anthracite is used and ores reduced or smelted.” I had heard of many assassinations by these Mollie Maguires, and also about those performed by the Ku-Klux and similar political combinations in the Southern States. It had always seemed to me that it was a sacred duty which Pennsylvania owed to herself, to her own citizens, and to the country at large, to clear her garments of the taint resting upon them and bring to punishment the persons who, for so many years, habitually outraged decency, spilt human blood without stint, and converted the richest section of one of the most wealthy and refined of all the sisterhood of States into a very golgotha—a locality from which law-abiding men and women might soon be forced to flee, as from the threatened cities of the plain, or from a spot stricken with plague and pestilence. “I will enter upon the business, but it will require time, sharp work, and plenty of both!” “Yes! We duly appreciate this,” responded Mr. Gowen. “What we want, and everybody wants, is to get within this apparently impenetrable ring; turn to the light the hidden side of this dark and cruel body, to probe to its core this festering sore upon the body politic, which is rapidly gnawing into the vitals and sapping the life of the community. Crime must be punishable in the mountains of Pennsylvania, as it is in the agricultural counties, and in all well-regulated countries. We want to work our mines in peace, to run our passenger and freight trains without fear of the sudden loss of life and property through the malicious acts of the Mollie Maguires; we want people to sleep unthreatened, unmolested, in their beds, undisturbed by horrid dreams of midnight prowlers and cowardly assassins; we want the laboring-men, of whatever creeds or nationalities, protected in their right to work to secure sustenance for their wives and little ones, unawed by outside influences. We want the miner to go forth cheerfully to the slope, or the shaft, for labor in the breast or in the gangway, wherever it may seem to him for the best, void of the fear in his heart when he parts from his wife at the cottage-gate in the morning, that it may be their last farewell on earth, and by evening his bullet-riddled corpse may be taken back to his home the only evidence that he has encountered the murderer—the agent of those who would compel him to refuse all employment unless the regulations of the order were complied with. The State cannot attain these things; she has repeatedly tried, and tried in vain. You can do it. I have seen you tested on other occasions and in other matters, and know your ability to conduct the business; we are willing to supply everything within our power to make your task a success.”