A subscription of fivepence a week, afterwards reduced to sevenpence halfpenny a month, from the numerous members was thought sufficient to pay for rent and light, while the rich should lend their pictures, give their books, and under the form of lectures impart their knowledge—this was the practical form of co-operation of ideas. Then it was decided that a doctor should have his free consultation-room, and working-men’s families be able to come on Sundays and enjoy reading and plays or amusements of divers kinds. In winter, as well as books and papers, light was at their service, which was a small economy that balanced the small charge for these privileges. At its worst, it was always better and cheaper than the wineshop. M. Deherme hired a small lecture-room in the Rue Paul Bert, and for two years, even in the summer months of holiday, arranged for commercial lectures, debates, entertainments provided by the disinterested professional class—always the readiest to assist the poor. The wealthy sometimes give of their superfluous income—and how little! Contrast with it the much that doctors, lawyers, professors, men of science, give of their less as regards actual income! When men like Zola and Léon Daudet sneer at surgeons and fashionable doctors, I ask myself if, for a moment, they realise all that these surgeons and doctors do for the needy for nothing. You give a subscription for some charitable object duly recorded in the newspapers. You have the benefit of your charitable reputation, and your self-advertisement; you have earned both without any actual sacrifice.