 
 I spent it as observe I have spent it on the 
 education of these boys and girls who have worked 
 on this garden, among other things. There are 
 four of them. Where could I have got for one of 
 them, for twenty-five dollars, what I have secured 
 by keeping him at work under my eye or his 
 mother's? 
 
 "But Adam Smith, or even Robert Owen, might 
 tell me that if the older boys and girls were in the 
 factory I should have twelve or even fourteen dol 
 lars a week more on the pay-roll every Saturday, 
 and that that goes a great way toward Clarinda's 
 account at the store for flour and butter and meat 
 and shirts and trousers and coats and bonnets and 
 gowns, and above all, for shoes," and here he 
 laughed at his own enumeration of man's requisites. 
 
 " There is no doubt of that. And I do not mean 
 to say that eleven hearty children for Peter is 
 all the same as our own eat nothing. Eleven 
 children like these, Mr. Freeman, eat in a year well- 
 nigh seven barrels of flour, and other things in 
 proportion. Let 'em, says I, the more they shall 
 have. And I do not pretend that my farm here, as 
 a machine for producing nitrogen and phosphates 
 out of the rain and the sun, compares with the 
 machines out in Dakota which do the same thing. 
 But I do claim, as the patent lawyers say, that, as 
 
326 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 a machine for training boys and girls into men and 
 women, it is much simpler and much better adapted 
 to the purpose than the complex machine by which 
 Peter works at a loom and earns money to send to 
 Dakota and buy wheat. You see what I mean." 
 
 Yes, I did see very well, and I was glad he had 
 worked it out for himself so well. He wanted 
 to show me his figures, and to please him I looked 
 at them. But I do not copy them here, though 
 I could, because the reader would incredulously 
 think they had been doctored. The truth is, 
 however, that such a spot as Holmes owned, if 
 manured by the foot of the owner, as John Ran 
 dolph said, becomes more productive than the 
 outsiders think. It was not difficult, in a place 
 like that, to procure the stimulants they wanted 
 for their garden-beds. They had only too much 
 working force, when they needed to plant and 
 to weed ; and the harvesting, as Holmes said, 
 laughing, took care of itself, when the family 
 was to eat the strawberries. The secret of suc 
 cess, if one spoke of the theory of the thing, was 
 that this very evanescent force which we call 
 labor could be applied at any moment when it 
 was wanted, without contract, without wages, 
 without book-keeping; and something came of 
 it. What came of it I had seen in the eggs and 
 milk and cream and honey and stewed pears on 
 the tea-table, and had heard of in the potatoes 
 and other vegetables of which he had told me. 
 
 As to money earnings from the children, 
 
Children's Work 327 
 
 Holmes told me what hardly surprised me. He 
 said that all up and down the valley, within 
 three miles of him on either side, the farmers, 
 real farmers, would hire his boys for quite as 
 much as the woollen mills would pay them, at 
 several places between April and November, and 
 that he had rather let them go to such work, for a 
 week or two at a time, than keep them in the mills. 
 " That is what we gain," said he, " by building up 
 these truck farms, as, in fact, our whole system 
 of manufacture does. Somebody must raise the 
 milk and poultry and vegetables for the people at 
 work, not only here, but at Wentworth and at 
 every mill along this stream. You cannot import 
 all that food as readily as you can flour and beef. 
 And it ends in a set of farms, well, you Western 
 men would not call them farms, but we do, which 
 supply these needs. Now there are times when 
 these farmers need extra work, and a good deal 
 of it, and then comes the chance for my boys. So 
 they learn two trades, and that is what every 
 man ought to do. Who is it that says every man 
 must have a vocation and an avocation ? " 
 
 "But you do not make Mr. Freeman under 
 stand the real secret of success," said Mrs. Holmes, 
 " unless you tell him that we own this place, and 
 do not hire it." 
 
 "Oh, I told him that," said her husband, "in 
 my long lecture to him before tea." 
 
 She said that she could illustrate the distinc 
 tion by telling me one thing. " Here is this vine, 
 
328 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 which you call so pretty, which is indeed the 
 glory of the front of the house. When we came 
 here, this piazza, was as bare and ugly as any 
 which would be found in New England. Now, if 
 we had hired the house, I should have spent 
 twenty-five cents for five papers of seeds. I 
 should have bought morning-glories, and cypress- 
 vine, and what they call cucumber-vine, and cobaea, 
 and perhaps some scarlet-runners. You see I 
 should have wanted to cover the front as quickly 
 as I could. Instead of this, so soon as I knew I 
 was to stay here, I sent to Mr. Misho's for this 
 one root of Dutchman's pipe, and paid my quarter 
 of a dollar for that. That was years ago. But my 
 piazza is more and more comfortable every summer, 
 with no cost to anybody, while all my morning- 
 glories, and annuals would have been cut down by 
 the first hard frost. I should have saved my seeds, 
 but I should have had to begin again every year." 
 Her husband listened, with a sort of pride for 
 the exact fitness of the parable, and said that 
 that instance did tell the whole story. "And 
 Clarinda isn't selfish," he said, laughing; "she 
 isn't half so selfish as the rest of us are. She 
 would simply be doing her duty in buying hei 
 annuals. For, if she lived in a hired house, of 
 course it would be her duty to make it look 
 pretty as soon as she could, in six hours, if 
 she could, or, if not so, in six weeks. For my 
 part, when she sent for her Dutchman, I sent 
 for a Catawba vine. I bought a wheelbarrow 
 
Children's Work 329 
 
 load of leather clippings from old Soule around 
 the corner, and treated my land with them. 
 Step round and see the vine with me," he said. 
 "I feed it with waste from the butcher's four 
 times every summer, and now look there." 
 
 He pointed up with pride to the magnificent 
 clusters of grapes, such clusters as civilized man 
 had always taken as the noblest type of plenty and 
 luxury. " There," said Holmes, " who does better 
 than that? In theory, you know, I ought to send 
 to Ohio or New York for those, and pay for them 
 in our goods. But, once in a while, I am not 
 sorry to upset Adam Smith in a good exception. 
 My boys made all that trellis, they will pick all 
 the grapes, and they will eat most of them ; there 
 are nearly two hundred clusters in all. But, after 
 all, these are only the ornaments. The real bread 
 winner of the place is the hennery yonder, with its 
 machinery for hatching out the little chicks." 
 And so we returned to the piazza. 
 
 Then there followed a long conversation which I 
 will not try to repeat. Holmes insisted that the 
 sunshine and rain on a man's place was a part of 
 his wealth, which he must invest if he could. Then 
 he said that the muscle and strength and skill of 
 the children was another part of a man's wealth, 
 which must be used, if they were not hurt in the 
 using. But then he fell into a more serious vein. 
 
 "I will not pretend, Mr. Freeman, that these 
 profit and loss reasons are the real reasons why I 
 bring up my children so. These are only my 
 
330 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 justifications after the fact, as the lawyers would 
 say. You are a Christian man, I hope, and I try 
 to be another. I can say to you, then, what per 
 haps I would not say at the street corner, that I 
 want these children of mine to grow up as children 
 of God; sure of his presence, and happy in his 
 love. I have a notion that if they are in the open 
 air, they feel his presence, and see his work; that 
 he seems near to them, and they feel near to him. 
 Anyway, they are with their mother more, and 
 that is the best thing that can happen to them, for 
 we do not have our children any too long. And 
 if, in this open-air life, healthy and free, they do 
 grow up happy and good, why that is the whole 
 thing. You and I must not be counting coppers 
 or adding up columns of figures, to find out 
 whether one plan is better than another. If it is 
 better for them, that is all." 
 
 And as we went into the house, after I had 
 bidden good-by to his wife and the older children, 
 he said, with a good deal of feeling, " It troubles 
 me a good deal that the men who make laws, and 
 the men who write books, speak as if they thought 
 that a little more profit or a little more product 
 was the important thing. Of course they do not 
 think so. Of course every one wants more life, 
 health instead of sickness, happiness instead of 
 misery, strength instead of weakness. A Christian 
 state cares for its people, and does not care, except 
 for them, for its things." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE SCHOOL 
 
 I REMINDED Spinner one day that he had 
 promised to show me something of the school 
 arrangements, and he said that if I were willing to 
 take a walk, we would both go down to the school- 
 house, and stop on our way to find Miss Stevens, 
 who was their teacher at that moment, and had 
 been for more than a year. We found an intelli 
 gent, wide-awake woman, perhaps thirty-five years 
 old, with a little of the firmness and regularity 
 which comes on people who have kept a school 
 for seventeen years, interested in her work, and 
 willing to talk about it. She said she would take 
 her keys with her, and show us the schoolhouse, 
 though there was, on the whole, very little to 
 show. 
 
 They were District 13 in a large township, and 
 the general school committee of the town had 
 found it was well to let them carry on things after 
 a rather exceptional way. The district committee 
 in New England has very large powers, and does 
 very much as it chooses, and particularly if one 
 member of the district committee is a member of 
 
332 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 the general town committee, the town committee 
 does not much interfere with the plans of the 
 district, so only the work required under the statute 
 of the State is done. There is no general law as 
 to hours, there is no general law as to the number 
 of weeks which the school shall be kept open; all 
 the law requires is that there shall be a school 
 every winter and a school every summer, with a 
 certain minimum beneath which no district must 
 fall, or indeed would be permitted to fall, in the 
 general state of public opinion. These people at 
 Hampton more than complied with the letter of 
 the law, and Miss Stevens assured me that their 
 results were quite as satisfactory as she had found 
 in places where the schools were kept on a more 
 conventional footing. 
 
 The schoolhouse was the old schoolhouse which 
 they had found there, a perfectly simple build 
 ing, which might have cost a couple of hundred 
 dollars to build, with one large room only, and a 
 little anteroom, in which the boys and girls hung 
 up their coats and cloaks, and where they left their 
 overshoes. But I noticed that she or somebody 
 had ornamented it prettily with chromos and other 
 pictures ; they had a very good set of school maps 
 hanging upon the walls, and the general aspect of 
 the place was cheerful. I also noticed that the 
 platform at the farther end of the room was rather 
 higher than I should have made it. But I asked 
 no questions, knowing that " the dumb man's 
 borders still increase." 
 
The School 333 
 
 Miss Stevens said that she had very little to 
 explain, and, indeed, very little to show. She 
 took me to the end of the room opposite the 
 platform, and threw open a half closet, half cup 
 board, which was there, and I saw in a moment 
 that it was a sort of alcove, in which they had 
 stored a great many books, I should think more 
 than a thousand. This, she said, was the school 
 library; or, if I choose to call it so, a public 
 library. Mr. Spinner would tell me where they 
 got the money for it, and who had the books. 
 Then she said, laughing, that she was not only 
 the schoolmistress, but she was librarian of the 
 library. She opened another closet, and there I 
 saw were crowded in two or three tables, which, 
 she told me, were the reading-room tables; and 
 she explained to me how they could be brought 
 out, and arranged so as to cover up the desks of her 
 school-children, and serve her for a reading-room 
 in the evening of some of the winter months, when 
 the schoolroom was open for the purpose. " The 
 schoolhouse has to ' pay a double debt,' " she 
 said ; " and it is now opera house, now school 
 room, now library, and now reading-room. I am 
 retained by these gentlemen in the four capacities 
 of mistress of amusements, director of reading, 
 librarian, and schoolmistress. One of your wise 
 men says that every one should have a vocation 
 and an avocation and a ' third.' I not only have a 
 third, but I have a fourth. But, as another wise 
 man says, I make one hand wash another, and 
 
334 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 really the boys and girls are very good assistants. 
 There is nothing a bright boy likes better than to 
 be told that he may help in the library, and there 
 is nothing that gives him more self-respect than to 
 be put upon some committee in charge of the 
 newspapers or magazines in the reading-room." 
 
 I listened, well pleased, for the little woman was 
 now talking to me on what is rather a favorite 
 topic of my own, and I began asking her a librarian's 
 questions, and other questions which would hardly 
 occur to a person who had not had in hand a set 
 of duties which I have had half my life, but which, 
 with the reader, need not be spoken of. I found 
 that she was in no sort above her business ; on the 
 other hand, she was well disposed to magnify her 
 office, and she gave me some very good hints in 
 administration. But as to the sinews of war, as 
 to the way in which the money was collected and 
 disbursed which all these various enterprises de 
 manded, she always referred me to Mr. Spinner. 
 
 " But if your heart is in it," she said, " and if the 
 people you work for are sympathetic, as the people 
 are for whom I work, the thing does not require as 
 much money as people imagine, or as it requires 
 on paper, no, not nearly as much as it requires 
 when you work from above below, as I have seen 
 such work done, when liberal people and generous 
 people were condescending to improve and level 
 up another kind of people. With us, nobody is 
 condescending ; we are, if you please, a little selfish. 
 It very soon appears that it is easier to have one 
 
The School 335 
 
 of Trollope's novels answer the purpose of twenty 
 of us, or one or two copies of ' Harper's ' answer 
 the purpose of a large circle of readers, than if 
 everybody were selfishly keeping the book or the 
 magazine at his own house and occasionally lend 
 ing it. Very soon, after a year or two, the bound 
 volumes of the magazines became books of the 
 very first interest to children. All children like to 
 follow up a series of bound magazines. They like 
 it rather more than they like anything else. In 
 deed, Mr. Freeman, the difficult point with a public 
 library is at the beginning. The old proverb is 
 certainly true there. Somehow it happens that 
 the first five hundred books you buy are infallibly 
 stupid books. They are the ' books which no 
 gentleman's library should be without,' but which 
 might as well be manufactured out of wood and 
 leather, and nailed up permanently on the shelves. 
 It is not until you have done with the ' standard 
 books,' and begin to supply people with the every 
 day literature of the time, that they begin to un 
 derstand that it is worth while to go to the library, 
 and the time when they understand that it is worth 
 while to support the library is even later. But 
 when they have once tasted blood, there is nothing 
 about which a community is so unanimous as it is 
 in the support of its library. Here I make them 
 bring me everything. I make the man who comes 
 up on the train bring me the ' New York Herald ' 
 or ' Tribune ' of that day, that I may have it on the 
 table of my reading-room. We cannot afford to 
 
336 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 subscribe for half a dozen dailies. But really, there 
 is not a night when one of my boys cannot pick 
 up a daily at the station as the train passes us, or 
 some one does not bring it in here. Our files 
 will not be very uniform, but we are, all the 
 same, supplied with something, and if people read 
 journals of half a dozen schools in politics, why, it 
 is none the worse for them. In the same way, we 
 have most of our magazines, not all ; some we 
 subscribe for ; but I encourage people to send their 
 magazines to me as soon as they have done with 
 them. I promise them that we will bind them, 
 and, after a fashion, we do bind them, though you 
 would think it is rather homely binding. I have 
 taught the girls to do that. And the consequence 
 of all this is, if you should come in here, after the 
 first of October, or before the first of May, you 
 would find, every evening, that my tables are out, 
 that my periodicals are on the tables, and that this 
 little room is quite as full as it will hold of people 
 who have come in here to read. Indeed, last year, 
 I was obliged to establish a branch, of which Mr. 
 Spinner will tell you, at the other end of the village, 
 because we were overcrowded here." 
 
 All this entertained me, because it fell in with 
 various plans of my own, which had had more or 
 less success in various localities. Then I asked 
 her about the school hours, and the extent to 
 which she carried her scholars. " As to that," 
 replied Miss Jane Stevens, " the committee is 
 good-natured, and leave me very much to my 
 
The School 337 
 
 own devices. When I came here, I found that 
 the school had been very small, and, in fact, be 
 fore our mill was established, hardly anybody lived 
 in these houses, and very few of those people who 
 did live here had any children. I had kept school 
 in factory villages before. The general object in 
 most of them is to crowd the children through the 
 thirteen weeks which are required by law, so that 
 they may have the other nine months to work in 
 the mills ; and the pressure of the parents on the 
 committee, or, generally, of the directors of the 
 mills, is the same way. Then we are a good deal 
 pressed and embarrassed often, because the parents 
 are very anxious to get our certificate that the chil 
 dren have worked through the thirteen weeks, and 
 frequently they ask for the certificate before they 
 have any right to it. Then, if you refuse the cer 
 tificate, you get into hot water, and alienate that 
 family, and perhaps their neighbors. 
 
 " We have none of this difficulty here. Mr. 
 Spinner will tell you how soon he and his friends 
 determined that they would not have any children 
 working in the mills who were not sixteen years 
 old. I suppose that determination made them 
 trouble, but it gave me great joy. I did not in 
 sist upon what you would call a city school. I 
 was perfectly willing to fall into the habit of all the 
 country districts here, in having only a winter 
 school or a summer school; although Mr. Spin 
 ner was kind enough," she said, nodding to him 
 and smiling, " to let me have my own way in that 
 
338 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 regard. But I did say that I should like to have 
 the school open for thirteen full weeks in the win 
 ter, and that I should like to have it open for thir 
 teen full weeks in the summer. I ought to explain 
 to you, that I had made an agreement that I would 
 not teach anywhere else, and that my salary was 
 fixed to run from the first of January to the last of 
 December, so that I was to arrange the school as I 
 thought it best for me and for the community. I 
 do not think that I was selfish in the matter. There 
 were reasons why it would have been an advantage 
 to me to have had the school open for forty weeks ; 
 but, on the other hand, I was interested in Mr. 
 Spinner's plans and Mr. Workman's plans ; grad 
 ually I became acquainted with the men and women 
 who work in the mill, and if I were to do it over 
 again, and establish such schools as I wanted in 
 the villages up and down this river, I would not 
 ask for more than twenty-six weeks' work out of 
 the fifty-two, for these boys and girls. 
 
 " I did think, and I said so to these gentlemen, 
 that as we have a good many people who had not 
 had all the school training that they could use to 
 advantage, that it would be a good thing to open 
 the schoolhouse here for an evening school during 
 three or four of the winter months. I said that if 
 they were willing to do that, I would be here from 
 half-past six, when supper is always over, to half- 
 past nine. I said that I would not undertake more 
 pupils than I could manage, but that I thought, 
 with the help that I could find, which need not 
 
The School 339 
 
 cost a great deal, we could manage perhaps as 
 many as forty pupils in the evening. In point of 
 fact, we had an average of about thirty- five, and 
 that is the way in which my time is divided. 
 
 " There is an evening school, which runs for two 
 months late in the autumn. There is a regular 
 winter school, which runs three months. There is 
 an evening school, which runs for two months more 
 in the end of winter and in the spring ; then what 
 they call the summer school comes in at the end of 
 May, and in June and July ; and for the rest there 
 are the holidays." 
 
 " Tell Mr. Freeman about your Mutual Im 
 provement Society/' said Mr. Spinner. 
 
 " I wanted to tell him about that," Miss Jane 
 Stevens said, " but I think I had a little rather that 
 he should see it first, and I wonder if you cannot 
 bring him around this evening. They do not meet 
 here to-night. They are going to give a sort of 
 exhibition at the other hall. Bring him to that, if 
 he is willing to sit through, and let him see what 
 we do with our native talent here. After the ex 
 hibition is over, I will tell him something of the 
 detail of its management." 
 
 Accordingly, at tea-time in the evening, it was 
 announced that Mr. Spinner and I were going to 
 the evening entertainment provided by the society, 
 and Mrs. Spinner and two or three of the older 
 children went with us. We walked up the village 
 street, and saw that other people were doing the 
 
340 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 same, to the church, and here I found that the 
 " entertainment " was to be given in the large vestry 
 of the church, which occupied the whole floor of 
 the building, and into which we descended by a 
 few steps, the floor of the vestry being perhaps 
 three feet below the surface of the ground. The 
 room was not very high, but not so low but what 
 we could hear and see easily. It was prettily dec 
 orated by well-chosen prints, and a nice frieze of 
 well-drawn pictures illustrating the parables ran all 
 round it just below the wall. I observed, as soon 
 as I went in, that some forty seats were reserved in 
 front. For the rest, the hall perhaps seated a hun 
 dred people more, and these seats were all taken 
 before eight o'clock. The announcement had been 
 that the exercises would begin at five minutes after 
 eight, and in a moment I saw the reason for this 
 announcement. Those of the factory hands who 
 chose to come, and who were not released till eight 
 o'clock, had thronged across directly from their 
 work at the mill, apparently choosing to postpone 
 their supper until after the entertainment was over, 
 and they occupied the seats which had been re 
 served for them. So soon as they were all in, the 
 exercises of the evening began. 
 
 A young man, who I should not think was more 
 than twenty-one years old, stepped forward and 
 made a bow and said, " Ladies and gentlemen, we 
 have a programme of unusual interest to offer you 
 this evening. You will see that preparations have 
 been made for a scientific experiment," and he 
 
The School 341 
 
 turned and pointed to rather a large trough which 
 he had by his side. " At the last meeting of the 
 philosophical section, Mr. St. John was appointed 
 to tell us why ice floats upon water, and he has 
 prepared one or two experiments which will illus 
 trate this." 
 
 At once a young man stepped up from the floor, 
 and brought his block of ice with him in a basket, 
 showed how high it floated, and then, with various 
 tubs and pumps and other apparatus, proceeded 
 to give some simple information as to the proper 
 ties of air and water, and what would happen, and 
 what would not happen, etc., in such a way as to 
 interest his audience, and certainly teach some of 
 them something which they did not know before. 
 His statement was very short, and Mr. Spinner 
 told me that no person was permitted to occupy 
 more than five minutes, no matter if he had to 
 demonstrate the most elaborate truths known to 
 science. He was cordially applauded when he 
 had done, and withdrew, leaving his ice floating 
 upon the water. The president again stepped for 
 ward, consulted his paper, and said, " Two of the 
 young ladies will favor us with a duet." Two nice 
 girls came up on the platform; their music was 
 already placed for them on the piano, and they 
 played sufficiently well a duet from Mercadante. 
 
 " Mr. John Graham will read an anecdote." 
 Mr. John Graham proved to be an old Scotchman, 
 I should think sixty years old. He came up with 
 a book in his hand, and said he was going to read 
 
342 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 a story, which should not have been called an 
 anecdote, by Fontenelle. I do not know where 
 he found it; I had never heard it before, and I 
 never heard it since, but it was one of Fontenelle's 
 nice little stories, with a clever moral. It was read 
 in a very pathetic way, and held the audience for 
 Mr. John Graham's five minutes. And so this 
 " variety entertainment " went on, without the 
 slightest pause or breakdown. Sometimes the con 
 tributions were made by little children of seven 
 years old, sometimes by their fathers or their 
 grandfathers. They passed from grave to gay, or 
 from gay to grave, with apparently no prevision 
 or arrangement of contrast or similarity, but by 
 the mere accident which had placed them upon 
 the programme. But what was important was, 
 that they interested the audience, they were curi 
 ously suggestive, and they must have started con 
 versation and thought as hardly any elaborate 
 lecture could have done. 
 
 I could not make Spinner understand how curi 
 ous I thought the whole thing. He did not, in 
 deed, look at it quite as I did. He looked at it 
 rather as something of course, which had grown up 
 quite naturally out of the exercises at the Sunday- 
 school, and out of the school exhibitions. He gave 
 Miss Jane Stevens the principal credit of it, and, 
 after it was over, she walked home with us, and I 
 tried to make her give me some idea of the way in 
 which all these people had been brought to be 
 their own teachers and their own entertainers upon 
 
The School 343 
 
 a public stage. She said that she did not think any 
 body had planned these entertainments, but that 
 they had grown up simply enough out of a little 
 society of boys and girls, which had formed itself 
 when these young people were all five years 
 younger than they were now. They had had, as 
 most villages had, the usual run of fourth-rate 
 lecturers coming up and charging money for their 
 entertainments, till they had got tired of such 
 things. She was, in the meanwhile, trying to 
 interest them in the reading-room and in the 
 library, but she found that they wanted to get 
 together; they wanted to have a chance to talk 
 and to walk home together, and she had proposed 
 that there should be two or three little entertain 
 ments, conducted by themselves, at the end of 
 every evening. But it proved that it was much 
 easier to arrange for a field meeting of the society 
 once a fortnight than it was to be getting up little 
 separate entertainments more frequently, and grad 
 ually the thing had assumed the shape which I saw. 
 Of course, those who could sing had a certain 
 commodity which they could always offer at these 
 entertainments; but it was her business, and the 
 business of the other leaders of the society, to find 
 out what contribution other people could bring in. 
 The men of a more mechanical gift were rather 
 pleased if something which they had read in the 
 " Scientific American," or in the other journals, 
 could be made use of to their fellow-workmen. Oc 
 casionally, a stranger was at hand ; but, generally 
 
344 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 speaking, she had found that strangers did not 
 understand their audience as well as they under 
 stood it themselves. A declamation always in 
 terested these audiences, but it would not have 
 interested them if it had been the declamation of 
 a professional reader from the outside ; it interested 
 them because they listened to their own sons or 
 their own daughters. " And in short," said Miss 
 Jane Stevens, " in all our effort to provide amuse 
 ment for our winter evenings, there is nothing on 
 the whole which is so popular as this entertain 
 ment of the Mutual Improvement Society, and that 
 you may guess, now that you see it in the autumn, 
 and if I tell you it has been kept up throughout 
 the year. For the rest," she said, " we make quite 
 a point of keeping up the musical training of the 
 village. When I say we, I mean I and Mrs. Spin 
 ner and Mrs. Workman and the doctor, and two or 
 three other people, on whom the stress of the 
 effort comes ; but with every year we have more 
 and more helpers. Mr. Spinner will tell you that 
 we have quite the beginning of a little band. You 
 heard how well those two girls played, and how well 
 that quartette of boys sang ; and really, last winter, 
 our six or eight concerts were not only a pleasure to 
 those who heard, but were really creditable to the 
 ' performers." I asked her whether I had now 
 found out the secret of the high platform in her 
 schoolroom, and she said I had. She said that 
 when they did not think they should have a large 
 audience, the children felt more at home in the 
 
The School 345 
 
 schoolroom, and that she had many a time met 
 small companies of them there, when they should 
 never have thought of announcing an entertain 
 ment in the vestry of the church. "But here," 
 said she, " we can act charades, we can speak 
 dialogues, we can tell stories. Why, I have read 
 them half the * Arabian Nights ' here, when they 
 were sewing or knitting, or the boys were drawing 
 at the table yonder. Indeed, they are never more 
 pleased than they are to have what they call an 
 evening in the schoolhouse ; but that is purely an 
 informal thing, as they might meet for an even 
 ing party at Mr. Spinner's house, or at Mr. 
 Workman's." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HOURS OF WORK 
 
 MR. SPINNER explained to me their experi 
 ment about the hours of work in a long 
 conversation, of which I took full notes at the time. 
 
 " You will easily see that matters of some diffi 
 culty under any other system of management settle 
 into matters of detail with us, and adjust them 
 selves. 
 
 "Workman and I had both been anxious and 
 interested in eight-hour plans. But we knew 
 enough to know that if one State in America passed 
 an eight-hour law, and the next did not, the result 
 would be simply the driving factories and workmen 
 across the border, and that nobody would gain 
 anything. So that, though I have agitated a good 
 deal of that thing in general, I had never seen any 
 good chance in detail. Our system here differs 
 from anything I had heard of, and it came to us, as 
 such things do, rather by accident than studied 
 design. 
 
 " I was in New York, it was in April, the 
 end of April, and I met a jobber there whom I 
 
Hours of Work 347 
 
 had not seen before, a Boston man named Atkins. 
 He took a fancy to some goods he had bought 
 from an agent and made an appointment to see 
 me. He told me that his people some tailors 
 he dealt with liked the goods, and he wanted to 
 know how large a lot I could send him steadily for 
 six months. I figured on it a little, and told him. 
 I saw he was disappointed, a little annoyed, I 
 thought. It was the first intimation he had had that 
 we were not one of the great slam-bang concerns, 
 to whom a hundred million pieces are nothing at 
 all. When I saw this, I hated to disappoint a 
 good customer, I said, ' Either that, or twice 
 that.' 
 
 " He asked what I meant, and I said I would 
 light up, and run two sets of hands. 
 
 "Well, he did not care what I did. If I had set 
 the mill afire, he would not have cared, so his 
 tailors were suited. He accepted my first price, 
 and I came home a good deal frightened, to tell 
 Workman and the rest what I had done. I do not 
 run this mill by caucus. No, sir ! I do as I choose, 
 and make the plans ; and other men take their parts, 
 and the plans come out as well as they can. But 
 this time I did call the heads of rooms into my 
 counting-room, what you would call ' foremen/ 
 and I said that we had a chance to double profit 
 if we would double work, and that I had done 
 this thing. But I said I hated night work. It was 
 demoralizing ; it was bad for the men and women 
 engaged ; and the work itself was bad when it was 
 
348 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 done. I said that if we had won any credit with 
 these unknown tailors, it had been by doing work a 
 little better than other people did, and that we 
 should very soon lose that credit if we did not 
 keep up to the standard of the goods they had re 
 ceived from us. Then it was that, on a hint from 
 one of the men, we tried, rather as an experiment, 
 the system on which we have run this mill ever 
 since. There is a certain freemasonry about 
 weavers and spinners. They know of other weavers 
 and spinners, just as jewellers know of other jew 
 ellers, and printers of other printers. I gave out 
 word that, beginning with a fortnight from the next 
 Monday, we were going for the summer on the 
 eight-hour principle. At the same time, I gave out 
 word that the mill would open at four o'clock in 
 the morning, and that the people who came to 
 work then would be dismissed at twelve for that 
 day. There was not to be any cessation of the 
 work, however. The power was to be kept on and 
 the machinery kept running, and another set of 
 hands would come in at twelve and work till eight 
 in the evening. I do not believe the thing could 
 have been done so easily in a large establishment 
 as it was with us. But the men and women wrote 
 all up and down the valley, to friends that were 
 in other mills, who wanted to make an easy sum 
 mer of it, and before my fortnight was over, I had 
 people enough trooping in here, who wanted to be 
 taken on this rather luxurious arrangement. You 
 will see yourself that the trouble is in the inspec- 
 
Hours of Work 349 
 
 tion of the work more than it is the doing of the 
 work. Nobody likes to be responsible for work 
 done in his room of which he did not see every 
 detail ; but the heads of rooms managed that after 
 a fashion. They worked much more than eight 
 hours, and they had head men of their own, whom 
 they liked, and in whom they had some confidence, 
 whom they put in charge in their absence. Then, 
 as you will easily see, under our principle, whore 
 each man has something of the interest of an 
 owner, there is a great deal more mutual oversight 
 than there would be in a room where everything 
 was cut-throat and every spinner was trying to do 
 as little as he could, so he could only be paid for 
 doing more. Then you would find that a girl who 
 tended a frame, made, by methods known to her 
 self, some private arrangement, so that another girl 
 whom she knew perhaps her sister or some 
 friend of hers, somebody who lived in the same 
 house with her should tend that same frame in 
 the afternoon. There is not much sentiment about 
 a spinning-frame, but there is some, and a girl 
 would not like to come in in the morning and find 
 things amiss, when an entire stranger had been 
 running her machine, while she would be good- 
 natured enough about it if the person who had run 
 it was her own prot/gfa, or in some way was her 
 friend. 
 
 " So it was that for that summer we ran this mill 
 sixteen hours where we had run it ten hours before. 
 It did not quite double the time, but, in truth, al- 
 
350 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 though it did not quite double the work, it came 
 nearer it than I expected. We had not the diffi 
 culty which everybody told me we should have, of 
 the machinery getting out of order, because nobody 
 was responsible for it. It ended in our holding a 
 person responsible for a piece of cloth who began 
 that piece. This was not strictly fair, but it was so 
 evident that there must be some rule about it, that 
 everybody accepted that rule. In point of fact, 
 the cloth stood inspection remarkably well, and, 
 after a little fuss at the beginning, I never found 
 that anybody pretended that he could tell the dif 
 ference between work which was done in the after 
 noon and work which was done in the morning, or 
 vice versa. 
 
 " I suppose there was a difference, but it was 
 one of those minute kinds of differences which you 
 lawyers say the law does not care about. The up 
 shot of it all was that I held my contract with this 
 Boston man, who has been one of our best cus 
 tomers ever since. 
 
 " But when it came to the first of November, we 
 stopped this double business. In the first place, 
 our contract was up, and in the second place, I 
 and Workman and all the best heads of rooms 
 were resolute that we would not have any night 
 work. Of course, by the first of November, we 
 were burning a good deal of oil, morning and 
 night, that was before we got in our electric plant, 
 and the oil was an expense. It happened that 
 year that I had just as lief run light as not. I was 
 
Hours of Work 3 5 1 
 
 satisfied that the country was making more goods 
 than it could sell, and I did not want to be found 
 with an overstock in the spring. The men and 
 women both had got used to the eight hours' work, 
 and I told them all that I proposed to try as an 
 experiment to run this mill, for the next four 
 months, at only eight hours' time. This meant, 
 you see, beginning after it was broad daylight, and 
 ending at sundown, or sometimes before. We 
 made the saving in oil, which is something; we 
 made some saving, I suppose, though not much, 
 in fuel ; and the people made a great deal of sav 
 ing, in temper. I lost some workmen, there is 
 no doubt of that. They went off where they could 
 get more money ; for practically, all our people are 
 paid by the piece, and of course a man cannot 
 make so many pieces of woollen cloth in forty- 
 eight hours as he can in sixty. It is all nonsense 
 to pretend that he can. But he makes more than 
 forty-eight sixtieths; he makes more than eight 
 tenths of it. When his mind is set to it, and he is 
 determined to drive things, and he has time to 
 keep his machinery in good order, and does not 
 mind staying a little before and after work to see 
 to that, his eight hours are worth more to him than 
 when he is in a hurry to leave his work as soon as 
 it is done, and is only eager to come in late in 
 the morning. You will say that this is an advan 
 tage which wears off after people have been used 
 to the eight-hour system. All I can say is, it does 
 not wear off with us. On the other hand, we find 
 
352 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 that these people regard their machinery a good 
 deal as you regard a horse which has got to do so 
 much work for you. You would like to have the 
 horse in as good order as he can be in, and even 
 if you have to take care of him yourself, you would 
 rather do that than have him fail you when you 
 are in the saddle or going over the hills. 
 
 "What we have settled down on, then, is eight 
 hours' time from the first of November to the first 
 of March every year, and during that period we 
 give a full hour for dinner. I do not say that the 
 people would like it all the year round. I think 
 that in the summer men would have a feeling that 
 they were wasting time, and that they would leave 
 us, and go off to places where they could get more 
 money in the day or more money in the week. 
 But the human mind is so formed that people do 
 like variety. It is just as a woman wants to move 
 her bedstead once in six months, and is sure 
 she makes more room every time she moves it. 
 These people are glad when the first of November 
 comes and the hours of work are radically changed ; 
 and they are just as glad when the first of March 
 comes, and they are changed again. It gives us, 
 as you will see, a good chance for our evening 
 school, of which we make a good deal; and it 
 gives a good chance for our evening entertain 
 ments, which are very good for keeping up the 
 moral life of the people. It throws men more into 
 the library and reading-room than it would if they 
 were tired, and, in short, I think it a very good 
 
Hours of Work 353 
 
 arrangement for the summer, and I am disposed 
 to think that the men agree with me. 
 
 " I wonder if you remember a droll paper there 
 is of Franklin's, about his discovering that it was 
 light in Paris three or four hours before people got 
 out of bed. I remember a man I knew, who went 
 to Spain on business, told me how much surprised, 
 not to say amused, he was when he saw, in the 
 city of Madrid, the masons were at work before 
 five o'clock in the morning, on a house opposite 
 his hotel ; and he saw the other side of it when he 
 saw that the same masons did not touch a brick 
 between half-past eleven in the middle of the day 
 and half-past three. Well, if you turn out with 
 fifty or sixty people, as I have done again and 
 again now for years, at four o'clock in the morn 
 ing, just when a few streaks are beginning to light 
 up the eastern sky, it may be, and go into the mill 
 with those people, and all get to work just as it is 
 beginning to be light enough to go to work, you 
 have a little that same feeling that my friend had 
 in Spain; you have a little of the feeling that 
 Franklin describes in this paper. You are a little 
 surprised to know that you are at work when half 
 the world is asleep, and you do not dislike the sur 
 prise. Least of all do you dislike it when, at twelve 
 o'clock, somebody else comes in and takes your 
 work. You have the liberty of a marquis, or a 
 duke, or anybody else. You can go to sleep if you 
 want to ; you can read ; you can go a-fishing. I 
 dare say you have met some of my men with their 
 
 23 
 
354 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 baskets and flies upon the streams that you have 
 been tracking. It does the man no harm, you 
 may be sure of that ; and he comes home, with his 
 feet wet, if you please, and pretty tired, quite 
 ready to go to bed at sundown, or before sundown, 
 that he may be at his work at four in the morning. 
 " There is no doubt that with the men and the 
 women too, the early-rising watch, for that is 
 what we call them, is the more agreeable of the 
 two ; so we change and change about when Sunday 
 comes. Watch A, as it is called on our books, 
 has the morning work for one week, and it takes 
 the afternoon work in the next week. Then, when 
 the third week comes, Watch A has the morning 
 again, and in the fourth week it has the afternoon 
 again, and we did not change this order of watches 
 from the beginning of the season till the end. But 
 as to the men and women in the watches, they 
 have a good deal of liberty. They have what they 
 call their partners ; by which I mean that two 
 people, as I have said, are in some sort responsible 
 for the same frame or the same loom, and if one 
 of those partners wants a half-day off, and makes a 
 bargain with his partner to run for him, we wink 
 at it, if you choose to call it ' wink at it ; ' we 
 know perfectly well that it is done, and once in 
 a long while we permit that substitution. I 
 should not, if I were the head of a room, permit 
 it two days running. Sixteen hours' work is 
 quite too much to be done two days, unless 
 there is to be a holiday the next day. But, as 
 
Hours of Work 355 
 
 you know, the work at a frame or at a loom is 
 not so much physical fatigue as it is a certain 
 kind of nervous work; and once in a dog's age 
 such a thing as this may be permitted, though 
 it should never be encouraged. Now all this, as 
 you will see, links in with, and has direct refer 
 ence to, the system of schooling which we have 
 adopted here, which is, after all, largely bor 
 rowed from the English experience, and about 
 which you had better talk with the young women 
 who keep the schools. 
 
 " It is easy to see how the footings come out 
 from these rather varied hours. 104 days of 
 winter, at 8 hours each, give 832 hours' work. 
 
 " For the eight months of spring, summer, and 
 autumn, the mills do twice as much a day, and 
 the result, of course, of the eight months, is four 
 times that of the winter, or 832 X 4, equals 3,328. 
 
 " This makes 4,160 hours' work in a year, against 
 3,100 hours which we should have gained from 310 
 days' work on a ten-hour system. 
 
 " The law of this State restricts us to ten hours, 
 and if it did not, the fact that other States are 
 restricted to ten hours would have amounted to 
 the same thing. In the long run, you cannot keep 
 good workmen in an eleven-hour mill, when, by 
 going over the border, they have a chance to work 
 in a ten-hour mill. It is that which practically 
 settles these questions, though there eari be, of 
 course, under our constitution, no national legisla 
 tion on the subject. 
 
356 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 " It ought to be understood, indeed, that no 
 State constitution gives any right to the legisla 
 ture to fix the hours of labor for any man. The 
 arrangements for ten-hour systems, or other such 
 systems, are made practically by legislation for 
 the benefit of children, with regard to whom it 
 is supposed that the legislature is omnipotent. 
 When an eight-hour law is passed, as it has 
 been passed, by Congress, it is simply a law pro 
 viding that men who work for the government 
 shall work only for eight hours in every twenty- 
 four. But the Bill of Rights in most States would 
 be enough to show that a legislature must not 
 interfere with the right of a man to sell in market 
 his own labor, and as much of it as he chooses. 
 I say this merely by the way. It is not of any 
 great practical effect, because, practically, most 
 mills want to employ persons who are under age, 
 and if those persons may, or indeed must, go away 
 at the end of ten hours, the work of the mill is so 
 far deranged that it cannot be continued for eleven 
 hours. This is the whole of our ten-hour statutes, 
 and indeed the same is true with regard to those 
 in England. 
 
 " But, as I have said, our arrangements here 
 were wholly independent of statute. They grew 
 up in the incidental way which I have described, 
 but which, for us who want to make the most 
 out of this plant here, that is, out of these 
 buildings and this machinery, is, as you can 
 see, very great. We gain thirty-three per cent in 
 
Hours of Work 357 
 
 product out of the same amount of machinery. 
 Our work-people are satisfied, and if they are 
 satisfied, everybody is satisfied. We pay by the 
 piece, as all mills do, so that we pay no more 
 for three thousand hours' work on our time cal 
 endar than if we were carrying the same three 
 thousand hours over more months in the year. 
 
 " Practically, then, we are able to deliver more 
 goods in a year than we were able to, or than 
 we should be, if we worked on a ten-hour sys 
 tem. We are also using our machinery, not to 
 the full top of its work, but for one third more 
 than we should be otherwise, and this gives us 
 so far forth a better chance to be even with the 
 time. It is a great thing for any manufacturer 
 to work with the newest machinery which the 
 progress of invention affords, and other things 
 being equal, there is therefore a certain advan 
 tage in wearing out a frame or a loom in three 
 years which otherwise would have run four." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE CHURCH 
 
 SUNDAY came around while I was at Hampton, 
 and I went to church with Mr. Spinner, his 
 wife and family. He told me at breakfast that we 
 should hear the Baptist minister from Wentworth, 
 who was coming up to take the morning service 
 himself. Mr. Spinner spoke with pleasure of this 
 arrangement, for he said I should be pleased with 
 the sermon and the service, and he hoped that 
 this gentleman would come first and dine with us. 
 " He has not been here," said Mr. Spinner, " for a 
 year or two, and I should be glad to show him 
 some of our improvements. He is a man who is 
 much liked in the whole county, and it is rather a 
 matter of distinction that we should have him at 
 our little church here." 
 
 He then told me of the basis on which the 
 church had arranged itself, and seemed to be, on 
 the whole, well pleased that they had been able to 
 do as much as they had done, although they had 
 met with the difficulties inevitable where there are 
 people coming and going all the time, where many 
 of the men and women are, if not irreligious, quite 
 
The Church 359 
 
 indifferent to religious arrangements, and where 
 the whole community is so small that unless it 
 unite together in some way it is difficult to main 
 tain any regular church institution. 
 
 " When we came here," he said, " there was no 
 place of worship here at all. There is a Second- 
 Advent meeting-house three or four miles down 
 the road, and I think you may have noticed, as you 
 went up, a meeting-house which is almost never 
 used, which was built by some Seventh-Day Baptist 
 people several years ago, when they had a revival 
 in this neighborhood. But they all moved away, 
 and I hardly know whether their house is kept in 
 repair or not. At all events, it was too far away 
 from us for us to make any use of it. In truth, 
 one of the reasons of the failure of the enterprise 
 that was here before us was that our village was 
 not large enough to maintain a church. The more 
 decent workmen would not come to a place where 
 there was no church, and they had but a wretched 
 set of hands here at the very best. The quality of 
 their work-people alone was enough to break down 
 their mills, if they had not broken down from bad 
 management, as in fact they did. After we were 
 established here, the better men, themselves, felt 
 the need of doing something for a Sunday-school or 
 a place of worship, in many instances where they 
 had never cared for such things before. Nothing 
 puts a man so much on his mettle as being bodily 
 transplanted, and finding that there is no regular 
 occupation for Sunday, even if he have not been a 
 
360 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 regular church member himself, and affects to be 
 indifferent to such things. The Catholic priest at 
 Wentworth was quite willing to come up and hear 
 confessions, and carry on a service once a month, 
 and he did so in the school-building, which the 
 district committee were willing to let him have for 
 this purpose. Different men put themselves into 
 communication with one and another of the minis 
 ters at Wentworth, to know whether some service 
 could not be maintained, perhaps on Sunday even 
 ing, or perhaps in the afternoon, by one and 
 another person coming up the valley from there. 
 To these proposals we had all sorts of answers, as 
 one always would in such a case, but it seemed to 
 me that there was enough of a necessity made out 
 for me to address a pretty formal letter to Mr. 
 Nourse on the subject, and that letter I accordingly 
 wrote. 
 
 " I told him that it was essential to a good manu 
 facturing establishment to have the best workmen 
 and not the worst. I told him that we should 
 never have the more decent and self-respecting 
 workmen if there were these difficulties about 
 worship. I told him that it seemed to me, there 
 fore, that the men who owned this mill and he 
 was the most important of those men should add 
 to the rest of their plant here a church or meeting 
 house. That would show the men that they 
 employed that they had an interest in this matter. 
 For the rest, the men they employed must bear 
 out the American principle, and must arrange for 
 
The Church 361 
 
 worship as best they could ; but that I thought 
 that, without analyzing the matter too finely, or 
 putting too fine a point upon things, it was the 
 business of capital to provide a place where this 
 part of the work of a manufacturing town should 
 be carried on. 
 
 " I got a very curious answer from Nourse. I 
 should like to show it to you. He reminded me 
 of the principle which had been laid down in the 
 beginning ; namely, that capital was to have merely 
 what we would call ' the idiot's dividend/ and that 
 in a certain sense it was entitled to that, while in a 
 certain sense it was not entitled to anything more. 
 ' Now/ said he, ' we have waived all questions of 
 sentiment or mutual affection or of the interest of 
 mankind, which you choose now to bring up when 
 you discuss the matter of a church edifice. I do 
 not mean to say that if, half an hour hence, a man 
 comes into my room and takes off his hat and 
 asks me to subscribe for building a church in 
 Honolulu or in Texas, I may not do it ; but I do 
 not think that that man must come to me from 
 Hampton. In Hampton I am engaged in a busi 
 ness enterprise. I have been told that this busi 
 ness enterprise could pay me what we call the 
 idiot's dividend. I feel safe, therefore, about refus 
 ing to mix up a business enterprise like this with 
 my philanthropy. If you, and the men who are at 
 work with you, really think that a church is as 
 much a part of the capital stock of this con 
 cern as is the dyeing vat, you ought to prove 
 
362 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 this by your works. I own some dyeing vats in 
 your mills, or I own ninety-five hundredths of 
 them, and on my property in those vats I am paid 
 four per cent interest. I will put up for you in 
 Hampton a meeting-house on exactly those terms. 
 It shall be costly or inexpensive, as you please. 
 It shall be a handsome church, built of your own 
 stone there, by the best architect in New York, or 
 it shall be built of rough-hewn planks, slabs, and 
 shingles, just as you please. It shall cost fifty 
 thousand dollars, or it shall cost five hundred, just 
 as you please ; but the congregation that worship 
 in it on Sunday, and the people who use it for 
 other services on week days, shall pay me the 
 idiot's dividend, or shall pay the proprietors a 
 dividend, exactly as they pay them on the dye 
 ing vats.' 
 
 " He said we might keep this offer open for two 
 months, and he would be bound by it at the end 
 of the time. 
 
 " I read this aloud at a meeting which we held 
 in the store to consider it. All the men were 
 pleased with it, or almost all of them were. They 
 said it meant business, and they were rather flat 
 tered by the half confidence that it placed in them. 
 They appointed a committee to go to Wentworth 
 and Tenterden. Eventually, the committee went 
 as far as New Haven to see some plans, and it 
 all ended in our building this place which we are 
 going to to-day. We got a plan from the Meth 
 odists; they publish some very good plans and 
 
The Church 363 
 
 some very cheap plans, and we never had to pay 
 an architect a cent, because they furnished us, 
 very good-naturedly, the plan which we have 
 adopted. The building was made from our lum 
 ber here, and it cost a little inside of three thou 
 sand dollars. It stands on our books as having cost 
 twenty-nine hundred dollars. In this case we pay 
 the idiot's dividend, exactly as we pay it on the 
 other capital stock of the concern. In fact, it is 
 an enlargement of the capital stock by twenty- 
 nine hundred dollars, and Mr. Nourse owns the 
 whole of this, whereas he only owns ninety-five 
 per cent of the rest of the stock. You see, then, 
 that whoever occupies this church has to pay one 
 hundred and sixteen dollars a year for rent to him. 
 They also have to pay something not much 
 for its insurance. One hundred and sixteen dol 
 lars a year is rather more than two dollars a week ; 
 and the committee who had it in charge deter 
 mined very soon that the rent of the church and 
 of the vestry, for any and every purpose for which 
 it was used, should be one dollar a day. They 
 thought, and it has proved that they thought 
 rightly, that they should be almost certain of rent 
 ing the church fifty-two times in the year for 
 Sunday services. Thus they would have fifty-two 
 dollars. Then they thought, and as it proved they 
 thought rightly, that there would be so many 
 occasions when the vestry was wanted for a public 
 hall, as you saw it was wanted the other night 
 when they had the entertainment there, that they 
 
364 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 should get from that sixty or seventy dollars more. 
 In point of fact, they have always had enough to 
 keep the building in repair, keep it warm, and to 
 pay for their lights in the evening. The occupa 
 tion evenings costs a little more than the occu 
 pation on Sunday, because the lights have to be 
 provided for; but we have water power running 
 to waste here, so that since we got in our electric 
 plant, the light really costs them very little, and 
 indeed, blessings to kerosene, it never cost them 
 a great deal." 
 
 Accordingly, when Sunday afternoon came, the 
 family mustered in great force for the service. 
 Mr. Sherlock arrived late but came. I had 
 gone with the children and my host himself to a 
 Sunday-school in the morning, which was largely 
 attended by grown people as well as children, and 
 required the use of many parts of the church 
 itself, as well as of the large and small rooms in 
 the vestry. Spinner explained to me as we went, 
 that for a service with a sermon all the committees 
 found it more convenient, as they had no settled 
 minister, to take the afternoon, or, as on this occa 
 sion, the afternoon and the evening. For, with 
 this arrangement, they could often secure the 
 presence and service of clergymen whom they 
 liked to hear, from the large towns in the neigh 
 borhood, who could not arrange to be absent from 
 their own pulpits in the morning. This Mr. Sher 
 lock, who was to preach, was a general favorite. 
 He would not have come to them at all, however, 
 
The Church 365 
 
 had he been needed in the morning, for he was 
 then engaged in the service of his own church. 
 
 Spinner's son George and his daughter Pru 
 dence had both been trained, as it proved, to write 
 in shorthand, and they told me that they had notes 
 of most of the sermons which had been preached 
 in the church now for two or three years. When 
 I found that Mr. Sherlock spoke without a manu 
 script, I was glad that the young people were pre 
 serving his sermon. For thus I was able to bring 
 away what is a good report of it, which I made 
 them write out for me. I copy it here, because 
 he had caught, very thoroughly, the notion which 
 was at the bottom of the various plans at Hamp 
 ton, and the sermon states some principles of that 
 notion, as I may not succeed in stating them 
 elsewhere. 
 
 The text was : " Bear ye one another's burdens, 
 and so fulfil the law of Christ." 
 
 I think you must have noticed, when I read the New 
 Testament lesson, that in the same appeal Paul bids 
 every man bear his own burden. It is almost in one 
 breath that he says that every man must bear his own 
 burden and that every man must bear his brother's bur 
 den. Now it will not do for a moment to suppose that 
 this is a matter of thoughtless rhetoric, or that these 
 two injunctions may be separated out from each other, 
 and taken each for itself alone. You will not find any 
 thoughtless rhetoric in this man's injunctions, no, not 
 when he is in the highest heaven. This man Paul is a 
 master of life. He understood the great science of living, 
 
366 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 through and through. Because he understands it, 
 because he knows what he is talking about, though he 
 has only a few years for his work, though he goes 
 from place to place, now as a prisoner, now as a travel 
 ling tent-maker, he changes all Europe from what it 
 was to what it is. He makes the Western World over, 
 because he has the practical power to inspire it with the 
 Divine Life. Such a man does not talk by accident, or 
 for immediate effect. He has a principle beneath every 
 word he uses. And you and I must not take one of his 
 practical injunctions without allying it with the others, 
 and studying them together. 
 
 You will find, then, all through, that this great leader 
 of men speaks as a workman speaks to other workmen. 
 He tells us always, what in one central text he says in 
 one epigram, that we are fellow-workmen together with 
 God. As the Saviour had said, "My father worketh 
 hitherto, and I work." Paul takes it for granted that all 
 who make any claim to take the Saviour's name mean to 
 work in the world into which they were born. They 
 are not to dream out their salvation, nor to talk their 
 salvation into each other, nor to argue it out, nor to 
 buy it with a great price, they are to work it out. He 
 speaks as a workman to workmen. And he takes care 
 all along that they shall know that he is a workman, and 
 that he is not ashamed of his work. " Mine own hands 
 ministered to my necessities," he says, and never fails to 
 remind them that, by example of daily industry, he has 
 illustrated what he means, when he says so quaintly, 
 and even sharply, that every man must mind his own 
 business. 
 
 Speaking in this way, as a man who knows what work 
 is, who has been bred to a good trade at which he can 
 
The Church 367 
 
 earn a living, Paul, the most practical of leaders of men, 
 is engaged in this chapter in telling these people the 
 wonders of the great word " Together ; " how this little 
 handful of men is to rule and govern the world, because 
 no man is alone, but We act, made perfect in union, 
 or, as the Saviour said, made perfect in one. Of this 
 instruction, the text is the central statement, as you saw 
 when I read the passage. But he is wholly determined 
 that each man shall know his personal responsibility. No 
 man is to undertake that vague, smoky, general, noisy 
 philanthropy, which disgraces the word philanthropy, 
 in which a religious tramp announces that he will save the 
 world, when he cannot say what is his own special place 
 and part in the world's salvation. Paul will not let any 
 man think he can sing well enough to sing in the chorus, 
 unless he can sing well enough when it is his place to 
 sing a solo. And no man is to come to him and say, 
 " Paul, I should like a commission to go out into the 
 world and reform the world, and quicken it with a new 
 life," unless that man can show Paul that he has a work 
 of his own that he can do, has a place of his own that 
 he fills well, or as he puts it in better words, unless this 
 man shows that he can bear his own burden. 
 
 No sceptic or scoffer made any point by turning on 
 Paul after one of his addresses, to say, " Who are you to 
 be lecturing us about industry, or sobriety, or patience in 
 work ? You are hearing your own voice, and you like to 
 hear it. Try hard work, and see how you like that." 
 No man said that to Paul, for they knew what the answer 
 would be. "Who am I? I am a tent-maker. Come 
 down to Narrow Street, and see if there is better tent- 
 cloth in Corinth than I have there, or if there is a 
 better shelter-tent than I made yesterday." He knew 
 
368 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 how to bear his own burden, and so he knew how to bear 
 the burdens of the world. 
 
 I will take another occasion, if your committee are so 
 good as to ask me to Hampton again, to show by sepa 
 rate passages from Paul's letters how distinct is the in 
 struction he gives to any young workingman who wants 
 to succeed, and means to succeed, as to the method of 
 his daily life. He does not simply say that every man 
 shall bear his own burden, but, in one practical instruction 
 and another, he shows him how. But not to-day. Our 
 business to-day is with the other text : how a man shall 
 do his part as a member of the common family what 
 people now call the community. How shall a man show 
 his public spirit do his share in the public or common 
 life ? How and where shall a Christian man appear as a 
 good citizen of the State or as a good member of the 
 Church? 
 
 First, and very briefly, because this is to be the whole 
 subject of that other sermon, let him know how to do 
 his own work well. Let him be no pretender. How 
 shall he offer himself for the world's service, if his own 
 house is not in order? I am greatly interested in the 
 men and women who help Paul. There is a man of 
 whom we know nothing but that he was once Paul's 
 amanuensis, and that Paul was fond of him. " I, Tertius, 
 who wrote this epistle," he says with a certain pride. 
 There was a man who knew how to write. He knew 
 how to spell well. Paul was troubled with his weak eyes, 
 they say, and was glad when Tertius volunteered. But he 
 would not have been glad had Tertius been a pretender, 
 if he wrote a careless hand, or if his Greek grammar 
 was bad, or if he spelled badly. In truth, Tertius knew 
 
The Church 369 
 
 how to write as well as Paul knew how to make tents. 
 He wrote well, well enough to make the first draft of 
 the letter to the Romans. And his name is presented to 
 every man who has his Bible, as the name of a faithful 
 fellow, who has served mankind, for century after cen 
 tury, through all time, because he knew how to do one 
 thing well, and because he was willing to consecrate that 
 talent to the common weal. 
 
 Now keep that example in mind all along. Then you 
 can carry into the notion of common work, the work 
 of the Common Weal, or, as Paul would say, of the 
 Kingdom of God, this first necessity that it is clean 
 work, work well done. It is not slop-work. It is 
 good journey-work, as our fathers used to say. Take 
 for a second thought the eternal truth which Paul falls 
 back to so eagerly, that, if one member be alive and 
 strong, the whole body will have a better chance to be 
 alive and strong. Once and again he falls back upon 
 that fable which the Roman senator addressed to the 
 Roman people, the body cannot be well unless each 
 hand and eye and foot is well. Life in the parts, 
 quick, tingling life, so that there may be life in the 
 whole, vigorous, strong, eternal. 
 
 How many men I have known, how many men you 
 have known, who had even gained for themselves a 
 sort of public reputation for this care of the business of 
 the community, who have so utterly neglected Paul's 
 personal directions that they cannot take any care of their 
 own. Such a man, by some political turn, is appointed 
 a consul abroad, or a secretary of legation. He studies 
 international affairs, he devotes himself to the public busi 
 ness in these lines. By and by, there is a political over 
 turn at home, and the government will not renew his 
 
 24 
 
370 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 commission. He has to come home. He is apt to 
 complain that he is left out in the cold. Then you 
 begin to ask what he is fit for ; " What did he do when 
 he was at home?" That was the question which the 
 Connecticut farmer asked the French marshal, Rocham- 
 beau. And you find that at home he did nothing but 
 manage primary meetings and attend county conventions, 
 and, in other fashions, take care of elections. He has no 
 trade or calling in which he was a master. I suppose 
 this to be what Paul would have called failing to bear 
 his own burden. What follows ? Why, when the coun 
 try, wisely or unwisely, turns him out from its service, 
 there is, alas ! no place left where he is to fall. 
 
 But I do not mean to speak slightly of what this man 
 has done in attending primary meetings, in going to 
 county conventions, and in preparing for elections. I 
 hope no man hears me who does not go to primary meet 
 ings and who is not willing to take his share of duty in 
 county conventions, and who does not diligently and 
 with prayer prepare for every election of the town or of 
 the State. I do say, that no men can rightly attend, even 
 to such little public duties as that, and that no man can 
 have the power in such service that a man should seek, 
 who has not shown that he can wisely and well mind his 
 own business, keep his own accounts, pay his own debts, 
 stay out of debt, and earn an honorable reputation as a 
 manly workman. 
 
 Such a man as that has flung away his life in trying to 
 care for the State, while he cannot show that there is one 
 part of its separate duties that he can do well. He can 
 not bear his own burdens, because he has all his life 
 thought he was bearing other people's. Alas ! the other 
 people do not agree with him ! They think he never bore 
 
The Church 371 
 
 theirs. And this I say only by illustration. I have to 
 speak of what affects us here more directly. I have to 
 speak of the welfare of the Church of Christ, as an organ 
 ized institution. And I am not speaking of this particular 
 church of yours, or, may I say, yours and ours ? For I 
 do not know you personally as well as I wish I did, and 
 so I have no knowledge from which I can speak person 
 ally of your affairs. But, in many churches and a pity 
 it is to have to say so there are brethren, yes, and there 
 are sisters, who are prominent in the business of the 
 Church as a church, who cannot take care of their own 
 business. It seems as if they took the time for the affairs 
 of the organization which they would have better spent 
 on their own affairs. Or, looking the other way, it seems 
 as if, because they found nothing to do in their own 
 business, they thought they would undertake the Master's 
 business rather than do nothing. Now he wants no such 
 recruits. He wants whole men and whole women. He 
 wants those who can do a good day's work, and do it 
 well. He wants those who have been faithful in few 
 things, and it is those, and those only, whom he pro 
 motes to the charge of many things. It is the faithful, 
 industrious, yes, and successful saint, who has used the 
 talent which was given him, who has rightly and well 
 handled the pound intrusted to him, to whom there 
 comes, to surprise his modesty, that noblest welcome 
 ever spoken, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 
 And no man can pretend to tell what is the injury which 
 has been inflicted on the Church by the profane interfer 
 ence in the work it has to do, of those whom men saw 
 incapable of doing their own work. Their words are 
 vain ; their appeals are vain ; their counsels are vain ; 
 because men judge them by their fruits. They have not 
 
372 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 borne their own burdens well, and so it is that, in this 
 most important affair of all, it is certain that they cannot 
 bear their brothers'. 
 
 Now, by the side of that failure, of the man whom I 
 described just now, the man who put his trust in princes, 
 and found princes failed him, I will tell you the story 
 of another failure. It is the man who stitches and 
 hammers at shoes on his bench, ten, twelve hours a 
 day, perhaps, or who stands behind his counter from 
 early morning till late evening, or who drudges in the 
 same self-imposed slavery at the forge or the grindstone, 
 and does nothing else, does nothing larger. He does 
 not bear his brother's burdens. He does not care for 
 the common weal. He will let his children go to the 
 public school ; but he will not serve on the district com 
 mittee. He will let his wife take a book from the public 
 library; but he will not be a trustee or a director. He 
 is willing to walk on the sidewalk and drive on the road ; 
 but he will not be a county commissioner, or a selectman, 
 or a roadmaster. He is willing to have the government 
 bring him his letters and his newspapers, and to pay for 
 that service not half what it costs ; but he is not willing 
 to go to an election, or to compel the right choice so far 
 as his power goes. "He does not care for politics." 
 ^Esop would have been glad to put such a man in a fable. 
 But even ALsop could not find a fox or a hedgehog who 
 was so mean. This is the man who tells you, " I care 
 for nobody, no, not I!" and he deserves to have 
 the other half of the song come true, which says that 
 "nobody cares for me." 
 
 Mr. Sherlock made a long pause after this 
 description of selfishness, and then, addressing 
 
The Church 373 
 
 himself personally to the men in front of him, he 
 said : 
 
 I say all this here because I think you workmen at 
 Hampton have even more distinct duties in these lines 
 than the general run of workmen in America. I declare 
 to you, that I think this system of manufacture which you 
 have started here is going to stand or fall, to succeed or 
 to fail, according to the answers which the men in this 
 church now the hundred and fifty of you who are 
 workers and voters and thinkers make to these two 
 demands of Paul. You have started a system in which 
 the workman is the capitalist in part, and in which the 
 workman shares as he ought to share in the ups and 
 downs of every honorable adventure. There is no act of 
 Congress or of Parliament that any man should grow rich. 
 There is a promise of the Eternal God that the community 
 which lives by his law, and seeks him, shall find him. 
 More than this he has said that the community which 
 seeks him and finds his Kingdom, shall have these little 
 things, such as meat and drink and clothing ; they shall 
 be added, he has said, to his other infinite compensations. 
 But this community must live by his law. It must obey 
 him. It must be part of his Kingdom. He must be 
 King. No man in it shall live for himself. They must 
 live for the common good. Every man in it must bear 
 his own burden. But every man also must bear his 
 brother's. I say, that on your success here will it depend 
 whether other mill-owners will try the same venture, 
 whether other workmen will have the same opportunity. 
 I say you will succeed if the very men who hear me are 
 willing to count themselves, not as lonely men, but as 
 brothers in the great brotherhood, as fellow-soldiers in 
 
374 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 Christ's army. I do not know if you thought of this when 
 you began. I think perhaps you builded better than you 
 knew. But this I know and you will learn that your 
 enterprise will succeed as fast and as far as every workman 
 in it works as a fellow- workman with God, and so is will 
 ing and ready to do his share of the building of God's 
 Kingdom in the world. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 
 
 I HAD seen in the co-operative store that they 
 had made all the arrangements for a reading- 
 room, and that they had a very small collection of 
 books of reference which they used there. They 
 said that they had had a more extensive collection 
 of books, but that when the library was founded 
 their books went in with the others into that collec 
 tion. This led me to inquire about the library the 
 next morning from my friend, and he sent one of 
 his children with me that afternoon to see it, and 
 to talk with the librarian. The library was in a 
 separate house, which they told me had been a 
 dye-house in the old mill, but which had been 
 taken possession of for this purpose, when the 
 new dye-house was built under the direction of the 
 present company. I found that the pecuniary 
 arrangement of the library was precisely the same 
 as that made for the church. This old dye-house 
 had been valued. The house was worth, at the 
 time they took possession of it, $475, and they paid 
 a rent of four per cent to the proprietors of the 
 mill for the use of it. Indeed, I found on talking 
 
376 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 to one or two of the men and several of the women, 
 that they all understood that it was better on every 
 account that they should maintain the library 
 themselves, and that it should not be counted as 
 an eleemosynary institution or an institution which 
 other people founded for them. I had no doubt, 
 from my experience with some other institutions 
 elsewhere, that it was much more than worth the 
 trifle which they paid for rent to be able to diffuse 
 the feeling among all the young people, and what 
 I may call the outsiders, that they bought these 
 books themselves for themselves, and that nobody 
 was trying to stuff down their throats a particular 
 literature selected by some higher power. Indeed, 
 the first step in the institution of the library, large 
 or small, is apt to be a false one, and its falseness is 
 in this direction, of condescension. The founder 
 of the library has given ten thousand dollars, and 
 he thinks, and probably thinks correctly, that he 
 knows better than the people who are to read it 
 what they had better read. He is right in thinking 
 that he knows better than they do. But he is 
 wrong in thinking that he can make them read 
 books which they do not want to read. 
 
 Now, exactly as in the co-operative store the 
 store began to succeed when they gave the pur 
 chasers an equal share in the profit, so in the 
 library, the library begins to succeed when the 
 readers begin to understand that it is, in good 
 faith, their library, and not the library that some 
 body else has made for them. You may use any 
 
The Public Library 377 
 
 amount of moral suasion you choose in persuading 
 them to read good books instead of bad books. 
 In the long run they will find that a good book is 
 better than a bad one, as indeed its name would 
 seem to imply. But you are not going to make 
 them read books because certain other people of 
 an education different from their own had read 
 them and say they ought to be read. 
 
 The most striking instance I ever knew of the 
 infelicity of letting one set of people buy books 
 for another is in the story told of a state govern 
 ment, in old times, which used to send to the same 
 publisher annually, for so many thousand dollars' 
 worth of books for the state library. Poor human 
 nature is so weak that they say he could not resist 
 the temptation of clearing off, every year, so much 
 of his stock which the rest of the purchasing world 
 had not chosen to buy. Now those books which 
 he sent were undoubtedly good books, well printed 
 and well bound. But, after all, the use of a book 
 is to be read. Indeed, the sooner it is read to 
 pieces, the better. For you can certainly get 
 another copy, and you know then that it has ful 
 filled its mission. The danger and the vice of 
 librarians is, that they are apt to think that it is 
 important that their books should be kept on the 
 shelves. Now, on the other hand, they should re 
 gard themselves as doing a duty exactly like that 
 of the directors or cashiers of banks, whose busi 
 ness it is to keep the money of the stockholders in 
 active circulation, to know where it is, and to be 
 
378 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 able to recall it at the proper times, and by no 
 means to lock up all their capital stock in their 
 vaults, of no use to any one. 
 
 The public library at Hampton was not above 
 receiving gifts, however, after it was organized. In 
 point of fact, Mr. Nourse made it some very hand 
 some gifts. As Mr. Spinner had told me, he was 
 a great traveller, and he had formed a habit, when 
 he was in any distant city, of sending to them such 
 books as would illustrate the history or customs of 
 the country in which he was, if he could find them 
 in English. And he went beyond his rule sometimes 
 when he could send good illustrated books, though 
 they were in other languages. Still, as Miss Jane 
 Stevens had said of her little library, the prin 
 cipal support of the library was from the people 
 themselves. The committee which directed it was 
 a sub-committee of the government of the store, 
 and with every return at the annual meeting of the 
 stockholders, and other persons interested in the 
 stock, they voted a larger and larger sum towards 
 library expenses. They engaged a young woman 
 to keep the library open every evening at first, and 
 eventually it was kept open all the time in winter 
 when the mills were not running. This made a 
 very long evening. 
 
 I have had a good deal to do with such things in 
 different places, and I looked with a good deal of 
 interest through the shelves, and afterwards over 
 the printed catalogue, to see what class of books 
 they had chosen to buy. I was not surprised to 
 
The Public Library 379 
 
 find a very large proportion of children's books. 
 Then there was a quite considerable branch of 
 books of natural history, and I found, on inquir 
 ing, that the interest in these studies was due to 
 Miss Jane Stevens herself. She had a boy come 
 in one night to her schoolroom who wanted a 
 book, and she had the good sense to show one 
 of Mr. Nourse's elegant books of illustration, which 
 was, as it happened, a series of butterflies and other 
 insects which had been collected in South Amer 
 ica. She told the boy that he and his companion 
 might look at the book there if they would be care 
 ful. But then she asked if they would not like to 
 know something about butterflies, and perhaps to 
 collect butterflies, and put into their hands a little 
 English book not above them, which had some 
 curious studies on the habits of caterpillars, moths, 
 and butterflies. The next Saturday afternoon they 
 started out, four or five of them, with a butterfly 
 net, and the result was quite a little collection. 
 She taught some of the girls how to make cages 
 in which caterpillars could spin their cocoons. 
 She taught some of them how to make for them 
 selves little books in which, as well as they could, 
 they drew pictures of the growth of the grub from 
 the egg, representing him every three days, in fact, 
 till he advanced to his full size. Boys and girls 
 took up the new study with a great deal of enthu 
 siasm, and the result was that there was a great de 
 mand for all the " butterfly books," as they called 
 them, which Miss Stevens had in store ; and the 
 
380 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 committee, of course, were glad, as far as their 
 means went, to let her buy more. As soon as Mr. 
 Nourse heard this, he was well pleased. One of 
 the girls had made a particularly pretty book of 
 studies, and had gone so far as to color her cater 
 pillars neatly. This was sent to Mr. Nourse as a 
 Christmas present. He was very much pleased, 
 and, from that time, kept his eye on the catalogues 
 and advertisements, and supplied the little collec 
 tion with popular books ; and, indeed, with some 
 books of a scientific value which would help the 
 children in these lines. 
 
 Miss Stevens told me of this story with a good 
 deal of interest, as, indeed, she might; and from 
 his own point of view, Spinner afterwards told me 
 the same story, to show that a study which could 
 never have been forced upon such a community as 
 this, introduced itself, as he said, if you were only 
 willing to begin at the right end. 
 
 I found that she was in correspondence with the 
 Hartford people, the Providence people, with Mr. 
 Bowker in New York, and that she kept the run of 
 what she wanted, in the way of publication and 
 library work, as well as the grandest of them do. 
 In short, she assured me, and so did Mr. Spinner, 
 that the library was now a very popular institution 
 in the place, and that there was no danger what 
 ever that the interest in it would fall away. They 
 lent very freely, but they enforced their rules reg 
 ularly ; and they were glad to extend their accom 
 modations for reading in the building itself, so as 
 
The Public Library 381 
 
 to encourage all the young people to form habits 
 of reading where, of course, they could readily 
 consult books of reference. 
 
 Mr. Raikes, superintendent of the Sunday-school, 
 told me that the Sunday-school was a different 
 place and a different thing, now that he and the 
 other teachers could refer the older scholars to 
 such books as they ought to consult, and that he 
 was quite sure that when an intelligent teacher 
 made such a suggestion, the suggestion would be 
 followed up by application to Miss Stevens, or the 
 librarian, for the books referred to. She told me 
 that she made it a matter of course to have on 
 hand all the books required for reference by the 
 Chautauquan Reading Circle, and that they had, 
 every year, a large " home circle " of those readers, 
 who would have given her no peace if she had 
 not kept the library up to the intelligent requi 
 sitions which the Chautauquan system of reading 
 demands. 
 
 All this, however, it must be observed, was 
 absolutely democratic. The readers themselves 
 made the selection of books. They thought they 
 knew what they wanted, and if they made a mis 
 take the fault was their own. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 ENTERTAINMENT 
 
 HAMPTON made up the whole, or nearly the 
 whole, as has been said, of District No. 13, 
 in the township in which it belonged, so that the 
 management of its school fell almost entirely under 
 the oversight of a district committee, chosen by 
 the people themselves in their annual town-meet 
 ing. Such is the law of that State. A year or two 
 before I was there, some showman had come up 
 the valley with an exhibition, which had called 
 together, as most shows or concerts did, a consid 
 erable audience, and which had displeased the 
 leaders of the community. I should not think 
 they had been prudish or over-sensitive about it, 
 from what I heard. But Holmes, for instance, 
 said to me, very quietly, " It was not such a per 
 formance as I chose to take my wife and children 
 to see." 
 
 Now a good deal of money goes into the pockets 
 of the itinerant showmen, of various departments, 
 in a village as prosperous as this. And if I class 
 the purveyors of concerts, and the gentlemen and 
 ladies who deliver lectures among the showmen, 
 
Entertainment 383 
 
 they must not be surprised. For certainly the 
 announcements, or the advertisements, sometimes 
 make it hard to distinguish between the entertain 
 ments proposed. 
 
 When there was any talk, serious or light, as to 
 the advantages or disadvantages of Hampton as a 
 place to live in, it was very apt to come round to 
 the discussion of the amusements which came 
 there, or which stayed away. Indeed, the great 
 problem of this day, and of the next generation, is 
 how the congestion of the large cities is to be 
 checked, and how the population of the country 
 can be increased. Whoever is interested in this 
 question, and means to do anything for its solu 
 tion, had best consider, first of all, the questions of 
 public amusement or entertainment. For there is 
 no use in proving to young people that they can 
 earn more wages in a healthy country village than 
 in a crowded unhealthy city, if they think the city 
 cheerful and gay or the country dull and stupid. 
 They do not crowd the cities because they think 
 they shall grow rich there, but because they want 
 an animated and crowded life. Wisely or un 
 wisely, they are tempted by the excitement of 
 crowds, of concerts, of bands, of theatres, of public 
 meetings, of processions, of exhibitions, of parties, 
 of clubs, or, in general, of society. Whoever will 
 take the trouble to listen to the conversation of 
 such young people, will see, in five minutes, that 
 the recollection of such excitements, or the hope of 
 partaking of them, is the inducement which leads 
 
384 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 them to seek city life, or which, after they have 
 sought it, leads them to remain in it, in spite of its 
 manifold hardships. Mrs. Helen Campbell has 
 painted a terrible picture, not exaggerated, not 
 overcolored in a single stroke, which portrays the 
 horrible sufferings of the handiworkers of her own 
 sex in the city of New York. But whoever asks 
 why those poor women remain there, in their ill- 
 requited toil, and why they do not go to live in 
 that country which God made, with its better 
 wages and its lighter work, learns at once that the 
 sufficient reason is that they want to stay, and do not 
 want to go. More than this, if any Aladdin should 
 lift fifty thousand of the poorest of them from their 
 wretched tenements to-night, and make of them 
 princesses and duchesses, their hard places in their 
 workshops would be filled before the week was 
 over by fifty thousand other girls who would gladly 
 come from the hillsides and valleys, which we 
 rightly say are better homes for them. 
 
 Whoever considers the problem thus presented, 
 and wants to relieve what we have called the con 
 gestion of life in the large cities, must do what he 
 can to increase the opportunities for entertain 
 ment, for amusement, yes, for excitement, so far 
 as it can reasonably be done, for those who live in 
 the country. It is a misfortune indeed that, from 
 the nature of the case, literature is misleading. 
 Books are generally printed in cities, and naturally 
 authors gather there. The leading newspapers 
 and magazines are, almost of necessity, published 
 
Entertainment 385 
 
 in such cities. So far as they direct the opinion of 
 the young, there is an undercurrent or ground-note, 
 which suggests to the young reader that in cities 
 is to be found the governing influence of the world. 
 The suggestion is probably false, but it is none the 
 less seductive to inexperienced readers. Thus 
 Mr. Horace Greeley may say, " Go West, young 
 man," but the young man observes that Mr. Greeley 
 himself remains in New York, and naturally enough, 
 if he respects him, follows his example rather than 
 his instructions. 
 
 The leading people in the village of Hampton 
 knew perfectly well how strong was the undertow 
 of the tide which would carry away their young 
 people to larger manufacturing towns, or to great 
 commercial cities, if its constant sweep was not 
 steadily counteracted. It was after the almost 
 disgraceful public entertainment which has been 
 alluded to, that they took distinct measures, quite 
 systematically, to superintend the public entertain 
 ment by system ; and the people most interested in 
 this meant positive work, and not negative. " We 
 want to overcome evil with good," said Dick 
 Sheridan, a queer Irishman they had among them, 
 who, as it happened, took the oversight of this 
 business. A district school meeting in No. 9 was 
 not generally an affair which greatly interested the 
 younger voters, or the people generally. But on 
 the occasion alluded to, it had been generally re 
 ported in the shops and the different rooms that 
 Uncle Dick, as Sheridan was called, meant to make 
 
 25 
 
386 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 a speech. Such a thing was quite unheard of, 
 and the meeting was crowded with voters and 
 with spectators also, who had come to hear the 
 man who, though he was the wit or wag of the 
 village, was not generally interested in public 
 affairs. 
 
 When the meeting was well under way, Sheridan 
 rose, perfectly serious ; and an excellent speech he 
 made. He knew that the boys had come with the 
 idea that he would make fun for them, and he took 
 care that the boys should be disappointed. He 
 spoke with a good deal of feeling of the im 
 pression which the coarse and vulgar entertain 
 ment had made in the village. He said he did 
 not think any one in the village was to blame for 
 it, but, for one, he did not mean to have the young 
 people so insulted again if he could help it. He 
 said also that any one who knew him knew that he 
 had no wish to check legitimate fun or sport of any 
 kind. He had not come to this meeting with any 
 such idea. It was here that he used the quotation 
 from Saint Paul that has been cited, and said that 
 if they meant to abate such nuisances they must 
 overcome evil with good. 
 
 " That we may have," said he, " such advantage 
 as legal authority may give us in this matter, I 
 propose that the district committee, now to be 
 elected, be requested to take the supervision of 
 the public entertainments of this place as a part 
 of the public education. I know very well how 
 much and how little this vote may mean under the 
 
Entertainment 387 
 
 law of this State. But I know, also, that it will 
 mean a great deal in this community if it is passed, 
 as I believe it will be, unanimously. 
 
 " My idea is, that instead of a district school 
 committee of three, such as we usually choose, 
 we shall this year make a committee of ten. I 
 propose that we re-elect the last year's committee 
 of three, and add to it three gentlemen and four 
 ladies. I propose that, besides the supervision of 
 our school, they communicate with the selectmen 
 of this town as to the persons who receive licenses 
 for public entertainment. If they approve, on the 
 whole, of such persons, all right. If they find an 
 other such case as that of these minstrels we had 
 here last month, why, they will say so to the 
 people who have halls to let here, and I do not 
 think that, when they have said so, anybody in this 
 town will let such a man a hall." Here there was 
 some applause. But Dick Sheridan went steadily 
 on. " But I do not mean to stop here." He 
 meant that this committee and when he said 
 committee he really meant himself should take 
 boldly and bodily the positive direction and provi 
 sion for the amusements of the place. He had 
 thought of this before a good deal, and was not 
 sorry to undertake to carry out some of his own 
 plans. He was quite clear that, with a little money 
 in hand, so that fit contracts could be made with 
 the right persons, he could induce performers or 
 artists of high character to come to Hampton for 
 the entertainment of the people. He did not even 
 
388 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 dare to show his own committee at first his plans 
 in detail, so bold were they. But he was one of 
 those men who has his eyes open to such things ; 
 he was constitutionally fond of public entertain 
 ment himself, and had never succeeded very well 
 in enjoying himself when he was all alone for four 
 or five hours in an evening, even if you gave him 
 the most entertaining books for company. He was 
 a social fellow, who liked to be in a crowd, and he 
 knew, almost by instinct, those people who, by 
 genius or education, were able to call such per 
 sons together. He said that there were good actors 
 who would give recitals and presentations, that 
 there were good artists who would draw amusing 
 or instructive pictures at sight for audiences, that 
 there were musicians, vocal or instrumental, who 
 were only waiting to be employed, and that the per 
 son who could control these people was a permanent 
 and official manager with a little money in his hand. 
 He said that this class of people were, of their very 
 nature, singularly poor business men ; he said that 
 if a business man met with them, he had them, so 
 to speak, at an advantage. Now Sheridan did not 
 want to cheat them ; he did want to pay them fair 
 wages for fair work ; and he wanted to entertain the 
 people of Hampton at the same time. All this he 
 had thought out himself. All this he knew he could 
 persuade his committee to try, or he thought he knew 
 it. And he made this speech with a view to having 
 that sort of authority given to him that he could 
 go forward with courage, and that nobody could 
 
Entertainment 389 
 
 say that Dick Sheridan was putting himself into an 
 affair with which he had nothing to do. 
 
 So soon as Sheridan had spoken, my friend 
 Holmes, he of the cabbage and strawberries, spoke, 
 and to the same purpose, though in quite a different 
 way. I fancy that they had not had much to do with 
 each other before, and that it was rather a surprise, 
 perhaps an amusement to the youngsters present, 
 to see them advocating the same cause at the same 
 meeting. Holmes was recognized as a religious 
 man. He had a Bible-class on Sunday, and was, 
 I believe, thought strict in the charge of his chil 
 dren. Nobody ever called Dick Sheridan strict, 
 and, though he was a very decent member of the 
 community, as far as his daily manners and cus 
 toms went, nobody would have classed him among 
 distinctly religious men. If he was distinguished 
 for anything, it was for a tradition that he had 
 once been a pitcher in a celebrated ball club, and 
 that he always interested himself in the sports of 
 such clubs in Hampton and in Wentworth. 
 
 The motion, however, was no surprise to the 
 leader of the meeting, or to the fathers of families 
 who were interested in the schools. It had been 
 carefully arranged beforehand, in the home talk 
 which makes the genuine " preliminary meeting " in 
 New England politics, and, with little other discus 
 sion than has been described, it was passed unani 
 mously. The three district committeemen of the 
 last year were chosen again. To them were added 
 three men and four women, as Sheridan had pro- 
 
39 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 posed. He was one of the men, Holmes was an 
 other, and young Brahm, who was the first bass on 
 the glee club and president of the ball club, was 
 the third ; Miss Jane Stevens, who has been already 
 spoken of, was one of the women. 
 
 So soon as the committee was organized, it was 
 clear that Dick Sheridan " meant work." He was 
 in correspondence with this band and that quar 
 tette. He was away in New York for two or three 
 days, and there were even rumors that he had a 
 personal interview with Mr. Beecher, to persuade 
 him to come to Hampton to lecture. What he did, 
 and what he was said to do, kept the talkers of 
 Hampton busy for the next six weeks, and the 
 newspapers in Wentworth and Alton even took up 
 the story of the achievements of this committee. 
 What followed was, as he himself explained to me, 
 that never was there a course of entertainments so 
 well advertised as this first course of concerts, 
 lectures, and readings. " From that time, Mr. 
 Freeman," he said to me, "we were made. We 
 made on that one course, oh, more than two hun 
 dred dollars clear profit, just because it was a 
 new thing, and everybody was talking about us. 
 There is plenty of money spent on these things 
 always. The trouble is, that very little of it, in 
 comparison, goes to modest people, who will not 
 blow, and a great deal of it goes to liars and 
 tramps, who skin the business, and never mean 
 to come again. 
 
 "We had over two hundred dollars in hand. 
 
Entertainment 3 9 1 
 
 We appointed a permanent trustee and treasurer 
 to keep it for us and to keep the accounts. Then, 
 you see, when I went to engage an orchestra, or a 
 quartette, or anybody, I could talk business. I 
 did not have to say that if the night were good 
 they would have so much, and if it were bad we 
 could only pay the expenses. I said ' twenty dol 
 lars,' or ' thirty dollars,' or ' fifty dollars,' or what 
 ever, and they knew I meant it. We controlled 
 the hall. All we had to pay for that well, you 
 know about that was light and heat, and our 
 per cent to Mr. Nourse on his plant. And then, 
 well, these people are not fools ; they know a 
 good thing from a bad one; and all that was 
 needed was, that we should be able to make to 
 them fair proposals, to pay them money in advance, 
 if the poor fellows needed it, but, above all things, 
 to pay them on the nail, as soon as they had given 
 their entertainment." 
 
 Sheridan added, modestly enough, that there was 
 a good deal in approaching these people in the 
 right way. He said : " I might have stroked all 
 the fur back, and had them all dislike me. As it 
 stands, do you know, I think they like me better 
 than almost any person they have to deal with. I 
 have never cheated them, as some ' impresarios ' 
 would have done, by making very large promises, 
 which they could never fulfil. I have never de 
 graded them by speaking as if I were hiring them 
 for some menial service. I have always seen that, 
 when they came here, they should be treated as 
 
392 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 well as a clergyman would be if he came here. I 
 have always made them understand that I consid 
 ered them as co-operating with the best people of 
 this place, for the highest interests of this place. 
 I have made it my business to see that they were 
 courteously and cordially treated by our best citi 
 zens when they were here, and I tried to make 
 Hampton so agreeable to them that they would 
 want to come again. The consequence is that they 
 like to come ; they will put themselves out of the 
 way to come here for me, even though I pay them 
 much less than they are paid in some other places. 
 You cannot, Mr. Freeman," he said, in conclusion, 
 " overestimate the advantage of dealing with au 
 thority in a permanent position, so that you can 
 look forward and remember the past as well, and, 
 above all things, the advantage of having some 
 money in the pocket." 
 
 I said, with some admiration of the man, that 
 they also had the great advantage of a stage 
 manager who did not want to be paid. Sheridan 
 laughed, and took the compliment good-naturedly. 
 
 " I like to see the thing well done. I had talked 
 about such a thing for years, and I meant to make 
 it succeed, now I had a chance. But the others 
 backed me up well. That little Miss Stevens, now, 
 there 's a great deal more of her than you think 
 for. And then, the people themselves, they meant 
 to have it succeed. I tell you, it was Democracy 
 applied to Entertainment, just as the whole busi 
 ness here is Democracy applied to spinning and 
 
Entertainment 393 
 
 weaving. The secret of Democracy in anything, 
 Mr. Freeman, is not any magic written down on a 
 sheet of paper, and called a constitution; it is 
 that everybody wants the machine to move, and so 
 makes it move, and does his share. That is just 
 what those people saw. They paid their money 
 freely, because they knew it was their concern. 
 They did not care for profit so much as they 
 cared for success. 
 
 "Well! I started from the first for variety. 
 And I never pretended to be instructive. I told 
 Miss Jane Stevens to keep her instruction at 
 school, that she was to be made to laugh herself, 
 that we were to entertain them. She 's no fool, 
 and she laughed and said that was all right, and 
 she has been a real help, as I tell you. Variety, I 
 said, and all entertainment, and do not be too 
 grand. For the autumn and winter, we tried first 
 for two entertainments a week, and afterwards 
 for three. But we also tried not to interfere. 
 If they wanted, at the church, to have a lecture 
 or meeting or anything, they let us know in ad 
 vance, and we kept out of their way. ' Courses ? ' 
 Oh, yes, we have some courses. A good course 
 is a good thing. It is a mutual insurance, a 
 good night takes care of a bad one, and a bright 
 speaker draws, if you have made a mistake and 
 engaged a dull one for another evening. But we 
 were not limited to courses. We kept our eyes 
 open, and our ears. If a man, or a troupe, or a 
 band, were coming to Wentworth or to Norwich, 
 
394 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 we let them understand that there was sure pay, if 
 not quite so much, if they would come round to us. 
 We would have them Monday, that was all the 
 same to us. But perhaps you do not know that 
 Monday is a bad day for showmen generally." 
 
 In this way, partly because Mr. Sheridan and his 
 committee had the tclat of a new beginning, the 
 first season was very profitable, and the trustee- 
 treasurer had quite a sum in hand at the end of 
 the first winter. Then it was that, to the surprise 
 of every one, he announced a change of base, and 
 carried it in his committee. He proposed that 
 three fourths of this money should be spent for 
 the open-air entertainments of the summer. So 
 much help was to be given to the ball club and the 
 tennis club ; so much was to be spent for evening 
 concerts in the square. And, as the money was 
 everybody's money, it was agreed that a part of it 
 should be used to negotiate with the railroad com 
 panies, to provide for two all-day excursions, by 
 which those who started early and returned late 
 might have a long day at Sachem's Head, on the 
 Sound. 
 
 " In the end," Sheridan said, " the excursions 
 have not cost us one cent. I mean the people 
 have bought tickets enough to pay for the whole 
 thing. But it is with the railroad as it is with the 
 orchestras. They want a sure thing. They are 
 glad enough to sell me a train, and to sell it to me 
 low, if I have the money. But if it comes to ' if ' 
 and ' perhaps,' if they are to take the risk, 
 
Entertainment 395 
 
 why, they want the possible profit, as well as the 
 possible loss. So I never have offered them any 
 doubtful enterprise. I have said, ' I will take four 
 cars, or six,' as the case may be. And you can see 
 that, after one success, we are wellnigh sure. If 
 we were not sure, why, we have something in the 
 bank to fall back upon. 
 
 " Now," he said, " I am really well known among 
 the large fraternity of people who amuse and 
 entertain the rest of the world. The right sort 
 know me. They address me; I do not have to 
 hunt them up. They know the terms are cash 
 down, but they also know that we shall stand no 
 nonsense. In these last years we have had the 
 hall open nearly sixty times in three months, from 
 November first to February, and in the other 
 months almost as often. And we have had some 
 of the best talent in the country here. Two 
 secrets, Mr. Freeman, cash on the nail and 
 constant variety. But we could never have had 
 the cash had it not been Democracy applied to 
 Entertainment." 
 
 This matter of public amusement or entertain 
 ment played so important a part in the social life 
 of this little community that we frequently came 
 round to it in conversation. From all my nearest 
 friends there I heard a good deal about the practical 
 working of their plans, and I satisfied myself that 
 Sheridan had not over-stated either their success 
 or their importance. 
 
396 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 In any such enterprise as this, the permanency 
 of the population is a matter to be very carefully 
 provided for. It is, indeed, quite essential that 
 the greater part of the community shall remain 
 where they are, shall maintain the local pride or 
 esprit de corps of the place, and that thus the works 
 shall train their own workmen, as Spinner once and 
 again said to me. In all that I had learned about 
 the store, I had seen that its success absolutely 
 depended on its freedom from any vagary of public 
 opinion, which should set any considerable number 
 of those who shared in it upon some emigration 
 project, for which they would want to withdraw, of 
 a sudden, their capital. The danger of removal 
 was distinctly visible here, but, as Holmes said 
 again and again, it was just as great in every other 
 relation of their life, and their success was always 
 just as much impaired by the " flitting " of good 
 hands, though the danger might not be so ap 
 parent upon the surface. " New men do not 
 care anything about you." " New hands take on 
 airs." " New hands spoil the machinery." " New 
 hands, new ways." Such saws were repeated to 
 me again and again. 
 
 " I do not say," said Spinner, " that I want to 
 build up a community of my namesakes here, 
 or of weavers. I don't take much stock in Mr. 
 Atkinson's theory of the heredity of good weav 
 ing. However that may be, I want the boys and 
 girls to choose the calling that God made them 
 for, whatever that may be. But among those 
 
Entertainment 397 
 
 callings open to them, is this of weaving good 
 woollen cloth. It is an honorable and profitable 
 way of serving the world, as honorable and 
 profitable as any. I do mean that my boys 
 and girls shall not be ashamed of their father's 
 business, and that if they use it, they shall carry 
 it on to advantage. They may go on a wander- 
 tour if they want to, as lads like to do, when their 
 time comes. But I want to have them come back 
 here, and I want to have this place as attractive as 
 any place they will find." 
 
 Substantially the same thing was said by the 
 other leaders of the little community. And they 
 were young enough themselves, and remembered 
 enough of their own youth, to know what would 
 make a town attractive to young people, and what 
 were the features of its life to which the memory 
 of a wanderer would return. They knew that its 
 social attractions would count for more than money 
 wages, and for more than any prospect, even, of 
 rapid promotion. To have " had a good time," as 
 the happy old English of Dryden's time put it, 
 this is a thing which young people remember, and 
 to the renewal of it they look forward. 
 
 And I was well pleased one day to find that 
 Mr. Sherlock took the same view. He picked 
 me up, with my basket of fish, one day when he 
 was driving, and he talked to me very seriously 
 of all this. He told me that he had an excellent 
 set of young people in Hampton, and that he 
 ascribed that very much to the watchful care 
 
398 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 which had been kept, from the beginning almost, 
 over the public entertainments of the young. 
 "Lead us not into temptation" means a great 
 deal. And he declared that the temptations 
 opened to young life, in the carelessness which 
 too often neglects this matter in the cities and 
 towns of the country, seemed to him to be the 
 enemies of Christian life most frequent, most 
 subtle, and most to be dreaded. If he probed 
 to the bottom the history of the moral decline 
 and ruin of any young man or young woman, he 
 was most apt to find that in the good-natured 
 negligence in which parents had left boy or girl 
 to hear or to see this or that, which broke up 
 all early principles of purity, was to be found 
 the beginning of the difficulty. Sheridan was 
 right when he told the people to overcome evil 
 with good. There was nothing else to overcome 
 it with, and the field in which he was at work was 
 by no means insignificant. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 TEMPERANCE 
 
 WE were sitting in the counting-room one day, 
 when both Mr. Spinner and Mr. Workman 
 seemed to have finished their afternoon work, and 
 I asked them how they coped with the great devil 
 of all. 
 
 "You mean liquor." It was Workman who 
 replied. "Well, we try to overcome evil with 
 good. All the conditions are in our favor, and 
 we have had more success than I would have 
 dared to hope. 
 
 " In the first place, well, I do not know as 
 you know I have the whole responsibility of the 
 help ; our friend Spinner does not interfere with 
 me there, I will not have a drinking man or 
 woman on the premises." 
 
 " Plenty of them apply," said Spinner, groaning. 
 " Show Mr. Freeman that letter which you had 
 from Dr. Good " 
 
 "No, I will not stop to show it to him. But 
 I will tell him. It was a letter begging me to 
 take a family here which was broken down because 
 the man could not keep from whiskey. Dr. Good 
 
400 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 had lectured here, he knew his friend could have 
 no whiskey here, and he wanted to send him to us 
 as to a hospital. 
 
 " I do not know what you will think, but I would 
 not take him, though I believe he understood his 
 business. I am not sure if I was right. I wrote 
 Dr. Good the best letter I could, but I did not 
 quite satisfy myself. 
 
 " But the ground I take is, that I must care first 
 for these children and young people on the 
 spot. I will not lead them into temptation, and 
 the difficulty is so tremendous that I will be on the 
 guard everywhere." 
 
 Workman spoke with so much feeling that I 
 have no doubt there was a skeleton somewhere in 
 his own house, reminding him of his duty in this 
 matter, as there is, indeed, in most houses. 
 
 " Literature is bad enough," he went on to say. 
 " The descriptions of drinking, as if it were the 
 crowning height of a man's life, the talk of wine, as 
 if it were the highest article of manufacture, 
 and this in good books, which the young people 
 ought to read, this makes a sort of mysterious 
 joy hang over the thing, which the devil must 
 delight in. The newspapers, as you know, are 
 quite unreliable about it. Read between the KneSj 
 and see if the man who reported Neal Dow did 
 not write out his notes in a bar-room. My boys 
 and girls have to meet all that, at the best. And 
 I did not want to have a man here who might 
 be devising plans to bring liquor in, or even going 
 
Temperance 401 
 
 down to Wentworth with one of the young men 
 to see what they could find there. 
 
 " I run this mill as a place for the workingmen 
 and women first. After we have done this," he 
 said, laughing, " if we can turn out a few yards of 
 Hampton A No. i, why, I do so, because Spinner 
 there is so eager about it. But, on the whole, 
 that is of little consequence in comparison. And, 
 Mr. Freeman, when you can get Congress to 
 understand that the principal business they have 
 in hand, or any honest man, is that same affair, 
 namely, that the people of this country shall be 
 decent men and women, living in happy homes, 
 you will have made a great step. Your tariff leg 
 islation, all your revenue legislation, all your legis 
 lation on post-office and telegraph, for a little 
 instance, ought to turn on that, and that only. 
 
 " Well, to come back to your question. I think 
 all the conditions are in our favor, as I said. It 
 was a great thing that, for years, each man and 
 woman had to scrimp and save one quarter of his 
 wages really, that is to say, was compelled to 
 save it, and to deposit it, instead of having it to 
 spend. That put us on a very economical style of 
 living at first, and whiskey must go, even tobacco 
 largely, because we had so little money, any of us. 
 
 " In the second place, almost all the leaders 
 I mean the men with families, who would be apt to 
 stick fast and make up public sentiment were 
 already total abstainers. This happened from the 
 law of selection. For nobody could well join us 
 
 26 
 
402 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 to go to work on three quarter wages, unless he 
 had something laid up in the bank. And a drink 
 ing man is not apt to have a large bank account. 
 
 "Then, so soon as we got on the eight-hour 
 time schedule, nobody had the plea, which is a 
 perfectly just plea, of exhaustion. No man had 
 a ' pocket-pistol,' or wanted to step round to a 
 saloon because he was dead beat out by being on 
 his feet all day, or by whatever else he had had 
 to do. Family men went home; the boys by 
 which I mean all the younger hands went round 
 to their clubs, or to the reading-room, or to the 
 gymnasium, after Sheridan started it, or to play 
 ball, or croquet, or tennis. The open air is always 
 a good stimulus. What did that old Quaker say 
 to you, Spinner? " 
 
 " He said, ' Tell them to plant trees. Interest 
 them in planting trees. They will become so 
 excited and fascinated as they watch the trees 
 that they will have no disposition to drink.' Dear 
 old soul ! He judged everybody by himself." 
 
 "Yes," said Workman, " but there was an ele 
 ment of truth in the remark, as old Dr. Converse 
 used to say. Keep a young fellow in high exer 
 cise, in good health, and in open air, and the 
 temptation of liquor is reduced to a minimum. 
 After three or four generations of such life there 
 will be little or none. 
 
 " We encourage, in every way, I think Miss 
 Jane Stevens and Mr. Ledger have shown you 
 that, all associations of the young people which 
 
Temperance 403 
 
 will give the stimulus of society in place of the 
 stimulus of liquor. The mistake about such things 
 is, that your Useful Knowledge kind of people 
 think that everybody wants to be learning some 
 thing all the time. That is all nonsense. The 
 appetite for learning can be satisfied, just as the 
 appetite for roast beef can be satisfied, and 
 when it is satisfied, it is nonsense to try to revive 
 it till the time comes. Here is where Dick Sheri 
 dan helps us, more, perhaps, than he thought 
 when he began. He was not satisfied that the 
 boys should play cricket and base-ball, without 
 giving their mothers and sisters and sweethearts 
 comfortable shady seats where they could sit and 
 see them. He encouraged with all his might the 
 Knights Templars, so that they established that 
 restaurant where I met you yesterday." 
 
 " The Take it Easy!' I said ; " I was delighted 
 with the name." 
 
 They both laughed. "That is one of Dick's 
 notions. He had it on the brain. He said that 
 the hands must learn not to hurry when they ate, 
 or as they amused themselves. Well, the Take it 
 Easy is a Co-operation enterprise. I really believe 
 they pay a dividend at the end of the year to every 
 body who drinks a glass of soda or eats a bowl of 
 oysters. Sheridan joined in with the Knights with 
 all his zeal to have it carried through, and it is 
 really now a great comfort and convenience to 
 us all. 
 
 " You see it was the old stage-house of the place, 
 
404 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 even before there were any mills here, a great 
 square brick tavern, probably a great deal too 
 large at its best. We have almost no travellers 
 or visitors. In the old regime here, they made it 
 pay, somehow, by keeping the bar pretty active. 
 We had abolished all that. 
 
 "Accordingly, very soon after we were in full 
 blast, the owners came to me to know what we 
 would do with it. I did not choose to be embar 
 rassed by them or their notions, and Spinner agreed 
 with me. We took it off their hands at a very low 
 price, and it is now a part of the property of this 
 company. Then we took the same ground which 
 we took about the store and about the tenements. 
 We meant to make our money by manufacturing 
 goods. Our other property must pay us the 
 ' idiot's dividend ' and the taxes. So the Knights 
 Templars undertook to swing this thing. They 
 have their own club-rooms there, they have a 
 chess-room, where they play more checkers and 
 backgammon than chess, I think, they have a 
 billiard-room, they have their own reading-room. 
 But gradually the restaurant grew, and it now takes, 
 as you saw, the whole ground-floor. The men sit 
 there and talk politics and discuss boat-races and 
 ball games. It is a place of resort. You can order 
 something to drink, just as in old times. But it is 
 one of Eaton's fifty-seven temperance drinks, and 
 nobody has a headache the next morning. 
 
 " Eaton sent them up the man they have there, 
 and he and his wife have a genius for making the 
 
Temperance 405 
 
 place attractive. In the first place their things are 
 good. Their coffee is matchless, and their bouillon. 
 Well, the place is pretty, there are always fresh 
 flowers, and in summer it is cool, and in winter it 
 is warm. There is a room where the women can 
 look in, and be by themselves, and have a cup of 
 tea if they choose. They are not locked out, and 
 come and go as the rest of us do. That gives it 
 all a home look. It breaks up all temptation to 
 have little separate ' treats ' in little dirty club- 
 rooms, that Goodyear here will give any party a 
 much better entertainment than anybody else can, 
 and it costs them less. 
 
 "Now, observe, all this goes forward as a thing 
 of course. But it is not a thing of course. You 
 do not usually find what is called a temperance 
 hotel to approach the Take it Easy in elegance or 
 neatness or attractiveness. But nothing is said 
 about liquor, more than anything would be said 
 about opium at Delmonico's. They would not 
 assure their guests there that no opium was served, 
 and Goodyear does not assure his guests that 
 no liquor is served. ' They take it for granted/ he 
 says, ' they take it for granted that I know how 
 to keep a place of resort for gentlemen.' " 
 
 So much for what Workman meant by overcom 
 ing evil by good. But all of them said, very seri 
 ously, that an active temperance " propaganda " 
 was necessary, all the same. Holmes said to me 
 that he knew what temptations his boys and girls 
 were to meet, and he wanted them to be fore- 
 
406 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 warned. They had the best temperance speak 
 ers, and had them often. The Women's Christian 
 Temperance Union had a branch there, the Tem 
 plars, and some of the other societies. The boys 
 and girls grew up with the feeling that when they 
 left Hampton to live in larger places, where there 
 was much temptation, and where they saw the open 
 sale of liquor at the bar, that they were, in some 
 sort, the apostles of a new order. They had some 
 thing of the pride which the graduate of a well- 
 equipped college has, when he descends among 
 what he thinks, for the time, inferior people. 
 
 They wanted, if they could, to do their part in 
 extending a system which they had learned to love. 
 If they had not had this positive wish to be of use 
 in the temperance cause, all the negative effect of 
 the plans which had been made for them would 
 have been useless. But, as they did wish to help 
 their comrades, they themselves were the more 
 
 1 It may be as well to say, in a footnote, that "Eaton" is 
 Mr. Charles Sumner Eaton, of the Temperance Spa, Washington 
 St., Boston. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE SAVINGS-BANK 
 
 T TNDER the old order of things at Hampton, 
 ^ before Thankful Nourse and Spinner bought 
 the property, there had been an old-fashioned 
 Savings-Bank. Such institutions have been very 
 generally established in the New England factory- 
 towns, to the very great advantage of all concerned. 
 The administration of them has generally been 
 careful and honorable. The supervision by the 
 authorities of the States is severe and close, and 
 there have not been many instances in which the 
 depositors have lost anything by the infidelity of 
 the custodians or by their carelessness. On the 
 other hand, the custom of depositing money even 
 in very small sums in these banks has become 
 general, it would be almost fair to say universal. 
 In the State of Massachusetts, with a population of 
 1,976,264, there were last year 906,039 different 
 accounts in these institutions. This shows that 
 almost every working man and working woman 
 must have had an account in one of them or 
 another. The average sum to the credit of each 
 depositor was $321.00, the largest deposit per- 
 
408 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 mitted by the law being $5000.00. The total 
 amount was $2^i,igy ) goo.^6. 1 Persons who have 
 more money to deposit are expected to place it in 
 other investments. 
 
 The success of the savings-bank system in Amer 
 ica is largely due to the spirit in which it was con 
 ceived. The history of these banks shows that 
 they were not founded on the miserable ideas of 
 some bold speculator, who foresaw the immense 
 sums which would be at the direction of their 
 managers, and was eager to control the investment 
 of these funds. They were, on the other hand, 
 set on foot by high-minded Christian people, who 
 were eager in their wish to improve the condition 
 of poor people, to give to them the same rights in 
 the use of their little earnings which the rich had 
 in the use of theirs, and to encourage, in whatever 
 way might be possible, habits of prudence among 
 the work-people around them. It is the proud 
 boast of one of the associations of clergymen in 
 Massachusetts that the savings-bank of the county, 
 one of the oldest in the State, was created by the 
 inspiration given at a " Ministers' Meeting," as 
 the phrase of New England calls the meeting of 
 the association. 2 The plan was proposed by Mrs. 
 Joseph Allen, herself in attendance. She had read 
 of the success of a similar plan set on foot among 
 the philanthropic people of England. 
 
 In this spirit, to borrow Mr. Sherlock's text 
 again, those who had succeeded in business life are 
 
 1 The figures are for 1886. 2 The Worcester Association. 
 
The Savings-Bank 409 
 
 willing to bear the burdens of those who are yet 
 to begin it. And to their willingness is due the 
 willingness of men of great business ability to give 
 their time and care to the administration of these 
 trusts, without compensation. It is considered 
 almost a point of honor among mercantile men, or 
 bankers of ability and position, to do their part in 
 the proper supervision of the savings-banks of their 
 towns. It will sometimes happen, undoubtedly, 
 that a needy adventurer thinks it would be a good 
 plan to establish a new savings-bank, of which he 
 may be the active manager, with a good salary 
 and the advantages which fall to a man who directs 
 large investments. But if the bank is to succeed, 
 it must be able to show the names of a board of 
 directors respected in the community for business 
 sagacity and honor. The adventurer who pro 
 poses it may sing never so sweetly, and adver 
 tise never so widely. His bank will not attract 
 many depositors until they know who is to have 
 the oversight of their money. 
 
 The direction of savings-banks, then, so that the 
 depositors may be sure of a fair income, and that 
 their funds are not wasted, becomes one of the 
 unpaid public duties of Christian men, who know 
 that all their time and talents are given to them as 
 a trust, and who mean to use their trust for the 
 benefit of their fellows. 
 
 The little bank at Hampton under the old ad 
 ministration of the mills there, had been well ad 
 ministered, and had kept its fair share of deposits 
 
410 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 from the savings of the work-people. But when 
 hard times came, as the pay-days were more un 
 certain, and when at last the old company failed, 
 the people had moved away, one after another, 
 and had, of course, withdrawn their deposits, 
 perhaps, alas ! to pay the charges of moving ; or, 
 at best to deposit them in banks nearer to their 
 new homes. As the managers of the mills left, 
 they had withdrawn, so soon as they could, from 
 their places on the board of administration, and 
 the Savings-Bank was little more than a name and 
 a sign on the wall of the bank building, when the 
 renewal of Hampton began. 
 
 Mr. Spinner told me that, as soon as he got the 
 machinery into working order, he called Mr. 
 Nourse's attention to the necessity of awakening 
 new confidence in the bank, and found, to his 
 satisfaction, that he saw the necessity plainly. 
 Whatever else he thought visionary or fanciful in 
 the notions and wishes of these working people, he 
 did not think any plans for saving money fanci 
 ful. He knew too well that he should never have 
 been a capitalist had he not, as he said, " salted 
 down " ten per cent of his income, since he had 
 sold a string of trout at a hotel for a quarter of a 
 dollar. On Mr. Spinner's appeal, therefore, he 
 agreed to be one of the trustees of the bank, know 
 ing that he could attend to that duty without 
 personal attendance at all the meetings of the 
 managers. And he interested himself personally 
 in inducing gentlemen of position, character, and 
 
The Savings-Bank 4 1 1 
 
 means in the neighborhood to take necessary 
 trust and care of its management. When they 
 took the bank in hand, the deposits were at the 
 very lowest ebb. But, with the improvement in 
 the prosperity of Hampton, the working men and 
 women, and even the children, began to open their 
 accounts. The bank received as small sums as 
 five cents at a time, and began to allow interest on 
 the first of every month after the deposit was 
 made. It does not take long to teach young 
 people what is the value of an arrangement by 
 which their little wealth grows while they are 
 asleep, or seems to do so. And with the steadi 
 ness of management, and the evident care taken 
 of their property by men who were among the most 
 distinguished in the neighborhood, almost all the 
 people of Hampton were disposed to place their 
 earnings, as far as they could save them, for a 
 few months in the keeping of the savings-bank. 
 
 Spinner said that, so far, their experience was 
 only the same as that of hundreds of other insti 
 tutions of the same kind in different parts of the 
 Northern States, and he said that he did not know 
 but that their bank would have remained exactly 
 like all other American savings-banks, but from the 
 accident that they had a German named SchefTer 
 at the head of the dyeing-room. Scheffer came to 
 Spinner one day in a good deal of indignation, and 
 it was some time before Spinner found out what 
 the matter was. The German had been a depos 
 itor in the bank from the very beginning, and this, 
 
412 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 Spinner, who was one of the directors, knew per 
 fectly well. His wife was another, a nephew he 
 had was another, a grown-up son had a small 
 deposit, and one or two of the children had bank 
 books also, with their little savings entered upon 
 them. Spinner had always supposed that Scheffer 
 was one of the people best satisfied with the 
 arrangements of the bank, as he had often heard 
 him speak in a cordial way of the simplicity and 
 dignity with which its business was conducted. 
 He was all the more surprised on this particular 
 occasion, which proved to be a critical occasion, to 
 find that Scheffer was in a rage with the whole 
 management of the institution, had given notice 
 that he should withdraw his funds on the first 
 possible day when he had the right to do so, and 
 that every one in his room would do the same. 
 Spinner soothed him as well as he could, made 
 him tell the whole story from the beginning to the 
 end, and then was amazed to find that the Ger 
 man was disappointed and disgusted because the 
 treasurer of the bank had refused to discount a 
 little note for him. 
 
 Spinner at once entered on an explanation, in as 
 moderate and gentle language as he could, to show 
 his German friend that such a thing was utterly un 
 heard of in the savings-banks of New England as a 
 small discount on a small note, given on personal 
 security. He tried to make Scheffer understand 
 that the general policy, from the beginning of 
 these institutions, had been to avoid any resem- 
 
The Savings-Bank 413 
 
 blance to the working of the ordinary banks of 
 discount, and that they had been administered also 
 as trust funds, in which, naturally enough, the 
 larger the investment the better for the persons 
 concerned, because there is the less expense of 
 handling and oversight. He cited to him that re 
 mark of Josiah Quincy's, which has been already 
 quoted in another part of this essay. He said, 
 with some humor, that the palaces of Boston were 
 built with the money of the servant-girls of Boston. 
 It is perfectly true that those servant-girls have 
 given to the great savings-banks the money which 
 those banks lend out, on the perfect security of 
 mortgages, on the palaces of which Mr. Quincy 
 was speaking. Spinner tried to explain to his 
 angry friend that if he wanted a little money, he 
 himself would gladly be his security on a note 
 which he could carry to the nearest bank of dis 
 count, which was at Wentworth, the large town of 
 the neighborhood. He told him that he would find 
 that he was perfectly well known to the directors 
 there, and that they would be very glad to accom 
 modate him, if he would take such a note as he 
 proposed. Spinner said to him : " I had occasion 
 to borrow a little money a fortnight ago, and I 
 went over there, with a note indorsed by Freeman, 
 and they lent me the money gladly. That is what 
 they are for, and that is the place for you to go to." 
 Scheffer was toned down a little when he found 
 that his character had not been intentionally 
 assailed by the treasurer of the bank, and was 
 
414 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 soothed as Spinner persuaded him that his repu 
 tation had extended as far as Wentworth and 
 farther. But when the first tempest of his rage 
 was over, he continued to talk on the subject, and 
 to show what he thought the narrowness of the 
 restriction by which the treasurer had been bound. 
 He then told Spinner, what Spinner told me he 
 did not know before, that in his own country the 
 bank of savings where he made his deposits would 
 have been at the same time a bank of discount, 
 not in general business, but restricted to a business 
 with those very persons who made the deposits. 
 He explained to him the system, simple enough in 
 operation, though a little complicated in descrip 
 tion, by which the bank secures itself absolutely 
 for the small loans which it made to its depositors. 
 It might happen that a man wanted, for temporary 
 purposes, such as the furnishing of his house, or 
 the education of one of his children, a sum of 
 money larger than he had himself on deposit in 
 the bank. He would want to borrow this money, 
 and he would have friends enough among the 
 other depositors who were confident in his integ 
 rity, or confident in the purpose for which he 
 needed the funds, to assist him with their credit, 
 as far as it would go. What is the measure of 
 such people's credit? Clearly enough it is, so far 
 as the bank is concerned, estimated with perfect 
 accuracy by the deposits which they have in that 
 institution. If, then, Scheffer wanted to borrow 
 five hundred dollars, as in this case he did want to 
 
The Savings-Bank 415 
 
 borrow that amount, if he had on deposit only 
 three hundred dollars, the bank would, with perfect 
 willingness, lend him the whole sum, if he would 
 bring them a note signed by himself and by two of 
 his companions, each of whom had deposits of the 
 same amount with his own, it being understood 
 upon the face of the note that they were not to 
 draw upon their deposit until the note was paid, 
 and that the note constituted a lien, of which 
 the bank could avail itself as security for these 
 indorsements. Of course no security could be 
 more absolute. The bank itself holds the very 
 property from which the debt could be paid, if it 
 should prove that the indorsers must be called 
 upon. Scheffer explained to Spinner, what Spin 
 ner did not know, that there were thousands of 
 such banks in Germany, carrying on the double 
 business of receiving small deposits and making 
 small loans to the depositors. 
 
 It is perfectly true to say, in theory, that 
 the ordinary New England system comes out 
 at the same thing. In the ordinary New Eng 
 land system, the depositor places his money in 
 the savings-bank, the savings-bank loans the 
 money in considerable sums to capitalists and 
 others who handle considerable sums, and the 
 bank and the depositor then receive the advan 
 tage of the interest paid upon such loans. If it 
 happens that the depositor wants bank accommo 
 dation, he goes to an entirely different institution, 
 as in this case Scheffer would have to go to the 
 
41 6 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 bank of discount at Wentworth, and he avails 
 himself there of such credit as he has, founded 
 upon his property or upon his reputation, and 
 borrows the money he needs. Or, without bor 
 rowing money, he withdraws the whole of his de 
 posit, uses that in his speculation, whatever it is, 
 and when the speculation is ended, makes his de 
 posit anew. But it is easy to see that all this 
 means in practice is, that it shall be difficult, not 
 to say impossible, for dealers in money on a small 
 scale to obtain money at banks of discount. The 
 banks of discount do not want such customers; 
 human nature is weak, and the average cashier of 
 a bank prefers to deal with large customers rather 
 than with small customers, and to have its business 
 conducted in large sums rather than in small sums. 
 In practice, therefore, a man who wants to borrow 
 small sums of money is obliged to borrow in the 
 expensive and cumbrous system which sends him 
 to a pawnbroker, and his range of credit is only 
 as large as that very limited range which can be 
 represented by the articles which he can put in 
 deposit as security for his loan. 
 
 The German system, on the other hand, gives to 
 the man exactly the credit that he is entitled to. 
 It enables his friends, though they be in the hum 
 blest walks of life, and be persons of very little 
 means, to come to his assistance, for whatever pur 
 pose he needs money, just as far as their means 
 will go and they are disposed. In this particular 
 case of Scheffer's, where his anger had been so in- 
 
The Savings-Bank 417 
 
 tensely excited by the refusal of the treasurer, he 
 had offered to the treasurer absolute security for 
 every cent he wanted to borrow, and had offered 
 it to him in the very simple form of proposing to 
 place with him the bank-books of his friends, 
 amounting to a sum much larger than that he pro 
 posed to borrow. The treasurer had refused, be 
 cause he was not in the habit of doing such things. 
 This reason, usually alleged by persons in such 
 positions, had not satisfied Scheffer, and hence his 
 towering rage. 
 
 It was in every way desirable to conciliate Schef 
 fer in this particular instance. The directors of 
 the bank did not want to have one important sub- 
 department of the bank alienated, nor did they 
 want to have the German part of their constituency 
 disaffected to their management. Mr. Spinner, 
 therefore, brought the matter up at the next 
 directors' meeting. And, in the first place, it was 
 voted that the security offered by Mr. Scheffer for 
 the loan he wanted was entirely satisfactory, and 
 that the treasurer be directed to lend to him the 
 amount he asked for, as soon as he had that 
 amount for use. But, what was much more impor 
 tant, a committee was appointed, which should 
 draw up a practicable plan, in which any one of 
 the depositors might borrow money in small sums 
 if he needed, even though the sum -asked for was 
 larger than he had on deposit himself, if he offered 
 the names, as his indorsers, of men who had them 
 selves deposits equal to the amount borrowed ; 
 
 27 
 
4i 8 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 these depositors giving the amount they had in the 
 bank as their security for the fulfilment of their 
 obligation. All this, of course, made it necessary 
 to open some new books, and, indeed, developed a 
 side of the bank which was not contemplated in 
 the system to which it belonged. But it did not 
 prove that it required any new legislation, for these 
 banks always had the power to lend money on 
 personal security, if this security were satisfactory 
 to the directors, and were such that they could 
 readily call in the amount which they had lent, 
 when the exigencies of the bank required. Clearly 
 enough, no security could be better than that which 
 these directors had, for the funds of the indorsers 
 and the principal were in their own keeping, and 
 they were responsible for them. 
 
 The old-fashioned theory, in favor of which 
 much may be said, is, that it is not well to facilitate 
 the borrowing of money when the borrower is 
 poor. The proverb, which, though somewhat ir 
 reverent, is quite true, might have a wider applica 
 tion to advantage. It says that " Debt is the 
 devil." In the sense intended, it is very desirable 
 that everybody, the rich and the poor, should take 
 to heart the lesson which is involved in this epi 
 grammatic expression. At the same time, as 
 every man of affairs knows, it is necessary some 
 times that a man who has no ready money, but 
 has other property, should be able to borrow 
 ready money on the security of that property. It 
 is impossible to give any fair reason why this privi- 
 
The Savings-Bank 419 
 
 lege should not be open to poor men as it is open 
 to rich men, in proportion to the property which 
 they have to offer for their security. The poor 
 man is as eager to take care of his little as the rich 
 man is to take care of his great. Probably it will 
 prove that the poor man is more watchful over the 
 sum which he has to put at risk than is the man 
 who is used to larger advantages. In such a case 
 as we had under our eyes at Hampton, there was 
 really no danger that the friends and neighbors of 
 Schefifer should be less anxious for the security of 
 their little property than he was for the security 
 of his. They did not give their indorsements with 
 out such consideration as they thought sufficient. 
 It was nobody's business what those considerations 
 were, whether they were considerations of friend 
 ship, gratitude, or some greedy hope that in the 
 future he would do the like by them. It was no 
 body's business to inquire as to their motives, or 
 as to what the result would be to them. So far as 
 the bank officers had anything to do with the mat 
 ter, they had to preserve the property which was 
 intrusted to them, and to invest it safely. This 
 they were able to do, at some expense of worry 
 and time in the account-keeping, by as simple an 
 arrangement as that which was adopted. 
 
 And it had not proved that the people were 
 misled into any extravagant speculations by such 
 a convenient arrangement for borrowing small 
 sums of money. Up to a certain point, a man of 
 good reputation and established position could in- 
 
420 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 duce fellow-dopositors to indorse his note so that 
 he could borrow money. But he could not do 
 this unless he showed them why he wanted the 
 money, and unless they had reason to believe he 
 would be able to meet his note and theirs when it 
 became due. The friends whom I talked with had 
 satisfied themselves that the system worked well, 
 and expressed their surprise that it had not been 
 more generally introduced as a part of the practice 
 of the smaller savings-banks of the country. 
 
 In one of our talks about the bank and its results 
 I asked some general questions about their chari 
 ties. 
 
 Mr. Spinner said in reply that if I lived with 
 them a little longer I should see that they were 
 just like other people, and that they did not need 
 any other organization of charity or institutions 
 for taking care of the sick or aged than other 
 people did. " Because a man works in a mill, he 
 is not a different sort of man. Half the absurdities 
 which get into print about what they call the ' labor 
 problem/ and, worse than that, sometimes come 
 into disastrous action, spring from this notion, that 
 the world is divided into men and women and 
 ' operatives.' ' Operatives ' is a Latin word which 
 has been chosen to represent this outside being, 
 who is not exactly human. Now, if he had three 
 legs, or two mouths, or walked on his head, it 
 might be all right to classify him so, and to pro 
 vide for him separately. But, as he is just like 
 other men, as he is like farmers and sailors and 
 
The Savings-Bank 421 
 
 lawyers, it seems more possible to treat him as 
 other men are treated, and not to undertake to 
 separate him off into a class, as people call it, with 
 its peculiar institutions, whether of charity or gov 
 ernment or other arrangement of civil order." 
 
 I had learned by this time that this was a matter 
 about which Spinner felt rather extravagantly, and 
 which he discussed rather warmly. I had no wish 
 to provoke an angry discussion, but I said that I 
 did not mean to offend him. " But certainly there 
 are differences," I said, " between the hands in the 
 Hampton mills and as many farmers in the valley 
 above and the valley below. The great difference 
 is that they have to work when the mill works. 
 Their hours of work have to fit in with the hours 
 when the machinery is going. Now the farmer 
 works fifteen hours a day, or five hours a day, or 
 none. In this distinction there is a difference, and 
 it is as well to acknowledge it." 
 
 By this time Spinner had cooled down, and he 
 said he hoped he had not spoken too warmly. 
 " But the truth is," said he, " that you have stated 
 precisely the distinction, such as it is, between us 
 here and other work-people. These young men 
 whom you see in my room are not chained to this 
 machinery. That one whom I call Bob came to 
 me this morning to say that he had engaged for 
 the next summer with the people at Mount Pleasant. 
 He is to be at the head of their livery stable there. 
 The man who brought me the patterns just now 
 has been out in Dakota with his brother, who has 
 
422 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 a farm there. He will go again, one of these days, 
 is, indeed, of rather a restless turn, but I sup 
 pose that is good for him. And the girls and 
 women come and go in the same fashion. 
 
 "Now, to answer your question, as perhaps I 
 should have done before, such people, living in the 
 same life as the rest of the world, need no special 
 system for their old age, or their sickness, or ' other 
 infirmity.' What is good for farmers or lawyers 
 or editors or doctors is good for them. But they 
 need nothing more, and they take nothing up. 
 When you come to speak of Lowell, or Phila 
 delphia, or Chicago, you speak of something dif 
 ferent from Hampton. But you need higher 
 organization of your charities there, not because 
 you are dealing with workmen, but because you 
 are dealing with large cities. As to large cities 
 well, I am very much of Jefferson's notion." 
 
 " What was that?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, he said large cities are large sores. I 
 think Sallust thought so. To go back. It is true, 
 and I am rather proud to say it, that the English 
 workingmen, and not the French theorists, devel 
 oped and worked out all the detail of the magnifi 
 cent Friendly Societies, which, under one name or 
 another, cover the whole land, and make what is 
 technically called ' charity ' the less necessary. 
 Providence, prudence, is a great deal better than 
 charity. And if a ' Forester/ or a * Druid/ or an 
 ' Odd Fellow ' has had at once the Christian kind 
 ness and the Saxon good sense to pay regularly 
 
The Savings-Bank 423 
 
 his monthly dues to the lodge, or camp, or chapter 
 of the order to which he belongs, why, he has saved 
 society no end of trouble in bothering about his 
 widow and his orphans. I am not a Freemason. 
 But I am disposed to think that their arrangements 
 for mutual help, or what is really a sickness and 
 death insurance, have been very much enlarged in 
 the last half-century. However that is, I am sure 
 that these other orders, Rechabites, Knights of 
 Honor, Odd Fellows, Druids, Foresters, Sons of 
 Temperance, and the rest, give to everybody 
 opportunities for providing for an evil day, so 
 general and so careful that we have no need of 
 establishing separate plans of our own, in as small 
 a place as Hampton. 
 
 " It all comes to mutual insurance. In fact, as 
 you know, some of the associations simply take 
 the name of Mutual Insurance Companies. Some 
 of them, indeed, do not collect their dues until the 
 exact occasion comes when the money is needed. 
 In a small club of a thousand members you will 
 receive a note which says that our brother, Mr. 
 Jones, fell from a roof yesterday, or died with 
 typhoid, or was drowned at sea last week, and that 
 the Secretary knows you will be glad to pay two 
 dollars, as you are bound to do, by the way, for 
 the fund now due to his widow. Well, there is a 
 certain advantage in that plan. You see, and can 
 not help seeing, how good a thing you are engaged 
 in. You are sorry for the widow; you are glad 
 you did not fall from the roof yourself. And you 
 
424 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 pay your two dollars with a sort of personal interest 
 that a man does not always feel in paying a money 
 assessment. But, of course, the principle is the 
 same. You are trained to laying up something for 
 an evil day ; and here is the important thing 
 you are trained to remember that no misfortune 
 comes to you that is not ' common to man,' as the 
 Bible says. You are trained to do your part, as a 
 Christian man, for all the others. 
 
 " For, no matter what name the thing takes, all 
 this mutual provision and care is a part of the 
 Christian religion. It is all part of 'The Way.' 
 It was set on foot by Jesus Christ, as distinctly as 
 if he had dictated the constitution of a company 
 to Saint Peter. If we were each and all so many 
 separate, selfish bodies, we should not do such 
 things. It is because we are children of God, 
 whom Christ died to save, that we do such things, 
 and encourage other people to do them. Whether 
 a lodge meeting opens with prayer or not, all the 
 same it was founded the day Jesus Christ was 
 born, and it never would exist were it not for his 
 Gospel." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 WORK AND LABOR 
 
 I WAS to make a little speech at a picnic of a 
 few of the hands one afternoon, and I asked 
 Mr. Spinner's advice as to what I should say. 
 
 " Pray speak to them as you would speak to any 
 body else," he said, reverting to his old sensitive 
 feeling of dislike for anything which, in our hard 
 working country, made workmen into a " class." 
 " But if you must make distinctions, do not call 
 us ' laborers/ and do not talk of the ' dignity of 
 labor.' " 
 
 " Why not? " said I, dully enough. " Is not all 
 that you do intended to give dignity to labor, and 
 are you not all laborers? " 
 
 " No," said Spinner, with an intentional expres 
 sion of indignation. " I am afraid that there are 
 one or two laboring men about, digging post-holes, 
 or at work in the bottom of the flume, but they are 
 all trying to rise from the grade of laborers to 
 the grade of workmen. Labor is always wearing, 
 fatiguing, repulsive, and every man who is a man 
 is always trying to replace it by some less wearing, 
 less repulsive, and less fatiguing process. That is 
 
426 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 to say, the whole of what you call civilization con 
 sists in substituting Work, which is the conquest 
 of matter by spirit, for Labor, in which a man 
 throws his own dead weight or muscle against the 
 dead weight of the clod he is handling." 
 
 Here was a bit of philology which interested me, 
 and I made Spinner follow it out. He said that it 
 had been an immense satisfaction to him when the 
 late Dr. Bethune of Brooklyn called his attention 
 to the radical distinction between the two words. 
 He told me that I should find the distinction care 
 fully carried out in the English Bible. He said 
 that God is always spoken of as working, never as 
 laboring. He said that when the righteous die, 
 they cease from their labors^ but their works follow 
 them, for that angels and archangels are fellow- 
 workers with God himself. Labors, he said, are 
 spoken of in the correct English of the Bible as we 
 speak of toils, or drudgery, with persecutions and 
 shipwrecks, and other finite necessities of a finite 
 world. But Paul and the other saints are always 
 hoping to be released from their labors, while they, 
 also, like angels and archangels, are glad to be 
 fellow-workmen with God. He even said that the 
 one place where Paul called himself a fellow- 
 laborer with God, in our Bible, was a slip of the 
 translators, and that it had been corrected in the 
 Revised Version. 
 
 I asked him if Dr. Bethune had ever printed his 
 study of this subject. He said he had never seen 
 his address in print. But he gave me an address 
 
Work and Labor 427 
 
 of his own, which I am glad to copy here. For 
 Spinner's mock rage was really sublime, when he 
 ridiculed the stump orators who came up to politi 
 cal meetings in October about the " dignity of 
 labor." " Probably not one of them ever did an 
 honest day's work in his life," Spinner said grimly. 
 " If he had, he would talk about the dignity of 
 work, and leave labor where it belongs." I chaffed 
 Spinner a little, for I told him he was himself mak 
 ing the classification against which he warned me, 
 only he was making a class of laborers. 
 
 " I make a class of laborers ! " he cried ; 
 " Heaven forbid ! No, I am doing all I can to re 
 duce the amount of necessary labor, and to sub 
 stitute work for it, as when the steam derrick 
 lifts those stones, which ten years ago would have 
 been lifted by the labor of men." And on this I 
 went off to prepare myself for the picnic by read 
 ing the lecture. 
 
 It had been prepared for one of their own ly- 
 ceum courses. But I saw by the notes on the 
 cover that he had delivered it in a good many of 
 the neighboring towns ; and when I read it, I was 
 glad that it had been favorably received. For, as 
 the reader will see, the doctrine of the lecture went 
 a good deal beyond a mere speculation on the use 
 of English words, and involved a good many ot 
 the principles on which the social order of our 
 modern life depends. 
 
 After an introduction half in joke, in which he 
 described, with a good deal of humor, the political 
 
428 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 shyster, who appears once a year, posing as the 
 " friend of labor," Spinner went into the etymology 
 of the words " labor " and " work." He cited from 
 Shakespeare and Milton expressions which showed 
 their use of them. 
 
 That is, he contrasted 
 
 " Painful labors both by sea and land " 
 against 
 
 " Come, let us to our holy work again.'* 
 
 And he took from Milton, 
 
 " Body shall up to spirit work," 
 and, 
 
 " Our better part remains to work in close design," 
 
 which he contrasted against the phrase, 
 
 " Those afflictions you now labor under." 
 
 " But this classical use of language, if I may so 
 call it, is not yet old-fashioned. Go out on the 
 platform of a railroad station, go forward and 
 speak to the engineer. ' We are not on time, Mr. 
 Stevenson. What's the matter?' 'I don't just 
 know, sir, but she labors badly on the up-grade.' 
 But suppose it is the other way, and you say to 
 your Mr. Stevenson, ' You 're running on time to 
 night.' ' Ah, yes,' he says, with a broad grin ; ' she 
 works well.' That man knows the difference be 
 tween ' labor,' which always wears out, that is 
 what the word means in Latin, and ' work,' which 
 never hurt anybody or anything when it was used 
 
Work and Labor 429 
 
 in the proper way and the proper proportion. 
 They would tell you the same thing when the Puri 
 tan ran her race against the Galatea. If the sailing- 
 master were satisfied, he would nod his head, and 
 he would say, ' Does she not work well?' And if 
 he were dissatisfied, why, if the man did not 
 swear, it would be well, but he would be sure 
 to say that she ' labored ' with every wave of the 
 sea. 
 
 "The Digger Indian, so long as he digs with 
 his hands, is a fit type of the laborer. Robinson 
 Crusoe, when he was flung upon the beach, 
 without any tools, to work with his bare hands 
 and feet, he was a laborer. He had to bend 
 down the trees to make his wigwam. If he was 
 heavy enough, if they broke where he wanted, 
 or bent as he chose, happy for him, he was 
 a successful laborer. But it was his dead weight, 
 and the dead pull of his muscles, by which he 
 succeeded. Robinson Crusoe, when he put a 
 lever under a stone, so that with half the labor 
 he could do the same work, became a workman. 
 Why, as lately as when the dam was built here, 
 which holds back the water for our mills, the 
 drilling of the holes * in the granite for the split 
 ting of the stone was all so much dead labor. 
 Ten or twelve good fellows how I pity them, 
 and so do you stood on the edge of the quarry 
 there, with ten or twelve heavy drills, and all 
 day long had to thump, thump, thump, as they 
 made the long holes into the hard stone for the 
 
430 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 blast of the evening. Did my friend, the Hon 
 orable Slippery Gabbletongue, go up and tell 
 them that labor was honorable? Did he tell them 
 so in a practical way, by taking any man's drill 
 from him, and sending him off to the next pri 
 mary meeting while he drilled? Not he. Mr. 
 Gabbletongue was in the drummer's room, up at 
 the hotel, preparing his notes on the ' toil-worn 
 craftsman.' The ten or twelve good fellows 
 thumped away there, till one fine day a real re 
 former, a man who knew the difference between 
 labor and work, looked in upon them. And he 
 set up you have seen it a little portable 
 boiler and engine there. As long as he wanted, 
 it drove, not ten drills, but thirty. And one or 
 two good fellows tended the drills, in careful and 
 delicate work, while the little spitting engine did 
 all the labor. And your friend, Mr. Willing, 
 tended the gauges and the escape-valve, and lay 
 in the shade and read Henry George, or wrote 
 a love-letter. He and his two workmen did 
 three times what was done before. And this 
 was because they substituted a little intelligent 
 work for a great deal of unintelligent labor. 
 
 " Simply, my friends, the advance which the 
 world has made in its commerce, its manufac 
 ture, and all its social order, since the year 1775, 
 when Watt and Bolton spoke the word and 
 freed the people, has been in this line of the 
 diminution of labor, while true work is substi 
 tuted in its place. I rode into the woods, fifty 
 
Work and Labor 431 
 
 miles up the river, last fall. What did I find 
 there? I found a settler clearing out his farm, 
 in a new precinct. Was he swinging the axe, 
 as the ' grand old man ' does when he wants to 
 take exercise? He was reading a newspaper. 
 He had one of Whittier and Woodruff's little 
 horse-powers by the road, he had his old gray 
 nag at work in it; his boy Tom was training a 
 circular saw upon the log in question ; and in a 
 tenth part of the time which the laboring man 
 would have needed with his axe, the old gray 
 had done the business. Labor was relegated to 
 the brutes, where in the end it belongs, and 
 intelligent work was there in its place. 
 
 "But it is not brutes alone, or chiefly, who 
 are thus drawn into the service of man to take 
 his labors for him. There are these giants whom 
 man has created, whom he commands, as 
 Aladdin commanded his slaves. It is a slavery, 
 thank God, without a lash or a scar. Watt and 
 Bolton first, and since them more inventors than 
 can be named, coming down to our own Corliss 
 and so many of our American inventors, have been 
 calling into being these giants, whose bones are of 
 wood and iron and brass and steel, and bidding 
 them do our bidding. And here at the Falls, 
 you have, in the same way, with our turbines and 
 our flume, compelled the tireless waterfall to 
 take our labor, while we work. The workmen I 
 am speaking to know what progress has been made 
 in the last generation in this direction. But all 
 
432 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 of you may not know that in the manufacture 
 of cotton cloth, for instance, thirty hands will 
 now do the work which required a hundred hands 
 only thirty years ago. I say, do the work. In 
 my strict sense of the word, not one of those 
 hands is a laborer. He is a skilled workman ; and 
 just as the cutler of to-day does not drive his own 
 stone, the spinner of to-day does not twist his own 
 thread, nor the weaver drive his own shuttle. The 
 labor is done for him by the waterfall or by the 
 piston. 
 
 "And what has become of the seventy men 
 and women set free from the work of spinning 
 the thread or weaving the web? Here is the 
 most interesting result of all. What is the new 
 variety of industry, what is the wide range of 
 art and manufacture, but the immediate product 
 of the hands and the heads of these men and 
 women who have new fields of adventure to try, 
 who profit by the new inventions, and find new 
 work, of grades more and more interesting, open 
 before them? You have the marvels of electricity. 
 You have callings created by them. You have all 
 the wonderful fertility of fine art. Your homes 
 are bright with pictures and books, cheaper than 
 ever and better than ever. Travelling becomes a 
 luxury ; and it is the luxury of the poor, where it 
 was the necessity of the rich. Gradually but cer 
 tainly the day's work shortens; yet the world's 
 product enlarges. Prices steadily fall. Comfort 
 steadily increases. And all this is exactly in pro- 
 
Work and Labor 433 
 
 portion as, by an intelligent invention, we sub 
 stitute work for labor." 
 
 At this point a double black line was drawn 
 across Spinner's manuscript, and the next page 
 was left blank. It was clear enough that a pause 
 was made here in delivery, perhaps what the old 
 lecturers called an " intermission." The address 
 then went on in a somewhat different vein. 
 
 " I hope no man or woman hears me who 
 thinks the distinction I have drawn is a mere 
 matter of the dictionary-makers or word-splitters. 
 I hate them and their deeds. I dare not try 
 to say how much evil they have done to this 
 world, and especially to industry honest indus 
 try and to work honest work. The curse 
 may I say it? of the Son of God is upon so 
 many of them, where, in that terrible description 
 of his, in the shortest words of our language, he 
 speaks of those who ' say and do not.' I would be 
 dumb rather than come here to entertain you with 
 a mere discussion of words. 
 
 " No ; I have dwelt on the difference between 
 the two words because I want to show the dif 
 ference between two things. There are countries 
 and there are times in which there is a great deal 
 of labor and very little work. There are barbar 
 ous countries and barbarous times. There are 
 other countries and other times where there is a 
 great deal of work and very little labor. Such, 
 thank God, is our country and this time ; and we 
 call it a civilized country and a civilized age simply 
 
 28 
 
434 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 because there is much work and little labor. But, 
 my friends, we do not know we do not begin to 
 know what we mean by that great word ' civil 
 ization.' If our children know, and I hope they 
 will, it will be because we are faithful to our part 
 in substituting work for labor. We must do our 
 part to have the drudgery done by beasts, by water, 
 by steam, by electricity, and by any new power 
 which the genius of man, guided by the Spirit of 
 God, can tame. To make more places for work 
 men, and to lift more laboring men into these 
 places, this is our duty. 
 
 " We respect labor. Yes ; we respect anything 
 that is honest. But all the encouragement we give 
 to labor shall be the encouragement a man gives 
 to a tired boy on his long walk. The walk shall 
 soon be over, and the rest from it shall be 
 won. 
 
 " It is our business, first of all, to encourage 
 the laboring man, by opening to him every pos 
 sible line of promotion, that he may become a 
 workman. Help him to go to the evening school. 
 Help him with his books. Encourage his children 
 in the same way. Do not ask him nor expect 
 him to remain a drudge or a laborer long; but 
 show him that, in a country like ours, the lines of 
 promotion are always open. These few years of 
 labor are like the voyage of the sea-sick pas 
 senger, every day of which brings him nearer to 
 the promised land. 
 
 "If you will tell him the truth, you can make 
 
Work and Labor 435 
 
 him see this. We have very accurate knowledge 
 of the proportion of laborers to workmen in North 
 ern America. The statistics of Massachusetts are 
 precise. They show us that of the working force 
 of that industrious commonwealth only nine per 
 cent are ' unskilled laborers.' The other ninety- 
 one per cent are workmen. They are conquering 
 matter, not by the matter in their bones and blood, 
 but by the immortal Spirit which comes from God. 
 Only one eleventh of the force of Massachusetts 
 are laboring men and women. Now, suppose Mas 
 sachusetts was an old-fashioned Japan. Suppose 
 there was a wall of fire around her, and no one 
 could come in. Suppose she said she would com 
 pel her young men, as they started in life, to do 
 this heavy work, to be her drudges and labor 
 ers ; and that, when each had done it, she would 
 promote them to be workmen, fellow-workers 
 with God Almighty ! They would only have to 
 toil in that drudgery four little years or less. They 
 would be for that time like the conscripts in a 
 German army. In their young life they would so 
 serve the commonwealth that as men and women 
 they could rise to higher service as workmen and 
 workwomen, yes, as the directors of the drudges. 
 Any man would say that he would buy that eman 
 cipation by those four years of drudgery, if that 
 was the only opening to it. 
 
 " Now these figures for Massachusetts are un 
 doubtedly the figures for all the industrial States 
 of America. You have, then, a right to say to 
 
436 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 that good fellow from Italy or from Hungary who 
 digs a ditch for you to-day, * Look aloft, my 
 friend ; look forward cheerfully. At the most we 
 only need you a few years in this toil. And our 
 schools are open, our library is open, our shops are 
 open, that you may leave this toil and rise higher.' 
 If the man turns you off, if he had rather 
 drink bad beer and bad whiskey all his life, and 
 all his life be a beast, a drudge, and a toilsman, 
 that is his affair. But be sure you do your part 
 to lift him higher. Make him temperate. Teach 
 him to read. Teach him to write. Give him a 
 chance to draw. Give him a chance to use his 
 hands. Perhaps he can carve; perhaps he can 
 paint. Show him that he has a mind. Show 
 him this by showing him that he has a soul. Let 
 his soul begin to use his mind and his body, and 
 you have made him free indeed. 
 
 " I spoke bitterly of those people who make me 
 sick. They are the people who talk all day, when 
 they know nothing, and have nothing to tell me. 
 They are like the Philadelphia printing-presses in 
 the Revolution, that clattered all day and all night, 
 and printed nothing but sheets of Continental 
 money, of which every word was a visible lie. 
 When a man like that looks into my weaving-room, 
 and sees an intelligent young lady there overlook 
 ing four looms perhaps, gently releasing a broken 
 thread, quietly soothing a squeaking pivot, when 
 one of these men calls her afterward a person who 
 works with her hands, and in condescending con- 
 
Work and Labor 437 
 
 trast speaks of himself as a person who works with 
 his brain, I want to knock the man down. Brain, 
 indeed ! Hand, indeed ! Her work is intellectual 
 work far more subtle than his. Let them be 
 judged by their fruits. At the end of a year she 
 shows so many bales of cloth, or, if you please, so 
 many men ' clothed in their right mind/ because 
 she gave her intelligence to clothing men. And 
 he shows a ream of paper covered with an 
 infinite ocean of nothing. 
 
 " But I do not stop with our duty to educate the 
 laborer into a workman. Let us steadily, in all 
 lines of our duty, remember that there should be 
 no fixed and permanent class of laborers. Let us 
 arrange the laws, the customs, and habits, as we 
 arrange the education, of the community, so that 
 labor may be regarded as simply a necessary pre 
 liminary to good work; as we inoculate a child, 
 though we make him sick for a week, in order that 
 from one disease he may be exempt forever. To 
 do this, we must highly disregard much that we 
 find written in the older books, when the laboring 
 men made three quarters of a community, while 
 now they make only one eleventh, as I have shown 
 you ; and we must determine so to improve indus 
 try and invention that in twenty years that propor 
 tion shall be reduced still farther, and there shall 
 be only five drudges, while there are ninety-five 
 men and women who have stepped forward in 
 man's great God-given duty of subduing the 
 world. Laws, customs, language, education, fash- 
 
438 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 ions, all must contribute to this advance and 
 reform. 
 
 " My contribution to it to-night, if I have in the 
 least succeeded, has been made in showing you the 
 object at which we are aiming. And we are to 
 remember that mere drudgery I had almost said, 
 from its nature degrades the drudge, and tends 
 to make him the mere beast which he is called. 
 In the mere infancy of civilization, the kings of 
 Europe punished men by making of them galley- 
 slaves. The severest punishment was to make a 
 man completely a drudge. All day long, under 
 the lash perhaps, he was to pull at that heavy oar. 
 Nay, to disgrace him the more, he was even made 
 to pull when his toil was wholly wasted, when 
 the galley was anchored at the pier. The tread 
 mill, which I believe we never had in America, but 
 which I have myself seen in England, was in prac 
 tice the same thing. It merely took the dead weight 
 of the man. He walked up on that moving stairway, 
 always stepping up and never ascending. Why 
 have these punishments been abandoned, except in 
 extreme cases? Why would it be well to abandon 
 them forever? Simply because they ruined the 
 man. You treated the man as if he were a beast, 
 and, by an infinite law he became a beast. The 
 quality of manhood is to look up, and to look for 
 ward. You took the quality away when you 
 repressed it, when you failed to use it. And 
 just what happened to those poor galley-slaves and 
 treadmill men is what is likely to happen to any 
 
Work and Labor 439 
 
 man whom I compel to a life of mere brute toil, 
 unless you enlarge him by that noblest word, 
 ' Friend, go up higher.' 
 
 " You may ask any temperance man, who is a 
 real workman in that great cause, whether drudg 
 ery is not bad for a man's temperance. Ask the 
 Blue Ribbon men where danger comes. They will 
 tell you that it comes when a man's physical frame 
 is exhausted by his day's toil, and when he has no 
 ambition to supply a higher stimulus than that of 
 alcohol. Tired to death, with every muscle ach 
 ing, with no chance of a to-morrow any higher 
 than to-day, or that next year will be brighter than 
 this year, the poor creature goes into the liquor 
 shop as he leaves his drudgery. For my part, I do 
 not wonder. I can hardly say I blame him. I 
 can say I pity him. And you know what follows. 
 He forgets his fatigue ; he forgets that he is worn 
 out. There has been one cheerful hour after a 
 day of wretched toil ; and so, alas ! he comes 
 again and again, and at last you hear that the devil 
 who tempted him in has kicked the poor brute out, 
 because he has nothing to pay to his tempter. 
 You began by calling him ' poor man,' and then 
 you said ' poor creature,' and then you said ' poor 
 brute.' That is, you condemned him to the life of 
 a brute, and to a brute's life of appetite it reduced 
 him. 
 
 " But, on the other hand, if I wanted to en 
 courage and improve a gang of laboring men, if I 
 found the liquor-dealers had got hold of them, and 
 
44 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 were leading them you know where, I would first 
 of all try to make them see that in the habit of 
 drink they are selling themselves yes, and the 
 children they love better than themselves to 
 perpetual slavery. I should show them that in a 
 country like this, with open lines of promotion, no 
 man is kept digging in the mud unless he keeps 
 himself there. I should show them that in that 
 slavery they are open to the competition of the 
 heaviest brute and the strongest, who is too dull to 
 do better, by which I mean, to him, easier. I 
 should show them that every starving nation in 
 Europe, in Asia, or in Africa, sent over ship-loads 
 of competitors to lower their wages for them. I 
 should show them that while they were drinking- 
 men they would never rise a hand's breadth above 
 this position of drudgery ; and the reason I would 
 urge to compel them to take the pledge and to 
 keep it would be that thus they began their up 
 ward step, with some purpose and some hope. I 
 should show them what we Christians mean when 
 we speak of ' The glorious liberty of the sons of 
 God.' 
 
 " I am no preacher, friends, as you know. I do 
 not pretend to bring you a sermon. But I dare 
 not stop till I have said that you will find every 
 word I have said better said in the four Gospels, 
 and in the letters of that master-workman, as I 
 have heard Mr. Sherlock call him, * that master- 
 workman in the craft of tent-making, Paul of Tar 
 sus. That men may come into the glorious liberty 
 
Work and Labor 441 
 
 of the sons of God, the Saviour of men begs them 
 to come up higher. That they may do so, Saint 
 Paul begs them to forget the things that are behind, 
 and to reach forth to the things that are before. 
 To do this they need, first of all, for the glorious 
 renewal of the new birth, to master the body, to 
 master the mind, by the sway of the Holy Spirit ; 
 and this means that they will, step by step and day 
 by day, mount from that drudgery in which brute 
 force toils with things, up into that higher life in 
 which the children of God subdue the world." 
 
 NOTE. In reprinting this paper in 1900, I like to say that 
 Mr. George Morison, our " Pontifex Maximus," tells me that in the 
 year 1999, the unconscious powers of nature will be so completely 
 under the control of man, the son of God, that they will be so 
 subdivided, that no man or woman will do any muscular or phys 
 ical drudgery, unless they want to. It will be possible to sweep 
 a floor, or to hoe a garden, by the " work " which controls these 
 unconscious powers. 
 
 The New Testament texts in the Received Version and the 
 Revised Version are : 
 
 " For we are labourers together with God : ye are God's hus 
 bandry, ye are God's building." I Cor. iii. 9. 
 
 Revised Version. " For we are God's fellow-workers : ye are 
 God's husbandry, God's building." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 COMMUNISM 
 
 THEY had an old Scotchman in the counting- 
 room at Hampton, named Dugdale. He 
 said he knew nothing about their business, for 
 that he was a cotton-bug. But, in truth, he had a 
 Scotchman's habit of turning his hand to many 
 things ; he had seen many more countries than 
 Ulysses ever saw, and many more men ; and, hav 
 ing kept his eyes open, he had learned something 
 from every man and every country. 
 
 He was so old now that he did not like work at 
 the loom, and had even given up the superintendence 
 of one of the weaving-rooms, where he had long 
 been a master. And now he was the chief book 
 keeper of the concern. 
 
 I was interested to find that he knew personally 
 Robert Owen, whose experiments at New Lanark, 
 in social order, attracted so much attention in their 
 time, and were supposed by so many intelligent 
 people to carry with them the secret of the indus 
 tries of the future, to exhibit, indeed, the " King 
 dom of Heaven " in the form which it was to take 
 on earth. 
 
Communism 443 
 
 The Emperor Alexander of Russia visited New 
 Lanark; and Robert Owen went to Elba to per 
 suade the exiled Napoleon that here was the se 
 cret of the future. 
 
 Dugdale had never worked in his mills. He 
 was not old enough. But as a baby he had been 
 attended to in the " Eccaleobion," which Robert 
 Owen provided for the sustenance of all babies 
 after they were well hatched. And in later life he 
 had made a pilgrimage to New Lanark to see the 
 wrecks of that incipient " City of God," which had 
 not life enough to live. Very sad it was, he said, 
 to find astronomical drawings of real value, which 
 had been prepared for popular lectures, lying 
 under the foot of man, half-buried by the plaster 
 which had fallen from the ceiling of the lecture- 
 room. 
 
 Dugdale told me this story one evening, and it 
 was a very good text for the consideration of dear 
 old Owen's plans, from which we branched off 
 or some of the men present did into talk of 
 Fourier and his Phalanstery, of St. Simon, and of 
 some of the later forms of what is called Socialism, 
 and of what is called Communism. 
 
 Dugdale said and I think that the super 
 ficial writers, particularly the writers for the press, 
 in their ignorance of the subjects which they pre 
 tend to consider, had clouded all discussions by 
 mixing up Communism with a u, as he said, with 
 Communism with an o. The old word " Commun 
 ism," with its accent on the first syllable, meant 
 
444 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 one thing. It meant property in common, as the 
 Shakers of America hold it to-day, or as the 
 Iroquois Indians of New York held it. What he 
 called Communism with a u y is the notion of the 
 violent French radicals, who want to exaggerate 
 local government, the government of the Com 
 mune, or, as we should say, of the township. It is 
 a miserable misfortune for all sensible discussion 
 that the two words happen to be spelled with the 
 same letters. For they mean two wholly different 
 things. Yet you can hardly find a recent pamphlet 
 on the subject which is not obscured by a careless 
 ness about two things which have hardly any 
 thing to do with each other. 
 
 Dugdale had himself, in earlier life, tried some 
 of the socialistic and communistic experiments. 
 He had even spent part of one winter with the 
 Shakers. He had read some of the best-digested 
 French plans. I found he knew about the Fami- 
 listere at Guise. And, indeed, he went into the 
 philosophy of the system of the Iroquois as I had 
 never heard any American do, even if he were a 
 citizen of the State of New York. 
 
 In point of fact, he said, and I have satisfied 
 myself that the remark is true, property in com 
 mon, if one may use words so contradictory, was 
 the beginning of property in more savage times, 
 out of which we have gradually emerged, and we 
 are to look back into semi-barbarism for an illus 
 tration of it, instead of looking forward into a 
 higher civilization. If Mr. Henry George really 
 
Communism 445 
 
 wants to see what happens, when all land is owned 
 by the State, let him go to the Cherokee Reservation, 
 in the Indian Territory, where land is held so now. 
 He can see how he likes that. It is by gradually 
 working upward and outward from this common 
 holding of which every country in the world has 
 illustrations in its earlier history, that we have 
 come out on the system of to-day. In to-day's 
 system a great deal of wealth is still held in com 
 mon. It is " Res Publica," the Common Wealth. 
 But for certain things, men and women have pre 
 ferred to have their own " proper "-ty. 
 
 Dugdale said that when Robert Owen was eighty 
 years old, as eager as ever in his hopes for the 
 " Family Unions," as he called his villages, he him 
 self asked the old man what people would do when 
 the world was all mathematically adjusted. Dug- 
 dale expressed the fear that it would be a very 
 stupid world. 
 
 " Do ! " cried the old reformer, with a blaze of 
 light as from heaven on his face. "Do? Why, 
 they will travel ! Think of the joy of travelling, 
 without expense, without fatigue, and without 
 baggage" 
 
 And he explained that the traveller would tele 
 graph in advance that he was coming, and would 
 find clean clothing laid out for him in his bed 
 room, fitted to his size, five feet seven, or six 
 feet three, as the case might be. 
 
 Dugdale had intimated, in reply, that most men 
 had a fancy for wearing their own shirts. 
 
446 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 Really, in this anecdote, the whole principle was 
 involved. On the whole, men preferred to own 
 their own shirts, their own axes, penknives, pens, 
 paper, and so their own houses, oxen, horses and 
 barns. John likes to drive a fiery trotter, who will 
 go on the road at 2.40. William had rather drive 
 a quiet family beast, who will not annoy him as 
 they go on the road, but will bring him out safely 
 six miles at the end of an hour. Because, on the 
 whole, mankind prefers private property in certain 
 things, men have private property in certain things. 
 
 But there is other property, which is Common 
 Wealth, and the government of the Common 
 Wealth holds it and administers it. Undoubtedly 
 it is a subject for discussion and experiment how 
 much of such property there shall be. Indeed, it 
 may be wise for one community to hold certain 
 wealth in common, while another community finds 
 it best to hold it in severalty. The weakness of 
 Mr. Spencer's discussion of this subject, as of many 
 other discussions from different English radicals, 
 comes on their insisting on classing all property 
 together, and protesting against any claims of 
 Government. This comes from the dread which 
 their fathers were bred in, by the maladminis 
 tration of a landed aristocracy. 
 
 But, on the whole, it has proved advisable that 
 the nation shall own the lighthouses. Next to 
 these, it has proved advisable that it shall own the 
 high-roads, that they shall not be owned by private 
 companies. In America we are satisfied that the 
 
Communism 447 
 
 State should own the schoolhouses. Whether it 
 shall own the higher schools, the colleges and 
 universities, has not been decided in an experi 
 ence. Some States, as Michigan and Wisconsin, 
 own the buildings and funds of their universities, 
 and administer them. In some States, as in Mas 
 sachusetts and Connecticut, they are the property 
 of distinct corporations. Most American cities 
 think it best to own their own water-works. The 
 reservoirs, the pipes, and all the apparatus, are 
 part of the wealth in common belonging to the 
 Commonwealth. There seems to be no principle 
 which should prevent the city government from 
 owning the gas-works and gas-pipes, in the same 
 way. But, on the whole, the present habit is to 
 leave this property to special corporations. 
 
 In the same way, it would be hard to define any 
 principle which should prevent a State from own 
 ing a railway, as, indeed, many of the European 
 states do, as most states own the ordinary road 
 way, on which foot-men, horses, cattle, and ordinary 
 carriages travel. Whoever will take the pains, in 
 his own neighborhood, to calculate how much 
 money has been spent by the public upon roads, 
 courthouses, schoolhouses, and other public build 
 ings, water-works, street-lamps, and other similar 
 conveniences, will find very soon, that nearly or 
 quite half the property in that neighborhood is 
 now the Common Wealth. There has been no 
 prejudice against that sort of wealth, where it is 
 the most convenient form of property. But there 
 
448 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 is other property which, on the whole, in the 
 experience of mankind, it has proved best to 
 reserve for separate or individual holding. This 
 is what we commonly call personal property. 
 Between the two is real estate, which is held by 
 the individual as personal property but, at the 
 same time, is held under the eminent domain of 
 society, which takes it when it chooses for a 
 railway, a canal, a reservoir, a schoolhouse, a 
 public library, or any other purpose where, on the 
 whole, its use is needed for or by the Common 
 wealth. 
 
 Of course it is true that, as civilization goes 
 forward, new experiments may be tried, and new 
 adjustments may be found necessary. If a town 
 ship happened to hold a great water-power, it 
 might find it desirable to establish an electric 
 plant, for light, as a part of the wealth in common. 
 Having established it for the highways, it would 
 be absurd not to permit its use in separate homes, 
 if there were light enough to be used so. 
 
 In just the same way most of our States have 
 found it convenient to institute State asylums for 
 insanity, for the blind, the deaf, and the dumb. 
 Large cities find it convenient to establish hospi 
 tals for the sick, as a part of their wealth in com 
 mon. There is no principle which prevents a small 
 village from doing the same thing. But in a small 
 village the necessity does not press in the same 
 way, and certain inconveniences prevent such an 
 arrangement. In either case, however, the insti- 
 
Communism 449 
 
 tution is founded or it is not founded as the 
 particular exigency may demand. 
 
 Now the difficulty in all the grand paper theories, 
 for arranging the common wealth, has been that 
 infallibly there has been a vein of patronage or 
 condescension visible all along in the arrangements 
 of the projector. Robert Owen really thought 
 that he knew how to take care of little babies 
 better than their mothers did. So he took the 
 babies into a common nursery, while the mothers 
 worked at spinning-jennies or looms. He went so 
 far as to indicate in advance the cut of the dress 
 which children were to wear at play. St. Simon, 
 Fourier, and the whole tribe take just the same 
 strain. They talk of " laborers," or the " prole 
 tariat," or the " working class," just as you 
 might talk of the mackerel you meant to catch, or 
 of the pounds of steam which were to drive your 
 piston. What follows? Why, as soon as Dale 
 Owen carries a colony to New Harmony, it goes 
 to pieces on a rebellion about this matter of dress. 
 Garfield said " that all the people are much wiser 
 than any one of the people." The people know 
 what they want much better than any student of 
 their wants knows. They know where the shoe 
 pinches, and what hinge needs oil. 
 
 And the danger and the failure of what are called 
 socialistic schemes, or communistic schemes, 
 social unions, phalansteries, or whatever they are 
 called, spring from their being imposed from 
 above below, in this infatuation of superiority. It 
 
 29 
 
45 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 all belongs to the middle ages,^and to feudalism, 
 where a baron at once protected and directed his 
 inferiors. 
 
 But begin at the other end, begin on the 
 Christian principle, where he who is greatest 
 among you is your servant, and is only great 
 because he serves, and you will not have any 
 danger, and your failure will be easily remedied. 
 Let the people associate where they want to and 
 need, and they will work out their own successes. 
 From their experiments have come such triumphs 
 as mutual insurance, as the limited liability laws, as 
 co-operative trade, co-operative banking, co-oper 
 ative fishing, co-operative housekeeping. If they 
 make a mistake, why, they will stop soon enough. 
 They have no passion for burning their fingers. 
 And where they succeed, they will push forward in 
 the same line, and they will find plenty of imitators. 
 
 It ought not to be necessary to say this at any 
 length. Briefly, such success is the Christian suc 
 cess, freely promised to those who seek first the 
 Kingdom of God, and mean to live righteously. 
 He who is greatest among them is their servant. 
 And, in the common service, the common cause 
 succeeds. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 IT would not have been difficult to throw this 
 account of Hampton into a more systematic 
 form than has been attempted. But it is desirable 
 that such accounts should be read, as well as that 
 they should be written. And I have supposed 
 that by describing the different features of the 
 enterprise, with some reference to the different 
 points of view of the persons most engaged in 
 them, it would be easier to enlist readers. 
 
 It is not, however, perhaps, going too much into 
 the philosophy of social order, if, in this closing 
 chapter, the writer tries to state a few of the 
 principles on which the success of such an enter 
 prise as that at Hampton is based. First of all, it 
 is to be remembered that America is, and always 
 was, and always will be, a democratic country, a 
 country of the people, governed by the people, for 
 the people, in the people's way. It really made no 
 difference whether the allegiance of this country 
 were given to an English king or to an American 
 constitution. It had been a democratic country 
 from the very beginning, and it would not be diffi- 
 
452 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 cult to show that it could not have been anything 
 else. By this is meant, that the People, having 
 of necessity to take a good deal of the care and 
 arrangement of their own lives, took that care so 
 as a matter of course that it was always impossible 
 to push or pull them by any wires, as if they were 
 puppets, to be directed by a superior class. The 
 People had made their own roads, had laid out 
 their own towns, had established their own courts, 
 had created their own local governments; and a 
 People which had done this was entirely outside of 
 any possible aristocratic or despotic governments. 
 This is simply the explanation of the constitutions 
 of the American towns and cities. 
 
 A man has only to see how the roads are 
 mended in a country community in America to 
 understand what is meant by the popular direction 
 in public affairs. It is no engineer, sent down 
 from a central capital, who brings with him experts, 
 trained to road-building, and what the French 
 would call " proletaries " to execute their orders. 
 It is, on the other hand, the people of the farms 
 who are themselves to ride over the roads, who 
 come, at a day almost self-appointed, with their 
 oxen, their shovels, their picks, and their hoes, and 
 execute together certain work which the experience 
 of the neighborhood shows necessary. There is 
 probably some person in nominal authority, who is 
 called a " supervisor of the roads," but this man 
 acts, and knows he acts, under the appointment of 
 the very people whose work he is supposed to di- 
 
Conclusion 453 
 
 rect, and the correction of any faults of the roads 
 might fairly be said to be due to a popular rising 
 in the neighborhood for that purpose. 
 
 Upon people so trained and habituated to using 
 their own personal judgment in the management of 
 their own affairs, there was super-imposed, by the 
 changes of life and business, what we call the fac 
 tory system. There has never been any trouble in 
 the factory system in America, when the conditions 
 were such that the instincts of the national popular 
 life could be maintained. That is to say, if the 
 people themselves who were to do the work, felt 
 that they had some discretion in the matter, and 
 could bring some of their own intelligence to bear 
 on the matter, they have never had any difficulty 
 in carrying forward the manufacturing process on 
 a large scale, with great precision and with impor 
 tant results. But, on the other hand, any person 
 who is accustomed to the direction of " laborers," 
 laboring men, or " operatives," in the countries of 
 Europe, finds, from the very beginning, that this 
 direction from above working below, autocratic in 
 its character, and savoring rather of Celtic than of 
 Teutonic life, is met with obstacles at every step. 
 
 Whenever we hear of a difficulty in a mill, or 
 a misunderstanding between employers and em 
 ployed, it may be said, almost with certainty, that 
 the parties on the one side or the other have devi 
 ated perhaps of necessity, from the original idea, 
 which is, at bottom, the idea of mutual help or 
 co-operation. 
 
454 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 It has been intimated in these pages more than 
 once that wherever the American idea is permitted 
 to assert itself the results are simple and satisfac 
 tory, as in the well-known instance of the Nantucket 
 whale-fishery, and the fisheries for mackerel and 
 cod carried on from both the large capes of Massa 
 chusetts Bay. It would even be fair to take the 
 great military achievements of the volunteer armies 
 of the United States as an illustration of what is 
 gained when the national principle is permitted to 
 assert itself. If, after one of the great conscriptions 
 of Europe, it were proposed that the recruits should 
 hold an election to choose their captains and lieu 
 tenants, it may almost be said that every command 
 ing officer now on the continent of Europe would 
 commit hari-kari, or seek a happy release in the 
 face of a proposal which he would consider as, in 
 itself, so fatal to all energy and authority. But 
 when the United States had occasion to call, not 
 for recruits, but for volunteers, and to bring those 
 volunteers into the field, the States which were in 
 the habit of intrusting to their soldiers the election 
 of their own lieutenants and captains found no 
 occasion to change their habit; and the discipline 
 of that army was maintained with precisely the 
 same precision that belongs to what we call the 
 regular army of the United States, in which no 
 such privilege was ever sought for or expected. 
 That is to say, the people of the United States 
 understand perfectly well that there must be order, 
 there must be command, there must be authority. 
 
Conclusion 455 
 
 But, on the other hand, the people of the United 
 States, from the very nature of their being, from the 
 circumstances which called them into existence, 
 understand that they are the real fountain of 
 authority, order, and command, and they like to 
 be consulted before authority is asserted. 
 
 All this, it may be said, is merely theoretical. 
 Possibly it is so ; but the theory involved is based 
 upon national habits which it is impossible to pass 
 by without consideration. Now, the problem be 
 fore men who would organize industry on a large 
 scale, for any specific purpose, involves, first of all, 
 the question how the organization to be made shall 
 move easily and without friction. How shall you 
 enlist the good-will of those who must work to 
 gether in this system? This is really the first 
 question. The first question is not how shall you 
 secure the largest market, or how shall you make 
 the most money. If the institution is to be a per 
 manent institution, the question is, How are you to 
 secure the good-will of all hands engaged ? 
 
 It may be granted that the visible result does not 
 very much differ, though it has been produced in 
 half a dozen different ways. A company, for 
 instance, whose troops or whose officers have been 
 commissioned by a higher authority, would not 
 differ in the aspect of a parade from a company of 
 volunteer troops whose officers have been, nomi 
 nally at least, chosen by the privates. But if, in 
 one of these two cases, there were harmony and 
 good feeling and alacrity among the men, and in 
 
456 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 the other case you found nothing better, perhaps, 
 than indifference, or at least willingness to obey, 
 there would be a difference in the quality of the 
 thing done, which would give the preference to 
 one system or the other. 
 
 It is certainly true that in industries not requir 
 ing the co-operation of very large numbers of 
 persons, it is easy to obtain that sympathy and 
 good-will of all hands which is desired, without 
 any very formal effort for the purpose. Most 
 agricultural industries can be carried on with that 
 good-natured fellow-feeling which has been de 
 scribed as belonging to the race, the willingness, 
 on the one hand, to lend a hand, with the expecta 
 tion, on the other hand, of respect and confidence. 
 The book in the reader's hand is an effort to show 
 that the same sympathy, mutual regard, and mutual 
 help may be obtained in the largest processes of 
 manufacturing, as it is attained on board of a fish 
 ing-smack or a whaling-ship, or in the work of a 
 large farm. 
 
 The principle of co-operation is so essential to 
 all Christian civilization, and has asserted itself 
 with such signal success in many of the walks of 
 industry, that the word is now used, particularly 
 by careless people, as if it were a talisman. The 
 novelist, who has used all the pages of this book 
 for the purpose of showing how terrible is the 
 conflict between the employers and the employed, 
 waves his wand at the end with the word " co 
 operation," and all bad dragons are expected to 
 
Conclusion 457 
 
 sink into the abyss, and good angels to appear 
 in their places. But it is perfectly well known that 
 the experiments of co-operative industry on a large 
 scale have not succeeded so far as to induce their 
 repetition on a larger scale. Until this measure of 
 success has been attained, it is necessary to study 
 the experiments which have been made, to see in 
 what is the point of failure. 
 
 As the reader knows, the writer believes that 
 the failure is due to the neglect of skilful Man 
 agement. In most co-operative enterprises it is 
 taken for granted that if you have a great body of 
 privates any fool can command them. Such is apt 
 to be the feeling of insurgents when they rise to a 
 great but new duty. No fallacy is more danger 
 ous, and no statement is more false. The success 
 of a business enterprise depends entirely upon the 
 skill with which it is Managed, and upon the faith 
 fulness and constancy and courage of its managers. 
 Unless the necessity for such gifts is recognized at 
 the very outset, unless they are rated where they 
 belong, as among the rare gifts of men, without 
 which success is impossible, the enterprise fails. 
 It fails just as certainly as it would fail if it had no 
 capital, or as it would fail if the work-people all 
 deserted it. To hold in proper respect those who 
 mediate between the capitalist and the workmen, 
 to give to them authority, absolute in its place and 
 sufficient for every purpose, this is the first 
 necessity in such enterprises. But it is a necessity 
 which has constantly been neglected one might 
 
45 8 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 say, has been almost always neglected in the 
 plans for co-operative industry. There is a general 
 impression that the managers must be kept under : 
 must be kept in a subordinate position. It is 
 thought that they have gained too much in the 
 past, and that, for the future, they must be paying 
 back the debt which has been contracted by their 
 class. And so the enterprise, involving vigorous 
 and loyal effort on the part of the workingmen, 
 fails, as the army would fail which was not led by 
 a skilful and experienced general. 
 
 The distinctive feature, then, in the Hampton 
 enterprise, as an enterprise of co-operation, is that 
 the Management is recognized as one of the three 
 important factors in the business. We consider it 
 important that the elements of success should be 
 thus classified. The general effort in the past has 
 been to give to Capital the place of Management, 
 and to place the workman in subordination to the 
 union thus formed. The dreams of the future 
 most prevalent have generally given to the work 
 men the Management, and made Capital subordi 
 nate to the union thus formed. The argument of 
 this book is directed to show that Capital has its 
 place, that Management has its place, and that 
 Work has its place. We believe it will be con 
 venient to divide about equally the profits of 
 any enterprise between those who represent these 
 three necessary departments of every enterprise. 
 We believe that it is as dangerous to combine the 
 one of these departments with the other as it is in 
 
Conclusion 459 
 
 civil government to combine the legislative function 
 with the judicial function, or the judicial function 
 with that of the executive. We believe that the 
 general good attained will be in proportion as the 
 three functions are kept visibly distinct before all 
 men's eyes. 
 
 It may very well happen that the workingman 
 who is succeeding in life does not choose to con 
 tinue the investment of his property in the savings- 
 bank, but buys into the stock of the company 
 which employs him. So true is it that " corporation 
 is co-operation." But no such disposition of a 
 man's property is necessary in the Hampton 
 system, as it has been described in these pages ; 
 and it has been more convenient, for tracing the 
 principle involved, to keep the representatives of 
 Capital, Management, and Industry separate from 
 each other. The author has given to this book as 
 a second title, " Christianity applied to Manu 
 facture." By this he means to intimate that the 
 plans of the future for large manufacturing will be 
 akin to the American plan for government. They 
 will involve, as an essential element, the ability of 
 the people to direct their own amusements, their 
 own education, their own charities, in a word, 
 their own social life. As a part of this direction, 
 they will have their own personal interest, as they 
 now do, indeed, in the success of the industries 
 which employ them from day to day. It was very 
 natural that a few men of property in large towns 
 should conceive the idea of insuring the ships, the 
 
460 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 houses, or the lives of their persons. But, in the 
 regular growth of an American system, this over 
 sight of insurance passes from the hands of the few 
 into the hands of the many, and, in the long run, 
 under the system of mutual insurance, the same 
 person is the insurer and the insured. It is by a 
 movement precisely parallel, as the author con 
 ceives, that the manufacturing of America has 
 developed on democratic lines. Exactly as insur 
 ance began when a few rich men met in a counting- 
 house and planned an insurance company, the 
 large manufactures began when a few rich men met 
 and planned a cotton factory or a woollen mill. 
 But, by a growth exactly analogous to the growth 
 of mutual insurance, it will probably prove that the 
 persons who have in hand the raw materials and 
 work them up will be counted in, not simply as 
 passive, but among the interested allies in the 
 manufacture to which they lend themselves. There 
 will result a sympathy and common force which is 
 gained when a body of people say, " We are going 
 to do this," or "We are going to do that," and 
 which cannot exist when they say, " He proposes 
 this," or " He proposes that." It will be for the 
 next generation to indicate the steps by which this 
 enlargement of human power will be attained. Of 
 those steps the watchword is " Together." 
 
 One has not far to go in the history of America 
 to find the illustrations of the principle involved in 
 every stage of our social history. It would be fair 
 to say that, from Maine to Florida, from the Atlan- 
 
Conclusion 461 
 
 tic to the Pacific, there is not a community, large 
 or small, which has been established, in its present 
 condition, at the fiat of a superior power. The 
 principle of successful republican administration 
 has been, on the other hand, the movement of the 
 people, and the participation of the people. Louis 
 XIV. could give the orders for the foundation of 
 the city of Orleans. But, though it held the com 
 mand of the commerce of the Mississippi River, 
 the little port, created to order, was an insignificant 
 hamlet, until, in a new dynasty, the People who 
 wanted to use the advantages of that position 
 swept in upon it, and gave to it a new birth. The 
 Middle States can show hundreds of the ruins of 
 fanciful colonies, established from above, by this 
 or that schemer who meant as Robert Owen did, 
 as St. Simon did to bring in a new kingdom. 
 But such endeavors have regularly failed. The 
 unsuccessful colonies established before the time 
 of Jamestown were similar failures. The colony 
 of Virginia almost failed, for a like reason, and it 
 was not until a popular element was introduced in 
 her affairs that a favorable era of prosperity set in. 
 Exactly the same is true of the early history of the 
 Carolinas. 
 
 On the other hand, the States in which emigra 
 tion is as free as air, irresistibly, from the law of 
 man's nature, one might say, prospered. A dozen 
 men, with their families, be it observed, found 
 themselves neighbors of each other on the same 
 township or grant, or, if they preceded any survey, 
 
462 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 in the same valley. Infallibly they consulted to 
 gether about building the necessary roads and 
 bridges. Roads and bridges may be said to be 
 the first necessity of organized society. For de 
 fence against savages, perhaps for carrying the 
 mail, and, before long, for common worship, for 
 common education, these men must meet together. 
 Every one is interested. Every one expresses his 
 interest. Every one offers his plan. If a plan is 
 tried and fails, the experiment has been on so 
 small a scale that no one suffers greatly. If it is 
 tried and succeeds, every little community in the 
 neighborhood tries the experiment again, and it 
 works its way over the land. 
 
 It is in this freedom by which every man acts, 
 and is expected to act in social affairs, that the 
 mystery and majesty of self-government consist. 
 The writers of Europe generally misapprehend 
 self-government, and the European advisers of 
 America misapprehend it. Self-government does 
 not consist in the election, by any " plebiscite " or 
 other public act, of the magistrate or emperor who 
 is to govern the people. Self-government does not 
 appear till the people govern themselves. In 
 homes, in churches, in the meetings of school dis 
 tricts or of townships, in the affairs of insurance 
 companies or railways, in lodges, chapters, com- 
 manderies, and posts of charitable societies, the 
 people which is used to self-government carries 
 out its methods of self-government. Among the 
 methods, one is the choice of a chief magistrate, 
 
Conclusion 463 
 
 to attend to certain national affairs, to which kings 
 attend in other nations. But this man is not the 
 ruler of the nation which chooses him; on the 
 other hand, he is ruled by the nation. 
 
 Any enterprise which is to succeed in America 
 recognizes as a very important element for success 
 this aptness of the people for self-government and 
 the manifold triumphs which have sprung from it. 
 The successful projector leaves every agent, as far 
 as possible, to work with his own tools, in his own 
 way, to bring his own contribution to the common 
 weal, and is glad to accept the intelligent sugges 
 tion and co-operation of all concerned. He is glad 
 to have public opinion and the public sentiment 
 on his side. He does not resent advice from one 
 of his hands. He is glad if any one of them speaks 
 of " our success, our plans, our improvement." 
 
 One of the most intelligent English essayists on 
 the modern inventions in mechanical art says dis 
 tinctly that to this ready co-operation of the work 
 men in the American shops is due, in large 
 measure, the success of American novelties in 
 machinery. He says that a new model introduced 
 in an American shop challenges the interest of 
 everybody. Everybody is ready to make a sug 
 gestion. Everybody wants it to succeed. The 
 men set to work upon it cherish it as if it were 
 their own. It has the best chance from the begin 
 ning. The contrast which he draws, from the cool 
 and indifferent reception of a new invention in an 
 
464 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 English shop, need not be quoted here. It is not 
 flattering. At bottom the common feeling of 
 mutual help, trained by all true American institu 
 tions, is the origin of the cordial welcome thus 
 given to the new invention. 
 
 Men like to work together. They have a com 
 mon share, of course, in the common weal, and 
 they are glad to have it recognized. 
 
 Now in the village of Hampton this common 
 force of the " together " was recognized, not simply 
 in political government, but, as the reader has seen, 
 in all their affairs. It was not necessary to import 
 such an arrangement, or to ask any legislator to 
 devise it for them. The people drifted into the 
 
 plan 
 
 " From native impulse, elemental force." 
 
 Thus, a detail as much parted from their politi 
 cal system as was the management of their amuse 
 ments took care of itself, as one is tempted to say, 
 because it was every man's affair. It is not quite 
 just to say that no one takes care of that which 
 every one should care for. It may be that self 
 ish men hold back; it often is so. But let it be 
 proudly recognized that the responsibility of any 
 enterprise is with the community and not with the 
 individual, and, as in the case of Dick Sheridan's 
 district meeting, which has been described, the 
 community can be made to understand its responsi 
 bility. When it is made to understand it and to 
 accept it, it will go forward much more steadily 
 than when it is instructed from above or com- 
 
Conclusion 465 
 
 manded from above. So it proved in the matter 
 of amusements. This community provided for 
 them lavishly, while it provided for them intelli 
 gently. It did so because the leaders of opinion 
 trusted the people with a matter which specially 
 concerned the people. The people, in consequence, 
 secured amusements which amused, and entertain 
 ments which entertained. At the same time, these 
 were amusements and entertainments which did 
 not degrade or contaminate their children. 
 
 The same thing is to be said of the public library. 
 One finds, not infrequently, a large foundation for 
 a public library, in which the annual income is 
 carefully, even wisely, expended, but where the 
 real people of the place, for whom such costly 
 provision is made, do not avail themselves of the 
 books which are at their hands. You shall find 
 that in one town a free library is diligently and 
 largely used, and, in another town, that a better 
 library is hardly used at all. You may go into a 
 large and elegant reading-room of a winter evening, 
 to find perhaps one boy, for whom all this lavish 
 preparation has been made. The other boys and 
 the girls, the men and the women, have not ac 
 cepted the " silent friends " who are waiting for 
 them. The books stand not read upon the 
 shelves. 
 
 The people of Hampton secured themselves 
 from such mortification, because they themselves 
 conducted, as they had organized, their library. 
 They knew what they wanted, and they bought it. 
 
 30 
 
466 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 It was well for them, perhaps, that they had not 
 too large a fund for the purchase of books. They 
 counted the dollars which they spent, and they 
 spent them well. But nothing was more clear than 
 that the library did not suffer because it depended 
 upon the public generosity. There was nothing, 
 I was told, for which money was voted so gener 
 ously in the annual meeting. " After they once 
 tasted blood," Mr. Spinner said to me, " they were 
 always ready to vote the appropriations." 
 
 The readjustment of the savings bank, which 
 has been described, was simply the application 
 of the same habit. It came from the magic of 
 " together." If there is mutual insurance, why 
 not mutual banking? If a poor man can place 
 money on deposit, why may he not draw it, if he 
 have good indorsers? There is no greater mis 
 take than that which supposes that, because a 
 man has but little, he will be careless about 
 investment. He is more careful than the man 
 of millions. And the necessity of keeping well 
 what they had earned hardly, made the Hampton 
 weavers very cautious before they granted their 
 indorsements. 
 
 It has been intimated already, more than once, 
 that the success of their movement, in one detail 
 or another, sprang from their willingness to sub 
 mit to Christian requisitions, while they claimed and 
 expected the advantages promised to the living 
 children of the living God. They were willing to 
 
Conclusion 467 
 
 do their share in working out their own salvation, 
 and they knew that while they worked, God worked 
 with them. They were not expecting the coming 
 of any kingdom for which they had not made some 
 sacrifice themselves. And it was because they 
 trusted the God to whom they prayed, that they 
 believed that the Christian law of love would be 
 sufficient for their enterprise. 
 
 These sketches of the prosperity which fol 
 lows on an attempt to carry out Christian law 
 in Christian love are dedicated to any man and 
 woman who seek in the gospel the direction for 
 daily life. It is not pretended that such plans will 
 recommend themselves to individuals who want to 
 live alone, every man for himself, or who seek 
 only the separate indulgences of such lonely life. 
 For such men it may be freely granted that the 
 cold-blooded maxims of the economists are the 
 only maxims. But the success of these maxims 
 in tKe social history of the world has not been so 
 decided that they should tempt any one to accept 
 them as a rule of life. 
 
 Such plans for the good of all, as those attempted 
 at Hampton, could not have been carried out in 
 any heathen civilization. They would have failed in 
 ancient Rome ; they would have failed in Athens ; 
 they would have failed in ancient Jerusalem. They 
 belong only in the social system founded by the 
 Saviour of mankind, among men and women who 
 hope to live in his Spirit and by his Law. 
 
 Perhaps this has been said often enough, as the 
 
468 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 different chapters have described different details. 
 The men and women who embark on such plans 
 must understand in their personal religious ex 
 perience, that " if one member suffer, all the mem 
 bers suffer with it," and that if one member is to 
 rejoice, all the members will rejoice with it. They 
 will remember that the Saviour, in his promises 
 for the coming of the Kingdom of God, does not 
 address such promises to any one lonely follower. 
 He takes it for granted, rather, that such lonely 
 follower breathes the common life of the church, 
 and that its life-blood flows in his veins. It is to 
 the " little flock " that he promises the Kingdom. 
 And to the flock, " if ye seek the Kingdom of 
 God," he promises the temporal success which 
 belongs with the Kingdom, and is the reward of 
 such endeavor. It is nowhere promised to the 
 Buddhist, satisfied with self-inspection ; it is no 
 where promised to the hermit, parting himself 
 from men. It is promised to those who are sons 
 and daughters of God, united in one Spirit, who 
 pray with one prayer to the Father. 
 
 By a movement perfectly steady and assured, 
 the Christian church has moved forward on the 
 lines thus indicated. 
 
 It abolished human slavery, first in the Roman 
 Empire, and eventually in the Christian world. 
 
 It raised the condition of woman, first to the 
 condition she had enjoyed in the Holy Land, eventu 
 ally to a grade where she is the recognized equal 
 of man. 
 
Conclusion 469 
 
 The feudal system, under Christian lead, took 
 the place of the social tyranny of Rome, and, 
 in its turn, gave way to the social order which 
 gives every man and woman equal rights before 
 the law. 
 
 As it advances, the Christian Spirit provides for 
 the humblest and weakest child of God the same 
 privileges for health, for education, for develop 
 ment, as are provided for the richest. 
 
 In government, as the Spirit of Christ and his 
 Law take more possession of men, the People 
 rules itself, it is no longer under the direction 
 of any man or any class. The Saviour's word is 
 fulfilled, and " he who is greatest among you is 
 your servant." The word " democracy " means 
 simply the application of Christianity in politics. 
 
 It is for the next century and the closing years 
 of this to show how these eternal principles of a 
 divine life are to inspire the great commercial 
 movements of modern time. In manufacture, in 
 all the applications of science for the comfort of 
 mankind, and in that trade in which nation ex 
 changes products against nation and man against 
 man, the divine law is to reign. Such social 
 arrangements also are to come into God's King 
 dom. Men will not be content to live every man 
 for himself, nor to die every man for himself. In 
 work, in art, in study, in trade, in all life, indeed, 
 the children of God, called by a Saviour's voice, 
 will wish to live in the common cause. They will 
 live for the common wealth, this is the modern 
 
47 How They Lived in Hampton 
 
 phrase. They will bear each other's burdens, 
 this is the phrase of Paul. They will live in the 
 life of Love. And it will prove true, as it was 
 promised, that all things are added to the com 
 munity which thus seeks the Kingdom of God and 
 his Righteousness. 
 
 THE END 
 
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ 
 
 This book is due on the last DATE stamped below. 
 
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