rs of clerks, workingmen and others, turned their steps
daily, at lunch time, towards the Central Coffee-House. It was so much
better than the poor stuff served in most of the eating-houses; and,
with the sweet roll added, so much better than the free lunch and glass
of beer or whisky with which too many had been accustomed to regale
themselves.

SIGNAL SUCCESS.

Steadily swelled the tide of custom. Within a year a third store,
adjoining, was added. But the enlarged premises soon proved inadequate
to the accommodation of the still-increasing crowd.

At this writing "The Central" is from six to seven times larger than
when first opened; and there lunch in its rooms, daily, nearly two
thousand persons. One room has been fitted up for ladies exclusively, in
which from forty to fifty can lunch at one time.

But Mr. Baily looked beyond the cheap coffee and rolls by which he was
able to keep so many away from bar-rooms and restaurants where liquor
was sold. He believed in other influences and safeguards. And to this
end, and at his own cost, he fitted up the various rooms over the seven
stores extending along Market Street from Fifteenth to Broad, in which
the coffee-rooms are located, and set them apart for various uses. Here
is a lecture-hall, capable of seating four hundred persons; a free
reading-room, well warmed and lighted and supplied with the best daily
newspapers, American and English illustrated publications, and the
standard periodicals; besides four other rooms that will hold from
seventy to one hundred persons, which are used for various meeting
purposes, all in connection with temperance. Five regular services are
held in the lecture-room every week, viz.: "Bible Reading," on Sunday
afternoon; "Temperance Experience meeting," on Monday evening; "Prayer
and Praise meeting," Tuesday evening; "Gospel Temperance meeting," on
Thursday evening; and "Youths' Temperance meeting," Friday evening.
These meetings are often crowded, and, like the coffee-rooms below,
attract audiences made up from every rank in society. At many of these
meetings, Mr. Baily presides in person.

Encouraged by the success of this first effort, Mr. Baily opened another
cheap coffee-house in the very centre of the wholesale trade of the
city, where thousands of clerks, workingmen and merchants were in the
habit of resorting for lunch or dinner to the restaurants and bar-rooms
in the neighborhood. This, located at No. 31 South Fourth Stree