the spacious and
luxurious restaurants and eating sparingly of some of the delicious
viands prepared by the scientific chef. In fact, the many delightful
advantages to be derived from living at the Waldoria directly appealed
to me as being some of the blessings supplied by nature for all human
beings to enjoy.

But still there was a serious drawback to my thorough and absolute
enjoyment of these conditions, when I took into consideration the fact
that I was in no way responsible for their existence. I was accepting
something from the community, but giving nothing in return. I felt that
in living at the Waldoria, and doing no work for the community, I was
like a great sponge soaking up the life-blood of honest toil, and
returning nothing for the sustenance it afforded me. I felt that I
should at least go to work and do something that would help to pay for
my keeping. True it was that I had the money to pay for these things,
but where did the money come from? Where does all money come from? To
have money to pay for things does not mean that one has earned them. So
I decided that I would go to work as soon as possible, and give to the
community an equivalent for the things I enjoyed.

But then, the great difficulty arose when I tried to find something to
do. It made little difference what kind of work I should engage in as
long as it was of a productive nature. But when I went around looking
for employment, I discovered that there was none to be had.

It is certainly a most unnatural system which fails to utilize all the
power at its command for the good of universal production, and it seems
hard to realize that such conditions can exist; but during my wanderings
from street to street, store to store, and factory to factory,
throughout the great commonwealth of New York, I discovered that besides
myself, there were also thousands of other earnest men tramping the
streets, willing, but unable, to find work. At last, however, I was put
in the peculiar position of having to pay to work. One day, after a week
of unsuccessful attempts to obtain employment, I ran across one of the
sub-bosses of the street-cleaning department. Making known my desire to
him, I was amazed when he told me that he would let me work on condition
that I paid him twenty-five dollars for the job and promised to give him
ten per cent. of my wages each month. He informed me that all of the men
under his charge had to do likewise. In fact, he intimated th