With Mr. McClure’s permission I talked with several of the authors and questioned them closely in regard to the wages paid them and the conveniences and luxuries that the village of Syndicate affords to its inhabitants. Nearly every one of these frankly said that he preferred his life there to the more diverting existence in the congested sections of New York. “And,” he replied, “Mr. McClure frequently drafts off a squad of us for some special work in New York, and that makes a very pleasant variety in our lives. We are conveyed in a small steamboat from here to the foot of Twenty-fifth Street, and then transferred to the factory, near Lexington Avenue, where we work until four o’clock, when we are returned in the same manner. Sometimes, when there is a great pressure of work on hand, the cabin of the steamboat is fitted up with benches and we do piece-work, both coming and going, thus adding considerably to our pay.” At one o’clock the factory whistle blew again and the men returned to their work. Mr. McClure took me through one of the large buildings and explained every detail of the work to me. Every morning the foreman goes from bench to bench and gives an idea to each author. Just before noon he passes along again and carefully examines the unfinished work, and, late in the afternoon, a final inspection is made, after which the goods are packed and sent down to the wharf for shipment. I inquired whether there was any truth in the report that several authors had been taken with severe illness immediately after beginning work at Syndicate, whereupon the foreman explained that this had happened several times, but it had always resulted from giving an author a whole idea all at once--something to which very few of them had ever been accustomed. I learned, also, that child labor is strictly prohibited on the McClure property. This was rather a surprise to me, for I have been a diligent reader of “McClure’s Magazine” ever since it was started. The art department has not been put into working order yet, but there is a large blacksmith shop near the village, which is celebrated for the inferior quality of its work, and, as its proprietor and foreman are both drinking, shiftless men, the place will probably develop into an art shop, in which case it will turn out all the pictures for the magazine and syndicate. As I was taking my leave, my attention was drawn to several large oat fields in the neighborhood of the village, and I was thereby led to suspect that Mr. McClure was turning out literature by horse-power. “Not at all,” he said, when I questioned him on the subject. “Everything here is made by hand, but I have made a contract with a padrone for a force of Scotch dialect authors, whom I must feed, clothe, and house while they are writing for me. I expect them within a week. I shall put them at once on a serial called ‘Blithe Jockie’s Gane Awee,’ which will be my ‘feature’ for the coming year.”