their numerous sons and daughters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law; duly
following came the grandsons and grand-daughters, then the
great-grandsons and great-granddaughters, and lastly, the babies of their
fifth generation, all accompanied by their nurses in the picturesque
costume of Alsace and Lorraine. This patriarchal assemblage numbered
between one and two hundred guests. On the table were represented, in the
artistic confectionery for which Mulhouse is famous, some of the leading
events of M. Dollfus's busy life. Here in sugar was a model of the
achievement which will ever do honour to the name of Jean Dollfus,
namely, the _cites ouvrieres_, and what was no less a triumph of the
confectioner's skill, a group representing the romantic ride of M. and
Mme. Dollfus on camels towards the Algerian Sahara when visiting the
African colony some twenty years before.

This patriarchal festival is said to have cost M. Dollfus half a million
of francs, a bagatelle in a career devoted to giving! The bare conception
of what this good man has bestowed takes one's breath away! Not that he
was alone; never was a city more prolific of generous men than Mulhouse,
but Jean Dollfus, _"Le Pere Jean,"_ as he is called, stood at the
head. He received with one hand to bestow with the other, and not only on
behalf of the national, intellectual and spiritual wants of his own
workmen and his own community--the Dollfus family are Protestant--but
indiscriminately benefiting Protestant, Catholic, Jew; founding schools,
hospitals, libraries, refuges, churches, for all.

We see at a glance after what fashion the great manufacturers set to work
here to solve the problem before them. The life of ease and the life of
toil are seen side by side, and all the brighter influences of the one
brought to bear on the other. The tall factory chimneys are unsightly
here as elsewhere, and nothing can be uglier than the steam tramways,