n particular.

Three miles below Steubenville is Mingo Junction, where we are the
guests of a friend who is superintendent of the iron and steel works
here. The population of Mingo is twenty-five hundred. From seven to
twelve hundred are employed in the works, according to the exigencies
of business. Ten per cent of them are Hungarians and Slavonians--a
larger proportion would be dangerous, our host avers, because of the
tendency of these people to "run the town" when sufficiently numerous
to make it possible. The Slavs in the iron towns come to America for a
few years, intent solely on saving every dollar within reach. They are
willing to work for wages which from the American standard seem low,
but to them almost fabulous; herd together in surprising promiscuity;
maintain a low scale of clothing and diet, often to the ruin of
health; and eventually return to Eastern Europe, where their savings
constitute a little fortune upon which they can end their days in
ease. This sort of competition is fast degrading legitimate American
labor. Its regulation ought not to be thought impossible.

A visit to a great steel-making plant, in full operation, is an
event in a man's life. Particularly remarkable is the weird spectacle
presented at night, with the furnaces fiercely gleaming, the fresh
ingots smoking hot, the Bessemer converter "blowing off," the great
cranes moving about like things of life, bearing giant kettles of
molten steel; and amidst it all, human life held so cheaply. Nearer to
mediaeval notions of hell comes this fiery scene than anything imagined
by Dante. The working life of one of these men is not over ten years,
B---- says. A decade of this intense heat, compared to which a breath
of outdoor air in the close mill-yard, with the midsummer sun in the
nineties, seems chilly, wears a man out--"only fit for the boneyard
then, sir," was the laconic estimate of an intelligent boss whom I
questioned on the subject.

Wages run from ninety cents to five dollars a day, with far more at
the former rate than the latter. A ninety-cent man working in a place
so hot that were water from a hose turned upon him it would at once be
resolved into scalding steam, deserves our sympathy. It is pleasing
to find in our friend, the superintendent, a strong fellow-feeling
for his men, and a desire to do all in his power to alleviate their
condition. He has accomplished much in improving the _morale_ of the
town; but deep-seated, ine