In Woonsocket in the dry region of South Dakota the women of a club requested the Town Fathers to supply them with pure and more abundant water. Regret was expressed by the fathers that they could not comply with the request. The women, nothing daunted, organized an Improvement Association, collected money and hired an expert to drill an artesian well. When plenty of pure water gushed forth, the town officials consented to lay mains through the streets and allow the people to receive water from this excellent source. The women were then successful also in persuading the fathers to plan a beautiful park, or accept their own plans for the same, with a charming artificial lake as the crowning pleasure.[12] In New Mexico the Woman’s Club of Roswell behaved in much the same way. It was irrigation that seemed the crying need of that region. The club had a well dug and erected a tank which holds several thousands of gallons of water. As the women had previously planted some hundreds of trees in their town, they were thus able to maintain them also in a healthy condition. One who reads the following somewhat casual report of a victory in a fight for better water might have no appreciation of the fact that it was the women of New Canaan who did the fighting, and hard fighting it was, for the filtration plant in their vicinity: Agitation by the local Civic League for an improved water supply for New Canaan, Connecticut, recently won, through the Public Utilities Commission, a victory which may lead to important results throughout the state. The League, aided by an engineer and a sanitary expert, after a three-day hearing at Hartford, secured an order directing the private water company to install a filtration plant and equipment to purge the water of all odor and color. The lawyer for the water company in his brief declared that if the request of the petitioners were granted the previous railroad work of the Commission would be small in comparison with what was ahead in adjudicating similar appeals relating to water supply in other towns. “The Commission,” said one of the petitioners after the verdict had been handed down, “has rendered this decision, so let us hope that good days are ahead for Connecticut in regard to water supply, and that it may lead to an efficient system of state inspection.” It was the women who refused to accept the findings of the male authorities with reference to the purity of the water and proposed methods for its control. Experts were engaged by them and their activity at the hearings at Hartford made their determination to have better water so clear that the men yielded and now New Canaan is proud of its achievement—so proud that notices of the same necessitate an inquiry into the personnel of the Civic League for a complete story. PUBLIC BATHS