[Illustration: "'YOU ARE AMERICANO, ARE YOU NOT? YOUR LAND HAS DONE MUCH
FOR MY PEOPLE!'"]
"I have come, your Eminence," said Derby, going to the point at once,
"to work the 'Little Devil' mine." Before the archbishop could utter a
protest, he continued very quickly and distinctly: "I know just such
mines as that which are being operated now without danger or suffering
to the miners."
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.
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