"During the past ten years, which may justly be styled the decade of the iron man, the importation of foreign workmen by employers was practiced on a most extensive scale. During this same period trades unionism languished in the United States and played but a small part in dictating to employers how many apprentices they should engage; yet employers imported foreign laborers in such numbers as to arouse the American workmen to a sense of danger, when they began to rebuild their shattered organizations, in which work they were encouraged by the Knights of Labor, the latter organization having secured the passage of a law which, although frequently violated by employers, has for its object the prohibition of the importation of foreign labor under contract. The argument that trades unionism is to blame for the presence of so many foreign-born mechanics in our work-shops is not worthy of consideration. The truth plainly stated is, that every foreigner who is to-day at work in the work-shops of the United States, is here because he believed he could improve his condition by coming, or is here because he was induced to come by some agent, or bureau, in the interest of the employers of labor in the United States.

'It is neither profitable nor encouraging to learn a trade when the chances are that some morning the mechanic will awake to find a machine standing in his place doing the work which he performed the day before. Inventions have been introduced so rapidly and extensively during the last ten years that many trades have been almost revolutionized. This rapid introduction of machinery has had a tendency to depress wages, the reduction in wages and the lack of security in work-shop management has been the cause of sending many a boy to college who would have gone into the work-shop after passing through the routine of the common public school.

"Americans believe that they live in the best country in the world; the workman, being imbued with that sentiment, believes that he should receive the best wages in the world. The employer, who may be as proud of his country as the workman, when it comes to a question of employing an American because he is a countryman, or securing the services of cheap workmen, will cast his lot with the foreign workman and the dollars-and-cents side of the question. The foreign workman, not knowing what his services ought to bring in this land, will step in the shoes of the American workman who received from two dollars and fifty cents to three dollars a day, and be recompensed at a rate not exceeding one dollar and fifty cents or one dollar and seventy-five cents a day. Having lived where it was necessary to practice the most rigid economy, he brings his economical habits and

ideas with him, and for a time he can exist on the wages paid to him. We also find the manufactories of the United States being operated as though they were the property of one management. The tendency is to bring them under one common head through the agency of the "trust." Independence on the part of the workman is being crushed out, for he has only to work in one mill, workshop or factory in one part of the country and he becomes known all over. This system, although in its infancy, bids fair to become so perfected that it will be impossible for a man to work in any part of the country if his last employer is dissatisfied with him. The tendency throughout for the past few years has been to discourage the American youth when he sought to learn a trade. He is unwilling to spend years in acquiring knowledge which may never be of service to him. The colleges and universities are full to overflowing, and soon the professions will be as crowded as the trades are to-day.

"This is an age of revolution and evolution. It is the most marvelous age the world has ever witnessed, and nothing that has gone before can be compared to it, or cited as an indication of what is to follow. We can not with any degree of accuracy predict anything for the future; we grope and fear to risk too much, lest some new invention completely upsets all our plans and gives the winning hand to another. We find American youths unwilling to learn trades because they do not bring rich rewards or assurances of stability of employment. There is a fascination about the large cities which they did not bear some years ago, and, taking it altogether we find ourselves in a state of transition almost impossible to describe. What the man of ante-bellum days regarded as a luxury, is to-day an absolute necessity. Take a look at the room in which you sit when this is read and contrast it with what your surroundings would have been in 1858, just thirty years ago; note the changes which time has worked, not alone in the appearance of the room, but in that of its occupants. Once we put a little oil in a saucer, hung a rag over the edge, struck the flints together and ignited the rag. With such a light our reading and sewing was done. Then we ran the tallow into the mold and made the candle; we next ran the fluid into the lamp, and stood back in awe to see it burn; after that gas began to work its way beneath our sidewalks and into our sitting-rooms; then the old Drake farm was tapped, and the world was astounded to find itself burning the product of the earth after the refiner changed its color. Then we said, we can go no farther, and found our words were contradicted by a glare of light which almost rivaled the noonday sun, and elec

tricity flashed itself into favor. [On the ninth of this month at 11 o'clock at night, I saw a man painting a sign on Chestnut street, Philadelphia, without the aid of lamp or torch; electricity answered every purpose.]

"Ten short years ago we wrote our letter, or, if we were in a hurry, we telegraphed to our friends; to-day we call up the exchange and talk across cities and counties. Soon States will be traversed by the sound of the human voice. To-day we talk into a funnel, and not only are the words recorded, but the very sound and quiver of the voice is faithfully preserved to be repeated as often as may be required at any time during our lives or after death. We stop and ask, what next? The answer comes with the rapidity of lightning from some quarter of the universe in the shape of a new invention. What has this to do with the American youth? Everything, for we must devote more time to him than heretofore, so that he may not, Micawber-like, stand in idleness waiting for something to turn up. Let us turn it up for him by inaugurating a system of industrial schools in which the arts, the sciences and trades will be taught. Surely the American youth is worthy of the best that we can do for him, and we should encourage him in his first steps, that his later ones may be for the good of the nation. At the rate at which science is advancing there will soon be no shoveling of earth, no leveling of hills by hand, no digging of trenches, no cutting of earth, or wood, or iron by hand; all of these things, and all else that enters into the industry of the world, will be done by the aid of science. There will be no trades or tradesmen of any special callings or crafts. In the world's production nothing should be missing, nor should one man have an advantage over another which nature does not give him. We will have men of no particular trade, but all men will know all crafts, not the Jack-of-all-trades,' but a far different being who knows all trades well. Every school room should be a workshop, a laboratory, and an art gallery. At present a trade learned is a trade lost, for the learner does not have an opportunity to practice but one part of his calling, and if thrown out of that one groove can not fall into another. Under an industrial system of schooling every American youth will know sufficient of all trades to step into whatever opens itself to him, and he will not be forced by circumstances to stand in the way of another who is anxious to rise, but will be fitted to take a step forward at a moment's notice. He will always find work to do and will do it more rapidly, with better tools and for a greater reward than the artisan of the present.”

ENDANGERING THE LIFE, LIMBS OR MORALS OF A CHILD.

We quoted in our last report, for the benefit of employers of child labor, that clause of the Penal Code which relates to the subject, believing that they should be informed of the grave responsibility assumed in case of accident to a child under 16 years of age. We again reproduce this section for the same reason:

§ 5. Section two hundred and eighty-nine of said Code is hereby

amended so as to read as follows:

§ 289. A person who,

1. Willfully causes or permits the life or limb of any child actually or apparently under the age of sixteen years to be endangered, or its health to be injured, or its morals to become depraved; or

2. Willfully causes or permits such child to be placed in such a situation or to engage in such an occupation that its life or limb is endangered, or its health is likely to be injured, or its morals likely to be impaired; is guilty of a misdemeanor.- [As amended by chapter 145, Laws of 1888.]

Although there may be some difference of opinion as to what can be construed as a "situation or occupation which endangers the life or limb of a child," or is likely to injure its health, there can be no doubt that if a child is injured in the ordinary pursuit of his task in a factory or work-shop, even where that injury is caused by the child's own carelessness, that the child has been placed in a situation where its life or limbs have been endangered, and that his employer is responsible. Especially is this so where an accident occurs on a machine which has been ordered guarded by the inspectors. It may be said that there are machines which can not be guarded, and we know that this is so; but children should not be employed on such machines, as they are acknowledged by everyone to be dangerous, and the fact that a child is injured on such a machine through carelessness does not, to our mind, in the least relieve the criminal and civil responsibility of the employer. We are not called upon to enforce this section of the Penal Code, but we would be derelict in our duty did we not draw attention to it, not only as a plea in favor of the children who are daily being put in jeopardy through violation of its letter and spirit, but as a kindly reminder to employers who would not willingly transgress a law. It may save them both suits for damages and indictment for misdemeanor. We urge that if dangerous machines must be operated, let it be done by those who have attained the years of

discretion, and not by children who are, by the very laws of nature, bound to be heedless of their own safety. Older help may cost a little more per week, but under the present laws of the State of New York it will be found to be the cheapest in the long run.

HOISTWAYS AND ELEVATORS.

During the past year we have continued our efforts in enforcing the law providing for the guarding of hoistways and the placing of automatic doors upon elevators. We can report gratifying success in this direction, and believe that in the course of a comparatively short time we will have every elevator in the State provided with some sort of safeguard. As we have no right to decide exactly what is best for the reasonable protection of elevators, some of the appliances adopted by manufacturers are in contravention of what we believe to be entirely adequate, and others will be found so unsatisfactory by experience that other contrivances must in time be substituted, thus adding to the expense of compliance in their cases.

The inspectors believe that automatic trap-doors are most conducive to the safety of factories and the people employed therein, for the reason that in case of conflagration they tend to check the spread of smoke and flames from floor to floor through the elevator, thus giving the operatives a better opportunity to escape and oftentimes saving the premises from total demolition. It is a well-understood fact that open elevator shafts, in case of fire, become the agents of destruction, and the cause of large losses through the strong air-draught constantly flowing upward in them, and thus carrying the flames with wonderful rapidity from floor to floor until the fire gains such headway that it is beyond the control of the most active fire department. Insurance companies, which have large financial interests in this matter, appreciate the advantage of trap-door checks at each floor in an elevator, and in most places allow a considerable reduction in premiums. where the trap-door system is in use. There are seven or eight systems of trap-doors which have stood the test of experience and comply with both the letter and spirit of the factory law, and there is scarcely an elevator to which one of them can not be attached, consequently there can be no excuse whatever for noncompliance with the law.

However, as a matter of immediate economy a number of manufacturers have adopted upright automatic doors, which to some