Each house has a small plot for flowers, etc. The interiors are excessively plain. The living in the common hall is frugal but abundant. Of the thirty-four people twelve are men, of whom six are over sixty; ten are women, of whom two are over sixty, and two are young and unmarried; and twelve are children, ranging in age from three weeks to twelve years. Seven children are in school; the other five are too young. Of course everything looks new and rather bleak about this new village, but the site is admirably chosen. The prospect, as one looks out from the windows of the dining-room, is beautiful, and a dozen years hence, if fortune favors, the New Icaria will be a charming place. In spite of bitter adversities, these New Icarians are a bright, agreeable, vivacious people. They could talk English well enough for my benefit, but their home-talk is entirely French. The children are _very_ pretty and attractive, and all are polite and superior-mannered. They have a promising young vineyard and apple-orchard, and a good large garden for kitchen vegetables. The people are all French except one Spaniard, who came from Cuba many years ago. Their president, A. A. Marchand, was one of the original sixty-nine vanguard who went to Texas in 1848, and he has always been a prominent man. He is a gentleman worthy of the highest regard. Another member, Sauva, who was president the year Hinds’s book (‘American Communities,’ 1878) was written, and whom you find mentioned in Hinds’s account, is still with this society. He was formerly a member of the Cheltenham branch;[30] returned to Europe, took active part in the International and the Paris Commune, and joined the Iowa Icarians two or three years after. He is a man of high intelligence. A number of these members are men of good literary ability. They have a small press, and print a monthly paper, the _Revue Icarienne_. They have a shoemaker’s shop, but scarcely anything in the industrial line besides their mill. They have a fair supply of good agricultural implements, and conduct their farming about as their neighbors in general do.