[Illustration:  ICE BOAT RACES ON THE MUEGGELSEE, NEAR BERLIN.]

These vessels are quite simple in construction, the base consisting of an equilateral triangle made of beams and provided at the corners with runners.  The two front runners are fixed, but the one at the apex of the triangle is pivoted, and serves as a rudder.  The mast is on the front cross beam, and between the front cross beam and the side beams sufficient space is left for the helmsman.

The annexed cut, taken from the Illustrirte Zeitung, shows a race of the above described ice boats on the Mueggelsee (Mueggel Lake), near Berlin.  It will be seen from the clumsy construction of the boats that the Germans have not yet learned the art of building these vehicles.

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LABOR AND WAGES IN AMERICA.

[Footnote:  A paper recently read before the Society of Arts, London.]

By D. PIDGEON.

The United States of America are, collectively, of such vast extent, and, singly, so individualized in character, that to speak of their labor conditions as a whole would be as impossible, in an hour’s address, as to describe their physical geography or geology in a similar space of time.  I shall, therefore, confine what I have to say this evening on the subject of labor and wages in America to a consideration of the industrial condition of certain Eastern States, which, being essentially manufacturing districts, offer the best instances for comparison with the labor conditions of our own country.  That this field is of adequate extent and of typical character may be inferred from the fact that the three States composing it, viz..  New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, contain together nearly one-half of the whole manufacturing population of America, while Connecticut and Massachusetts are the very cradle of American manufacture, and the home of the typical Yankee artisan.  In addition, the State of Massachusetts is distinguished by possessing a Bureau of Statistics of Labor, whose sole business is to ventilate industrial questions, and to collect such facts as will afford the statesman a sound basis for industrial legislation.  We shall find ourselves, in the sequel, indebted for spine of our chief conclusions to this excellent public institution.

If we ask ourselves, at the outset of the inquiry, “Who and what are the operatives of manufacturing America?” the answer involves a distinction which cannot be too strongly insisted upon, or too carefully kept in mind.  These people consist, first, of native-born, and, secondly, of alien workers.  The United States census, reckoning every child born in the country as an American, even if both his parents be foreigners, I would make it appear that only six and a half millions out of its fifty millions are of alien birth, but, for our purpose, these figures are misleading.  There is a vast difference, in