necessary wants at a much less price than you have been paying for them in past years. And so, from year to year extend your joint efforts to other branches of business which come legitimately within the necessary line of your supply.

While my remarks have been somewhat confined to suggestions and hints for the miners of Pennsylvania, they will apply with equal force to the persons engaged in the different trades, occupations, and callings elsewhere; and may be carried out with equal propriety, and the same facilities of success, by each and every branch of trade or industry in the land. With the many examples of the kind in this country as well as in others, it is a matter of surprise that the coal region should have been the last, or among the last, fields for their adoption.

So much for the plan of joint associated labor; that it will become more general, there can hardly exist a doubt. It is feasible, it is just and proper, and because it may be urged that labor is already well paid in this country, it is no argument against its adoption. The condition of the working classes needs improvement. Many of the trades people, particularly in large towns and cities, are often out of employment, and not unfrequently suffer for the necessaries of life. The country is rich and prosperous, and there is no good

reason why any class of her industrious citizens should not be provided with proper food and clothing as well as employment. To do this is a solemn duty which each owes to the other.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE EIGHT-HOUR SYSTEM.

It is my purpose in this chapter to examine the eight-hour system.

On the 14th of April, 1868, the general assembly of Pennsylvania enacted the following law: "That on and after the first day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, eight hours of labor, between the rising and setting of the sun, shall be deemed and held to be a legal day's work in all cases of labor and service by the day, where there is no contract or agreement to the contrary." (Pamphlet laws of 1868, p. 99.)

This enactment, however, excludes agricultural service by the week, month, or year, and permits a special contract in any case.

The substance of our inquiry is not as to the number of hours a man can perform manual labor out of the twenty-four, but rather how many hours he ought to labor in the twenty-four for the ordinary per diem of wages. If he were a beast, and the only object were to get just as much labor out of him as his physical powers could possibly endure, and then turn him into his stall and

feed him as a beast, that would be a very different matter. Such a rule may be applicable to an age of slavery, but not to one of high civilization. We have already seen and spoken of this in former pages, in our allusion to the slaves and "poor white trash" of the Southern States; - very good examples for a twelve-· hours system of labor. But when we come to apply labor to men instead of things, a widely different rule should be adopted. Men, not things, should give the tone to modern society; men who can think and reflect, not creatures who go to the field of labor with the rising of the sun and return to the stall when the stars appear. Those who do this are the many of whom Voltaire speaks as having nothing to do in establishing the spirit of the nation. It is the general aggregate of the whole registry in this land who form the spirit of the nation. Look to it, then, that the great mass who hold in their hands the destiny of the republic be men, and not slaves or serfs, or of that type which composed the "poor white trash" of the South.

Adopting, therefore, a standard based upon this view of the character of the governing multitude, we can much better determine what number of hours the laboring man should have imposed upon him. We are not merely to consider his personal condition, but also the relations which that same personal condition will have upon the body politic.

The political element of labor in the United States has a significance which it does not possess under less liberal and democratic governments. Here the majority is king, the majority of no class, but the majority of the whole people.

The source and fountain of political power in a republic must be pure as well as intelligent; otherwise the majority principle can never be safely relied upon. An ignorant, corrupt, and demoralized people, therefore will form but a very poor substratum for the political power. This view has aroused the whole population to the importance of public free schools. That very necessity for universal intelligence which exists in this country, is the last argument with kings and princes. The American government cannot afford to lower the social condition of working men. European establishments may do so, it is their policy; but such is not the policy here. We, like them, require the working man to fill the ranks of war, but unlike them we need him also in the legislative hall and in the cabinet. He ought, therefore, to get more pay for less manual service than he gets with any other nation or people. Here he occupies the double capacity of ruler and subject. In this light let us examine the eight-hour law.

Mr. Fowler, in his little treatise on "Animal and Mental Physiology" (which has passed through twentysix editions,—an evidence of its merit, and which