far better and healthier lunch than the highly-seasoned hashes and
scraps called "free lunches," which must be washed down by a, five or
ten-cent glass of liquor.


THE EXPERIMENT IN PHILADELPHIA.

The success which has attended the establishment of cheap temperance
coffee-houses in this city (Philadelphia), is quite remarkable. In the
fall of 1874, Joshua L. Baily, one of our active, clear-headed
merchants, who had been for many years an earnest temperance man,
determined to give the cheap coffee-house experiment a fair trial, cost
what it might; for he saw that if it could be made successful, it would
be a powerful agency in the work of prevention. He began in a modest
way, taking a small store at the corner of Market and Fifteenth Streets,
and fitting it up in a neat and attractive manner. With a few pounds of
coffee, and a few dozens of rolls, the place was opened, the single
attendant, a woman, acting the double part of cook and waiter. For five
cents a pint mug of the best Java coffee, with milk and sugar, and a
good-sized roll, were furnished.

From the very start "The Workingmen's Central Coffee-House," as Mr.
Baily called it, was successful. In the immediate neighborhood five
hundred workmen were employed on the city buildings, and opposite stood
the Pennsylvania Railroad freight depot, to which came daily about the
same number of men--draymen, teamsters and others. It took but a few
days to so crowd the new coffee-room at the usual lunching time as to
require an additional assistant. From day to day the business went on
increasing, until more help and larger accommodations became necessary.
Soon a complete kitchen had to be built in the basement, and the