THE PEONAGE CHARGE. The "startling" news emanating last w6ok from Chicago which asserted that there was a stockade where laborers were illegally detained, located at a place called Summit, thirty miles from that city, should really startle no one. They exist all over the country, regardless of any certain state, only in more or less aggravated or modified forms. The kernel of the. whole matter is as follows, and the statements we can vouch for: About one year ago, maybe, a little less, a large corporation decided to erect a massive plant for the purpose of manufacturing glue or beet sugar, we are not positive which. But no matter; it does not pertain to the essence of the narrative. The place selected for the projected establishment was-Summit, was-Summit, located about fifteen miles from Chicago, and not thirty, as alleged in the newspaper reports. re-ports. After the specifications, had been formulated formu-lated and the camp located, comprising a large boarding house and sleeping accommodations for a goodly number of men, and a fetfee erected enveloping en-veloping the whole place, one of the most dastardly dastard-ly .and inhuman conceptions for the robbery of the blood and sweat of labor was put in operation. The contemptible idea was this: That labor agent3 in various vicinities throughout the country should be informed that toilers, mostly unskilled, were needed in large numbers. The pay.was stipulated to be $1.65 per day of ten hours, and board $5 a week. Men vere shipped there from several large cities and a $2 fee deducted from their pay. When the laborers reached the plant they discovered the meanest kind of food, the hardest species of taskmasters now extant (and many such are sought by large companies because of their reputation as "drivers") and the most laborious sort of toil. I can be seen that the weekly wage was and the first seven days' expense, including office ice. was $7. So it can be observed that after the first hixty hours of' grinding work the employe had the magnificent sum of $2.00 earned. But had he. There were other expenses, unjustly levied, such as exorbitant prices in the commissary. If an employe em-ploye purchased a 50-ceiit shirt it cost him a dollar; dol-lar; a $2 pair of shoes, &.5U; and so on with every necessity. But the fearfulest and wickedest part of the whole dirty business is yet to be told. Some of the bosses or, more properly speaking, slave drivers had a secret conipaet with many of the employment office managers whereby the $2 .fa- way divided between them. Whether this entente en-tente cordiale was known by those higher up cannot can-not be asserted positively, but it van be sieged that they were and are criminally indifferent. This agreement between the foremen and the employment employ-ment shark made it extremely urga.t for the former for-mer to get rid of men as soon as all their expenses wore earned, thereby filling their own pockets with the fee money of unfortunate human beings, whose only fault, was poverty! The peculiar climate that prevails in Chicago and the surrounding country makes it absolutely impossible to work out. doors six complete days in the week, and so, for fear that any men might decamp in debt to the company through becoming disheartened at. the discouraging conditions prevailing, pre-vailing, armed sentries were 'placed at the entrances en-trances and exits. In spite of all precautions, quite a number of men tunneled their way to freedom beneath the walls of this twentieth century criminal crim-inal stockade! 9 Do the people who read this imagine that such dreadful conditions obtain only at Summit i Disabuse Dis-abuse your minds immediately. They exist in similar manner everywhere in America. Every summer the Chicago k Xorthwesteru railroad places boarding cars at different towns along its road wherein men are housed and fed while relaying steel or .spacing ties. The .contract for boarding these hundreds of men is let by the company to private individuals; consequently the food is of the poorest quality, the pay sometimes $1.50 and again $1.75 per day; living expenses. $4 per week; and all clothing covetously raised in price! At one such camp last summer, situated thirty-five miles from Chicago, on the above mentioned men-tioned railroad, two men stopped and asked for work, having walked nearly half the distance because be-cause they had observed the name of the town on the signs outside the employment offices in Chicago, Chi-cago, but did not have the necessary fee in order to be sent out. There were about eighty men employed em-ployed at the place and more were needed, but the foreman, an employe of the railroad himself, refused re-fused to put them to work because they had not been shipped out by the office leech. Out at Peru. Wyo., last year there was a private pri-vate contractor helping to double track the Union Pacific railroad who had bullies employed as foremen, fore-men, striking and intimidating the men. And if any of the unfortunates left before a specified time they were not given any Avages at all! These are only a few of the terrible abuses fhe American workingman has to bear all over this beautiful land today. Yet multitudes upon multitudes mul-titudes assert there are no justice and retribution beyond the grave. There are more devils in hell and on earthy living amongst you. than you ever dreamed of in all your science and philosophy.