in the market price did, or did not, mean a
real increase of profits to their employers, who, of course, could only
take a very partial advantage of the advance, on account of the long
contracts under which by far the greater part of their output had to be
delivered to their customers.

I drove with the younger M. Guary through a charming bit of woodland
country, to visit a newly-opened pit--the Lagrange pit. Part of the way
led us through a large forest full of fine, well-grown trees. The
shooting in this forest is good, chiefly deer and pheasants. It belongs
to the domain of the State, and is leased to a former director of Anzin.
That the country is a pleasant land to live in appears from such facts
as this, as well as from the blue, yellow, russet and rose-pink houses
which enliven the long highway from Valenciennes, and are the
habitations of well-to-do people living here on their incomes. From
Valenciennes to the Belgian frontier, indeed, the road is virtually one
long continuous street of houses and gardens, as the railway is between
New York and Philadelphia.

M. Guary pointed out to me the house of another ex-director of Anzin who
has invested in a considerable tract of land here, on which he has put
up a number of exceedingly neat houses. They are built of brick, like
the small houses to which the working-men of Philadelphia are indebted
to the philanthropic enterprise of Mr. Drexel and Mr. Childs; but I
think it would astonish Mr. Drexel and Mr. Childs to know that a brick
house, containing four good 'upright' rooms and two good garret rooms,
all wainscoted in hard wood and well fitted up, well drained, and with a
large cellar and a garden rather wider than the house, running back for
several hundred yards to a fringe of picturesque forest, can be rented
here, from this private proprietor, for 120 francs, or $24 a year.

At an average wage of 4 fr. 50 c. a day, working 25 days in the month,
an average workman at Anzin may easily earn 1,350 francs a year, so that
he may rent such a house as I have here described for a good deal less
than one-tenth of his income. What is the ordinary proportion between
the house-rent and the income of a respectable tradesman or mechanic in
New York? But the Anzin workman who rents such a house as this on such
terms, enjoys also free fuel, free medical attendance, and schooling for
his children.

We called at one of these private houses, seeing the miner, whom M.
Guary knew v