832 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



years ago by the Industrial Society of Upper Alsace brought to 

 light several enterprises of this character, inspired by a philan- 

 thropic feeling, and yet giving a modest indemnification for the 

 capital invested in them. Among them are societies of Popular 

 Credit, of which Schulze-Delitsch and Raiffeisen have described 

 admirable types, consumers' co-operative societies, workingmen's 

 insurance under a variety of forms, baths and lavatories for 

 workingmen or for the small middle class, workingmen's lodg- 

 ings, cheap dining houses, and other establishments of similar 

 character. All these organizations that concern the people are 

 usually despised by professional speculators and by capitalists. 



Wealthy men might well apply a part of their disposable 

 revenues to enterprises of this sort, not as alms, but on the score 

 of general utility ; and there would be no impropriety in their 

 deriving a modest interest from them. Many organizations of 

 this kind have been formed during the past quarter of a century 

 in England, the United States, and France, and have demonstrated 

 the applicability of the method. Associations formed for such 

 objects should rigorously maintain the self-supporting principle, 

 or aim to pay their own way. 



Besides the numerous examples furnished by Alsace since 

 1850, there are many others in demonstration of the practicability 

 of the plan we have sketched. Some, in the shape of dwelling 

 houses for men of small means, have been described by M. 

 Arthur Raffalovich, in his book, Le Logement du Pauvre (The 

 Housing of the Poor Man). Some very successful enterprises 

 which might have come under this head have been carried out in 

 the United States, England, and France. There are in England 

 2,372 building societies, the most of which are based on this prin- 

 ciple, which comprised 587,856 members at the end of 1892, and 

 had the disposal of 40,641,000, of which 24,729,000 were paid 

 in by shareholders and 14,911,000 by depositors. Their profits 

 amounted to 1,807,000,. or five per cent of the capital devoted to 

 the construction of convenient dwelling houses for the poor. In 

 a very successful experiment made by a number of practical phi- 

 lanthropists at Lyons, France, ninety houses, containing a thousand 

 simple but convenient and healthful suites, returned a profit of 

 five and a half per cent, of which the investors received four per 

 cent, the statutory maximum, while the rest went to increase the 

 reserves. The objections which have been alleged against these 

 enterprises are not really of great importance. It does not follow 

 that because they are not of advantage to every one or to the 

 poorest class they are not useful to a very considerable class of 

 workmen and small clerks. And while there is danger that in 

 the course of time say after fifty or seventy-five years they will 

 deteriorate or become corrupt, we have no right to conclude that 



