double interest, first, because it is a picturesque local affair, and, second, because it is rapidly passing away.

The whole town, for a day before the festival began, was flooded with colored folk coming in from the country and from other towns on foot, by train, or in wagons. The Spectator noticed with much interest the old-time types-bowed old men and wrinkled women, with gray kinky hair and quaint garb, queer pathetic turnouts drawn by aged mules with harness mended almost to the vanishing-point, venerable preachers with canes and spectacles and long, rusty frock-coats, and all the rest of it." Big Quarterly" brings the country into town, and is tenfold more interesting than any mere city assemblage

the sidewalks, therefore, were rough stands where breakfast, dinner, and supper were eaten standing by whole families, and where lemonade, ice-cream, fried chicken, and luscious chunks of watermelon could be had all day long.

of the colored race can be. But it is not

all country folk that come; for all day Saturday the railroads brought passengers from across the State line-from Philadelphia and the New Jersey towns, smart city negroes, who yet felt the attraction of the old festival, and swelled the dusky throng around the churches in the colored quarter. "Big Quarterly" is, in fact, a great day of reunion, on which friends long separated often find each other out, and families and clans are gathered. It is also like a great camp-meeting in some of its features; but the fact that it is held in town, and in a single street of churches, gives it a distinctive flavor of its own. Once seen, "Big Quarterly" can never be forgotten.

The whole of one long, wide street from end to end was packed with a mass of warm and excited humanity on the festival day. No one was left at home, ap parently, from the smallest pickaninny to the oldest grandmother. The churches were jammed to suffocation with congregations, all singing at the tops of their voices, and still the street was full. All these visitors had to be fed (and well fed, it being quite true, as the Bishop's cook once observed, that "pious folks eats tremendous "), which is probably the reason why August was chosen for "Big Quarterly," since August, on the Peninsula, is the month of watermelon and peaches and cantaloups and chickengumbo and soft-shell crabs. All along

their whitewashed trunks, a rude tent under the rows of old maple-trees, with had been stretched, and the ground spread with straw. A few benches were provided for the sisters, and an altar and mourners' bench for the converts, but the maThere jority of the worshipers stood. was much coming and going all the while aforesaid, and the Spectator noted, in through the refreshment-stand entrance passing in himself, that a silver offering was taken up at this gate, though no collection took place in the meetings.

It was in the evening that the Spectator attended this tent service, if service it could be called. To be sure, there were several preachers there, and they exhorted vigorously from time to time; but the attention of the congregation was concentrated, not on them, but on the shouting bands and circles of lay members who went marching round and round in the straw, or, standing in a ring, clapped and stamped their feet and chanted words which the Spectator could not catch or make sense of. The whirling dervishes of the East could not have been more rapt or more unintelligible. The chant, whatever it was, beginning low and soft, rose from crescendo to crescendo, until, with the sweat running down like rain and with violent bendings and swayings of the whole body, the singers marched⚫ or circled to the verge of collapse, and finally sank on their knees, hoarse and

exhausted. Meanwhile the sisters lifted up their voices, too, and the preachers exhorted, so that it was as distracting to the ear as the three-ringed circus is to the eye. Now and then, with loud excitement, a convert would find his or her way to the mourners' bench amid joyful ejaculations from the faithful.

The Spectator was told by one friend of her experience at a previous "Big Quarterly." She took her sister, a very quiet and devout Christian, and the two happened to stand near a couple of colored women who were, in negro religious idiom, "coming through." In this case it seemed especially difficult for them to get through, and their hysterical excitement was so great that they appeared to be upon the verge of convulsions. "All that the rest did," said the Spectator's friend," was to march round and round those two poor gasping creatures, singing

'I was a mourner once, jes' like you, But I kep' on mournin' till I come through!" and finally my sister couldn't stand it any longer. She went and knelt down by the women, and explained the Gospel plan of salvation to them, and quieted them down so that they came through' without having a fit apiece. But it wasn't the fault of the meeting that they didn't; and it all made me so nervous that I never will go to Big Quarterly' again."

"You know," she said, " or more probably you don't know, so I'll tell you that when a young colored woman is seeking religion,' one of the older women in the church, a sort of mother in Israel, is appointed to be her mother in the Gospel.' This

mother in the Gospel' looks after her salvation to the best of her ability, and has a certain authority over her in consequence. One day my colored house-girl, who was attending the meetings and trying to 'come through,' was set to churn the butter. She made such a small quantity that I was rather astonished; but Emmeline insisted that that was all the butter that she could get out of it. That evening, as she was going off to the meeting, I caught her with a package in her hand, and found out that it was a pound or two of butter. Thereupon she broke down and explained that she had taken it as a present to her mother in the Gospel because she had helped her so much in getting religion! I tell you I acted as Emmeline's mother in the Gospel then and there myself, and I think I gave her a little Gospel doctrine about honesty that she will not forget. But was it not a sidelight on that kind of religious experience? I don't know that I quite agreed with the point of view of my colored man when I asked him the other day about a woman I thought of taking as a cook: 'Oh, she's a fus'-rate woman, Mis' Lou; she ain't got no bad ways, and she doan't nebber go to chu'ch!' But I could see what he meant, just the same; and I think Big Quarterly' would be better in the breach than in the observance, myself."

T

HE constantly recurring conflicts between employers and employees are more and more based on the question as to whether trades-unions shall be recognized by the management. The recognition of the unions, in a popular sense, comprehends something entirely different from what is meant by the unions themselves. In the former case it is. understood to mean simply a recognition on the part of employers of the existence of the unions and dealings with their officers. On the part of the unions themselves the recognition is understood to mean something more than this, even in many cases to taking part in the establishment of rules and the regulation of wages.

Such conflicts lead to the proposition that labor unions should be incorporated in like manner as capitalistic associations are incorporated-that is, that under the law the unions should become responsible for their contracts. Under the general laws of the different States relating to corporations of all kinds, whether for business, educational, religious, or benevolent purposes, trades-unions can easily secure a charter. The States of Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming make especial mention of trades-unions in their statutes relating to corporations, but they do not provide any especial duties, rights, or liabilities other than those pertaining to all corporations. New York formerly had a special law, but trades-unions can now be incorporated under the general statute. The United States, by acts of 1885 and 1886, provides for the incorporation of National unions having headquarters in Washington. Some of the unions of the State of New York are incorporated, but there are very few incorporated unions in other States.

The advantages of incorporation are that the union, under a charter, becomes

a person in the eyes of the law; that it can sue and be sued, as individuals, corporations, and firms can sue and be sued. It would have standing in the courts; it would be better able to own and control property, and would have many rights and privileges that trades-unions as voluntary associations do not have. By incorporation unions would stand better in public estimation. As a legal person, they could enforce their contracts against employers. They have been debarred heretofore from appearing in court by representatives. They have thus lost advantages which would have been of the greatest importance to them.

On the other hand, labor leaders claim that there are disadvantages which in a large measure offset the advantages. They admit the benefits which would come from incorporation, but they apprehend the dangers which would come through the assumption of duties and liabilities which do not now specifically belong to the unions. They would be obliged to have funds for strike and benefit purposes; in fact, some capital, although no stock. This capital, or the funds, could be attached under an action of contract or tort, and it is feared by members of unions that such action would result in their disruption. There is great apprehension also that whenever a union might be brought into court and judgment for any cause secured against it, the union would collapse. Hence the fear that ultimately incorporation would mean the destruction of trade-unionism. bers also fear that the writ of injunction. would be much more severe in its operation under incorporation than at present, and that they would not receive fair treatment from the courts.

Mem

Considering these alleged advantages and disadvantages, it would seem that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Our courts, on the whole, are honorable, and, in their capacity as administrators of

law, pure and incorruptible. Here and there an unfair judge might cause a great deal of difficulty, but, on the whole, the

T

high character of the American judiciary is a sufficient guaranty against unfair

treatment.

HE incorporation of labor unions is a question almost as old as the unions themselves. A majority of the leading unionists of this country are emphatically opposed to the idea. The disadvantages growing out of incorporation would, they say, far outweigh the advantages, and the so-called advantages would be two-sided. Take, for instance, the holding of property: An incorporated union would be enabled to protect its property by exacting of its officers bonds, against which, if necessary, suits could be instituted; but the property would also be subject to the orders of a court in a case against the union. The funds of a National union could be attached pending the decision of a court in a suit for breach of contract by a local union, even when such breach was in absolute violation of the National union's expressed will. Therefore it is a question whether the right to sue, with its corollary, would be of bencât to trades-unions in their present stage of development.

In recent years labor unions have had just cause to dread "government by injunction." Incorporated, the unions would be at the mercy of every court in which sympathy or personal interest tilted the judge, in the slightest degree, the other way. As it is now, violation of an injunction reacts only upon the direct violators. As it would be then, a union could be demolished if any of its members disobeyed the orders of a judge.

If incorporated, the power of a labor union to control its membership at all times, regarding only expediency and its Own preservation, would be greatly abridged. The existence of the labor union is dependent upon the enforcement of the will of the majority and the maintenance of discipline. Put a union on a plane where it could be haled to court at the instigation of a member suspended or expelled for "scabbing" or other violation of rules, and that union could be

made the prey of every unprincipled and weak-kneed workman in the trade. The right absolutely to govern the terms of membership and the conditions of reinstatement is one that labor unions cannot afford to surrender.

The tendency of labor unions in this country is toward a fuller democracy in the management of their affairs; the adoption of the referendum is one of the evidences of this tendency. Incorporation would certainly result in the centralization of control. This effect alone of incorporation would destroy the unions. Your rank-and-file labor unionist feels that he is an important part of the organization, and so he is. Attempt to restrict his powers in this particular and he quits.

Labor's belief that law and the courts are for the benefit of the owners of wealth may be deemed by many unwarranted, but are there not grounds for the belief? Organized labor has secured the passage of laws in its interest; many of them have been declared unconstitutional by the courts. At best, law is costly, and the laborer, individually and collectively, is too poor to indulge in the luxury.

For these and other like reasons, the labor union is opposed to exchanging the old and fairly successful way of fighting its battles for court-rooms generally presided over by judges whose training and environment make them unfitted to see labor's cause through sympathetic glasses.

Labor in England just now is having a taste of recognition in the courts. The Taff Vale Railroad Company is suing the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants for damages incurred during the strike of 1900. English jurists say that the case involves the justice of strikes, the right of employees to strike. What the decision will be it is hard to say; but if such a case came up in this country, and the courts decided that strikes were never justifiable, organized labor would pay with its life for its standing in law.