Page:The Business of being a Woman by Ida Tarbell.djvu/217

 brought up. In a pretty, rich, busy town of 30,000 people proud of its churches and its schools, eighty saloons industriously plied their business—and part of their business, as it always is, was to train youths to become their patrons.

What were the women doing in the town? I asked the question of one who knew it. "Why," he said, "they were doing just what women do everywhere, no better, no worse. They had their clubs; I suppose a dozen literary clubs, several sewing clubs, several bridge clubs, and a number of dancing clubs. I think they cared a little more for bridge than for literature, many of them at least. They took little part in civic work, though they had done much for the city library and city hospital. Many girls went to college, to the State Institute, to Vassar and Smith. They came back to teach and to marry. It was just as it is everywhere."