“Well, I must confess this Social Palace is the most wonderful thing,” said Mrs. Kendrick. “If the people were all educated—of our own class, you know—I would try to have Mr. Kendrick sell out and come here to live.”
“Bless you!” said the doctor. “Wait till you see our rising generation, who are being educated here; I was going to say you wouldn’t know them from gentlemen and ladies; but you would, by three signs: superior refinement, superior education, and superior recognition of the rights of others. You’d better come as soon as there is a vacancy, but there are, at least, now on the books, a hundred applicants, and as the first applying have the first chance, yours are rather small.” Mrs. Kendrick thought there was a slight malice in the doctor’s tone.
“One word more about intemperance,” said Mrs. Burnham. “Any of your members can go to Oakdale and get liquor. Now that your son is gone, and that Clara has moved away, the liquor dealers have broken their promises. I believe my poor boy will be quite ruined. I have been thinking of consulting you, doctor, about taking him to Binghamton.”
“The worst thing about that inebriate asylum there,” said the doctor, “is that there is no industry for the inmates. They actually spend days carving sticks and bits of wood; but still, as it is the best thing that offers I should say send him there at once.”
“So should I,” said Mrs. Forest. “I believe our son is quite cured of his habit. There is a decanter of brandy standing in the sitting-room all the time, and he has not once touched it. You know he is coming home on trial. We expect him next week.” And the mother’s face lighted up with joy at the thought of the restoration of her first-born.
“You were going to ask, Mrs. Burnham,” said Charlotte, “what we do when our members come home intoxicated. We say nothing, unless they disturb the quiet of others, or unless their families complain to the council. When this occurs, or any act of disorder militating against public order and morality, the council publish a bulletin of censure, and place it on the bulletin-board, where all the acts of the board, and all general notices, are placed. At first the name is not mentioned, but accompanying the censure is an expression of deep regret and the offer of sympathy to help the culprit reform.”
“We have, so far, had but four cases,” said Mrs. Forest. “Our council attends to these questions. This bulletin-board is a terror to the disorderly.”
“And very naturally too,” said Charlotte, “for it contains the decisions of the council they have chosen by their own votes.”
“We hear all sorts of stories outside,” said Mrs. Kendrick. “One is, that the bambins study politics, and learn the uses of the ballot; but of course that is a mere joke.”
“Not wholly,” replied Mrs. Müller, or Charlotte, the name by which we have known her. “The children all have daily exercises in the open air, and even the little tots six, seven, and eight years old do quite an amount of useful work. They go out in bands of ten or twenty each, under a little industrial chief, girl or boy, chosen by themselves, by ballot. They have regular ballot-boxes.”