escendants of Puritans who were used to decency, cleanliness, and
virtue. Then they lived and lodged in houses belonging to the mills,
which were _regulated_--the men in their own boarding houses, the women
in theirs. All were expected to be in their houses by or before a
certain hour, say ten o'clock at night.

Then every young lady had a green silk parasol for Sunday's use, and
she wrote poetry for the "Lowell Offering," if she felt the divine
movement. At that early undeveloped time an English gentleman, one
Anthony Trollope, visited the nascent city. He lamented the
narrow-mindedness of the projectors, and predicted it would not work;
that the little Lowell could never compete with such highly developed
cities as Manchester and Preston, where they knew the magic of "cheap
labor." In other words, Lowell could not be a great success.

That Arcadian simplicity worked for a while, but inevitably the magic
of cheap labor made itself felt--it was potent--it came, it saw, it
conquered. And now the best information I have convinces me that the
squalor, filth, recklessness, and happiness are nearly or quite equal
to what they are in the noble cities of Manchester and Glasgow in
England. Should Mr. Trollope revisit those scenes of his youth, he
would be as much delighted as any Englishman could permit himself to be
with anything outside his "Merrie England" at the delectable advances
made there.

He would find labor cheap and cotton cheap--as cheap as they are in his
beloved Manchester. He would find, as in his beloved Manchester, that
they made more than they could sell; which is the secret of cheapness.
He would find that in that small elysium, in the year 1874, they made
135,000,000 yards of cotton cloth, which gospel of cotton they were
then spreading abroad over all the earth, sending some of it to his
beloved Manchester. He would learn also that there was invested there
some $20,000,000 of good money of the realm, a large proportion of
which paid no dividends; which also is an excellent method of securing
cheapness. He would find all "narrow-minded regulations" quite done
away with, and the full liberty of the subject enjoyed by all; that
people staid "out nights" according to their own sweet wills; that men
slept when they pleased and where they pleased, and with whom they
pleased--women too for that matter; and that life was as free and
pleasant as his good English heart could wish. He would find that the
old-fashi