The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-02-19

seating several hundred people. At the time appointed the members of the council entered the hall and took seats in the gallery, while the operatives to the number of a thousand or more en- tered and seated themselves at the ta- bles, each of which accommodated about twenty-five persons. A band, which Is present twice week, furnish 1 ed music After the men were seated the members of the council descended and took seats at tables reserved for them. These tables, as inspection show ed, were spread precisely like all the others and furnished with the same food The table linen was fine, strong and spotlessly clean. At each plate was a large linen napkin. The dishes were whole, of good quality, daintily decor atde and absolutely clean. The dinner i consisted of soup. meat, two kinds Of vegetables bread, butter, coffee and dessert. The food was of good quality, we'll cooked and ample in quantity This dinner Is furnished to the men for the sum of fifteen cents and to the girls, who have a separate dining hall-the kitchen being between the two halls for five cents. I was told that this price covers the cost of the provisions and the service is furnished at the ex- pense of the company. l happened to fall in with the superintendent of this department, who took me through the entire establishment, with it's kitchen, bakery, cold-storage rooms and ice plant, and everything was most clean and commendable.
 After dinner the members of the council repaired to hall, where an il- lustrated lecture was given showing the past and the present, and calling atten- ton to the various methods by which the comfort and the welfare of the en- ployes are secured. To some of these things, as Illustrating modern move ment of great social value, l shall call your attention. Men are to 9 consider able extent, the creatures of their en- vironment. While it is true that as men improve they improve their en- vironment, it is equally true that the improved environment tends to improve men. Nothing has impressed me more, at times, when visiting some mining or manufacturing neighborhood, then the hopeless condition under which many working people live. Frequently one win see a long row of separate and shabby houses or series of long tene- ments, each containing from three to a dozen dwellings for as many families They are built on the street line, with no grass or flowers about them and left unpainted or with the paint worn off, and the women who appear at the doors are generally in undress, with unkempt hair, loose wrapper and with slipshod feet. The interior, when one sees it, is likely to correspond with the exterior of the houses. And the sad thing is that there is nothing to stimulate them to better things. The condition about the National Cash Register works cor- responded to the above description-as the pictures showed--save that the houses stood apart and varied in archi- lecture. Dirty alleys, heaps of rub- bish, barren fences, dilapidated back porches and all the usual surroundings of such a community abounded. The company invited landscape gardener to come and devise a scheme of decora- ton. He laid out the grounds about the factory buildings In lawns planted shrubbery according to approved meth ods, observing the rules of open spaces, punching of plants and avoidance of straight lines, and planted vines to chamber over the buildings. At the suggestion of the company employees living in the neighborhood were en- couraged to plant vines to chamber over the fences and over back porches, children were rewarded for flower gar- dens and vegetable gardens, and under the inspiration of the common move ment all the rubbish has disappeared ] and beauty has taken its place. This improved environment cannot fail to make an improvement on the charac- ter of those who dwell in the neighbor- hood.
 A second improvement was the effort to secure the physical comfort of the employees living at some distance from their work by the public dining hall and free baths once or twice week without loss of time or wages,
 One of the things which always marks civilization and Christianity is consideration of women, and kidness to them, as being less strong and in some ways more sensitive than men. Savage men impose the heaviest burdens on women. Primitive men of the peasant class usually permit the women to share all the labor and hardship com mon to men. In many manufacturing communities where women share the labor of men they are subjected to pre- cisely the same conditions, and in the hurry of reaching their places of labor and their homes they are obliged to en- dJre all the inconvenences of crowd This was formerly the case at the Ma tional Cash Register company as else where. Now the girls go to work one hour later than the men and leave a half hour earlier. They work mainly in the printing, typewriting and office de- partments. Each one Is furnished a white apron and cuffs by the company. They are allowed fifteen minutes rest every forenoon and afternoon, and a rest room supplied with cots, easy chairs and a trained nurse is at hand for the service of any who may be talk en sick. This consideration of women cannot fail to make such an impression upon all the men employed there as vii tend to cultivate that respect and re- gard for women which marks always 6 high grade of civilization.
 Another feature of the common wei fare which is attempted is the furnish. ing, by cooperation, of amusement ant