The Washington times., 1894-04-08
p Topic or Two
10 Think HbOUf

Cooperative housekeeping, says the Ma
tional Economist, is to be tried in Chicago
for the benefit of married men with small in
comes. Mrs. Coleman-Stuckert is to build a
$500, 900 cooperative home that will cover
one entire block in Hyde Park. The colony
will consist OF forty-four houses on forty-six
lots, with common lawn. laundry. kitchen,
furnace, electric-light plant, assembly hall,
and reading room. The central court will
contain common building, where all the
drudgeries will be performed. Here will be
seen the cooking, heating. and lighting ma
chinery, the ice chests, grocery storeroonis,
and vegetable cellars, the dishwashers, ser
wants and butler. The forty-four families
will need but fourteen people to do all their
household work. These people include the
baker, the professional cook. gardener a
superintendent two engineers, and the corps
OF helpers. Mrs. Coleman-Stuckert claims
that this saves the salaries of at least eighty
domestic servants. besides having the food
cooked economically and in excellent taste.
An electric carrier will deliver the cooked
meals.
Each house will be station. and when the
big dinner gong sounds the company cook
will push the button and send out forty-four
smoking dinners. Each hamper will be
heated, so that the hot viands and vegetables
will be at their prime. Each matron will
serve the meal in the company dishes or ner
own--the hamper will then go back for the
second course and the third. until the dessert
and coffee are reached. Mrs. Coleman-Stuck-
ert promulgated alt these facts on paper dur
ing the Worlds Congresses last Summer. She
has diagram showing 1t viii ccs. only 50
week for each person. This new experiment
will have joint heating and lighting plant.
Each house will get It's steam at cost from its
own boiler, and all this branch of the house.
hold economy will aggregate but SIS month
for each family. The man who earns S65 per
month will have to pay only s35 month for
himself and wife. He will have a suite of six
roons. The figures are applicable only tc the
second best system OF cooperative homes. She
has plan for one for the very wealthy and
another for the very poor. She claims that
they are all equally practical, and she is
going TO prove that this is the way TO live by
building the first one in Hyde Park This
new home will not occupy one big building.
and thus have the characteristics that belong
to existence in hotel. Every family will be
allotted house, with room sufficient for the
members. Each tenant is to become house
holder and own his own rooms and thereby
become stockholder aud voter in the COM
mon affairs ofthe community. He will select
such 3 location as be can afford-the prices
ranging from S2,Ge0. and he will pay on the
insiallment plan. A clerk who receives S65
per month will still have money TO save out
Cf his salary.
What is gambling? asks Rev. T A. Hen
drick, in Donahoe's Magazine for March.
A bet or wager is contract, the essential
features OF which are:
(a) That two or more persons agree
(b) that sum of money or some valuable
thing
(c) shall become the property of one of the
parties to the contract
(d) upon the ascertainment OF some future !
(e) and, to the parties contracting, uncer-
tain event.
Are wager contracts lawful? Most assur-
edly. Certain forms of wasers are approved /
at the presen. day universally by statute law. 1
Tie most familiar forms are fire and life in /
surance. There IS no form o. contract which T
comes nearer to the essential .ea,areS oil a
wager than fire insurance.
Gambling, in the popular sense. is IN out |
rage ol iGe law .! nature, the Law OF owner /
ship. the law OF slriety. TIE possession OF !
property las attached TO il. not only the |
power 20 exercise certain rights but also the /
Obligation OF performing certain duties 1t is
the constant. the wicked, the mad denial OF 4
these ooiiSations which changes the cbarac- /
ter o. an act 10 itssi. good and makes gam /
bling immoral. That action which COM
mences TO exists in the form and character of .
Il harmless ast.lrc, within the confines of .
one S rights, assumes by frequent repetition !, |
era. ity which makes Il al inirus Gu on the |
rights o. our neighbor. Tho banker COM
menees 10 gamble with his OWE money; he
ends with that OF his clients. The father CON-
mepcas with that which he may lawfully /
Inn. ha n,,Ic
by denying food and clothing to
his wife and children. Since il is not the
province OF the civil law to make men inter-
nally moral, but rather to safeguard the Sc
curly OF his social rights; s.nre it cannot
efIectually appeal TO his conscience but can
shake the lash over his head. we have con-
dItion which prevents man from exercising
his rights. This condition is called public
policy. The law does not argue that it is
morally wrong to gamble. but it can and does
say that gambling acts shall be punished or
not, as they oppose public policy or not.
1t is not N the province OF this paper to
show the folly and dreadful evils OF gam
biing as commonly practiced. The disturb
ance of social order, the disturbance of credit,
the foundation OF all well-regulated business.
the awful degradation and ruin which every
where confront us, warrant all the laws that
are one the statute books for its repression,
and more. Even were all the conditions
present which would make wagering lawful,
gambling as an industry would still be an
scononic folly. But for the most part the poor
iupe, the poor idiot who imagines lie is gam
bling, is simply Offering himself up to be
robbed. He simply has no chance to win, the
clement of chance being eliminated and GER
ain robbery substituted. This is not even
gambling to excess, but Is theft.
Self-sacriflce, says Grant Allen in the Fort
Nightly Review, is impossible as an aim in IT.
'elf; self-development is possible. reasonable,
md consistent. 1t is capable of being s'a law
o all rational beings" II we all sacrificed
ourselves, habitually and always, the world
would be SO much the more wretched in con
sequence; II we all developed ourselves to the
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