PARK AND CEMETERY. 
196 
FIRST PRIZE WINDOW BOX 
DETAIL OF SECOND PRIZE BACK YARD 
Gardening Competition of Women’s Civic Improvement League, Kalamazoo, Mich. 
its charities organization department maintains a 
bureau of registration, assistance and advice, an em- 
ployment bureau, a wood yard, a woman’s work 
room, and has recently inaugurated a system of house 
to house collection of small savings. 
The league’s work for clean streets has been widely 
commented upon and remarkable in its results. Its 
health department carried out a practical and success- 
ful experiment in street cleaning, introducing the 
Waring system, as seen in operation in all the cleaner 
American cities. The city permitted and financed the 
experiment ; the women hired the men, equipped and 
instructed them, and personally superintended each 
day’s work. After a long delay following the experi- 
ment, and after much hard work on the part of the 
league, the Waring system was said to be installed by 
the city on two or three miles of pavement. The sys- 
tem has never been properly carried out by the city ; 
yet the results of this method even imperfectly admin- 
istered have commended themselves to citizens gen- 
erally. 
In connection with the street-cleaning campaign, 
I the alleys were attacked by means of the camera. They 
did not (as has been erroneously published) photo- 
graph people’s private premises, but only the alleys in 
the business district. Pictures of all of these were 
taken, “not necessarily for publication,” as the editors 
say, “but as an evidence of good faith” on the league’s 
part that a photograph presented to the owner or 
tenant, or if necessary, to the health officer, would 
make some such impression on him as the real thing 
made on them. All these alleys were immediately and 
. thoroughly cleaned. They have since been paved, and 
have never been allowed to get into their former 
f filthy condition. 
The departments of Outdoor Art and Junior Work 
were inaugurated in the spring of 1904, and this year 
have taken a great impetus forward. Leading citi- 
zens in each ward offer five dollar and three dollar 
prizes for the best improved back yards. The florists 
of the city offer three dollar and one dollar prizes in 
each ward for the best window boxes. 
]\Irs. Crane is printing a series of half-a-dozen 
familiar “letters” upon such topics as “Back Yards 
and Window Gardens,” “Farming in the City,” “Chil- 
dren as Gardeners,” etc., which give in practical en- 
tertaining form definite suggestions as to the details 
of that civic improvement which begins at home. 
These “letters” will be distributed gratis to all who 
apply. 
League members made addresses to all the children 
in the graded schools, and a Junior League was formed 
in each building, the total membership being nearly 
1,100. The members were given badges bearing the 
words, “I will help.” They pay a fee of 5 cents, and 
hold three meetings a year. The obligations assumed 
by these willing workers are well expressed in the 
character of the songs they sing at the league meet- 
ings, as, for example, this one, which goes to the tune 
of “Yankee Doodle” : 
There was a man in our town 
And he was wondrous wise : 
He threw some paper in the street, 
Right front of people’s eyes ! 
And when he saw that paper gone, 
With all his might and main, 
He jumped into the street — he did — 
And picked it up again ! 
Encore. 
He put that paper in the can, 
As every man should do. Sir, 
He went and joined the Civic League, 
And was that wise man You, Sir? 
The first year the league offered prizes in each of 
the schools for children’s home flower gardens; also 
a prize for the best improved school premises. The 
I. 
