Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-12-17

hair upon the night Of that fearful snow.
storm. That's how IL happened, SIR
NeD York Ledger.
-s-eN
The Rugby Colony in Tennessee.
TIE English colony which Mr.. Thos.
Hughes aud his friends propose 10 found
In Tennessee has been misunderstood a6
being an enterprise eXcluaively English,
which was 70 maintain itself as English,
cultivate English traditions and feelings,
and aim TO be little England in the
midst Of the United States, In the same
way that Plymouth was new England
in the wilderness Of 1920. The Ameri-
can and English critics of the scheme
showed at once that such an undertake
ing must fail because the movement
springs from no religious or social theO-
ry, but is merely an industrial enter
prise. The result would inevitably be
the mingling of the colony with the
American life around IL, and gradual abb
sorpton in the great American commu-
nifty. But when this had been all CO.
gently set forth and reasoned to a logi-
cal conclusion, Mr.. Hughes made
speech at the opening of the town, so to
speak, in which he stated that such was
not the intention, that the gates of the
colony would stand wide open to the en-
try of industry and Intelligence from
every quarter, and that while In its be
ginning it was necessarily English, tive
hope that this will very soon cease to be
so.n
It is, in fact, merely an escape from
the narrower opportunities Of life in
older communities, and its hope and aim
apparently are to give more and fairer
chances to capable and well-meaning
people than they arc likely to find at
home. There is price to be paid, in
deed, for 80 great gain, and that price
is separation from the associations OF
older regions and of home, and the for
nation of new ties with strangers.
There is another price to be paid also,
which is inevitable, and that is the at
tempted entrance of the shiftless and
impracticable. No body of per-
sons can found simple indus
trial community which is designed to
lessen the friction of the great contest
for existence without being beset by
swarm of drones who hope somehow TO
be helped without helping themselves.
There is perhaps to be added to this
price-list the slight unnaturalness which
seems to belong to the impression of
such endeavors. This is not, indeed,
what can be called an original feeling,
because from the community in some
form our modern society has sprung.
But individualism and every man for
himself have become so wholly the prin-
ciple Of our society that there is now a
shrinking irom any return to any form
of communism.
Of this Mr.. Hughes is we'll aware, and
in his very tranquil and sensible speech
he alludes to the odium which attaches
to the word community, and repudiates
entirely all sympathy with the state
communism of which we have had some
ugly teachings in this country, and of
which Lasalle and Marx are leaders in
Europe. Indeed, the Rugby community
is to be neither political nor religious,
but simply Arcadian. 1t proposes no
reorganization of society, no revision of
fundamental laws. 1t accepts with per-
feet contentment the laws relating to
property and TO family life as they exist,
and hopes to make the business of living
under those laws somewhat easier. The
eolonists intend to lay out pretty town,
with due provision for parks and gar
dens, and to erect suitable, simple, and
attractive buildings. They mean also
to apply cooperation to the supply Of
many of the fundamental and constant
necessities of daily life, economizing
health and labor and expense, and there
by greatly increasing the common stock
of vigor and rational enjoyment; ana
they consecrate the colony to perfect re-
lgious freedom. q - 81 ~ 49,
1t is thus a unique enterprise. The
colony will avail itself of the results Of
the taste and foresight which are usually
wholly wanting, or which are entirely
contemned in the beginning of such
communities. Towns and villages are
chance growths. They gather around
some water-power, or mine, or spring,
or natural. advantage, or they are agri-
cultural centers growing without pur-
pose or plan. There is scarcely pret-
ty or pleasant town or village which a
little forethought would not have made
very much more charming. The village
improvement societies are signs of the
wish to remedy congenital defects OF
rural communities. Where there Is a
beautiful shore, of a river or lake, it
has been generally sequestered to pri-
vate and Individual use, and is lost to
the community. If the natural beauty
Of thousands of towns had been devel-
oped for the common benefit, it would
be found that profit and pleasure are
different faces of the same fact, for
property In an attractive community is
more valuable than in one that is not so.
But when, as at Rugby, it is proposed
to add to this cheap and easy care for
the common pleasure the tightening Of
the common labor by the introduction
of q kind of cooperation whose value is
incontestable, the only question that re-
mains is whether the colonists who will
come to settle win have the taste and
intelligence Of the few leaders, or will
yield TO them the control. The hope Of
the colony, as Mr.. Hughes expressed 1t,
is that it will be community Of natural,
not Of artificial or conventional, ladies
and gentlemen. This is the natural
hope of generous enthusiasm. .2Edtt6r's
Easy Chair, in Harper's Aagasine.