are squeezed to minimum size, to the accompaniment of
negro chants, are exceedingly interesting.

The same pamphlet speaks also of the unusually large proportion of the
city's area which is given over to parks and playgrounds, and it seems
worth adding that though Memphis follows the general southern custom of
barring negroes--excepting, of course, nursemaids in charge of
children--from her parks, she has been so just as to provide a park for
negroes only. In this she stands ahead of most other southern cities.

Memphis has the only bridge crossing the Mississippi below the mouth of
the Ohio. At the time of our visit a new bridge was being built very
near the old one, and an interesting experience of our trip was our
visit to this bridge, under the guidance of Mr. M.B. Case, a young
engineer in charge.

On a great undertaking, such as this one, where the total cost mounts
into millions, the first work done is not on the proposed bridge itself,
but on the plant and equipment to be used in construction--derricks,
barges, concrete-mixers, air compressors for the caissons, small
engines, dump-cars and all manner of like things. This preparatory work
consumes some months. Caissons are then sunk far down beneath the river
bed. Caisson work is dangerous, and the insurance rate on "sand
hogs"--the men who work in the caissons--is very high. The scale of
wages, and of time, varies in proportion to the risk, which is according
to the depth at which work is being done. On this enterprise, for
example, men working from mean level to a depth of 50 feet received $3
for an eight-hour day. From 50 to 70 feet they worked but six hours and
received $3.75. From 90 to 105 feet they worked in three shifts of one
hour each, and received $4.25. And while they were placing concrete to
seal the working chamber there was an additional allowance of fifty
cents a day.

The chief danger of caisson work is the "bends," or "caisson disease."
In the caisson a man works under high air pressure. When he comes out,
the pressure on the fluids of the body is reduced, and this sometimes
causes the formation of a gas bubble in the vascular system. If this
bubble reaches a nerve-center it causes severe pain, similar to
neuralgia; if it gets to the brain it causes paralysis. Day after day
men will go into the caisson and come out without trouble, but sooner or
later from 2 to 8 per cent. of caisson workers are affected. Of 320
"sand-hogs" who labored in th