"I'd rather not tell the rest of the story, boys-people are so foolish over little matters of this kind, you know, when they are drunk with excitement; but I set out to tell you why I don't want to part with those horses, and I suppose I'll have to finish.

"Well, Woodlake's horse was found to be so stiff the next day that suit was immediately begun for damages. The judge appointed a committee of appraisers to ascertain what the value of the horse had been before my ride; and you may be sure they set it as low as their consciences would allow.

"The amount-eighteen hundred dollars was raised right in the court-room inside of ten minutes; and this was handed to Woodlake with notice that in case he were found in that vicinity at the end of one hour, he would be treated to another free bath in the river.

"Well, it turned out that the horse was only stiff from his long run, and in a week's time he was as well as ever again. He, of course, belonged to the men who had paid for him; but the foolish, soft-hearted fellows, most of whom had themselves had wives or children on that three-thirty train, insisted. on giving him to me; and the other passengers, learning of this and not wanting to be outdone in foolishness, bought the first horse and gave him to me also,-besides giving Mary and the baby no end of trinkets; for as I said before, people are so foolish over little matters of this kind. "And that's the reason I don't want to part with those horses, boys."

It was an interesting study to watch the countenances of this little group of eager auditors, as the stranger told his story. They were all attention from the first; but, as he proceeded, most of them completely lost their self-control in a laudable desire to lend a hand in some impossible way in saving Mary and the baby.

When the girth broke in leaping the torrent, two or three half rose from their seats, and it was only when they saw the horse and his rider again flying on their way that they settled back to their places. When the first watchman was encountered, some of them were again on their feet, and by the time the watchman at the further end of the bridge was knocked headlong down the bank, there was not a man left seated; but when they heard that despairing cry-" Your · swiftest horse, for the love of Christ, to save my wife and baby!" several of them were seen to gulp down great lumps which had suddenly formed in their throats, and bay Jim's wealthy owner came very near blubbering out-right. But when Woodlake's dastardly conduct was seen, they became actually dangerous, and several of them instinctively clapped their hands on their hip-pockets for the revolvers which fortunately most of them had left at home.

It was not till they saw the messenger of life and death safely re-mounted and dashing down the western shore that they mechanically dropped back into their seats again, and assumed a reasonable degree of composure.

Toward the conclusion of the story, some of them began to realize how completely they had divested themselves of their rough exterior, and displayed to view their genuine, manly, tender hearts; and, consequently, they at once set about trying to re-disguise themselves in the garb of reckless bravado they had been so long accustomed

to wear.

So, when the story was finished, one or two yawned and stretched themselves as though they had been half asleep, and terribly bored withal; while the trader of imaginary horses got up, walked lazily out to the stranger's team, surveyed the "off hoss" critically for a few moments, and then, giving his tobacco-quid a peculiarly interrogative twist in his capacious cheek, in a tone

A very important problem in engineering is just now being worked out in Los Angeles County. This problem is the creation of an artificial harbor at the lake, which is more than half a slough, known as La Ballona.

It is true that this problem of the creation of artificial harbors has been solved repeatedly in the countries of the Old World, in times ancient and modern; but the solution has always been made by the State, and never before by individual enterprise. The gentlemen in charge of the project of creating a safe landing for vessels at La Ballona, however, have asked neither for State nor for national aid in the conduct of their work. They have satisfied themselves of the feasibility of the scheme, and have gone to work with seeming earnestness and practicability. Their work has reached a honesty to demonstrate to others its stage at which success seems to be no longer doubtful, and perhaps it is well now to explain to the outside world how Los Angeles, an inland city, is to reap all the benefits of ocean competition.

Artificial harbors, in the first place, are as old as the world of commerce. Tyre and Sidon had their moles jutting out into the sea. Athens had her Piraeus, which, though formed originally from a series of small natural bays, was so improved by the art of Pericles as to be almost an artificial harbor. Carthage had a basin for ships cut in the middle of the city, and even Rome, the mighty mistress of a continent, was not

In later days,

built directly upon the sea. when her ships drew upon their sails the winds of all the ancient world, it became necessary to create a port for the capital. To come down to more modern days, we have the still lagoons of Belgium and Holland, Liverpool, Cherbourg, all of the Atlantic ports of France, and scores of others in various parts of the Old World, which have been either created wholly, or greatly improved, by the engineering science of mankind.

Harbor improvement is no new thing in America, either, for the matter of that. Millions of dollars have been expended and are annually being expended upon the bettering of the various landing places upon the Atlantic sea-board of the United States -and if nothing, comparatively speaking, has been done for the accommodation of the commerce of the Pacific, it is for the reason that the needs of the western coast, while they were probably sufficiently appreciated, have had no influence at the national Capital sufficiently powerful to command the attention and compel the consideration of Congress. In all the coast line, six hundred miles, between San Francisco and San Diego, there is not now a harbor sufficiently capacious to accommodate the commerce drawn by the fast developing prosperity of that wide section of country surrounding the city of Los Angeles that is included in the name "Southern California." A great amount of money and labor, it is true, has been expended in the improvement

of the roadstead at San Pedro-yet very little has been accomplished; and the recent wreck of the ship Kennebec at that point would seem to be almost incontrovertible evidence that the work and money have been all but thrown away.

It was reserved for the industrial daring of gentlemen identified with a great corporation to perceive this need of a growing community, and to endeavor to supply it. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad Company, having Pacific terminal points at Guaymas, San Diego, and Los Angeles, with a prospective terminus also at San Francisco, has taken it in hand to give to Los Angeles a harbor which will not only afford a safe anchorage to vessels, but will at the same time give to all the surrounding inland country the immeasurable. advantage of competition in ocean transportation.

In looking over the ground for this purpose, it was seen that the field for selection was not very large. Aside from the manifest difficulty of securing terminal facilities at San Pedro, where a great rival corporation already occupied the field, it would not be policy to expend money and reap but half the benefit. And again, San Pedro had been tried, and, at least partially, had failed. The company already had San Diego, but that was too far away from Los Angeles for the purpose, and a short line between the two places was a contingency of the future. Santa Barbara was too remote also, and here, again, the Southern Pacific occupied the field. It would seem that only Santa Monica-forlorn, forsaken, without a wharf, and until very lately almost without a separate entity-remained; but here, again, another corporation was in the field.

The harbor-projectors, however, were not discouraged. Four miles southwest of Santa Monica, and ten miles southeast of Los Angeles, lying in the shelter of a low range of hills rising from the valley toward

the sea, is a small, narrow lake at the point where the La Ballona Creek debouches into the ocean. It is a true lake, for, although it lies close down upon the sand of the beach, a well-defined earth formation encircles it, and proves conclusively that its water is not drawn by seepage from the sea. As has been said, the lake is exceedingly narrow. Its length along the shore is about two miles, and it varies in width from two hundred to six hundred feet. The water in it varies in depth, in ordinary times, from six inches to twenty feet.

Back of the lake, there is a range of the drifting sand hills so common along the sea coast of Southern California; and behind these hills, there stretch away for miles the low marsh lands of the Centinella ranch. La Ballona Creek comes down through this marsh-which is, after all, only a wash of sediment from the hills and higher plains toward Los Angeles-and in the rainy season the creek breaks through the sand hills, and the waters overflow the lake and find an outlet into the ocean.

It was at this point, which an eminent English engineer had pronounced the most feasible on the southern coast for the purpose, that the Atchison people proposed to build for themselves a harbor. They neither asked nor expected aid from the government. That did not seem to be a part of the plan. The idea was simply to create a harbor; and, from the character of the work already done, it would seem that a harbor will almost assuredly be created.

There was much preliminary work, of course, in the way of soundings and surveys, before the plans for the project were definitely matured. This preliminary work, and the drawing of the plans for the whole project, was entrusted to Mr. McCraffe, a Scotchman, and a most competent engineer. Upon his report a company was organized, known as the Ballona Harbor and Improvement Company, with a capital stock of $300,000-every dollar of it subscribed,

a

The engineer's report developed the fact that, at a distance of eight hundred feet from the shore, the bottom of the sea-which is sheltered at this point by the bold headland of Point Donna, north of Santa Monica-fell away abruptly and was formation of a peculiarly tenacious sort of clay. This, of course, removed from the minds of the projectors the ever-present fear that sand would wash in continually, and either close up the mouth of the harbor, or necessitate continual dredging. The plans of the engineer were adopted accordingly, and the work of changing the lake into a harbor was begun in October last.

In the first place, a channel two hundred feet. wide, and of sufficient depth to give eighteen feet of water in the lake at low tide, was cut through the two hundred and fifty feet of sand and earth between the sea and the lake. This was only a beginning, but it allowed for the floating into the lake of the piles and dredgers and heavy timbers necessary for the completion of the work. This result is being approached now as rapidly as money and men will accomplish it.

As has been said, the channel opened into the sea has a maximum width of two hundred feet. This channel, when the work is finished, will have upon either side of it a double row of 12x12 inch square piles, securely bolted together. These rows of piling will extend into the roadstead one thousand feet, thus reaching out at once beyond the sand-line, and one row will be of width and strength sufficient to carry a line of railroad upon it. Ship and rail will thus be brought together at the furthest outer line of the channel.

Around the lake proper, which is now being dredged to a uniform depth, this double row of piles will also extend, making the entire frontage one continuous wharf line. This harbor will be two miles in length, and it will have uniform width of five hundred feet.

A town site has been laid out upon the

low hills south of the lake, commanding a glorious view of the sea and the Santa Barbara islands; and a railroad is being built to connect with the Atchison system at Los Angeles. The town and the railroad, however, are things of the future. By the first of July the harbor at La Ballona will be a fact accomplished.

Although no danger is apprehended of a wash of sand into the harbor, still a supplementary channel, with flood-gate, will be opened at the upper end of the lake. By a simple mechanical arrangement, which needs no elaboration, this will admit of a flow of water into the lake at high tide; but, when the ebb comes, will drive the receding water out through the main channel, with force sufficient to keep it always open.

All has not been told of the harbor of La Ballona, however, when a description has been given of the work that is being done, and that it is proposed yet to do upon the lake itself. The low mud-flat behind the sand-hills, extending back for an indefinite distance toward the plains of Centinella, will be the theater in the future of a far greater undertaking than the present work. Not until the success of the project in hand has been demonstrated beyond all cavil, however, will one step be taken to the end of dredging out this mud, and creating what is already called by the Harbor Company "the inner harbor." Then a passage will be cut through the sand-hills similar to the one now connecting the center of the lake with the sea, and the dredgers will have opened to them a field that is practically limitless. One year of steady work in this flat would excavate a basin, land-locked and perfectly sheltered, which would float the navies of the world.

All the land thereabout belongs to the company, but its capital stock would hardly seem adequate to the undertaking of a project of such vast magnitude as this would be. Perhaps, with the outer harbor a demonstrated success, the capital would be

readily forthcoming-or, more possibly, the affair is conducted upon the principle of a close corporation. It is certain that at the present time there is no stock of the company in the market.

All the country surrounding La Ballona is highly productive, and the local shipping secured to the harbor will be very large from the first day it is opened to the world. A more important point is the fact that the

shortest line which it is possible to draw between the two oceans on United States soil is from La Ballona to the Gulf, and that the harbor is eight hundred miles' nearer to Hawaii than is the Bay of San Francisco. There are possibilities, it is evident, of Oriental trade-to say nothing of the wool shipment of Australia, and the lesser trade of the islands of the South Pacific. S. N. Sheridan, Jr.

What is the Mission of the Knights of Labor? The answer in brief is: an effort to solve the problem of labor.

Are the methods employed, and those proposed to be employed adapted to the accomplishment of this result?

To investigate these methods, and their fitness to secure the result sought, is the object of the present paper.

With the advent of man into the world was introduced the problem of labor. This has been the chief problem of all ages. It is the problem of life. Intricate at first, it has increased in intricacy in a ratio corresponding with the increase of the human family and their advancement in civilization. Partial-approximate-solutions have been obtained, answering the requirement of certain imposed conditions. But a solution suited to the conditions imposed by one age has proved ill adapted to those imposed by another. Strewn along the pathway of time are innumerable evidences that, hitherto, slavery of man in some form has been resorted to as the best solution of the great problem. But the genius of the present age abhors the principle of slaverywhether applied in rearing the pyramids of Egypt or in rearing the colossal fortunes of "might makes right." So far then,

since history recorded events, the problem of labor has been found soluble-or at least no general solution of it has been effected.

During the last few years, there has occurred a great awakening of the working classes to the proposition that labor can best solve the problem of labor: can best determine the proper relations between itself and the other agents of production for supplying man's wants. The first step taken by the working classes in the process of verifying this proposition, has been to form labor organizations.

Mr. Henry Sembla estimates that ninetynine out of every hundred Americans belong to some kind of an organization, and that ninety-five out of every hundred belong to a mutual aid society of one description or another. This is probably an over-estimate of the labor organizations. The foremost at present is that of the Knights of Labor.

The "Noble Order of the Knights of Labor" was organized in Philadelphia on Thanksgiving Day in 1869, by Uriah S. Stevens and eight of his friends. From that Thanksgiving dinner party of nine sterling men--working men-has grown in eighteen years, the most powerful labor organization in the land. Its members are