THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF COOPERATIVE HOUSEKEEPING. 521 



kitchen alone, and still more so in the associated 

 mansion. There it is of great importance that 

 the kitchen should be owned or rented and more 

 or less managed by those who are to benefit by 

 its establishment. I say more or less managed, 

 because it is doubtful whether the experience of 

 many clubs does not show that the purely co- 

 operative management of a kitchen by the club 

 committee is not, from waste, carelessness, ex- 

 travagance, and pilfering, more costly than the 

 profits which would be exacted by the caterer. 

 I venture after much inquiry, discussion, and con- 

 sideration, to offer two plans of management for 

 the restaurant department, neither of which would 

 greatly strain the energies or intelligence of the 

 committee. In using the terms club and mem- 

 bers in this connection, they must be understood 

 to refer exclusively to the customers of the 

 kitchen and tenants of the mansion, who, wheth- 

 er they are or are not proprietors, must be them- 

 selves, as in the case of the cooperative stores) 

 both buyers and sellers. In all cases the com- 

 mittee should fix the rent of the kitchen with its 

 appurtenances, and the coffee-room, if there was 

 one; then in the first place they would farm the 

 restaurant to the most satisfactory bidder, stating 

 in their call for tenders the rent, the average 

 daily attendance and requirements, and the prob- 

 able extraordinary demands, and finally stating 

 that the tenure of the office should be absolutely 

 conditional on the successful tenderer satisfac- 

 torily fulfilling his contract. In this case, as the 

 contractor would have a far more certain demand 

 than the ordinary hotel or restaurant keeper, or 

 even club cook, he should be able to tender on 

 very low terms ; and as the tenure of a position 

 offering certain profits would be conditional on 

 the satisfactory fulfillment of his contract, he 

 ■would have the strongest inducements to main- 

 tain the standard of his tender. 



On the alternative plan the club committee 

 should themselves contract with wholesale pro- 

 ducers and purveyors for the supply of the 

 kitchen ; they should engage a chef and inferior 

 employes at usual salaries, and should then fix 

 the tariff at such a rate as should afford a fair 

 margin of profit, of which profit the chef, and as 

 many of the inferior employes as it might be 

 deemed advisable to bind to the interest of the 

 club, should get a certain percentage, and the 

 balance should be distributed among the mem- 

 bers on the usual cooperative principles — that is, 

 in proportion to their purchases. Of these two 

 plans the former is the simplest, the latter the 

 more truly cooperative. The restaurant depart- 



ment being disposed of either as above suggest- 

 ed, or in some equally satisfactory way, the en- 

 gaging of the housekeeping staff and of a man- 

 aging secretary should present no great difficul- 

 ties, and needs no discussion. 



Before leaving the question of administration, 

 it may be remarked that, in the case of the co- 

 operative kitchen alone, or in that of a mansion 

 which offered no opportunities for social inter- 

 course, the financial position of the members 

 would, as in any ordinary company, be the only 

 necessary or desirable test for membership, and 

 their directors or committee should be elected as 

 in any other commercial or cooperative under- 

 taking. If, however, the salon is a feature of the 

 mansion, the social position of the members be- 

 comes a question of importance, and admittance 

 should be obtained by ballot or approval of the 

 committee as in ordinary clubs. 



I have now endeavored to describe as shortly 

 and clearly as possible the natural rise and 

 growth of the idea of cooperative housekeeping, 

 showing that it is no socialist Utopia, but merely 

 the application of modern economical principles 

 and mechanical appliances in a somewhat new 

 direction. I have sought to demonstrate that 

 the conditions absolutely essential to success are 

 — 1. Largeness of scale ; 2. The retention of do- 

 mestic privacy by separation of the board and 

 dwelling departments ; and, 3. Its administration 

 on at least modified cooperative and not on pure- 

 ly commercial principles. These conditions are, 

 I believe, equally demanded by, and equally ap- 

 plicable to, all stages of the system, from the 

 establishment of cooperative kitchens up to the 

 creation and administration of that ideal coop- 

 erative mansion of the, I trust, not very distant 

 future, which, presenting to the world an impos- 

 ing and even splendid exterior, shall offer to its 

 one or two thousand members the individual en- 

 joyment of a great variety of dwellings, differ- 

 ing in the number, size, and position of their 

 rooms according to the want?, taste, and means 

 of their tenants, together with the common en- 

 joyment of spacious, well-warmed, well-venti- 

 lated halls, corridors, and staircases ; of lifts, of 

 the services of porters, commissionnaires, and 

 call-boys, of firemen and watchmen ; which shall 

 offer the opportunity of using a steam-laundry, 

 a special post and telegraph office, of Turkish 

 and other baths and lavatories, of a Kinder-Gar- 

 ten and of a hospital suite ; which shall offer 

 the opportunity of enjoying large and small 

 drawing and dining rooms, of music, dancing, 

 and card rooms, of libraries and reading-rooms, 



