“The worst slap the Baldwins ever got was from a wealthy Southern lady, who visited their mills last summer. She said to Zack Baldwin:--‘The slaves on my father’s plantation in Georgia, were treated with more consideration, and were more contented and happy at their work than your rag-cutters. But the slave-holding system was wrong, and it fell. I think also, the system under which you Northern millionaires eat the apple, and give your employees the core, is wrong and will fall, too,’ But I have stayed too long.” And Mrs. Clyde vanished. John Wycliff sat in his den, within easy ear-shot, and the pith of the women’s talk was woven into his account of the strike, for the _Star_. More than two thousand copies of the _Star_ were sold that day in Papyrus, and its circulation was raised permanently to a point near those figures. The Honorable Zechariah Baldwin was furious when he read the _Star’s_ account of the strike. Never before had a local newspaper dared to print the news of a Baldwin strike, much less to hold those “captains of industry” up to public criticism, as it had done to-day. But Terry was happy. He had sold extra thousands of his paper, the largest edition ever sold of a Berkshire newspaper, and scores of citizens, in all walks of life, had congratulated him on his bravery in defying the Baldwins. The most important result of the _Star’s_ article was that it was copied, more or less fully, by other papers throughout the country, owing to Congressman Baldwin’s prominence as a public man. A strike in his mills is not a good asset for a Congressman, and David Baldwin telegraphed his brother, from Washington, to grant the rag-cutters’ demands immediately. Zechariah Baldwin reluctantly complied with the order sent by wire. The Honorable Zechariah Baldwin appeared, a very angry man, at the office of the _Star_. “I want you to discharge that Wycliff,” was his first greeting to Mr. Terry, the proprietor. “How long have you owned this office, that you assume to run my business?” rejoined Mr. Terry. “But you know that we’re not used to being treated as the _Star_ treated us yesterday,” protested the paper-manufacturer.