labors; and these are all Germans, many of whom have families. For these
they supply houses, and give them sometimes the privilege of raising a
few cattle on their land.

They are excellent farmers, and keep fine stock, which they care for
with German thoroughness; stall-feeding in the winter.

The members do not work hard. One of the foremen told me that three
hired hands would do as much as five or six of the members. Partly this
comes no doubt from the interruption to steady labor caused by their
frequent religious meetings; but I have found it generally true that the
members of communistic societies take life easy.

The people are of varying degrees of intelligence; but most of them
belong to the peasant class of Germany, and were originally farmers,
weavers, or mechanics. They are quiet, a little stolid, and very well
satisfied with their life. Here, as in other communistic societies, the
brains seem to come easily to the top. The leading men with whom I
conversed appeared to me to be thoroughly trained business men in the
German fashion; men of education, too, and a good deal of intelligence.
The present secretary told me that he had been during all his early life
a merchant in Germany; and he had the grave and somewhat precise air of
an honest German merchant of the old style--prudent, with a heavy sense
of responsibility, a little rigid, and yet kindly.

At the little inn I talked with a number of the rank and file, and
noticed in them great satisfaction with their method of life. They were,
on the surface, the commoner kind of German laborers; but they had
evidently thought pretty thoroughly upon the subject of communal living;
and knew how to display to me what appeared to them its advantages in