The Illinois Central Railroad has recently put into operation a plan for interesting its employees and also its patrons along the road in investing in the stock of the company on somewhat more advantageous terms than are enjoyed by the general public. A move in this direction was made in May, 1893. The company has put prominently before its employees a practical plan whereby they can save small sums of money from their wages and buy shares of the company's stock. The amounts are deposited with the company to be credited on the purchase of stock, to bear interest while so accumulating at the rate of 4 per cent per annum, and may be withdrawn at any time, with accrued interest, at the option of the depositor. The plan as now in operation was announced to the officers and employees of the railroad in the following circular sent out from the president's office under date of May 25, 1896: ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY. PRESIDENT'S OFFICE, Chicago, May 25, 1896. To OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES OF THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY: Referring to my circular letter of May 18, 1893, outlining the plan for assisting employees of the company to purchase shares of its stock, it is with much gratification that I note their increasing desire to thus identify their interests with those of the company. In order that the plan may be more clearly understood I present it herewith in greater detail. On the first day of each month the company will quote to employees, through the heads of their departments, a price at which their applications will be accepted for the purchase of Illinois Central shares during that month. An employee is offered the privilege of subscribing for one share at a time, payable by installments in sums of $5 or any multiple of $5, on the completion of which the company will deliver to him a certificate of the share registered in his name on the books of the company. He can then, if he wishes, begin the purchase of another share on the installment plan. The certificate of stock is transferable on the company's books, and entitles the owner to such dividends as may be declared by the board of directors and to a vote in their election. Any officer or employee making payments on this plan will be entitled to receive interest on his deposits, at the rate of four per cent per annum, during the time he is paying for his share of stock, provided he does not allow twelve consecutive months to elapse without making any payment, at the expiration of which period interest will cease to accrue, and the sum at his credit will be returned to him on his application therefor. Any officer or employee making payments on the foregoing plan, and for any reason desiring to discontinue them, can have his money returned to him with accrued interest, by making application to the head of the department in which he is employed. An employee who has made application for a share of stock on the installment plan is expected to make the first payment from the first wages which may be due him. Forms are provided for the purpose, on which the subscribing employee authorizes the local treasurer in Chicago, or the local treasurer in New Orleans, or the paymaster or the assistant paymaster to retain from his wages the amount of installment to be credited monthly to the employee for the purchase of a share of stock. In case an employee leaves the service of the company from any cause he must then either pay in full for the share for which he has subscribed and receive a certificate therefor, or take his money with the interest which has accrued. The foregoing does not preclude the purchase of shares of stock for cash. An employee who has not already an outstanding application for a share of stock on the installment plan which is not fully paid for, can in any given month make application for a share of stock for cash at the price quoted to employees for that month, and he can in the same month, if he so desires, make application for another share on the installment plan. Employees who want to purchase more than one share at a time for cash should address the vice-president in Chicago, who will obtain for them from the New York office a price at which the stock can be purchased. Any employee desiring to purchase stock (except in special purchase of more than one share for cash) should apply to his immediate superior officer or to one of the local treasurers. STUYVESANT FISH, President. This opportunity to become part owners in the property of the corporation has been availed of by all classes of employees. On June 30, 1900, 3,090 shares of the company's stock had been purchased and paid for under this plan, the average cost to the purchaser having been $98.13 per share, the market price of the stock at that time being $116. per share. Under date of October 29, 1900, the company reported that 211 employees had made partial payments on account of one share each, those payments aggregating $7,951.80, or an average of $37.69 on each share. Since the shares have gone above par on the market the buying under this plan has fallen off somewhat, probably for the reason that many of the employees have confused shares of $100 each with a promise to pay that sum, and are therefore unwilling to pay more than $100 for a share. The number holding shares under this plan has also decreased since the stock has gone above par by reason of certain holders selling out in order to take the premium and make a profit on their investment. Persons residing along the line have been recently encouraged to take small holdings of stock by virtue of the agreement of the company to carry registered holders of stock to Chicago and back free once a year at the time of the annual meeting. The company is therefore very well satisfied with the tendency to wider distribution of its stock in the hands of small holders, which it believes will promote the business interests of the company. interesting statement, made at the time of the last annual meeting, September 26, 1900, showing the distribution of holdings of stock, is as follows: The capital stock is $60,000,000, divided into 600,000 shares of $100 each. This is represented by certificates for 599,949 full shares and scrip for fractions aggregating 51 shares. The certificates are registered in the names of 6,941 different holders. One of these, the Administration Office, in Amsterdam, has held large blocks of stock for nearly forty years, against which it has outstanding its own receipts, or due bills, good to bearer, which are held by a very large but unknown number of individual proprietors in Holland. There are registered in the name of the Administration Office 39,577 shares. This leaves 560,372 shares in the name of the remaining 6,940 stockholders, as registered on the company's books, the average holding being 80 shares, or $8,074. 100 There are in America 4,350 stockholders, owning 355,227 shares, being 59 per cent of the whole. 21 In each one of the twelve States in which the company runs its trains we have a number of proprietors, ranging from 6 in Nebraska, who own 149 shares, to 879 in Illinois, who own 38,117 shares, or $3,811,700. The certificates of stock are registered as follows: In 6 names, 5,000 shares or over, 12 per cent of the whole.. Total. 78 Shares. 72,057 145, 771 58,406 154, 667 49, 300 119, 748 599, 949 The above statement shows that a decided and growing majority of the stock is held in America, and of all the holdings the majority is held in lots of less than 500 shares ($50,000). The actual number of proprietors is even greater than the statement shows, because each account is treated on the books of the company as one holding, although many such accounts represent executors, trustees, and corporations acting for many individuals. In one sense this experiment of the Illinois Central Railroad, so far as the plan for its employees acquiring holdings is concerned, may be regarded as a profit sharing arrangement. It was doubtless adopted with this motive in view, but the report of its workings to date shows that in reality it is regarded by the employees more as a savings fund. The interest of a holder of one share of stock in the earnings of the corporation is not apt to outweigh very strongly his interests as a wageearner in case of labor disputes, especially if the stock is readily marketable and he can sell without much loss or even at a profit. The plan will become effective in its influence as a preventive of strikes only when the holdings become very much more numerous and larger than at present. Now probably less than 10 per cent of the total number of employees of the railroad hold a share of stock. The Great Northern Railway has also recently inaugurated a plan providing for investments by employees in stock holdings. Ten thousand shares ($1,000,000) were set aside by the directors to be handled by a company known as The Great Northern Employees' Investment Association, Limited. Certificates were issued against these shares in multiples of $10 bearing 7 per cent interest payable in quarterly dividends. Any employee who has been at least three years in the service of the company and who does not receive over $3,000 per annum for his services is eligible to buy these shares. The holders of the shares may withdraw at any time, receiving the full amount of dividends accrued to date. The average market rate of the stock being $155 there seemed at the time of the inauguration of this plan to be ample security for a 7 per cent investment of savings. THE NEGROES OF LITWALTON, VIRGINIA: A SOCIAL STUDY OF THE "OYSTER NEGRO.” BY WILLIAM TAYLOR THOM, PH. D. The present study, made under the direction of the United States Commissioner of Labor in the early months of 1901, is a continuation of "a series of investigations of small, well-defined groups of Negroes in various parts of the country," of which there have already been published The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia, Bulletin of the Department of Labor, No. 14, January, 1898, and The Negroes of Sandy Spring, Maryland, Bulletin No. 32, January, 1901. (a) The Litwalton and Whealton neighborhood lies in Lancaster County, Virginia, on the eastern bank of the Rappahannock River, some 25 miles above its mouth. Whealton is at the mouth of Morattico Creek, which is here the dividing line between Lancaster and Richmond counties. The general line of this creek was followed for several miles easterly, forming the northern boundary of the neighborhood; a turn of some 2 miles to the south gave the eastern boundary, and the southern boundary extended from this point westerly to the Rappahannock again at Deep Creek. This gave an irregular quadrilateral of country about 2 miles wide, fronting on the Rappahannock River and extending back some 5 or 6 miles toward the rising land of the county watershed between the Rappahannock and the Potomac rivers. The hamlet of Litwalton is assumed to be the center of the neighborhood, at the northwestern corner of which is the steamboat landing and oyster shipping village of Whealton. The inhabitants of the neighborhood are chiefly engaged in the oyster industry, and the purpose of this investigation was to study the Negroes of Litwalton neighborhood and Whealton village as excellent types of the "oyster Negroes" of the Chesapeake and its tributaries, since the same general conditions of life obtain here as prevail in varying conditions on both shores of the Chesapeake and as far south as Norfolk. That is to say, aside from fish and oyster interests, the prevailing type of life is agricultural, and the chief agricultural a Other articles relating to the Negro have been published by the Department of Labor, as follows: Condition of the Negro in various cities, Bulletin No. 10, May, 1897; The Negro in the black belt: Some social sketches, Bulletin No. 22, May, 1899, and The Negro landholder of Georgia, Bulletin No. 35, July, 1901. 351-No. 37-01-7 1115 of products are wheat, indian corn, oats, and hay, as they have been for many years since tobacco cultivation was given up. In some of the Chesapeake sections, both of Virginia and of Maryland, the cultivation peas and of small fruits for the city markets has, in part, displaced the usual crops mentioned above. This is also true of the peachgrowing districts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and is, of course, true of the trucking country back from the water around Norfolk. What is said in the following pages would have to be greatly modified to apply to the latter sections with especial force. But it is believed, as the result of inquiries addressed to those in a position to know the various local conditions, that the Litwalton-Whealton neighborhood may be taken as a fair, if somewhat pronounced, type of the condition of the Negroes in this great oyster and fish producing region, in which they are apparently making themselves more permanently at home; but whether in increasing numbers proportionately to the whites is a matter of doubt. When the peanut country of southern Virginia and the cotton region of North Carolina are reached, the agricultural conditions are so changed as to make it doubtful if the conclusions here set forth are applicable. The counties of Virginia and Maryland bordering on the Chesapeake and its oyster-bearing affluents, which this report aims to represent, contained, according to the census of 1890, about 600,000 inhabitants, of whom about 250,000 were Negroes. The total land area is about 11,000 square miles. As appears elsewhere only a certain portion of the territory and of the Negro population are included in this discussion. LANCASTER COUNTY. Lancaster, organized into a county in 1652, is the southernmost county of the famous "northern neck" of Virginia, as for about 250 years that tract of the Old Dominion has been called which begins at Chesapeake Bay and broadens out between the Potomac on the east and the Rappahannock on the west and is bounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, in the northwestern part of the State. The name is usually understood nowadays to apply to the lower part of this territory, washed by the tides in these two majestic streams. The northern neck seems to have been named by way of distinction from the peninsula, beginning farther down the bay between the York and the James, and from the "south side" of the James. The term "neck" is doubtless due to the fact that at one point the waters of the Potomac are divided from those of the Rappahannock by a narrow neck of land only a few miles wide. Lancaster County is bounded on the east by Chesapeake Bay, on the northeast by Northumberland County, on the north by Richmond County, and on the west and south by the Rappahannock River, which |