tled, the work of transfer began. No railway entered Lowell at that time, though one was building, and not long afterward was completed. The women had to hire hacks, wagons, and carts to take themselves, their baggage, and their specie to their homes. It was another fortnight before the last one departed. To us who remained, Lowell seemed like a dull town, after a month and more of so much stir and fun. There were not so many mills in the city then as now, and the loss of twelve or fifteen hundred operatives wholly disabled some of them. Neither was there so large a number of the unemployed among us to take the places of the strikers; and some of the looms still stood idle as late as September, 1835.

"Ah, those were pleasant days, I assure you! My wife was a weaver in my department. We had a large room to ourselves in the boardinghouse, - -a room with a fireplace, and there was always a bright fire on the hearth cold evenings and Sundays. Though we worked twelve hours a day we did not think it a hardship. The weavingrooms were heated with steam, the girls had flowering plants in the windows, there were books and papers in the broad window-seats, there was intelligence and there was refinement even in mill life in those days. There were concerts and lectures for us evenings, and we all attended church somewhere Sundays. The Lowell Offering, which first appeared four or five years later, testified to the ability and intelligence of that class of people who were sometimes derisively termed 'cotton bugs.' I have never been sorry that I and my wife once worked in a cotton mill."

"YOUR father and mother you must obey."

These mystic words are well known to all children, English or American, who have joined in "Uncle John," the dance and play, in which John or James or N.N. goes a courting night and day. Compare, for the bearing of the subject, Mr. W. W. Newell's careful treatise on these games. Wondering aunts and uncles may have inquired, in their secret minds, why a bride, as she is represented in the dance, should be charged to obey father and mother at the moment she promises to leave their home and to yield obedience to a husband. The solution is to be found in the classical Hymeneal Songs, of which this is probably a survival. Thus, in Sir A. Elton's version of Catullus's celebrated Hymeneal, the last verse, sung by youths and virgins both, reads,

"Resist not fiercely, virgins, but obey

Thy mother, father-thy betrothers they." Consciously or unconsciously Sir Arthur uses the very words of the children's song of to-day.

THE Manufacturers' Record is devoting a great deal of attention in these days to the New South. It published in a recent issue an elaborate review of what the South has accomplished in the last ten years; and it has just now published a large collection of special letters from leading men of the country, received in response to the editor's invitation for an expression of views upon the progress of the South. There are letters from Vice-President Morton, from several members of the Cabinet, and from several senators. A few words from some of these letters will interest our readers at this time, when the New South is a prominent topic in our pages.

Vice-President Morton writes that "the rapid development of the South in all lines of commercial enterprise, as shown by the record of the last decade, proves that it is not solely an agricultural section, but the home of a great diversity of industries. This fact brings the South in line with all sections of the country, and the result is sure to be mutually beneficial."

Secretary Blaine says that "the Manufacturers' Record could not be engaged in a more patriotic work than in making known to the world the rich and varied resources of the Southern States of the Union."

Secretary Windom says that "this remarkable growth in the commercial and industrial life of the Southern States is a splendid illustration of the beneficent results of the American principle of protection, which has stood guard against the menacing and destructive influences of the old world, while factories and mines are being successfully operated in the new."

Secretary Noble writes, "With intelligence, industry, and resources for development there found, the greatest assurance may be felt that the career on which the New South has entered will be maintained and perpetuated, if justice is administered to all alike and the right of each man to his own preserved. These are the foundations at last of all prosperity, and I am confident in the hope that they will not fail the Southern people."

Senator Vest writes, "There is not in the history of the world a progress so marvellous as that of the Southern people since the war; and when we consider the circumstances which have environed the South since the war, the increase of material wealth is without a parallel in the history of nations."

Senator Sherman writes, "I trust this prosperity will tend to settle the race conflict upon a fair basis; for, with a diversity of pursuits the negro will become more valuable, more independent, and more worthy the rights and privileges of freedom."