ouse has
a kitchen and cellar. Every morning a woman comes in and prepares a
large kettle of nourishing soup, and at 11 A. M. this is given out to
the sick and poor.

In the store-room are rice, sugar, coffee, meal, and similar articles of
food. From here she sends out at noon such portions as are needed for
the most destitute of the district. In winter she also sells from her
stores to the poor. Then there is a closet amply provided with sewing
materials, and when the deaconess obtains work for seamstresses she
furnishes them at a small price the necessary outfit to begin sewing. At
two o'clock the deaconess ends her duties at the district house, and
spends the remainder of the day in making visits in her quarter. To
provide means to support the constant expenditure, there is in each
quarter of the city a committee of fifteen ladies and three gentlemen,
being in all more than one hundred ladies and twenty gentlemen, who are
responsible for the administration of the charity. Each committee has a
yearly collection in its district, and in this way about forty thousand
francs are gathered annually. In each quarter nine hundred francs (one
hundred and eighty dollars) is set apart for the maintenance of the
sister and the rent of the district house. The remaining sum is expended
by the deaconesses in their several districts in caring for the sick and
destitute. Every month each one receives the sum allotted her from the
treasurer, and in return reports her expenditure. The ladies on the
committee often give personal assistance to the deaconess, and sometimes
assume responsibility for individual cases, or for an entire street. The
arrangements are constantly being improved upon as knowledge is gained
by practice. The experience that has been gathered at Muelhausen is very
practical, and therefore very valuable. Similar work could be undertaken
in any of our large American cities, with the anticipation of like
beneficent results. For that reason the above detailed description has
been ventured upon, with the hope that the Old World example will find
imitators in the New.[43] Similar institutions, although not so
carefully perfected, are found in Gorlitz and Magdeburg.

In Berlin are a good many deaconess institutions. Among them is the
Marthashof, a training-school for servants, and a home for those out of
employment.

The first impulse to care for the girls who come to large cities to
obtain work, and to provide them a hom