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Show llSlJ IVance Faces lUl f !i Revolution f At Montceau, a mining town in the center of France, 8,000 miners were divided into two camps Chose who wanted to work, and those who wanted want-ed to prevent themwrites a Paris correspondent. corre-spondent. For some time their only weapons had been sticks and stones. Then a Paris paper of the Red Socialist Social-ist propaganda offered a novel premium premi-um to its readers and distributers; for every fifteen copies of the paper, bought, plus eight francs cash, it offered of-fered a remodeled Gras or Chassepot rifle. The striking miners of Montceau saw in these rifles a new means to persuade their weaker brethren. They began to send for them in quantity. The working miners instead of being intimidated by these preparations, began be-gan ordering rifles for thems'ilves from the same accommodating Socialistic paper. There was any quantity of these rifles in Paris, old Gras and Chassepot of at Commentry, Carmaux and De-cazeville. De-cazeville. Before the government had taken any notice of this extraordinary traffic, 7,000 rifles had been admittedly hidden away by the men of Montceau alone; while the clandestine arsenals of Saint-Etienne and Carmaux are rumored ru-mored to contain as many more. The true figures, however, cannot be known until the dawning of the dark day when the weapons shall be used. There are agitators who boast that the miners of , the north are also fully armed. One thing is certain; the supply sup-ply of Gras and Chassepot rifles has been practically inexhaustible, the government having in the past three years auctioned off 100,000 of these obsolete models dating from the Franco-Prussian war. While all this was going on, while the magistrates (juges d'instruction) of Paris were refusing to prosecute the venders on the ground that the re- general strike the long-threatened strike of the Federation. The three demands made on the government gov-ernment will show how far organized labor has gone in France (1) the establishment es-tablishment (by government) of a minimum salary; (2) old-age pensions of two francs per day after twenty-five years of work, without regard to age, and (3) an eight hour working day. The old-age pensions are notoriously undergoing a course of "study" in the proper governmental circles. A beginning be-ginning was made in the law of May 29, 1894, and the best opinion is that the miners will have to await, with the other brethren, the general granting of this boon until it is discovered dis-covered where the money is to come from. With regard to the eight-hour working day there is no consensus of opinion among the miners themselves, 100,000 out of 160,000 of them "having refused, when solicited, to vote upon it. If the mipimum day's pay could be secured the eight-hour working day would come in handy, but as there is no real hope that the government could succeed in dictating fixed expenses ex-penses to mine owners, even should it be willing to undertake the novel task, the eight-hour working day remains one of the enigmas of the industry. Besides this, great masses of miners, especially in the more prosperous . localities, prefer not to be bound down to rigid hours. They vote with the federation, or abstain from voting, but their interest urges them the other way. Such was the case of the miners of Montceau before the strike of 1899, and such is the case of the non-strikers, called "The Yellows," of today. ' The government has at last taken a firm hand and whenever the Reds store an abundance of rifles a raid by gendarmes gen-darmes (French military police) is sure to follow. Several seizures have already been reported. In some cases individuals bearing arms are being notified to deliver them to the government govern-ment officers under penalty of death. The individuals are generally complying comply-ing with the order but it requires force in cases where the revolutionists maintain main-tain arsenals. , WjMf Fill I ' PEUVSRr OF THE SIZEDSIFI.E3 TO THE 3ENPARnERIE"J models, condemned by the war department depart-ment and sold at auction for a few francs 'each to speculators. These latter lat-ter had remodeled them, suppressing the rifle-thread and modifying the cartridge; but this did not prevent their being able to send a bullet through a thick plank at 150 yards. The Socialist committee of Saint-Etienne Saint-Etienne another mining center began be-gan buying them at wholesale from modeled rifles were not technically "arms of war," and while the prefect of the Saone-and-Loire was tranquilly neglecting to take notice of the arming, arm-ing, nine men had met together in the private room of a wine shop of Saint-Etienne. Saint-Etienne. They were Bexant and Ev-rard, Ev-rard, delegates from the north and, the Pas-de-Calais; Joucaviel and Cha-brolin, Cha-brolin, from Carmaux and d'Alais, to represent the south; Merzet and Girar- I f ffA SEIZURE Of ARMS (HI rb l AT A RAILWAY STATION B th speculators. The Socialist newspaper news-paper continued to do a roaring trade, not only with the strikers "of Montceau but with their correspondents in the center, the north and the south of France. At Saint-Etienne, a one-time Protestant pastor, became be-came a fervent anarchistic agitator, agi-tator, got possession of some thousands of them. These, with fine anarchist impartiality, he sold or gave away to the non-striking miners of Montceau. Another lot he dinosed det, sent by the federation of the Loire; Buvat and the Citizen Buisson nier, standing for the center, and Citizen Citi-zen Cotte, general secretary. These nine men as delegates to the National Federation of Miners, claim to speak for 160,000 fellow workingmen and voters. Besides clearing off their regular regu-lar three months' accumulation of routine rou-tine business, they had to demand three great things of the government and fix a date for that most redoubtable redoubt-able of all labor demonstrations, a |