The Labour troubles in America grow worse instead of better.
During the past week there have been outbreaks both among the miners of the Southern, and the railway poiutsmen of the Eastern States. The State of Tennessee, which is poor, practises a barbarous plan adopted in many of the Southern States, and puts up the labour of its convicts to auction, thus leasing out batches of criminals to the highest bidders. The Tennessee Coal and Iron Company uses a good deal of this convict labour in its pits, the convicts being kept in a stockade under guard. Not, perhaps, unnaturally, the non-criminal miners object to the competition of what is virtually slave labour. They have accordingly endeavoured to drive out the convicts, and in doing so a good deal of fighting has taken place. Since, however, the wires in the district have been cut, it is very difficult to realise exactly what has happened. It would seem, however, that in at least two instances the stockades have been carried by the miners, and the convicts sent off in trains seized for the purpose by armed men. The strike of pointssmen has resulted in a series of conflicts between the strikers and the men who have taken their places. Besides, there have been incendiary fires, and many outrages on the property of the Companies.
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