The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-11-24

 night. The boys asked me to go over
 the proposition again did. As ], l finished I drew from my pocket the pe- 1 titfon to the Neighborhood Assocla- 1 ton all ready to sign. tFWho wants to sign it f1rst?'' I asked. Again utter si- lelce. Then MT. FTirling reached for l the petition. After him every young man in the room put his name down. The next night things went swim | mingly at the mass meeting.
 Sunday morning we devoted our church service to the interests of clean recreation. When the time for the ser mon came I discussed the subject with l out condemning the few recreat tions the young people had and without the ologica1 vocabulary.
 At three o'clock that afternoon the directors of the Neighborhood Associa- ton met. All were present. The peti- ton went through with a, blessing at- tached-a blessing with a fifty dollar appropriation to start a<speciaI treas ury for the department The direc- tors appointed an executive committee made up of two directors and five boys, and told us to go ahead.
 The committee never touched the ff- ty dollars the directors had voted them Instead it met at once and organized subcommittee
 Bach committee set to work The y a barn in a convenient location from Neighbor Allen, a public spirited citi- gen., at the nominal rental of ten dol lars a month. The boys themselves fitted up that barn with a vestibuIe a dance floor and a movable partition Then we called upon the neighbore to equip 1t with discarded articles that might be of use in the club room. We sent out list of the things we needed
 Rich and poor responded. One man could give only cuspidor, another a second hand pool table, but when the answers to the call had all been re- cefVed we found we had the following equipment: Stove, chandeliers, graph ophone dishes, chimney, indoor base ball set, $50 pool table, pocket stops for same, leather chairs, whiting for walls, 12 decks of cards, piano. cuspi- dors, 3 sets checkers, sets dominoes boxing gloves, card tables reading lamp window shades, 8 1-2 dozen glasses 24 chairs, oil stove. 15 yards eocao mating, water pitcher, folding chairs, $137.S7 in cash, subscriptions to Boys Life, Playground, Popular Mag azine, Saturday Evening Post, Nation al Geographic Magazine and Outing Magazine. The .F'irling Athletic Club turned over its entire equipment of g chairs 2 tables, 20 cups, coffee boiler. an iron pail and it's treasury of $42.s7.
 Meanwhile the entertainment com mittee shouldered the burden of pay ing the running expenses of the club room by giving some form of public entertainment every. two weeks Our expenses have run from $40 to S45 a month, including rent, light, heat, jam itor and deterioration.
 The house committee was the last to get started, but it has been no less ef- fcient It proposed just two rules, both of which were adopted by unani- nous vote. One rule is. no booze; the other, no gambling.
 I do not Know where all the boys come from, but today, a year from the time we started this department, we find that there are 148 young men H. it, governing themselves, paying their own expenses and furnishing suppers, dances euchres and athletics to their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters. These young men are between the ages of 16 and 8 and all of them, improvement.
 One of the best results of the depa rt- ment has been the forming of a band which now has a membership of twen- ty-two. Ten weeks ago not one of these boys knew a musical note
 That's the story. Neighbor Aliens barn today is the social center of our