[62]
[Illustration: COUNTRIES FROM WHICH THE SLAVS COME]
[Sidenote: The Slavs in the Mines]
The Slav immigration is of comparatively recent date. Before 1880 it was
unnoticeable. A small number of Bohemians and Poles had come, settling
in the larger cities. But suddenly the thousands began to pour in.
Demand for cheap labor in the coal fields of Pennsylvania drew this
class, and presently the American, Canadian, English, Welsh, Irish,
Scotch, and German mine-workers found themselves being supplanted by the
men from Austria-Hungary and Russia--men who were mostly single and
alone, who could live on little, eat any sort of food, wear any kind
of clothes, and sleep in a hut or store-house, fourteen in a room. Of
course the home of the English-speaking miner, with its carpet on the
best room, its pictures and comforts, had to go, as did the miner and
his wife and children, also the school and the church--for how could
these stay when the Slav, homeless and familyless, could bunk in with a
crowd anywhere, or build himself a hillside hut out of driftwood, and
subsist on from four to ten dollars a month. The one conspicuous thing
about the Slav was his ability to save money.
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