Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE HARRIS-INGRAM EXPERIMENT By CHARLES E. BOLTON, M.A. AUTHOR OF "A MODEL VILLAGE AND OTHER PAPERS," "TRAVELS IN EUROPE AND AMERICA," ETC. CLEVELAND THE BURROWS BROTHERS COMPANY 1905 TO MY WIFE SARAH KNOWLES BOLTON AND MY SON CHARLES KNOWLES BOLTON INTRODUCTION This volume was ready for publication when my husband died, October 23, 1901. In it, in connection with a love story and some foreign travel, he strove to show how necessary capital and labor are to each other. He had always been a friend to labor, and there were no more sincere mourners at his funeral than the persons he employed. He believed capital should be conciliatory and helpful, and co-operate with labor in the most friendly manner, without either party being arrogant or indifferent. Mr. Bolton took the deepest interest in all civic problems, and it is a comfort to those who loved him that his book, "A Model Village and Other Papers," came from the press a few days before his death. He had hoped after finishing a book of travel, having crossed the ocean many times and been in many lands, and doing some other active work in public life, to take a trip around the world and rest, but rest came in another way. Sarah K. Bolton Cleveland, Ohio. PREFACE Mr. W.D. Howells, in reply to a literary society in Ashtabula County, Ohio, said that most people had within their personal experience one book. I have often quoted Howells's words to my best friend, who has written a score of books, and the answer as frequently comes, "Why not write a book yourself?" Encouraged by Howells's belief, and stimulated by the accepted challenge of my friend, to whom I promised a completed book in twelve months, I found time during a very busy year to pencil the chapters that follow. Most of the book was written while waiting at stations, or on the cars, and in hotels, using the spare moments of an eight-months' lecture season, and the four months at home occupied by business. I am aware that some critics decry a novel written with a purpose. Permit me therefore in advance to admit that this book has a double purpose: To test the truth of Howells's words as applied to myself; and to describe a journey, both at home and abroad, which may possibly be enjoyed by the reader, the inconveniences of travel being lessened by incidentally tracing a love story to a strange but perhaps satisfactory conclusion; the whole leading to the evolution of a successful experiment, which in fragments is being tried in various parts of the civilized world. CONTENTS Chapter I The Harrises in New York Chapter II Mr. Hugh Searles of London Arrives Chapter III A Bad Send-off Chapter IV Aboard the S.S. Majestic Chapter V Discomfitures at Sea