at it, big with responsibility, until the work is done.
But perhaps no better idea of the workings of the Junior Republic in the full exercise of its functions can be gained than from the "Financial Budget" which is weekly posted at the post-office door, and of which the following is an example:
Sewing for the Government.
| Income. | Expenses. | ||
| Hotel Ithaca | $22 25 | Garbage | $17 75 |
| Hotel“ Dryden | 20 25 | Closets | 16 00 |
| Hotel“ Elmira | 14 50 | Lamps | 4 50 |
| Hotel“ Waldorf | 40 00 | Police | 75 00 |
| Delmonico's | 165 00 | Senate | 22 50 |
| Sherry's | 50 00 | House | 43 50 |
| Cortland | 50 00 | Post-office | 6 30 |
| Fines | 70 17 | Prison | 16 00 |
| Passes | 20 00 | Watchman | 14 00 |
| Office Rent | 3 00 | Tool Clerk | 5 50 |
| Post-office | 2 60 | Library | 5 50 |
| Tariff | 7 59 | Dues | 10 00 |
| Surplus | 308 50 | Judgments | 230 00 |
| Taxes | 43 50 | Armorers | 8 70 |
| Grounds | 100 00 | ||
| Future Projects | 30 00 | ||
| $817 36 | $589 25 | ||
These details are soberly inspected by the citizens going to and fro from post-office and bank, to see what are the rates of concession for hotels and restaurants, and the amount of surplus in view of future taxation.
The Republic is the result of the dissatisfaction of a young New Yorker, Mr. William George, with philanthropic methods. These tend to lose the individual in the system, when the need is for good citizens and free men. The fact of citizenship never had firmer hold on the mind of man than it has in the hatless, shoeless boy with his hands in his pockets, walking over the slopes of this little domain. It is seen in the personal relations of the President of the Junior Republic and its citizens, whose frankness of intercourse and mutual respect would confound those hierarchies that call for superintendents and matrons.
Mr. George's most capable chief-of-staff is his mother. Most familiarly she is known as "Mother George," a title which dispenses with explanation. Yet as member of the Board of Health she may be called by an indignant citizen to defend her acts before the courts, and after justice is appeased, go forth as ever-beneficent, untiring Mother George.
The George Junior Republic was last year but in its second summer. The greater number of its two hundred inhabitants were new. They had come pledged for seventy days—a pledge they were required to keep. There have been deserters, two of whom were recaptured at a neighboring town by the police of the Republic, and subsequently became honorable citizens. The inhabitants are chosen from the least fortunate, and the worst surroundings. No boy is too bad for admittance. One of the most hapless of these children is a boy under twelve who has committed arson five times and bears the marks of the congenital offender. But heredity does not appear to be considered here. The boy has a guardian appointed by the government in an older boy who is responsible for him. Thus far the responsibility has worked admirably for both. No one would contend that the two brief years of the Junior Republic has yet demonstrated more than that it is an interesting experiment, fortified by such instances as this—a boy is a consistent law-breaker, and after some forty arrests and punishments, sagely concludes that law-breaking does not pay. He goes to work, and before the season closes has laid up forty dollars, which, redeemed in potatoes, is sufficient to keep his family at home all winter.
