As for cheap American prints, who prefers to buy them nowadays? Certainly no woman who remembers with affection the good, pretty, durable, and _washable_ old Merrimack print,--the old-time calico, that, when partly worn out, would still do for gowns and “tiers” for the children, or for comforters for the family beds. Gentlemen! mill-owners and managers! give us as good material as that we can buy of English and French manufacture, and we will wear no more dress-goods that are not of “home production,” and will cheerfully pay you whatever price you may ask for them. This can certainly be done, with all your inventive genius, and you need no longer fear either foreign or Southern competition. One more suggestion. It has often seemed that one great cause of the decline of the cotton industry is to be found in the change in the character of the operatives themselves. But could not some inducement be offered to call to this industry a better class of operatives, or to elevate a part of them towards the status of the old-time mill-girls? The factory-operatives of to-day are more like those of England, whom I have described, when the cotton manufacture first began in America. Then, mill-owners and stockholders knew that the daughters of New England would not become mill-girls under existing conditions, and unless they were sure of good wages and of being treated like human beings. This assurance was given; and the consequence was that they flocked from their homes, and so helped to build up an industry that was to give the first great impetus to the coming prosperity of the whole country. Could not this experiment be tried anew? There must be--there are--thousands of young women, all over New England, working for almost a pittance in stores and workshops, some of them twelve hours a day, subject to temptations that would never reach them in the cotton-factory,--women and girls who have no homes, who would gladly go to the factories, if a comfortable home, short hours, sure work, and steady wages were assured to them. Let the best of them work by the job or piece, as far as possible; for this shows, more than any other “reform in labor,” where the best class of operatives can be found, and the best result of their work can be secured. Why not try these or some better experiments, and so uplift gradually the status of the modern factory-operative? These suggestions regarding a better class of goods and a better class of operatives, if carried out, will involve sacrifice for a time on the part of the mill-owners and stockholders. But it is certainly better to sacrifice even a great deal than it is to lose all; and there seems to be danger of this if something radical and far-reaching cannot soon be done to improve the present condition of our New England cotton-factories and their operatives.