will not be imitated. Its interior arrangements are being copied in every State. The peculiar method whereby the bills were paid has commanded the attention of thinking men throughout the country. It is in these

two aspects that it will be here considered. Its dismal exterior may be quite omitted. First, we may consider the house itself, with some suggestions as to its adornment. Next, we may examine the far more important matter of paying for it.

Here is a new house going up. The lot is perhaps 12, 18, or 24 feet wide, by 25 to 45 feet deep. That admits of a front door and one wide or two small windows. Over these are one, two, or three windows, as the case may be. This makes the front of two stories. Steps lead up to the door, and beneath the windows are small lights for the cellar. Entering the door, we find a small hall or entry way, with perhaps another door. Then comes the front room. Next to this is the box stairway, crossing the house on a line with the street, and making a partition between the front and the back of the house. In the rear is the kitchen and the back door leading into the yard. A range or place for a stove is provided, and water is let on from the street. In the yard is an outbuilding, and perhaps a place for an open-air stove for out-door cooking in warm weather, after the Philadelphia fashion. Small outbuildings are added with a gate to the lane in the rear when the lots are deep. Upstairs are two chambers, and a small bath-room, with closet and the usual facilities. Below is an ample cellar. The walls are neatly papered and the wood-work painted. Gas is supplied, and in every respect the house is warm, convenient, and comfortable.

Over all is a simple flat roof. Closets may be placed under the stairs in the front room and against the walls of the other rooms. For a man and wife of moderate means, every convenience is supplied with one spare room. The house small, indeed, but it is good and cheap. Its rent is low, and its price is within the reach of even the laboring man. Its cost will vary from less than $1,000 up to $2,500, according to location. The rent will range from $8 to $25 per month, with taxes, water rates, gas, insurance, etc., be it more or less, according to the agreement with the landlord. Rent is rarely paid. There is a better way than that, and the great majority of people who occupy these and similar houses own their homes, or have it in prospect.

Plan A shows a house, 16x31 feet, inclosed by brick party walls, and having a rear wall of hard brick, and the front wall of pressed brick. There is a cellar under all, and a shed for the rear. The stories are each nine feet clear, with stone sills, and heads to the front windows and doors. As the design indicates, the house fronts on the street line. The cost will vary from $1,300 to $1,500.

Plan B shows another style, 12 x 29, and set back 25 feet from the street line. This leaves a small garden in front. Such houses are built in pairs, with an 8-feet walk between each pair. The second story of such houses and the posts are the same as in Plan A. Houses built in this way are designed to make the rear building of a possible house, built in the garden at some future time. Plan C shows the extension in front as the family increase in size and wealth. The elevations over plans B and C show different treatments of the same house. The twostory house costs from $1,000 to $1,300; and the three-story extension, from $1,800 to $2,200. It must here be noticed that these houses are far more attractive than Philadelphia houses generally, and are the work of an architect of reputation.*

Philadelphia is in every sense a city of homes for the people. Her people own their houses; the landlord no longer takes the bulk of the people's money; every man is his own landlord, and pays rent to himself. Small wonder is it that her people are steady, thrifty, forehanded, and domestic in their habits. Real estate rises continually; the taxable property grows quickly; the stream of waste that flows to the dram-shops is checked; the homely virtues flourish, and marriages increase in number. The young man knows he can quickly and easily procure a home, and the young woman is more than ready to aid him if so good a house can be placed at her disposal for so little money. She can even buy and own the house herself independently of her husband, and both can combine to erect and own their own roof-tree, that shall also be their children's home, and the assured shelter for their declining years. No dreadful boarding-house stares them in the face, and with reasonable care and industry they can put away the fear of the poor-house or the asylum forever.

Next, it may be in order to consider how

Davis G. Supplee, Architect, 208 South Fourth Street, Philadelphia,-to whom we are indebted for the plans given with this article.

Philadelphia paid for her hundred thousand homes. Here is a slip or two from the advertising columns of some of the local papers.

FOURTH OF JULY! INDEPENDENCE DAY! -Young Man and Woman, stop and reflect! The money you fritter away uselessly will make you independent. To-day sign the magna charter of your independence, and, like our forefathers, in about eight years you will, in a great degree, be independent by saving only thirty-three cents each day. In that time you will realize $2,000, or have a home and be independent of the landlord. Let this, indeed, be your day of independence, by subscribing for shares in the new series, now issued, in the State Mutual Saving Fund, Loan and Building Association. One dollar per share each month. For shares or information, come to the meeting on Wednesday Evening, July 7, at 72 o'clock, at the Pennsylvania Hall, Eighth street, below Green. The auditors' and directors' reports will be distributed.

$4,000.-YOUR MORTGAGE IS DUE AND Payment forthwith Demanded. What misery this notice often causes you and family. Begin now to cancel it by easy monthly payments, by borrowing the money from the ARTISAN'S BUILDING AND LOAN ASSOCIATION. Come to the Meeting on MONDAY EVENING, Sept. 6th, at 71⁄2 o'clock, at the Pennsylvania Hall, Eighth street, below Green. $4,000 loaned at 81⁄2 o'clock, on first or second mortgage or over ground rent. Borrowers supplied with shares at

par.

$3,000,-THE TIME TO BUY YOUR HOME, pay off a first or second mortgage while premiums are low and money plenty. The Republic Building and Loan Association will meet This (Monday) Evening, Sept. 13, at 71⁄2 o'clock, at the Pennsylvania Hall, Eighth street, below Green. Money loaned on first or second mortgages or over ground rents. All who want money, come and see what easy terms

These associations are called building and loan associations. The name is misleading in one respect. They are not building associations in any sense. They are banks without vaults, moneyed concerns without expensive buildings or highly paid officers; and no stockholders, aside from depositors, stand ever ready to devour the lion's share of the profits. There is no great fund of money to tempt the thieving president or his brothers, the burglars. A two hundred dollar safe will hold the companies' assets and books, and a slender bank account represents the available capital.

Let us attend one of these meetings -held in a plain, two-story brick house, and over a small fruit store on one of the plainest of these plain streets. Ascending a narrow stairway from an obscure court, we come to a small, bare hall, perhaps 20x40, provided with plain settees and a desk or two. Here we can sit and view the performance. There is nothing to suggest the bank, and all the fixtures are of the cheapest and most simple character. Over one of the desks is a faded card announc

money.

MONEY TO LOAN.-THE LUMBER MEN'S

Building and Loan Association will meet on MONDAY EVENING, August 9th, at Jones' Hall, Eighth street, above Green. Persons wishing loans on first or second mortgage are invited to attend and bid for the money Shares will be supplied in the Second Series. Premiums moderate. No bonus or commissions charged.

$3,000.-ON THE DOWNHILL SIDE OF life. How pleasant to feel secure in the ownership of a home, clear of all incumbrance. Come to the meeting of the State Mutual Building Association, THIS (WEDNESDAY) EVENING, Sept. 1, at 8 o'clock, at the Pennsylvania Hall, Eighth street, below Green, and borrow the money to buy your home, pay off your first or second mortgage. Shares furnished to borrowers after successfully bidding for the money.

Viewed as mere advertisements, they certainly display a refreshing originality. Here is wealth shouting itself hoarse in the effort to get itself loaned. When it is known that six hundred banking concerns in Philadelphia crowd the papers with their monthly announcements, it is easy to see that an effort must be made to win attention, Money in abundance, cheap and free to all able and willing to give decently good security for it! It is with this money the Philadelphia young man builds his bride a house. With the funds of these associations, poured out at the rate of half a million of dollars a month, Philadelphia has made herself what she is. This is her building capital, with a total yearly value of from seven to ten million dollars. This is the seed from which sprang up her hundred thousand roof-trees.

are, perhaps, half a dozen middle-aged men. In no wise remarkable, they seem just what they are-plain, matter-of-fact men of family and well-known position. One a mason, another a solicitor, another a retired merchant, another a physician, another a bookkeeper, the others something equally honest, steady, and well-to-do. These are the honorable officers and directors of the building association that meets in this hall tonight. They were elected by the shareholders of the association and make its responsible head. The secretary enjoys a salary of from two to six hundred dollars a year. The president, treasurer, and other officers work for nothing a day. The honor of the position is their only reward, except their car-fares if they travel for the association. Though they receive nothing for their work, it is far from light or simple. They must overlook the affairs of the association, attend its stated meetings, examine the security offered for loans, and attend to the business generally. Occasionally they must give half a day to the inspection of the property loaned upon, and once in a while there is an evening meeting of the government at some private house.

The time has come for business, and the stockholders or lenders begin to appear. In long procession they come up the narrow stairs and, forming a line, take their turn at

the secretary's desk. A clerk in very spruce clothes, behind him a shop-girl, pallid with toil, then an elderly man bronzed by a life out of doors. Behind these, two or three children with their hands filled with their little hoard of currency, the result of their month's small savings. Then more girls and women, evidently people who live laborious days. Others follow who never did a thing in their lives. Then a telegraph boy, alert and bright-eyed; then more men, retired merchants and small traders, storekeepers, watchmen, people of means and day laborers. Rich and poor, high and low, the hard worker and the idler living on the profits of his shares. Each and all come to pay their one dollar on their several shares. At the desk an old gentleman in glasses examines the money deposited, signs the little pass-books, gives one to the treasurer and the other to the assistant-accountant. Each book is examined twice and each dollar counted twice, and then the depositor moves on to make room for the next. The pile of bills on the treasurer's table grows quickly. The stream of capital flows in by ones, twos, fives and tens, and in a short time the account runs up to a thousand dollars.

The majority of the depositors, or lenders, as they are more properly called, having paid their monthly dues, retire to their homes, content to leave the directors to manage the business meeting of the association that is to follow later in the evening. They repose entire confidence in the direction, and, unless they wish to take out or borrow some of the money, return home without delay. The association is, to them, a superior kind of savings bank, and they trust it far more implicitly than do the depositors in the average savings institution in New York. More than this, they know that no burglar can rob this bank, no thieving president enrich himself with pious irregularities; they are sure no foolish bills of extravagance for gilded ceilings, silverplated counters and damask hangings, will be incurred to gratify the vanity of officers who never pay a cent of the cost. There is no brown-stone palace, no steel vault, no outrageous rent-only this bare little hall at two dollars a night, a trifling account at a city bank, and one absurd little salary to be paid; but the best of security for every dollar in good land and well-insured houses.

More people come in, and some take seats at once without joining the line of the epositors. There is quite a sprinkling of

women, and among the men are representatives from every station in life. At half-past eight the president of the association calls the meeting to order. The hall is now well filled with a quiet and rather sober crowd. These are the borrowers. Some are members of the association, and others are entire strangers, attracted hither by the winning advertisement of money to loan. All the money collected this evening, together with all received from every source during the last month, is now to be offered freely to the highest bidder, be it man or woman.

The president then calls upon the secretary to read the minutes of the last meeting and the directors' statement of the past month's business. The minutes are merely formal, and the directors' report shows what was done with the association's funds. The names of the successful borrowers at the last meeting are given, with a full statement of the amounts loaned, the premiums they paid, the security they offered, and its location, character and value. From this statement it appears that all the money received up to the time of the last meeting, excepting $2,000, was loaned out on ample security. This $2,000 added to the monthly dues and interest paid in and the loans returned, etc., makes a total of $13,000, all of which is now for sale without reserve.

There is a murmur of pleasure at this good financial showing, and the president announces that the sale will now begin. As there are some strangers present, the secretary rises and announces the terms of the sale. Any member can borrow on his share, even if it is only one month old. Those who cannot give real estate as security, and who have only just joined the association, or who wish to join, must bring a bond signed by some responsible person, that he or she will pay the dues for at least three years. This bond is only for the dues, and not for the loan. Any member who has been in the association more than six months can borrow up to the withdrawing value of his share, without real estate security. All members who can give real estate security can borrow up to $200 (the ultimate value) on every share they own, but no one can bid for more than ten shares at once. If he wishes more than $2,000 he must bid again. The premiums offered for loans will be deducted from the loan, and in case the security offered is not acceptable the loan will be refused, and the borrower will be obliged to pay the month's interest on the money at six per cent. This is to prevent