Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-03-14
|, 1894, by Edgar w. Nye. ]

IN THE BELFRY.
 ent time with horror. I went through the largest cotton mill in the world last week. It is a marvel of ingenuity and power. The river turns these millions of spindles, and machinery makes it pos sible for one man to do the work former ly done by 2,000 women. What is to be | the result at last of this machinery ad- vancement and perfection? Isn't that | throwing the laboring classes out of work more than the tariff tinkering? All cotton goods are made here, from the coarse grain bag up to the beautiful white and crinkled seersucker which adorns the glorious form of the summer girl.
 Below you can start in with the big, silent water wheel and go on up to where hundred thousand delicate threads are put into one, and above that the giant bell which tells the noon hour and the labor day off into sections. 1 went up into the belfry to see this big Ben of the Androscoggin mills. 1 had to climb a long ladder through dark skylight, and for comfort I had worn high hat. Up in the belfry I strengthened out my hat and stood on the icy comb of the roof while the wind blew through the whis- kers of a man who had been secured for that purpose.
 never saw a finer sight than the view of Nova Scotia from this belfry on a keen, cold winters day, while off to the northward and eastward Labrador could be seen. and back of it the aurora bore alis reflected from the redhOt journal on which the earth revolves at the north pole.
 This mill takes the raw cotton as it comes from the iron jaws of the big con- press and turns it into a million beau tiful fabrics. The man who falls into the carder at the ground floor will find himself in a counterpane on the top floor Eff he don't watch out"
 Mir. Bean, who operates this giant mill, showed us over it and explained all the complicated machinery, so that I could build mill just exactly like it now if I did not have so many other things to do. But he advised me not to do so, for with the dull times and appre- hension everywhere a funny paper in London would pay better than cotton mill does now.
 Maine, too, looks with great grief up on the prospect of having free lumber admitted across the Canadian border, where wages are very low and pine un- limited.
 The pulp mills of Maine are a great branch of industry and utilize many kinds of wood which otherwise would not be of use at all. Inside of 24 hours spruce tree now may return to Port land in the form of the Boston Sunday Globe-that is, mean if the tree should be large enough. Of course you couldn't make Sunday paper out of scrub tree.
 Aside from all these other industries, it is estimated that from $7,50O,O00 to SIC, ,000 come in each year from the summer boarder and sportsman. I met the proprietor of hotel on Marble head lake the other day, and he told me that he kept 30 guides all summer and as many canoes, and the ideal trip now consists of paddling from the head of Moosehead lake for over 300 miles to St. Johns through the virgin forest. There is really no game preserve that has the flavor of the Maine pre- serves. The log jam and game preserve in Maine are such we'll known delicacies that 1 need not pause here to dilate upon them.
 The Maine liquor law is always 8 very interesting cadaver to me. In fact, I have roamed around the charnel house of dead prohibitory measures for several years in various states. They simply make drinking inconvenient and breed more ruinous breed of rum.
 In Lewiston the gin palaces are under aA~ l,1x known only to members in good stand ing" leads to the interior, with ever and anon door marked "pull" when it means push" and push" when it means to the initiated pull" This confuses the officer, so that by the time he gets in fairly the decanters have been emptied down the sink, followed by an acid which removes all traces, even of the odor. 4 guard is above both day and night, whose duty it is to press the but ton when the sheriff enters, and when he gets at last through this devious way he finds the bartender engaged in lathering and shaving customer or shampooing him with bottle of Angostura bitters.
 Liquor is shipped all over Maine in- side of molasses and sugar barrels, in to- bacco boxes and inside of big boxes os- tensibly containing mill supplies and machinery. Bangor openly sells all sorts of liquor and Is considered. the smartest city in Maine. In Portland the office of sheriff is said to be worth 50,O0O The sheriff manufactures a cigar which he sells to those who also sell rum. But he raids these places regularly. It is an exciting spectacle to see the sheriff with his foam fiecked steed flying toward liquor joint of which he has just heard. He has loud, vociferous chime of bells on his foam fecked steed, and when he gets to the door of the rum palace he climbs out, carefully blankets his horse, "trigs' the sleigh runner SO that he can not back up, ties the steed in several in tricate knots and enters the place. By that time the place is swept and gar nished, for the sheriff has to get the frost out of his whiskers, and that takes time also.
 So all is nice and legal there. He sells the proprietor 8 thousand of his Stench- CTS cigars, eats 20 cents worth of cloves, empties the silver dish of calamtis root into his pocket and then goes away to raid another sink hole of iniquity and sell it some Cold alaw cigars,
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