When the Church set up rival bakeries, the Vooruit went farther. It established its first "_maison du peuple_," which has since been duplicated in many places. Every need of the people was supposed to find here its satisfaction. There was a café, with tables in the park, and lights and music. There were lectures, dances, debates, concerts, movies. There was a theater where the actors and the plays were chosen by the vote of the audience, which, by the way, strongly favoured their own Maeterlinck. Besides a library and a day nursery, there was a big department store, and in the same building were the headquarters for all the allied and friendly organizations--trade unions, coöperative and socialistic societies, and so on. One of the most interesting activities of the Vooruit was the traveling club for children, bands of whom went from town to town, picking up recruits as they went, seeing their own land first, then--this was before the war--crossing the border into France or Germany, where the local Vooruits made them welcome. A common practice was for children of the French and Flemish parts of the country to be exchanged for long visits, so that they might have a chance to learn each other's language. When the organization, which had always before refused to sell alcoholic drinks, found itself bitterly opposed by the liquor interests, especially in the mining districts, it built breweries of its own. In this way it was able to give the working men pure beer at a very low cost. The Maison du Peuple in Brussels was established in 1881, with a capital of about one hundred dollars. It began, like the one in Ghent, as a bakery, and owned a dog and a small cart to make deliveries. At last accounts the society had over ninety dogs. It is amusing to read that these had their own kitchens, where their cooking was done, and their bathrooms, where they were kept clean. And when one is speaking of the workers of Belgium, the dogs should not be forgotten, for the larger breeds were very useful members of the industrial system. Laundresses, bakers and vendors used them in distributing their wares, and they were of great service on the farm. But perhaps the commonest sight was that of a dog hitched to a cart filled with shining brass and copper milk cans. They were all carefully inspected to see that their harness fitted properly, and that they were provided with a drinking bowl and with a mat to lie down on when they were tired. The Government made a point, indeed, of seeing that conditions were as comfortable as possible for the animals. The poor cannot afford to keep a dog simply for a pet; there are no scraps from the table to feed him, because no thrifty housewife leaves any scraps; he must do his share and earn his keep like the others.