MOLLY MAGUIRES, a secret order which existed in 1854-77, and probably still. -exists, in the anthracite coal mining region of north-eastern Pennsylvania. Here 400 collieries employed 60,000 men; Americans, Germans, Welshmen, Englishmen, and Swedes comprising one-half the number, the remainder being Irish. Among the latter half originated, in the locality named, the order of Molly Maguires, a branch of the " ribbonmen" of Ireland. The order, however, had a much wider existence, and is alleged to have been affiliated with the "ancient order of Hihernians," elsewhere a peaceable and reputable organization. Until 1865 and '66 the order of Molly Maguires had not become generally known for the murders and other brutalities which then dis tinguished it. In 1875, having gained control of a combination which forced a general strike in the coal-regions, it succeeded in obtaining an ascendency in the councils of the miners, and from that period was prominent in assassinations and other outrages, com mitted usually on the persons and against the property of justices of the peace, police officers, and mining bosses. The number of murders increased between 1869 and '71, and fell off after the latter year, and until that of the great strike of 1875. According to sonic of those who made an investigation into the antecedents of the Molly Maguires, they originated in the trade-unions, and not in the A. 0. H. or among the ribbonmen. None but Catholic Irishmen or their descendants were admitted to membership: the order was organized in divisions, each having a chief official known as a "body-master;" and there were signs nnapasswordsto enable membersto.distinguish each other. These
.,signs and passwords '-ivere `giien to the members by the body-masters, who received them from the county delegate, who got them from the state delegate, to whom they were furnished by the national delegate or national board in New York city : to the latter they came quarterly from Ireland, by the hands of the steward of one of the transatlantic steamships. A central and governing known as "The Board of Erin " was said to he the origination of the order, and this held quarterly meetings in England, Scotland, or Ireland. So extended were the ramifications of this order in Pennsylvania, that it was made known during the trials of the Molly Maguires in 1877 that one of their body-masters in the Pottsville district held the high office of county commissioner. The final exposure, capture, and punishment of the Maguires was largely due to the energy and determination of Franklin B. Gowen, president of the Philadelphia and Reading railroad co. and coal co.; through the immediate instrumentality of James McPa•lan, a detective, who joined the Molly Maguires, became acquainted with their members and the secrets of their organization, and was at length enabled to afford infor mation which disclosed the names of criminals connected with a majority of the mur ders committed by the order. A large number were apprehended, tried, and condemned, and their execution—that of a number of them occurring on the same day—so alarmed the members of the order that it ceased to possess any extended influence.