The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-06-30

Jersey City in the early morning west
ward TO the coal region Of western Penn
SYN anIa Eearly all the pas jengers are
young and most of them are single, saws
the Missouri Sun. They are the youth
and strength of the overstocknd labor
markets of Austro- Hungary, Russia.
Italy and a score of minor European prin-
c1palities come to dig out fortunes in the
land where the cobbleStones are gold and
folks eat meat at every meal, as every
body In those countries well knows The
men are sLrong end bronzed ard the girls
are plump and rosy-cheeked. If these
are the off ccGurings of Europe, as some
people say, then Europe at casual
glance should be exceedingly healthy,
and her off-scourlngs, developed in a
freer air and Under changed social con-
ditions should produce astonishing re-
suits in the competition between the old
world and the new.
In every trainload there are a few
women, and nearly all the women are
young. One woman to every five men
seems to be the usual proportion They
sit by themselves, looking out half
frightened and wholly curious upon the
new wonders which every turn of the
railroad reveals, their crimson, blue and
orange colored hoods the only bright spot
in the dingy immigrant ca, and each
rosy-cheahed, strong "aisted girl is the
heroine of a little romance of her own,
Tor she is on her wedding journey to
meet bridegroom whom she has never
seen o 1t who, she has been assured is
rich-strong and handsome, ardent and
kind, and, best of all able to provide for
her as o1ly the richest girls in the village
she has left behind could expect there.
and willing perhaps in the distant future
to take her back home rich to queen 1t
over the more timorous and less for
tunate friends she has left behind
In the coal region there nourishes a
marriage bureau and these girls are the
merchandise it deals in It IS a money
making business ard some Of it's agents
are making thousands of dollars a year;
yet nobody finds the least fault with It,
least of all the men who through It's
agency purchase wives and with them
found above the coal mines homes in
which are brought into the world chill
dren who will become American citizens
Of the next generation. In turn these
children win send their children to Amer
lean schools and this second generation
grow UP with only a trace Of sympathy
with the Russia or Hungary their grand
mothers are leaving behind as fifty dollar
brides now.
Fifty dollars is the usual price for a
wife. Times have been good in the last
Western Pennsylvania. There are $1,000
foreigners there, most Of them SINGLE
and now brides are going out there by
the dozen every week. Prosperity is too
good for the unmarried immigrant to en-
joy by himself and the first thing he
thinks of Is a wife.
The matrimonial agent encourag him.
He is a keen business man, this agent He
knows every Hun and Polak and Slav
the place he has settled in; knows the
size of his savings bank account and his
weekly wages; knows whether he is mar
ried, in love or fancy free, thinking Of
a girl in the old country or of bringing
over other members Of his family. Usu-
ally the agent Is banker, steamship agent
railroad agent and matrimonial agent as
well, and the business Of all these agen-
cies goes hand in hand.
AS soon as the agent knows that an
unmarried miner has 800 or $500 saved
he begins to talk matrimony to him
Life Is good in the coal country, but
not bachelors life. It is best to get
away from the company's boarding house
into a little home of his own, with a
strong, blacl1-eyed girl at the head of
the table and by and by with little chill
dren to climb on the knee.
1t is true that there aren't such girls
in the coal country to be had for the
asking. but that's nothing. The agent
can see to that. Back in the old country
there are plenty of them, ready and will
ing to marry the man who will pay their
way out to the new country and treat
them right.
It's simply matter Of putting up the
money. SIS for a steamship ticket and
say s25 more for incidental expenses and
the agents trouble, and fine girl will
come out TO lonely John or Anton and
make him good wife. Pay the money
and she'll be delivered in a month or six
weeks at most.
1t isn't long before Anton IS convinced
The barrenness of life in the miners
boarding houses helps to decide the prob
lem in the agents favor. So the money
is paid over, and the next six weeks are
spent by Anton in sprucing up and wait
ing. Then she arrives, for the agent
never fails to deliver the goods on time.
His partner away off in Europe has seen
to that and often his task has been
even easier than that Of the American
member of the firm.
1t seems easy to persuade the girls in
the overcIowded marriage mart of South
eastern Europe to take a chance on a
good homo and q fine husband In the
new world. Often the bride-to-be has
never left her native village or known