their own bread, the building of a new bake ovena small cave in an embankment or hillside often furnishing ample convenience.

Each gang is a racial unit, living in separate cars and usually in a separate camp. Sometimes Bulgarians and Croatians, Croatians and Rumanians and Italians, were found in the same camp, but it seemed that Greeks could not live peaceably with any other race. Croatians and Bulgarians, speaking practically the same language, fraternize readily; but Bulgarians and Rumanians must be kept apart from Greeks, both of the former being secessionists from the Church of the Greek Patriarch, with tendencies anti-fraternal in high degree.

Everywhere the men pay their own living expenses. The companies pay the wages of the cooks, equal to those of the laborers. Fuel, sometimes old ties, sometimes coal, sometimes both, is supplied free. The cooking ranges and the kitchen utensils are bought by the men. The average amount put into the common living fund by each laborer is from $6 to $10 a month. The Croatians seem to live most generously; the Greeks and Bulgarians most plainly. The reputation of the Croatians among the foremen for generous living may rest, however, more on their propensity to use liquor. Only they of all the races are not sober, tho their sprees are periodical rather than continuous. But even the Bulgarians, said to be the most sober, have acquired the almost universal habit of beer drinking.

Working and Living Conditions in the South

The houses occupied by the laborers on construction work throughout the South are of cheap construction and built for only temporary use. The mild climate

does not require houses as closely built as are needed farther north, and tents are often used when the work is of short duration. The houses most frequently seen are shanties built of rough lumber and covered with tar paper. In building them cheapness is the governing principle. A frame-work of scantling is set up, on which boards are nailed vertically, forming the sides, which may or may not be covered with tar paper. Sometimes there are no floors, and the foundation on which the shanty rests is a pile of flat stones or of ends of planks placed under each corner. They are about eight feet high from the floor to the eaves, fourteen feet wide, and from fourteen to sixty feet long. They usually have a comb roof of about four feet pitch, which gives more air space than the flat tops which are more rarely found. Bunks built one above the other, against the walls, serve as beds, while a stove in the center furnishes both cooking and heating accommodations. All bedding is supplied by the men, and consists in most cases of a pile of straw, obtained from a nearby farm, sometimes in a filthy case, and often lying loose in the bunk.

From twenty to thirty men occupy a bunk-house fifty feet long. Cooking is done on the stoves in the houses in winter; in summer out-of-doors, or in little huts built by the men themselves. Where the work is double-tracking, box cars placed on a temporary track near the work and fitted up as camp cars are used. These cars have a stove in the center, a double deck of berths at either end, and windows about eighteen inches square are cut in either side. In the cases where a married man, usually a foreman, is among the immigrants, the house is of a better grade. Altho built of the same material as the shanties, they are more closely

built and are usually lined with paper. The general plan followed is a three-room, one-story house, one room being used for cooking and dining, and the remaining two as living and sleeping-rooms.

The majority of the immigrants do their own cooking, each man for himself, or else they form groups of five to ten, and the men take turns in doing the cooking for the others in the group. There are a few boarding places on the American plan, but these are rare, and are always where there is a foreign foreman with his family on the work. An occasional boarding group is found where all the men buy their own provisions, each man for himself, having it cooked by the woman who conducts the house, and who charges the men $2.50 for cooking and washing. ! This custom is found more widely among the Croatians. Of all the different methods, individual cooking is the most prevalent. The cost of living is about $10 per man for the Croatians, for a month, and the same for the Slovaks, and from $5 to $7 for the Italians. The Italians live mainly upon bread, macaroni and bologna sausage, which accounts for the extremely low cost of their maintenance. At their noon meal, on the work, a whole gang may be seen eating simply a loaf of bread and a pickle or a piece of bologna sausage. At night they cook a stew made of macaroni, tamales, and potatoes and a small scrap of meat. For breakfast they have bread and coffee and bologna sausage. When not working the majority of the Italians eat only two meals a day. The other foreign races eat meat for both supper and breakfast in addition to a good deal of canned food.

The Commissary in Southern Camps

The commissary, on construction work in the South, is an important part of the industry. In many cases the whole profit is from this source. In former years, when the negro was practically the only laborer, it was not unusual for a contractor to take work at cost, or even less, depending on the commissary for his profits. As the foreign laborer has been substituted for the negro, this custom has become less and less prevalent, as its existence depends upon the expenditures of the laborers. Many of the larger Southern contracting firms have abandoned the commissary as a source of profit, since employing foreigners, and maintain it only as a convenience. This has given an opening for the padrones, who are becoming more and more numerous in Southern construction work. The negroes are by far the best customers in the commissary. They are generally unmarried men with no responsibilities, roaming from one place to another, spending their entire earnings in the commissary. They often cash the wages due them at a discount, and then spend the money before leaving the commissary. The Croatians are good livers in comparison with the other foreign races, and they do not stint themselves in food or drink. The negroes spend their surplus, above what is needed for food, for gaudy clothes and patent-leather shoes, but the Croatians spend theirs for beer, or for such substitute for that beverage as may be had at the commissary. Altho extravagant, they do not spend so much as the negroes, who loiter about the commissaries looking for something for which to spend their money. The Croatians know what they want and buy it freely, but if there is a surplus of their wages it is

saved. The Italians, living as they do, very cheaply, buy little from the commissaries.

In a general way the laborers are required to patronize the commissaries. If a wholesale boycott of the commissaries by the laborers were to take place, there is no doubt that they would be replaced by others who would patronize the stores. In localities where other stores are convenient there is a good deal of buying at these other stores, especially when labor is scarcer than work, and the men feel more independent. The men, both negroes and foreigners, understand that they will be more likely to be employed on other work if they deal at the commissaries instead of at other stores. In isolated districts, where no other stores are convenient, the men must necessarily patronize the commissaries altho the prices are high. The chief method of securing the patronage of the laborers is that of "paying off." The men are paid only once a month. This of itself has a great deal of influence in the direction of extravagance. A man coming into camp on the first of the month will not be paid until about the 20th of the following month. He must have food and clothes and is credited for only as much as is due him on the time books, unless he be an old employee who has worked for the company before and can be trusted. If he should leave before pay-day, his time is cashed with 10 per cent. deducted, or he may take it in supplies at the commissary, subject to no discount from what is due him.

DETENTION PRACTISES

The detention of laborers in the camps is practised to some extent wherever the contractor advances transportation for men brought on the work. While the