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90 soul's prayer, an' bless 'em! An' if they've ever done a sinful thing, oh, Lord God, forgive 'em for it, because they've kep' me out o' the poor-house——"

Mrs. Bridges shut the door, and stood sobbing as if her heart would break.

"What's the matter, maw?" said Isaphene, coming up suddenly.

"Never you mind what's the matter," said her mother, sharply, to conceal her emotion. "You go to bed, missy, an' don't bother your head about what's the matter with me."

Then she went down the hall and entered her own room, and Isaphene heard the key turned in the lock.

OME twenty years ago five counties in eastern Pennsylvania were dominated, terrorized, by a secret organization, thousands strong, whose special purpose

But what a contrast ! Here a proud metropolis was gay with flags and illuminations; there the mountains mourned in the ashes of poor men's homes. Here sounded was to rob, burn, pillage, and kill. Find on. rejoicing bells and cannons; there were the map that marvellous mineral country, heard the groans of victims butchered, as large as Delaware, which lies between Here were grand parades, and hurrahing the Blue Mountains on the south and the multitudes ; there lurked bands of armed arm of the Susquehanna on the north, and assassins, defying alike the laws of man there you will see what was the home of and God, and leaving behind them every- these banded outlaws, the merciless Molly where curses, and tears, and blood. The Maguires. Look in Carbon County for condition of things in Schuylkill, Carbon, Mauch Chunk, with its towering hills and Luzerne, Columbia, and Northumberland picturesque ravines, and from there draw a Counties, in this glorious year of grace line westward through Schuylkill County 1876, was horrible to contemplate. And and into Northumberland County as far meantime the nation's orators at Philadel- as Shamokin. This line might well be phia were blowing themselves red in the called the red axis of violence, for it cuts face at the trumpets of self-praise! through Mount Carmel, Centralia, Raven The origin and development of^he Mol- Run, Mahanoy Plane, (lirardville, Shenan- ly Maguires will always present a hard doah, Tamaqua, Tuscarora, and Summit problem to the social philosopher, who Hill, towns all abounding in hateful mem- will, perhaps, find some subtle relation be- ories of the Molly Maguires. Now, on tween crime and coal. One understands this line as a long diameter, construct an the act of an ordinary murderer who kills egg-shaped figure, to include in its upper from greed, or fear, or hatred ; but the boundary Wilkesbarre in Luzerne County Molly Maguires killed men and women with and Bloomsburg in Columbia County, and whom they had had no dealings, against on its lower to pass somewhat to the south whom they had no personal grievances, of Pottsville. Your tgg will be about and from whose death they had nothing to fifty miles long and forty miles across, gain, except, perhaps, the price of a few and will cover scores of thriving communi- rounds of whiskey. They committed mur- ties that once were the haunts of the mur- ders by the score, stupidly, brutally, as a derers and rufifians who polluted with their driven ox turns to left or right at the word crimes this fair'treasure garden of a great of command, without knowing why, and State. without caring. The men who decreed Such was the situation when the Cen- these monstrous crimes did so for the tennial Exhibition was opening its gates most trivial reasons — a reduction in wages, to enthusiastic millions. A scant hundred a personal dislike, some imagined griev- miles separated the City of Brotherly Love ance of a friend. These were sufficient to from these tormented centres of violence, call forth an order to burn a house where