ttenuated manhood of the aliens it attracts, and when they are
rendered useless for its ends, emits them to be a scourge on the earth.

But the breakers are the monument of the civilization of the Nineteenth
Century, which esteems commercial as superior to mental advancement.

As the drama to be unfolded will be enacted largely in this spot, which
nature fashioned on its fairest pattern, and which man has seared with
his cruel tool, a description of the town of Wilkes-Barre and its
environs is essential. The town is the creation of the Mines. Coal
abounds in the valley of the Susquehanna, and from the first impetus
given the coal industry by the establishment of railroads, the mines at
this place have been worked without intermission. The population of the
town has been increasing steadily for the past thirty years, until
to-day it reaches the proportions of a populous city. There is little
variety in the citizens; but the contrast they present makes up for this
deficiency. Broadly speaking there are but two classes, the magnates and
their mercenaries. The former live in the mansions on the esplanade and
constitute the governing minority. The coal miners and the workers on
the breakers, who eke out their lives in slavery, and who sleep in
quarters that make the huts of the peasants of Europe seem actually
inviting, constitute the vast majority.

The most prosperous business of the town outside of the Coal industry,
which is, of course, monopolized by the magnates, is the Undertaking
business. There are almost as many establishments for the burial of man
as there are saloons to cater to his cheer. In contradistinction to the
custom in this country, the business has been taken up by others than
the worthy order of sextons. That this condition should be, is accounted
for by the fact that there is a paucity of churches in the town, and
that the sextons were unable to accomplish the work that devolved upon
their craft. Death is not attributable, in the main, to natural causes
in Wilkes-Barre; it is brought about by the engines of destruction which
the magnates are pleased to term, Modern Machinery.

Association makes the mind incapable of appreciating nice distinctions
in regard to familiar objects or persons. Thus to the residents of the
town there is nothing abnormal in their condition. It is only to the
observer from without that the horrors of the Pennsylvania town are
apparent. That such a spot should develop in a Sta