The Title Market

by Emily Post

Then, briefly as possible, he went on to outline his system of mining. There was no necessity, he said, for miners to descend below the surface of the earth, and he would need only a dozen men—instead of the many workers, including women and children, that were now employed. To Derby's surprise, the old man seemed troubled.

"I grow old, Signore; one does not easily take in new ideas! By your method—am I right?—you will employ a dozen men in place of a hundred. That troubles me, though your plan seems good. If there are but a small handful needed, it must put the others out of work. The mines are hard. A harder existence cannot well be imagined—but the good God must know it is for the best, since he allows it to continue. To be sure," he interrupted himself sadly, "he calls them to him soon!"

"You mean they die young in the mines? That is what I have been told."

"Yes, Signore, in their twenty-eighth year the people are at the end of life; at the age of twelve they are already stooped and wrinkled old men and women. For the children it is most terrible; it is they who climb up the high ladders out of the pits in the earth—it gives one a foretaste of inferno to see such things. Cosi Dio, m' ajuti, it is true! Yet so they live—otherwise they must die. What can we do? Since the Santa Maria does not intervene, the poor must work or starve. They have not the money to go away to the country beyond the sea, to America, the land of plenty! If some of the rich abundance might be brought to my people——" He shook his head, looking, it seemed, beyond the white walls of the room, as though he saw a vision.

Then slowly, carefully, Derby explained. It was to bring some of the customs of the land of plenty that he had come. He would pay the men—the father, the brother, the big son—more money than had been earned hitherto by the whole family. No, His Eminence did not understand—the work was not to be harder, but easier! And for the reason that he had already explained: Machinery would take the place of children's hands; steel pipes, and not human beings, would descend into the stifling fumes. He wanted to get a few intelligent men to go with their families to the deserted village clustered about the "Little Devil."

Still the old man sat, looking straight before him.

"All that you tell me, Signore," he said at last, his voice echoing a sweetness, a cheerful patience that was doubtless the keynote to his nature—"it all sounds very beautiful; but, indeed, it cannot be! The great Duke Scorpa has given the matter much thought. The mine owners cannot pay the people more—there is scarcely any profit as it is. The duke has often told me this himself, so I know it to be true."

Derby thereupon said that the great Duke Scorpa had doubtless done everything possible, and that under the old method there had been no help for the conditions, but—and again he expressed himself as clearly as possible—with the new method and with machinery, one man could do the work of many. So the wages might be trebled and yet the mines be made to pay.

As Derby talked, a faint color mounted in the cheeks of the archbishop—his eyes grew eagerly wistful, and at last he leaned forward in his chair, his voice almost breathless as he asked, "Can such a thing be true—that in your country the father can earn sufficient that the little children need not work? Ah, Signore—who knows?—who knows?—may be at last the cry of the bambinos has reached the throne of the Santa Vergine!" He sat again silent, but this time with a smile on his lips. Then the old woman appeared in the doorway and the archbishop arose.

"It is the hour for my supper," he said. "I shall esteem it an honor if you will break bread with me." Derby was about to decline, thinking it better to return later, but the manner of the old man left no doubt as to the genuineness of his invitation, and Derby accepted. In the adjoining room a small table was set with very few utensils. Two plates, two forks, two spoons, a cup, and a wine glass apiece—that was all. After the blessing, they were served a frugal meal of bread and goats' milk, a pudding of macaroni, and a plate of figs; there was also wine, acid and thin, which the good Marianna—for so the housekeeper was called—had doubtless pressed herself.