In the first place, we need a public but self-supporting Laundry. By this I mean two large halls, with an adjacent area, built at the expense of the city, and properly superintended, where, for so much an hour, women of the lower class may wash, starch, dry, and iron the clothes they take home. A bleaching-ground would be desirable; but, if it could not be had, a steam drying-room would be the next best thing. Good starch, soap, and indigo should be for sale upon the premises at wholesale prices; it not being desirable that the city should make money out of the necessities of its poor. If such an establishment could be had, a great many women would be changed from paupers to decent citizens. They are tired of seeking washing; for, in their one close room, scented with boiling onions or rank meat, without a proper area for drying, and compelled to pay high prices for poor soap and starch, they cannot do decently the very work which philanthropy soon becomes unwilling to intrust to them, and for which they are compelled to charge higher than the best private laundry. The city could buy coal, wood, soap, starch, and indigo at manufacturers' and importers' prices, and so give them a fair chance for competition. I hope this project, long since partially adopted in many cities of the Old World, may find favor with my audience. There is in Boston no place, strange as it may seem, where plain, neatly finished clothing can be bought ready-made. I can go down town, and buy embroidered merinos, Paris hats with ostrich feathers, and lace-trimmed, welted linen: but if I want a plain, cotton skirt for a child, whereof the calico was eight cents a yard; if I want a plain, cotton print made into a neatly fitting dress; if I want a boy's coarse apron,--such things are not to be had, or only so very badly made that no one will buy them. I do not want lace or embroidery or silk, or fine linen; but I do want my button-holes nicely turned and strong, my hems even, my gathers stroked, and, however plain and coarse, the whole finish of the garment such as a mistress of the needle only would approve, such as no lady need be ashamed to wear. So do others. The reasons given to explain the non-existence of such a magazine in Boston are, first, That our women of the middle class are, for the most part, accustomed to cut and make their own clothes; second, That there is a prevalent but mistaken idea, that clothes made for sale cannot possibly fit. With regard to the first point, it may be said, that, as more and more avenues of labor are opened for women, this class perceives that it is not good economy for them to do their own sewing. Hands compelled to coarser or heavier labor cannot sew quick or well, and those training to more delicate manipulation lose practice by returning to it; so there will be a constantly increasing class of purchasers.