To go to a lyceum lecture on a sultry summer night and be whisked away by picture and description to the snowy peaks and green glaciers of the Canadian Rockies is not a more complete or refreshing transition than that experienced by the traveler who lumbers along the Southern Railway for weary, slow miles of sodden country and ill-kept settlement, all at once to alight at the neat station and view the trim town of Gastonia, North Carolina. It is not attempted here to account for the New England psychology that animates this nonetheless Southern place, but it is deserving of better praise than its harsh name gives it. Neither is it proper in this place to seek to account for the success of its score and a half of cotton mills. The recital of the profits they have made since the European War is astounding, but there is every cause to believe in the accuracy of the information given. In the first place, while the big Loray Mill, as has been seen, has not reflected much credit upon the community of factories at Gastonia, and is spoken of not very warmly there, no mill in Gastonia has ever had a receivership.[389] The mills at Belmont right near Gastonia are making on the average 25 per cent profits. The Treanton Mill at Gastonia, paid 100% in cash during the first five years of its operation. The Majestic Mill, at Belmont, was expected to make in 1916-1917, 100 per cent., or the price of the plant in a single year.[390] In cataloguing the notes from a summer trip to the mill towns, the writer feared he had made some mistake in setting down the results of an interview with the vice-president and cashier of the First National Bank, Gastonia, which is most largely interested in the mills of the place, as to the earnings. He therefore wrote for a restatement on doubtful points, and found himself confirmed. To quote the case of one mill from Mr. Robinson's reply. "We have a mill here that had $150,000 capital paid in, and after a short time issued a stock dividend of 20 per cent. which gave them (it) a capital of $180,000, and this mill made $155,000 net profits for the year 1915. I am satisfied that this same mill will make 125 per cent. profit this year (1916) on their (its) $180,000 capital, or around $225,000 net profit."[391] From the interview, there is the instance of a 12,000 spindle mill; not one of the most successful in Gastonia, which made $2,500 the week previous. While the mill expected to make 125 per cent. net profits for 1916 is said to be exceptional, a number of mills were, as near the end of the old year as November 28th, expected to show from 75 to 100 per cent. net profits for 1916, the writer was told that it would be a pretty poorly managed plant that did not clear the lower percentages.[392]