that Edward Atkinson,
the well-known New England writer, philosopher, and sociologist,
would address the meeting. When I arrived at the house I found
Atkinson in despair. The audience were young ladies in full
evening dress and young men in white vests, white neckties, and
swallow-tails. There was also a band present. We were informed
that this society had endeavored to mingle instruction with
pleasure, and it really was a dancing club, but they had conceived
the idea of having something serious and instructive before the ball.

Mr. Atkinson said to me: "What won me to come here is that in
Boston we have a society of the same name. It is composed of
very serious people who are engaged in settlement and sociological
work. They are doing their best to improve the conditions of
the young women and young men who are in clerical and other
employment. I have delivered several addresses before that society,
and before the audiences which they gather, on how to live
comfortably and get married on the smallest possible margin. Now,
for instance, for my lecture here to-night I have on a ready-made
suit of clothes, for which I paid yesterday five dollars. In that
large boiler there is a stove which I have invented. In the oven
of the stove is beef and various vegetables, and to heat it is
a kerosene lamp with a clockwork attached. A young man or a young
woman, or a young married couple go to the market and buy the cheap
cuts of beef, and then, according to my instructions, they put it
in the stove with the vegetables, light the lamp, set the clockwork
and go to their work. When they return at five, six, or seven
o'clock they find a very excellent and very cheap dinner all ready
to be served. Now, of what use is my five-dollar suit of clothes
and my fifty-cent dinner for this crowd of butterflies?"

However, Mr. Atkinson and I made up our minds to talk to them as
if they needed it or would need it some day or other, and they
were polite enough to ask questions and pretend to enjoy it.
I understand that afterwards at the midnight supper there was more
champagne and more hilarity than at previous gatherings of this
sociological club.

During one of our presidential campaigns some young men came up
from the Bowery to see me. They said: "We have a very hard time
down in our district. The crowd is a tough one but intelligent,
and we think would be receptive of the truth if they could hear
it put to them in an attra