of
domestic service is inordinately wasteful. Even where the wife does all
the housework, without pay, we still waste labor to an enormous extent,
requiring one whole woman to wait upon each man. If the man hires one
or more servants, the wastes increase. If one hundred men undertake
some common business, they do not divide in two halves, each man having
another man to serve him--fifty productive laborers, and fifty cooks.
Two or three cooks could provide for the whole group; to use fifty is to
waste 47 per cent. of the labor.

"But our waste of labor is as nothing to our waste of money. For, say
twenty families, we have twenty kitchens with all their furnishings,
twenty stoves with all their fuel; twenty cooks with all their wages;
in cash and barter combined we pay about ten dollars a week for our
cooks--$200 a week to pay for the cooking for twenty families, for about
a hundred persons!

"Three expert cooks, one at $20 a week and two at $15 would save to
those twenty families $150 a week and give them better food. The cost
of kitchen furnishings and fuel, could be reduced by nine-tenths; and
beyond all that comes our incredible waste in individual purchasing.
What twenty families spend on individual patronage of small retailers,
could be reduced by more than half if bought by competent persons in
wholesale quantities. Moreover, our whole food supply would rise in
quality as well as lower in price if it was bought by experts.

"To what does all this lead?" asked Diantha pleasantly.

Nobody said anything, but the visible attitude of the house seemed to
say that it led straight to perdition.

"The solution for which so many are looking is no new scheme of any
sort; and in particular it is not that oft repeated fore-doomed failure
called 'co-operative housekeeping'."

At this a wave of relief spread perceptibly. The irritation roused by
those preposterous figures and accusations was somewhat allayed. Hope
was relit in darkened countenances.

"The inefficiency of a dozen tottering households is not removed by
combining them," said Diantha. This was of dubious import. "Why should
we expect a group of families to "keep house" expertly and economically
together, when they are driven into companionship by the fact that none
of them can do it alone."

Again an uncertain reception.

"Every family is a distinct unit," the girl continued. "Its needs are
separate and should be met separately. The separate house and gar