neath the engine-room. From this vat it is pumped up into this box, diluted with a considerable addition of water, and is then fed to the machine, as you see."

Pointing as he spoke, the Captain showed how a stream of pulp, thinned to the color and consistency of city milk, flowed from a pipe at the bottom of the iron box, and spread itself first over a frame set with horizontal slats perhaps an inch in depth, and then fell upon, and disappeared through, a fine brass sieve of peculiar construction.

"Both these are preparatory operations," resumed the Captain. “The grooves between the slats are intended to catch any particles of sand, or metals from the chemicals, possibly lingering in the stuff, and the brass sieve, as you call it, is to strain out any clots or threads, or substance of that sort, which may have escaped the engine. Its principal use, however, is to keep back the knots made by sempstresses at the ends of their thread. These, often made of waxed thread, are insoluble by the agents used for the rest of the material, and, if allowed to remain in the stuff, occasion the little lumps upon which it is so provoking to catch your pen when writing rapidly. From the box beneath the sieve, the stuff, as you see, falls upon this endless belt of wire gauze, which is in fact about thirty feet long, the 'endlessness' only referring to its circular shape. This belt, as you will notice, has a constant motion, not only onward, but from side to side, thus giving the pulp which covers it, and is prevented from running off by these strips of woollen at the sides, two distinct impulses, the one lateral and the other longitudinal, and weaving the fibre afresh into a sort of cloth, or rather felt, while at the same time it drains it of a portion of the water with which it has just been diluted. Stoop down, and you will see what a rain-storm is going on underneath.”

The pupils obediently stooped, and saw, between the belt of wire cloth and a trough some inches below, a pattering fall of drops round and heavy as those which presage a thunder-shower.

"You will perceive," continued the Captain, "that, as the pulp travels down the belt, it becomes gradually more opaque and firmer in its consistency; but here you will see a more sudden alteration."

He pointed, as he spoke, to a stripe across the sheet of pulp, about six inches in width, where the material suddenly underwent a striking change from watery indecision to consistent self-assertion. A few inches farther on was another stripe of the same sort; and the Captain explained that these were suction - boxes, exhausted of air by means of a steam-pump, and therefore greedily dragging down the water still remaining in the pulp, to supply the abhorred vacuum. Between these boxes slowly revolved a hollow cylinder covered with a wire gauze divided by parallel bars into stripes of about an inch in width.

"This," said the Captain, "is the dandy-roll, but why so called, please don't ask, for I don't know. Its use, however, is to print in the semi-fluid pulp, or paper, as you may now call it, those lines distinguishing it as 'laid,' or 'wire-wove,' or 'fancy.' In fact, any sort of water-mark desired may be put in at this stage, and we have as many dandy-rolls as we make different patterns of paper. Some customers fancy having their own names and places of business put on their paper in this way, and in that case they provide their own dandy-rolls. And now you see our rags from pulp have been converted, since passing that last suction-box, into undeniable paper, very moist and unsubstantial, to be sure, but possessing texture and fibre, and ready to slide from off the wire gauze upon this second endless belt of thick felt, which carries it tenderly along until it is suddenly caught between these two great cylinders, called press-rolls, which squeeze and dry and consolidate it, until, after passing through all four sets, it is ready to say good-by to the felt which has brought it thus far; and, stretching across this little interval, it goes on all by itself to the hot cylin

ders, great iron drums heated within by steam, and through these - eight there are of them-it winds in and out."

"In a regular Greek trimming pattern," murmured Miselle.

66

"Very likely ; all trimmings are Greek to me," assented the Captain. And now you see the belt of paper has gone through all the cylinders, and, in passing over this iron bar, is cut lengthwise by sharp knives into strips of the right width for a sheet of letter-paper. Of course, the knives can be altered to any desired width; but this is the regular size. From this bar the paper travels down, as you see, into a trough of sizing made of the same material as the gelatine used for calf's-foot jelly, and then through this final set of rollers, which press it nearly dry again, but not quite, for if all the moisture was removed so suddenly, the paper would be warped and uneven. At the end of all, this revolving cylinder, set with a horizontal blade, clips the strips into sheets of the proper size; and this apparatus, called a lay-boy, takes them almost as if with hands and hangs them over this frame, ready to be carried to the dryingroom. And so we have fairly made our rags into paper, and now have only to finish it."

With a last affectionate and comprehensive glance at the beloved monster, the Captain led the way, up two flights of stairs, to a large hall called the drying-room, where were erected whole groves of parallel bars, like the dryingroom of a laundry.

Upon these bars were hung the sheets of damp paper, two or three together, the edges of each group slightly overlapping the rest, so that, as presently shown, the entire contents of a bar might be swept together and removed at a single motion.

"The paper hangs here for four days, and by that time is thoroughly dry. The same effect could be produced in four minutes by hot cylinders, but the paper would show the difference," said the Captain, leading his guests from the drying to the finishing room, large, cheerful hall, with the sun streamVOL. XIX.NO. 113. 24

a

ing in at its open windows, pots of plants, little pictures, and mirrors over the various work-benches, and just outside the merry river and the blithe summer day.

Here the first process is to press the paper, now quite dry, for some hours in an hydraulic press, from which it emerges smooth, but lustreless. It is next passed up in large masses to a young woman who, sitting ensconced in a sort of bower near the top of the room, strongly reminds one of the Fate Lady at a fair. From this bower to the floor extends a series of rollers, some of iron, some of consolidated paper, incredibly hard and smooth. Between the two uppermost of these rollers the Fate Lady inserts the edge of a sheet of paper, which immediately proves the "Facilis descensus" by darting down between all the various rollers to the bottom, where, hot, shining, and smooth as glass, it is seized by another young woman and laid upon a pile, where it may repose for a while, unless, indeed, it is intended to be a very super-extra style of paper, in which case it is carried up and sent down again.

This process is called "calendering," and the paper is thereafter trimmed in large masses under a powerful guillotine, and then carried to the ruling-machine, where sit two other young women, one at either end, the first feeding the machine with single sheets, which pass through rollers and beneath a bar set with pens arranged at such width as is required, and fed with ink from a little trough above, and the other removing them when finished.

From the ruling-machine the paper is taken to a long bench, where the expert fingers and eyes of the assorters whisk it over, sheet by sheet, detecting the slightest imperfection, and dividing it into three qualities, of which the second is nearly as good as the first, and the third by no means bad.

The faultless sheets are next passed on to the "folder," who, laying a pile before her, inserts the fingers of her left hand between the edges, and, grasp

ing with a dexterous twist exactly six between each two fingers, lays the twenty-four sheets aside, thus counting them into quires almost as fast as they could be handled without counting.

Having a sufficient number of quires laid ready, the folder places beneath her right palm a block of hard wood, retained in position by a strap going over the back of the hand; and then, with her left hand picking up and doubling each quire, she gives it at the fold a downward and upward rub with the smoother, tossing it aside the next instant as accurately and sharply folded as if an hour had been given to the operation.

--

"The next process," resumes the Captain, "is stamping; and this is a more important matter than perhaps you would imagine; — that is, in the way of a test, for it is only on our very best paper that we allow the name of the firm, or even of the mills, to appear. The second quality is decorated with an eagle, or the Capitol, or 'Ne plus ultra,' or some one of a dozen designs kept for the purpose, while the third quality is not stamped at all, but just sold anonymously. Here is the stamping-bench."

He paused, as he spoke, behind a young girl, who, with demure unconsciousness, continued her task of feeding one quire after another to a leisurely but implacable sort of hammer, working steadily up and down, and at every downward stroke smiting with a cruel craunch upon the quire held ready. The girl immediately withdrew this and substituted another, never pausing until the pile at her left hand had been all transferred to her right.

From her, Miselle went to look at another pretty girl folding half-ream packages of paper in gayly printed covers, sealing the ends, and stacking them, when finished, upon a bench beside her, to be presently carried away and boxed for transportation.

"And now, I believe," said the Captain, "you have seen the entire process, and are competent to become passed paperwrights on your own ac

count. Next let me show you my house and my wife."

But although the cheerful house and pretty bride were pleasant things to see, as was also the Captain's dinted sword slung from deer's antlers in the hall, our affair is not with these, but rather with the Collar-paper Factory, owned by another of the fair Territory's relatives, to which she presently brought her guests, and where they learned that Columbia wears about her neck annually nearly as many reams of paper as she uses to write upon, and that this collar-paper may be made of stock much inferior to that employed for letter-paper, the rags being of all colors and qualities, including some woollen and a considerable amount of old paper. After being assorted and shredded in a machine resembling a hay-cutter, these rags are placed in a large wooden cylinder covered with wire gauze, and whirled violently round for some time to remove the dust and lint adhering to them. Afterwards, they are subjected to nearly the same process as the stock for letter-paper, the principal point of difference being, that, after a certain "period" in the engine, the pulp is removed to large stone pits called draining vats, and there lies under the influence of certain strong chemicals for a considerable time, the object being both to destroy the texture and to discharge the colors of the multifarious mass.

In the Collar-paper Manufactory, the visitors were introduced, not only to their old friend, the Fourdrinier, but to his elder brother, the Cylinder Machine. In this, the pulp, when first drawn from the stuff-chest, is carried into a large trough, in which is partially immersed a ribbed cylinder covered with wire cloth. As the cylinder revolves in the mass of pulp, it takes up a thin coat of fibre, the water draining through into the interior of the drum, whence it is conducted away; and this coating of fibre, suddenly as it is formed, is in fact paper, sufficiently strong, by the time the cylinder has completed its revolution, to be transferred to a felt

belting, on which it is carried through nearly the same system of rollers and hot cylinders as in the Fourdrinier machine, the great difference being that, as the cylinder has no lateral motion, the fibre of the paper made upon it lies entirely in one direction, and the fabric is not nearly so strong as that made upon the Fourdrinier system. It is now seldom used as letter or printing paper.

Finally, the travellers were informed that American paper commands a higher price than any other in the market, and that much of the French and English note-paper so extensively sold is made in American mills, of inferior stock,

stamped with a fancy mark, and sold at less price than that bearing the manufacturer's own name. In fact, the foreign manufacturers can only compete with the American in price, through favor of their cheap labor, fuel, and chemicals, their processes and machinery being far inferior to ours.

And so, after several breezy drives, and a little sight-seeing in other directions beside paper-mills, our travellers bade good-by to their kind hostess and the fair Territory, confided a huge package of paper of "just the right size" to Adams's Express, and found themselves again upon the world for entertainment.

and the necessity of doing something is apparently so pressing, that many wellmeaning people, in their eager anxiety to accomplish immediate results, are but too apt to forget the future which lies behind the next two or three Presidential elections. That our civil war was a great political and social revolution, and that the Republic of the United States has entered upon a new era in her development, are truths for the statement of which no man can at the present time claim any merit of originality. They are denied only by those who desire to strip our victory over the Rebellion of its most valuable results, and to preserve those elements of strife and disintegration which, had not the Northern people been true to their mission, would have ended the history of this Republic at a moment when the fundamental principles of our democratic system of government were on the point of rising from the level of mere abstraction to that of living reality. The changes which the great Revolution has

stitutional ideas generally accepted before this period that, as soon as the moment had arrived for drawing up the balance-sheet of the past and tracing a new channel for our future career, a corresponding modification of our fundamental laws was pointed out by the unerring instinct of the popular mind as an absolute necessity. The abolition of slavery was accordingly sanctioned by an amendment to the Constitution. But no thinking man could fail to perceive that this mere negative step was far from completing the transformation of a community consisting of masters and bondmen into a community of citizens equal before the law. Measures of a more thorough-going character were felt to be necessary to prevent American society from relapsing into those antagonisms between the vital principles of democratic government and anomalous social and political institutions, which in our past history had wrought so much danger and disaster. A new constitutional basis had to be found for the develop

ment of the Republic, broad enough for whatever increase of population and diversity of interests the future might bring us, and strong enough to stand above the danger of being subverted by local hostility or any combination of perverse aspirations. And this was, and is now, the true problem to be solved by what is commonly called the work of reconstruction.

The Republican majority in Congress applied itself to the task. Had they not found in their way a President who, with the maturest incapacity to understand the great tendencies of the times, unites an almost idiotic ambition to control them by autocratic action, and with the temper of a despot the profligate unscrupulousness of a demagogue, the Republicans would probably have acted upon their true instincts with boldness and consistency. But their situation was full of embarrassments. Their continuance in power was felt to be necessary to save the most important results of the war. They were threatened in front and rear by the Northern allies of the South, and a President whom they themselves had put upon the road to power. The danger appeared, perhaps, greater than it really was, and, in order to save their ascendency, and with it the power of doing better in the future, the Republicans in Congress made a compromise with the traditional prejudices of the people, to which the President and his followers were artfully appealing. Andrew Johnson failed in defeating the Republican party before the people, but in the struggle for power he succeeded in forcing it to content itself for the time with a mere expedient. The result was the Constitutional Amendment now submitted to the State Legislatures for ratification.

The third and fourth sections of that Amendment, excluding certain classes of Rebels from office, and confirming the validity of the national debt, are only of temporary value, and have no bearing upon the great principles which are to govern the future development of the Republic. The first, intended

to engraft the main provisions of the Civil Rights Act upon the Constitution, throws the shield of the national authority over those rights of the emancipated slave, the denial of which would virtually reduce him to his former condition, and forms thus a necessary complement of the abolition of slavery. But only the second section of the amendment, restricting the basis of representation in those States which exclude the colored race from the elective franchise, touches the great question of the source of political power in our system of government. It touches it only to leave it unsolved. And just there is the pivot upon which the whole problem of our day turns.

But

In our political discussions we have fallen into the habit of speaking much of loyalty and disloyalty, as if disloyalty were a primitive and independent condition of a man's mind or heart. it is only the symptom of a distemper, not the distemper itself. The cause of Southern disloyalty must be obvious to every thinking observer. It consisted in this, that in the South there existed peculiar institutions and interests which were antagonistic to the fundamental principles of our system of democratic government, and that the Southern people cherished those peculiar institutions and interests far above those which they had in common with the rest of the American people. And why was not disloyalty eradicated by the mere abolition of slavery? Simply because the habits of life and modes of thinking connected with slavery have not yet completely yielded to the habits of life and modes of thinking characteristic of free-labor society; because the Southern people, deluded by false hopes, are still struggling to restore as much as possible of the old order of things, instead of devoting their energies to a prompt and vigorous development of the new one; in other words, because the revolution, in its constructive phase, is not yet fully accomplished. As soon as the South, in obedience to recognized necessity, shall thus have fulfilled in her social and political organi