212 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 



work which the pampered laborers of Issoire had 

 refused. 



The coming of the Jonas men was a great sur- 

 prise in Issoire, and gave rise to much hard feeling. 

 The workmen who were idle met them with eggs 

 and cabbages, and some of them even carried 

 bricks. But the gendarmes were on the side of 

 the Confidence Society, and they protected the 

 new men from any serious harm. So the mob 

 followed sulkily in the rear, shouting, "Rats! 

 rats ! " It sounded like " Rah, rah ! " for this is 

 the way the French peasantry pronounce the word 

 which we call " rats." 



Winter was now approaching, and the discharged 

 boot-makers of Issoire found their condition daily 

 more and more unpleasant. They had an associa- 

 tion among themselves called the " Chevaliers of 

 Industry." The big Jacques was master-workman, - 

 and they met in the cafe of the Lion d'Or to dis- 

 cuss matters of common interest. They had a 

 good deal to say of the power of organized labor, 

 the encroachments of capital, and maintained that 

 the value of all things is due solely to the labor 

 which is put upon it. The so-called raw material, 

 land, air, water, grass, cowhide, shoe-pegs, all 

 these are God's bounty to men. No one should 

 arrogate these to himself, and all should be as free 

 as air. All else in value labor has given. Capital, 

 the interloper, has unjustly taken the lion's share, 

 and left a pittance to labor. What capital has 

 thus taken is ours, for we have made it. Then the 

 speaker referred to the snug little capital which 

 the President of the Confidence Society had laid 



