This factory child that never knew any of the proper joys of a child is without either sweet memory or unavailing wish. But the mine slave, the most of whose former life was passed in the open air, how he pines for the splendor of his loved sun by day; how in his bunk he recalls his rounds by night when the Seven Stars, the Ell and Yard and Job's Coffin were his clock and the North Star his compass. Each part of the revolving year whispers to him when he is at work or dreaming. Christmas suggests the jug with the corn-cob stopper, the 'possum cooked brown, the yams exuding their sugary juice, the banjo picker and his song, the fiddle playing a dancing tune, and the floor shaking under the thumping footfalls; the cold weather following suggests the 'possum and 'coon hunt; the early spring brings what he used to call the corn-planting birds and their lively calls; and on and on his thoughts go over mocking-bird, woodpecker, early peaches and apples, full orchards spared by frost, the watermelon, solitary and incomparable among all things for a negro to eat, his Sunday fishings and rabbit hunts, his church and society meetings, this and that dusky love who fooled him into believing that he was dearer to her than husband or any other man, especially some yellow girl, his nonesuch, exceeding all other women as the watermelon excels all other produce of tree or vine,--on and on his thoughts go over what he can never have again. I need not say a word for the white victims of child labor, for their race is rousing for their rescue, and I know its power to achieve. But I do feel that it is my duty to put that friendless, forgotten, long-term negro convict in the minds of my southern readers. If he must be a convict, do not farm him out to mine operators or where he will be worked behind any screen. Put all our convicts, both felony and misdemeanor, upon the public roads until they need only a little working now and then, say I. There the convicts will not be worked for profit, nor in secret.