a man. I want to aid the
dreamer, the scientific enthusiast, who forgets everything in the
pursuit of his ideas."

It seems like dropping from the sublime to the ridiculous to follow
so ideal a benefaction with a report of so mundane a thing as a soup
kitchen, but soup is as necessary to humanity at the present period of
life as some of the exalted things of the intellect, and, as pauperism
in Norway and Sweden is so almost unobservable, it is difficult to
search out with the keenest vision any charity that is doing more than
are the "steam kitchens" of Norway and Sweden. And the keenest vision
would hardly observe that these "steam kitchens" are charitable
institutions. They are called "steam kitchens" because they are the
first institutions in the peninsula where steam was used for the
cooking of food. The one at Stockholm, instituted by Prince Carl, is
very similar in detail and operation to the one in Christiania,
but the latter was established first and is more perfect in its
arrangement and methods, so we will take it for illustration.

This kitchen at Christiania was established in 1858 by benevolent
people to provide wholesome food for the poor at low prices. The
charter granted to the company limited its profits to six per cent
of the capital invested, with a provision that the balance, if any,
should be paid into the poor fund of the city. There was a hard
struggle at first to make both ends meet, and an annual deficit for
many years, which was made up by the stockholders, but at last the
"kitchen" became so popular that it began to pay dividends, and the
stock has since been watered four times, until it now pays what
is equivalent to twenty-four per cent annually upon the original
investment, with a surplus larger than the capital on which it was
started. It is one of the most profitable enterprises in Europe for
the amount of money involved, but that fact does not diminish the
benefits conferred upon the public, and the generosity of the company
to the poor, particularly in times of labor troubles and financial
depression, can not be questioned. Hundreds of bachelors and single
women take their meals there regularly, and hundreds of families
obtain their entire supply of food, wholesome and well cooked, at
nominal cost.

There is a long official title to the company, but nobody ever
mentions it. It occupies a two-story building covering nearly half an
ordinary block. The location is convenient to the bus