nce is the manufacture
of cotton cloth. When the war opened, 200,000 hands were employed in
this manufacture in New England. With the sealing up of the South and
the failure of the cotton supply, their work temporarily ceased. What
became of the workmen? Briefly, one of three things happened: some went
into other trades, such as munitions, in which the war had created an
abnormal demand for labor; a great number of them became soldiers; and
many of them went West and became farmers or miners. Furthermore,
many whose trades were not injured by the war left their jobs and fled
westward to escape conscription. Their places were left open to be
filled by operatives from the injured trades. In one or another of
these ways the laborer who was thrown out of work was generally able to
recover employment. But it is important to remember that the key to the
labor situation at that time was the vast area of unoccupied land which
could be had for nothing or next to nothing. This fact is brought
home by a comparison of the situation of the American with that of the
English workman during the cotton famine. According to its own ideas
England was then fully cultivated. There was no body of land waiting
to be thrown open, as an emergency device, to a host of new-made
agriculturists. When the cotton-mills stopped at Manchester, their
operatives had practically no openings but in other industrial
occupations. As such opportunities were lacking, they became objects of
charity until they could resume their work. As a country with a great
reserve of unoccupied land, the United States was singularly fortunate
at this economic crisis.

One of the noteworthy features of Northern life during the war is that
there was no abnormal increase in pauperism. A great deal has been
written upon the extensive charities of the time, but the term is
wrongly applied, for what is really referred to is the volunteer aid
given to the Government in supporting the armies. This was done on
a vast scale, by all classes of the population--that is, by all who
supported the Union party, for the separation between the two parties
was bitter and unforgiving. But of charity in the ordinary sense of the
care of the destitute there was no significant increase because there
was no peculiar need. Here again the fact that the free land could
be easily reached is the final explanation. There was no need for the
unemployed workman to become a pauper. He could take advantage of