the armistice the average number of hours worked per week on the basis of a full week of forty-eight hours has been just thirty. The United States Geological Survey has gathered other statistics equally important. For instance, during the week ending October 25, which was the week of record production in the history of American coal mining, 3,064 bituminous-coal mines in this country worked actually only 81.8 per cent of full time. "To understand just what it means to show that the mines worked to 81.8 per cent of capacity," says the report of the Geological Survey, "we may think of the 3,064 operations included as one great composite mine with a forty-eight-hour week. The hours it works and the hours it is shut down for various causes are the

average of the hours worked and lost by all the mines, big and little, weighted in accordance with their size. Now during the week in question-the week of best performance for the yearthis composite mine worked only 81.8 of the time. That is to say, it operated thirty-nine hours and fifteen minutes out of its forty-eight-hour week. It thus underwent more than a day (eight hours and forty-five minutes) of enforced idleness, hurtful alike to the operator and to the worker. Five hours and five minutes were lost on account of car shortage; an hour and three-quarters because of labor troubles; an hour and twenty-five minutes because the mine broke down; and, finally, another half-hour on account of miscellaneous causes.'

Subtracting Sundays and holidays, a good working year is considered as comprising three hundred and four days. Yet in the history of American bituminouscoal mining the greatest average number of days worked by the mines of the country was two hundred and forty-nine. That was in 1918. In the eight years between 1910 and 1918 the number of days worked ran between the record number in 1918 and one hundred and ninety-five in 1914. Now the difference between two hundred and forty-nine working days and one hundred and ninety-five working days means a great deal to the budget of a miner's family. From January 1, 1919, to November 1, when the strike began, the same number of miners had produced just one hundred million tons of coal less than they produced during the same period in 1918. So the miners and their families must live on less money this year than they lived on last year, and the cost of living has certainly not fallen.

This is the situation created by uneven production in the mines. Yet, in the long run, the public must pay a price for coal enough to support the miners and mines through the idle days as well as through the full days. Hence, since the armistice we have been paying for eighteen hours a week of mine idleness.

Cars and Storage The principal causes of the seasonal fluctuations in productivity are car shortage and the difficulty of storing coal. A mine

works only until it has filled the number of freight cars at the mine. Whoever is to blame for the inadequacy of the supply of cars, this is a condition which an intelligent Government and an intelligent public should not tolerate, as it is a condition which is certainly remediable. The difficulty of storage is a more serious one. Most coal mines are situated up in a ravine where there is little room for storage. Moreover, bituminous coal takes fire if stored carelessly in large heaps. Thus storage at the mines is at present impracticable. But storage with the consumer is perfectly practicable. The consumer can store his coal in a dry place in small lots which will not ignite. We are getting near the culprit now. The blame for the seasonal fluctuation in coal mine productivity, which is the condition more fundamentally uneconomical than any other, falls on you and on me. Harken to Secretary Lane:

"The public must accept responsibility for the coal industry. It must be realized that whatever mines and miners are necessary to meet the needs of the country, they have to be paid for the year's work. . . . We must not think of the coal industry only when our bins are empty. There must be a united effort on the part of householders and industries to distribute their fuel demands over the year."

Cheaper Spring Coal

The autumn months are the great months for coal buying and coal production, so the months when there is the greatest pressure on the railways for cars to carry coal are the very months when the railways are straining to capacity to carry the fall crops. Now spring coal buying on the part of the "household" public may be encouraged by two very simple measures. First, it may be encouraged in the soft-coal industry, as it is already encouraged in the anthracite industry. If you buy anthracite in April, you get it cheaper than if you buy it in November. Soft coal ought to be offered at a slightly lower price in the spring than in the fall. In the second place, a favorable seasonal freight rate would stimulate production of coal in the spring. Secretary Lane is only one of many experts who advocate that the railways should charge less for transporting coal in the spring than they charge in the fall, in order to stimulate spring production. These two simple measures, authorities declare, would give the coal miners much more even employment throughout the year. Such even employment would mean more profits for the operators, a better yearly wage for the miners, more even work for the railways, and last, but not least, freedom from the fear of coal famine on the part of the public.

But, it is objected, steady employment of the miners throughout the year will mean the production of more coal than this country needs. This is true. At present we have more mines and more miners than our own demands warrant. But the stimulation of the exportation of coal will remove this difficulty. Europe is cry

ing for our coal. England is the great European coal exporter. In 1913 the British Isles exported seventy-seven million tons of the black fuel. In 1918 they exported only thirty-four million tons, and it is estimated that for the year from July, 1919, to July, 1920, they will be able to export only twenty-three million tons. There is ample market in Europe to absorb the surplus of coal remaining above what we need ourselves even if the seven hundred and sixty thousand bituminous miners whom we now have were given a steady and full working year. The present obstacle in the way of exporting enough coal to take up the surplus is the lack of ships, but a people that solved the difficulty of sending two million men and their supplies across the seas ought not to be "stumped" by the lesser difficulty of putting the coal industry on a scientific and efficient basis.

Railways at Fault

It is true, as just stated, that public indifference has permitted the bituminous industry to drift into its present mismanaged and inefficient condition. But, while sinning, the consuming public has also been sinned against. The chief offenders against the public have been the railways. Up to the time the Government took over the administration of fuel during the war the railways had been able virtually to dictate the price at which the mines sold them coal. Railway and coal mining are inextricably entangled industries. The railways are the largest single customers of the coal mines, buying about thirty per cent of all coal mined, and about thirty-five per cent of all railway freight is coal. Before the war a big railway would go to a big mine and offer a price for a large order of coal considerably below the cost of production. The coal mine dared not refuse to fill the order; first, because to refuse meant to lose permanently the railway's patronage to another mine, and, second, because through the threat of withholding freight cars the railway had a tremendous club for the subjection of any mine owner to its wishes. What did the mine generally do, then? It generally accepted the order of the railway at the inadequate price and charged the public enough extra to make its ultimate profit. In other words, for years before the Government took over the administration of coal mines and railways you and I, the consuming public, were partly paying for the railways' coal. We were bearing the whole "burden of profit," which should have been shared with us by the railways. And even after the Government began its war-time control of mines and railways there were Government officials in the Railroad Administration who would have had the public continue to bear this "burden of profit," and only because the President backed up the Coal Administration against the Railroad Administration in the just claim of the former that the railways should be made to pay the same price for coal which other consumers paid was the virtual robbing

The Government and Industry Now the war is actually over; soon it will formally be declared at an end. The Government is already loosening its control of the mines; it proposes soon to relinquish its control altogether, and also to give up its firm supervision of the railways. Is this desirable? Is it desirable that these two great industries so essential to the welfare of the whole people should be allowed to run along in the old-fashioned haphazard manner, free from adequate Government supervision? More and more we Americans are becoming an industrial people. The greatest questions of the hour are the industrial questions. Every indication is that the greatest issues of the next Presidential campaign will be industrial issues. More and more wise men are coming to be

Nation that the Government get closer to the industries of the country. Several plans to accomplish this have been suggested. Fuel Administrator Garfield has suggested the formation of an industrial cabinet to cover the six great fundamental industries concerned with food, clothing, fuel, building, land transportation, and water transportation. He would have the members of this cabinet possessed of seats in Congress, where they could place at the immediate disposal of the lawmaking body of the Nation the information which would be available to them through their intimate contact with both capitalists and laborers in the great industries of the land.

The exact details of the machinery to keep the Government and, through the Government, the people in healthy contact with industry may be worked out by experts. The great fact which con

fronts us to-day is that some sort of ma chinery is essential. Disorganization and waste in the coal industry have developed because the growth of the principles and methods directing the industry have not kept pace with the physical development of coal mining itself. Some men who have invested money in coal mines may not like this suggestion that their responsibility to the public that buys the coal be increased. Some men who invest labor in coal mining may protest that the direction of the industry is something to be worked out between them and the operators. Any miners and any operators who contend this are wrong. They will have to stand aside. The coal resources of this country do not belong to them alone. In the last analysis it is your coal and my coal, and in the last analysis the responsibility of getting it out of the earth without waste. and for using it economically is yours and

TH

HE only way to industrial peace is through good will. But of itself good will is not enough. All the good will in the world will not bring peace unless it is translated into deeds. To bring peace good will must be organized. One reason for believing that the present state of industrial unrest, amounting in some cases to industrial war, can be supplanted by orderly processes of justice is to be found in the fact that there are many experiments under way for putting good will into practice.

These plans all depend upon the willingness of capitalists and those who manage to understand the point of view of those who work with their hands, as well as the willingness of those who work with their hands to understand the problems of the capitalist and the manager.

That there are signs of a great change

in this respect is plain to be seen. The old attitude that the employer is the only one who has any right to control the management, that the business is his business and nobody has a right to interfere with it, is rapidly disappearing. In its place is coming the recognition that those who furnish labor to an industry have rights corresponding to the rights of those who furnish capital; that they have a stake in that industry, and are therefore entitled to a voice in saying how it shall be carried on.

It is natural to find expressions of this right coming from labor organizations; but it may be surprising to a good many people to know that expressions acknowledging this right have come, not only from sources not distinctively associated with labor, but from capitalists.

John D. Rockefeller, Jr., introduced into the Labor Conference at Washington a resolution in which it was resolved "that this Conference recognizes and approves the principle of representation in industry under which the employees shall have an effective voice in determining their terms of employment and their working and living conditions."

The declaration of labor principles by the National Association of Manufacturers, in which it was declared that an employer must be unmolested in the management of his business, does not express the position of progressives among managers or representatives of the interests of investors. This is made clear, not merely by the words of capitalists and managers, but by practices to which we shall later refer.

A great many plans and schemes have been proposed for the settlement or prevention of industrial conflicts.

Dr. Eliot's Plan. Among theoret ical schemes of distinction is a plan advocated by Dr. Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University. This plan involves, on the part of employers, the abandonment of every form of despotic or autocratic government in industries which deal with the necessaries of modern life; the universal adoption of co-operative management and discipline, the employer and workman having equal representation on managing committees ; the adoption in industries of means of promoting the health and vigor of the employees and their families, with the continuing of education for adults; pro

vision for dealing promptly and justly with complaints, in which foremen may be witnesses but never judges; the use of well-trained employment managers; the adoption of a partnership system for equal distribution of profits between capital and labor, with representatives of employees in the directorate; the diminution of monotony and the increase of variety in occupation; the universal acceptance of collective bargaining; and, on the part of employees, the abandonment of the doctrine of limited output; the abandonment of the idea that it is desirable for workers of any sort to work as few hours in the day as possible; rejection of the notion that leisure rather than steady work should be the main object of life; the selection of occupation with regard to the chance in it for inter

est and instructiveness and consequent satisfaction; abandonment of the idea that capital is the natural enemy of labor and that unorganized laborers are traitors to their class; abandonment of all violence toward property and persons in industrial disputes; and, on the part of both parties to industrial strife, willing adoption of the methods of conciliation, arbitration, and ultimate decision by a National Government Board; recognition that a new and formidable danger threatens civilization in anarchy and violent Socialism; general acceptance of the view that American liberties are to be preserved as they have been won by personal independence, industry, thrift, truthfulness, respect for law and family life, and a readiness to fight in the defense of these things; and acceptance of the truth that

democracy is not a dead level but the free cultivation of infinitely diversified human gifts and capacities.

This is not so much a plan as a set of principles.

The Newspaper Enterprise Associa tion's Plan. A definite plan has been proposed through the instrumentality and with the approval and backing of the Newspaper Enterprise Association. It involves the establishment of a Court of Industry composed of seven members, one to be named by the President, one by the Senate, one by the House of Representatives, and four by the American public in a Nation-wide election. The plan is to have the Court function only

in disputes arising in an inter-State basic industry. In case of such a dispute, either side might appeal to the Court. The plan is to strip the Court of legal formalities and to have the arguments presented by the men on each side themselves rather than by lawyers; decisions to be reached, not by long considerations, as a court reaches them, but promptly, as a jury reaches them, but promptly, as a jury reaches a verdict. In case one of the contending parties should dissent from the decision, it could appeal to a referendum of the whole people. In making the appeal the dissenting party would risk a compromise decision by the Court and subject itself to the chance of getting only the minimum concession of the other side. No decision of the Court or of the people

should be legally binding except as it was accepted by the parties involved; but such a decision would represent the National sentiment so thoroughly that it is believed by the advocates of the plan that neither side could practically disregard it.

The Industrial Peace League Plan. Another plan proposed, in this case by a group in the American Federation of Labor, is that of a supreme council similar to that created for the League of Nations, with a covenant and treaty between capital and labor. This plan frankly recognizes the present situation as one of war, and proposes a League of Industrial Peace, to be established after an armistice.

Such plans are significant, not so much for the definite features of their programmes, as because of the great body of thoughts out of which they grow. It is evident that people of all kinds capitalists, laborers, publicists, private citizens are thinking about the present condition of industrial war and devising or adopting plans to secure some form of industrial justice and peace.

More valuable than any theoretical schemes, however, are such plans as have worked or have been actually attempted. These vary widely. Roughly, they may be divided into three classes.

One set of plans attempts to provide for amicable and intelligent negotiation. This involves only the two parties between whom there is or may be an issue.

Another set of plans undertakes to provide for intelligent and prompt arbitration. This of course involves a third party, the party acting in conjunction with or independently of the two parties to the dispute.

The third set of plans undertakes to provide for such relations between employer and employed that acute disputes will not arise and that such questions as do arise will be settled on the basis of partnership and common interest rather than on the basis of the adjustment of antagonistic interests.

Plans for Negotiation

The first set of plans prevents disputes, but they have generally been in troduced in order to settle disputes which have already arisen.

The Whitley Plan. Of the first set of plans by all odds the most important is the one which has gained great ascendence in England, known as the Whitley Plan. According to this, each industry is organized into a National Joint Council, District Joint Councils, and Works Committees. The National Council is composed in equal numbers of representatives of employers and representatives of employees. The industry is divided into districts and each district has a District Joint Council composed, like the National

Council, of employers' and employees' representatives in equal number. Each shop or factory or works has what is known as a Works Committee, composed both of employers and employees, but not necessarily in equal numbers, because any decision in these works must be arrived at by agreement between the two parties. Under this scheme, local difficulties are settled within the works themselves by the Works Committees, but disputes involving a larger location come under the jurisdiction of the District Council; whereas if any question arises involving employers and employees on a national scale it is settled in the National Joint Council. These councils do not interfere with trade unions, inasmuch as the representatives of the workers are chosen only from their particular union; and, in fact, the organization of employees into unions is a necessary preliminary to the Whitley Plan as it is operated in England.

The Colorado Plan. Somewhat similar to the Whitley plan is the one which is used by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. According to this, representatives are chosen by secret ballot of the employees from their fellow workers-one for every one hundred and fifty employees, but never less than two in any one camp or mill division. These representatives meet three times a year in the several districts with officers of the company. Besides these there are standing committees in each division district, composed of three officers of the company and three employees selected by the employees' representatives. These committees deal with co-operation and conciliation, safety and accidents, sanitation, health and housing, and recreation and education, respectively. The employees have a recognized right of appeal, which representatives can take to the pit boss, the mine foreman, or mine superintendent, and they may carry it on up to the president's industrial representative, the district committee, the district manager, and to the president himself, and finally to the Industrial Commission of the State. This very right of appeal, it is said, prevents arbitrariness in petty offi

cials. The plan includes also an employees' bill of rights involving—

The right to caution and suspension before discharge, except for specific serious offenses; the right to hold meetings at appropriate places outside of working hours; the right, without discrimination, to membership or non-membership in any organization; and the above-mentioned right of appeal.

In our judgment, this plan has worked well, although it has not altogether weathered the present storm of the coalminers' strike. It differs from the Whitley Plan in at least this respect that representatives are chosen from both members and non-members of unions.

Both the Whitley and the Colorado Plans contemplate something more than a negotiation of disputes, although each of them involves plans for negotiation because they have risen out of the necessity for settling disputes.

Plans for Arbitration

Plans for arbitration are familiar and need not be recounted at length here. There are many such which have been working with more or less success, including, for instance, the Wage Commissions established in Massachusetts and other States, the so-called protocol in the garment-workers' strike in New York, and the like. The scheme devised by the Newspaper Enterprise Association is of this character on a National scale. So far the most ambitious arbitration plans on this continent have been devised and put into form in Canada. The limitation of these plans lies particularly in the fact that they come into operation only when the good will of both sides of a dispute is exhausted. They are therefore plans for restraining war measures in industry rather than for organizing good will, though in practice they often promote good will, or at least the spirit of compromise and mutual consideration.

Plans for Reconciliation

The third set of plans is not designed primarily either to organize the processes of negotiation or to provide for methods

of arbitration, but to get at the root of the discontent out of which industrial disputes calling for negotiation or arbitration arise.

These plans are of great variety and differ according as opinions differ concerning the root of discontent. Some students of the subject declare that what labor wants is a direct voice in the management of industry. Others say that Others say that labor cares nothing for a voice in the management in itself, but wants better wages and better conditions of labor. Still others declare that what causes discontent is neither physical conditions nor ambition for a voice in the management, but a sense of injustice and suppression which may not be alleviated by better wages nor by admission to the boards of directors. The truth probably is that discontent has a variety of causes, and measures for the establishment of good will must vary according to the circumstances.

Some of those plans provide also for methods of negotiation, but their distinctive feature is that they attempt to deal with the root of the difficulty, and only incidentally with the specific problem of negotiation or arbitration.

The Stotesbury-Mitten Plan. One of the most striking examples of this kind of plan has been that of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company under the Stotesbury-Mitten management. The occasion for instituting this plan was not primarily a strike, but the general condition of the company. There was a general loss of confidence in the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company on the part of employees, stockholders, and the public. Earnings had been insufficient to pay operating costs, rentals, and interest. The rolling stock was of an old type. Accidents were common. Wages were not adequate and working conditions were poor. The new management instituted what they called the plan for collective bargaining and co-operative welfare. Under this plan, branch committees, department committees, general committees, and a board of arbitration were established. Committeemen were elected by the employees according to branches and departments. Representatives of the company management were placed upon each committee by appointment. Increased compensation was promised as a result of the plan, and promises were more than made good. Instead of raising wages from twenty-two cents an hour to twenty-five cents an hour in four years, a man actually received an increase which brought up wages to thirty-one cents an hour at the close of a five-year period, 1916, and this was further increased, July 15, 1918, to forty-three cents per hour. More recently still there was a rise to forty-eight cents per hour. By means of the committees, grievances and questions concerning wages and conditions of labor were adjusted. Further

provision was made for arbitration. In addition, a co-operative welfare association was organized which provides for benefits such as life insurance, sick benefits, and pensions. The result of this plan was shown in dividends to the stockholders and better service. During the operation of the plan there were two attempts to institute a strike, but both proved to be abortive.

The Leitch Plan. Another experiment, directed toward the root of the difficulty and known as the Leitch Plan, has been tried in several factories. It has already been described in The Outlook. It is enough to say that it is modeled upon the Government of the United States. The executive officers of the company in which it is tried correspond with the executive departments of the Government. There is a Senate consisting of selected officials and foremen and a House of Representatives consisting of men chosen by ballot from and among the employees. Questions of wages are left to be determined by the legislative bodies, but the men know that wages cannot be paid unless there is a fund from which they can be paid, and they are therefore entitled to know the financial conditions of the company. The employees, according to this plan, administer discipline. Although there has lately been a strike in one company organized according to this plan, it is said that the reason for the strike is that the employees are largely foreigners and have not really had an opportunity to become imbued with the spirit of the undertaking.

There are many forms of Shop Councils, of which the Colorado plan, the Whitley plan, and the Leitch plan are varieties. Some of them consist of simple shop committees; some of them are elaborate organizations. To describe them all is out of the question here. Some acall is out of the question here. Some account of them has been prepared in a pamphlet of 135 pages, and published by the National Industrial Conference Board, of Boston, under the title "Works Councils in the United States." A somewhat more detailed but less comprehensive account has been published by the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce, Newark, New Jersey, in its monthly publication "New Jersey," vol. vi, No. 10, in two sections.

The Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company's Policy. What is not so much a plan or system or scheme as a policy, is the experiment, if such it can be called, that is in operation in the Endicott-Johnson shoe manufacturing concern in Binghamton, New York. It might be called a projection of a personality or a group of personalities upon an industrial organization. The men who are in control of that company are not opposed to organized labor, but they are convinced that there is no occasion for a union of workmen in their

plant. Their judgment in this respect has been confirmed by an organizer of the United Leather Workers' National Union who visited the factory and decided that he could use his time to better advantage in organizing men where they needed organization rather than there. There are no shop councils, there is no development of the principle of collective bargaining. There are, in fact, none of the ordinary signs of modern industrial organization on the part of the workers.

In place of these forms of organization there is something better, namely, what those organizations were created to obtain. In most factories the work is so arranged as to be monotonous, uninteresting, deadening. In this factory the work is so arranged that the workers have some conception of what they are doing and why they are doing it. There is preserved here somehow the spirit of the old-time artisan. "Our only plan," said Mr. George F. Johnson, one of the officers of the company, in an interview-in the New York "Times,""is to try to get the point of view of the man affected by any decision we are making."

He added: "This business is being run, with one exception, by people who worked at the bench. It was built by shoemakers and tanners. For that reason it should be possible for us to see things as the workingman sees them." In the ordinary sense, there is no welfare work there. But the company as a business proposition built houses for the workers which have been described as both dignified and spacious. The employees of the company are a community, and the company has developed the things that make for community interest. For example, it is reported that of the twenty-five hundred children of the factories only eight are suffering from malnutrition. The significance of this may be realized when it is reported that one-fifth of all of the school-children of the United States as a whole are handicapped by underfeeding. Athletics of all kinds form a part of the factory policy. As Mr. George W. Johnson, son of one of the founders, has said: "These things produce a fine race. The coming generation is marvelous from the physical point of view, and they make good workers. It is right that these things should be provided. But don't forget, it pays, it pays." In brief, the company, to use again the words of Mr. George F. Johnson, "has tried to do as much as the men could in reason ask them even though they had a union organized to enforce their demands."

In the present industrial situation there is much to cause grave apprehension. But such incidents as these we have cited are sufficient to prove that the dream of industrial justice attained without violence can come true and that good will harnessed to common sense and energy can be translated from theory into practice.

The Mother's Story: "I don't know what the matter is. He likes you, and for that reason I have come to you for advice. His father leaves everything to me until the boy breaks a rule. Then a frightful disruption occurs in which the boy is brutally beaten. To avoid these scenes I have shielded the boy by helping him cover up his misdeeds. This last escapade, however, is more than I can bear alone. He is beyond my control, yet I dare not tell his father. Won't you talk with the boy and his father separately, and come to dinner with us next Tuesday?"

What the Boy said: "Mother is a fine woman, but she does not understand boys. All she thinks about is the goody-goody stuff. I never know where I am at. Mother tries to make me into an angel because father throws a fit every time anything happens. Dad, apparently, never had any fun when he was a boy. He has a terrible temper, and seems to think that if he beats me up once a month and furnishes food and clothes he is giving me better advantages than the average boy gets. No, I don't want to go back to school. The teachers are all down on me. I'm not going to try to stand up to it

of

INTRODUCTION

much longer. The next time he tells me to get out, I'm going."

The Father said: "My wife is the cause of all this trouble. For sixteen years I have been telling her what would eventually happen-and here we are. I am a busy man. I leave the house early in the morning and return late in the evening. If I have a few minutes at night for reading, I am fortunate. I consider it my function to provide funds. The mother should look after the home. I have repeatedly given directions concerning the conduct of this boy since his birth. They are always disregarded. The only way I can impress him is through his skin. He does seem to be physically afraid of me. Yes, I knocked him down last Monday, and I'm going to do it every time he fails to follow my orders."

The atmosphere which prevailed during the meal was tense. After dinner the father and the guest puffed their cigars mechanically while mother and son bravely attempted to entertain on piano and mandolin until the young man finally announced that it was his bedtime and went the stairs.

up

With the weeping mother on one side

and mental

examinations

the sign "Department of Correction. Here every morning at ten o'clock the boat Correction starts for the three islands on which certain institutions of the department are situated. Visitors carrying the necessary pass take this means of getting to the prisoners, while provisions and supplies form the cargo.

It is but a short trip up the river to the nearest institution on Blackwell's Island, the "Reception and Classification Hospital for Men," as the present commissioner, Dr. James A. Hamilton, chooses to call the building formerly known as the Penitentiary. All men after sentence by the courts are taken here. They were formerly shipped across the river, but are now literally dropped to the island, an elevator at Queensboro Bridge serving as the means of descent. When the prisoner arrives, his individual record is registered, including data as to parentage, residence, occupation, nature of indictment, and finger prints. Physical

'Blackwell's Island was purchased by the city in 1828 and a penitentiary erected forthwith.

assigned to the especial institution which he is to occupy. A provision of the new city charter of 1897 called for the ultimate use of Blackwell's Island as the home of the city's sick and poor, which explains the location elsewhere at present of the major part of the city's corrective institutions.

The male convicts are rather widely distributed. First offenders are sent to New Hampton, in Orange County, about seventy-five miles from town. Every week or ten days there are enough of these cases to fill a special car, which is attached to a train on the Erie road.

Recidivists (those who have been sentenced before) and others less hopeful of reform are conveyed to Hart's Island, where tubercular cases also are segregated. Drug addicts are assigned to Riker's Island. The medical cases stay at the Classification Building in splendidly equipped hospitals, which are in strong contrast to the older portion of the building, where most of the inmates are housed. Four tiers of cells, each tier consisting of

of him and the temperamental father on the other, the three proceeded to attempt! to analyze the situation. At the end of one hour father was still obdurate and mother was tearfully anxious to do anything to save the boy. Two hours, three hours passed. The impossible practices of many years were well rooted and not easy to face. At three o'clock in the morning a point was reached where each parent inclined slightly toward the view-point of the other, and the conference closed.

In a few hours the mediator appeared before the Grand Jury and pleaded for the boy, who was immediately paroled in his custody. A new procedure for the conduct of this boy's life was adopted whereby-but that's the beginning of another story.

In addressing a parents' association last week, the speaker said in closing: "I still maintain for the nth time that, if we as parents, teachers, and children were thoroughly, honestly, and unselfishly cooperative within the home and the school, the larger communities-the city, the State, and the Nation-would have more vacant space in their corrective institutions." FRANK A. REXFORD.

two rows placed back to back, rise one above the other in the center of the dormitory, light and air for which are admitted through many windows in the outside walls. As a considerable space intervenes between external walls and the grated cell doors facing them, the interior of the cells seems dark and gloomy.

A warning whistle from the boat hurried visitors away from this building, and after a few minutes aboard we landed at the pier near the "Reception and Classification Hospital for Women," which was formerly known as the Workhouse. The steps taken in the reception of the men prisoners are here repeated, but the various classification groups are segregated within the one building instead of being scattered among several institutions. This necessarily calls for separate mess groups. The housing quarters here are in marked contrast to those of the penitentiary.1 A central rectangular corridor separates four tiers of cells. An outside window in each furnishes much better light.

All the women who are physically able are employed eight hours a day on work 1 Both buildings were erected before the Civil War.