of stock shall entitle the holder thereof to one vote, in person or by proxy, to be exercised as provided in this section.

3.-Act of April 10, 1879 (P. L. p. 16).

SECTION 1. Be it enacted, etc., That it shall be lawful for any mutual savings fund, or building and loan association, now incorporated or hereafter to be incorporated, in addition to dues and interest, to charge and receive the premium or bonus bid by a stockholder for preference or priority of right to a loan in periodical instalments; and such premium or bonus so paid in instalments shall not be deemed usurious, but shall be taken to be a payment as it falls due in contra-distinction to a premium charged and paid in advance; and in so far as said premium or bonus so charged and paid in addition to dues and interest, shall be in excess of two dollars for each periodical payment, the same shall be lawful, any law, usage or custom to the contrary notwithstanding. It shall also be lawful for any mutual savings fund or building and loan association to charge and deduct interest in advance, in lieu of premiums for preference or priority of right to a loan: Provided, That the certificate of incorporation of each association hereafter to be incorporated, and the certificate provided in section 9 of this act for those heretofore incorporated, shall set forth whether the premium or bonus bid for the prior right to a loan shall be deducted therefrom in advance or paid in periodical instalments, or whether interest in advance shall be deducted from the loan in lieu of premium or bonus.

SEC. 2. Stockholders withdrawing voluntarily, shall receive such proportion of the profits of the association or such rate of interest as may be prescribed by the bylaws, any law or usage to the contrary notwithstanding; but payment of the value of stock so withdrawn, shall only be due when the funds now by law applicable to the demand of withdrawing stockholders are sufficient to meet and liquidate the same, and then only in the order of the respective times of presentation of the notices of such withdrawals, which must have been presented in writing at a previous stated meeting, and have been then and there endorsed as to times of presentatation by the officer designated by the by-laws of the association.

SEC. 3 The by-laws may provide for the involuntary withdrawal and cancellation at or before maturity of shares of stock not borrowed on: Provided, That such withdrawal and cancellation shall be pro rata among the shares of the same series of stock: And provided further, That not less than legal interest shall be credited and allowed to each share so withdrawn and canceled.

SEC. 4. A borrower may repay a loan at any time, and in case of the repayment thereof before the maturity of the shares pledged for said loan, there shall be refunded to such borrower (if the premiums, bonus or interest shall have been deducted in advance) such proportions of the premiums, bonus or advance interest bid, as the by-laws may determine: Provided, That in no case shall the association retain more than one hundredth of said premiums or bonus for each calendar month that has expired since the date of the meeting upon which the loan was made, or if interest in advance, it shall retain only the interest due on the loan up to the time of settlement: And further provided, That such borrower shall receive the withdrawing value of the shares pledged for said loan, and the shares shall revert back to the association.

SEC. 5. In case of non-payment of instalments of stock, premiums, dues or interest by borrowing stockholders, for the space of six months, payment of the same, together with the full principal of the loan, may be enforced by proceeding on their securities according to law; and the moneys so recovered shall be paid into the treasury of the association, for such uses (loans or otherwise) as may be deemed proper by the association; and if the said moneys so recovered, together with the withdrawal value of the shares of such defaulting borrower, shall exceed the amount it would have required, according to the preceding section, to have voluntarily repaid the loan, together with all the expenses incurred by the association, such excess shall be repaid to such defaulting borrower.

SEC. 6. Fines or penalties for the non-payment of instalments of dues, interest and bonus or preinium, shall not exceed two per centum per month on all arrears.

SEC. 7. It shall be lawful for any married woman of full age to hold stock in any

of said saving funds, building or loan associations; and as such stockholder, she shall have all the rights and privileges of other menibers, including the right to borrow money from said associations and bid premiums therefor, and shall also have the right and power to secure such loan by transferfing her said stock or other securities to said association from which the same was borrowed, or by executing bond and mortgage upon her separate real estate to secure said loan: Provided, however, That the husband of such married woman join in the execution of such bond or mortgage; and such married woman shall also have the right to sell, assign and transfer her said stock or withdraw the same, without joining the husband in such transfer or withdrawal; and it shall be lawful for any such saving fund, building or loan association to collect such loans made to such married woman, including the dues, interest, premium and fines, as loans made by such associations to other members are now by law collected, and such stock or interest in such stock, shall not be liable for the debts of any husband of such married woman. SEC. 8. (Relates to taxation on stock and registry.)

SEC. 9. Mutual savings fund or building and loan associations, heretofore incorporated under the provisions of any law shall be entitled to all the privileges, immunities, franchises and powers conferred by this act, and upon filing with the Secretary of the Commonwealth a certificate of their acceptance of the same in writing, under the duly authenticated seal of said association, which certificate shall also prescribe their mode or plan of charging premiums, bonus or advance interest as set forth in the first section of this act; and upon such acceptance and approval thereof by the Governor, he shall issue letters patent to said corporation reciting the same. SEC. 10. All laws or parts of laws inconsistent with the provisions of the act are hereby repealed.

MINERS' EARNINGS.

As much inquiry has been made concerning the earnings of miners the following statistics, it is believed, will be welcomed by those who are seeking truth on this subject. The most important question is, what can miners earn who are industrious and able to work whenever employment is offered? and which is answered by showing what the most, and the least, skilful have earned during the year 1888.

The mode of collecting the facts may be briefly explained. A blank was prepared asking the operator of each colliery for the monthly earnings of the ten most skilful and industrious miners for the year 1888, employed in his colliery, and also the number of days they worked, and the same facts were sought with respect to the least skilful. Each operator was also asked to state the number of

days that his colliery was in operation during the year.

The earnings of those who were sick, or who for other reasons worked irregularly were not collected, as they obviously have no bearing on the question. The question is, what can a miner earn if well, and desirous of working whenever he can get employment? If he is sick, or declines to work when employment is offered to him, his earnings can form no standard for measuring the earnings of those who are well and desirous of working whenever they have the opportunity. Nevertheless, in many cases, when trying to ascertain the annual and daily earnings, of workingmen, the method has been pursued on other occasions to ascertain the whole number employed, regularly and irregularly, and also the aggregate amount paid to them, and then to divide the one product by the other. The result is regarded as the average annual earnings per man. And then to ascertain their average daily earnings the aggregate amount paid is divided by the aggregate number of days worked. This easy method is as faulty in giving a true answer to the question as such an easy method of doing a really difficult thing is likely to be. It is easily seen that if the regular and irregular workmen, the most skilful and the least skilful, are all classed together, the average daily and annual earnings will be much too low to represent fairly the earnings of the most skilful and industrious workmen, and too high to represent fairly the earnings of the least skilful and irregular workmen. By using such a method, therefore, a wrong conception is given of the earnings of all classes.

The following tables include very carefully prepared returns from *1 B. STATISTICS.

The

seventy-one bituminous collieries, and forty-five anthracite ones. reason for not giving the returns from a larger number of anthracite collieries is, the operators are fewer in number; and it was not thought needful for those operating a large number of collieries to give returns of all of them, as the same remuneration was paid in all cases for similar work. The returns from both sections are quite enough, it is believed, to serve fairly the purpose of the investigation. The aggregate earnings of the 710 bituminous coal miners, in 71 collieries, who are classed as the most skilful, representing those who earned the largest amounts in such collieries, were $394,077.81, or $465.27 per man. The aggregate earnings of the 450 anthracite coal miners in 45 collieries, who are classed as the most skilful, representing those who earned the largest amounts in such collieries, were $330,327.80, or $734.06 per man. The average daily earnings of the former class were $1.96, and the average days each miuer worked was 237.70. The average daily earnings of the anthracite coal miners were $2.98 per man, and the average number of days each miner worked was 246.17. Several explanations may now be made.

First. These statistics deal with contract miners, who embrace nearly all engaged in mining coal. They are paid by the ton. Occasionally, they will work when the colliery is not in operation, which is the explanation for their working time exceeding that of the colliery.

Second. In the lower anthracite region the months of January and February, 1889, were substituted for the corresponding months of last year, because the miners had stopped to adjust their terms of employment. As they had ceased of their own accord, and not because the operators had closed their collieries, it seemed best to take a continuous year that was as free from strikes as possible. If a miner cannot work steadily through the action of his employer, then he may be justified in ascribing the smallness of his earnings, if they are small, to his employer; but if he does not work in consequence of sickness, disinclination or unwillingness, he cannot charge the smallness of his earnings to the conduct of his employer, so far as time of employment is concerned. Whether the rate paid is what it ought to be is a distinct matter. The question, therefore, asked at the outset, what can a miner earn during the year, might be thus amended, what can he earn if losing no time by striking, sickness or unenforced idleness; and to answer this question correctly, of course the calculation should be made for a year, if possible free from strikes.

Third. It may be asked are the average earnings of the skilful and industrious miners in all the collieries as large as those above given? In other words, can the skilful and industrious miner earn as much usually as those have earned whose earnings are given in these tables? This question can be answered with a considerable degree of exactness by giving a few figures. The average days worked by the

was 237.70. The average days in all the bituminous collieries ope rated in 1888 was 203.45; in 1887, 208 52. *

The average days worked by the most skilful and industrious an thracite miners in the forty-five collieries, for which returns are given, was 246.17 days. The anthracite collieries in operation in 1888 averaged 214.14 days; in 1887, 199.03. Add to the days the collieries were in operation during the years mentioned, the days in which the collieries were not in operation, in consequence of strikes,* and the annual average doubtless would not be far from the average the collieries were in operation described in the tables. It may be added that, except in a few cases, even the best workmen might have earned more as their time of employment was less than that of the colliery in which they were employed.

Fourth. It may be asked what proportion of the miners in a colliery are skilful and industrious, and who thus receive the highest reward. A superintendent of two collieries had partly made this calculation to answer the question for himself, and his calculation completed as far as practicable by the Bureau, is given in the following table. (For tables see pages B 112-122). First Mentioned Colliery.

A general strike in the bituminous region lasted from May 1, 1887, to June 12, 1887, or 35 working days.

The last strike in the lower anthracite region lasted 57 days, from December 27, 1887, to February 21, 1838; 53 days, therefore, were in 1888.

Average monthly

earnigs of