The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-08-13
TIE GRowrH or CITIES.
The Trolley May Serge as Check to Con-
gestion In Cities-COnnecticut's Half
Deserted Villages.

The Trolley May Serve as Check to Con-
gestion In Cities-COnnecticut's Half
Deserted Villages.
The concentration of large proper
ton of the rural population in cities is
well known. 1t has within fifteen years
grown to such significance that many OF
the interior towns, in Connecticut as
well as in the northern states of New
England, are semi-deserted villages
The hillside towns, so-called, in Con-
necticut, feel this evil particularly. The
Hartford Post, speaking on this sub
ject, says:
The fine old places of early in the CEN
fury and even down to a generation ago
are lapsing into ruin, In some towns
much of the pasture land is growing up
to underbrush. Houses which once shell
tered families of hardy farmers are, far
too many of them, silent-their occu-
pants drifted away, the earlier install
ments to the west, the later to the cit
les.
In an article in the August issue of
the Forum, Henry j. Fletcher hunts for
remedies for this evil. He is far from
hopeful and i'm fact thinks that at best
very little can be done. In his opinion
there will be no real remedy until grow
ing misery in overcrowded cities be
comes so great that the young farmers
will choose to remain in the free open
air of their own acres, however rocky
and stubborn, and be their own boss
es," rather than work from nine to elev-
en- hours at cramped benches in ill-ven-
tilated shops and live in overcrowded,
noisome tenements. The life of Bow
cry sweater and the misery of a
Chrystie street or Cherry Hill tenement
are the best remedies for the concentra-
ton.
The trolley has it's bearing on the sit
uation. 1t makes it more convenient for
workmen to, live outside the city. 1t
also makes 1t cheaper for capitalists to
locate manufacturing in the suburbs.
| 1t will relieve the congestion in cities.
Evils in tenements will injure fewer, in
asmuch as many tenants will move to
places where for the same or less mon
ey they will have better health This
of course will not apply to the cheapest
| tenements, as the communication is too
much of consideration. The trolley
| by rendering city life more healthy will
| tend to stimulate rather than to check
the drift of rural population to the Cit
les.
Mr. Fletcher's opinion that the trolley
will reach only the suburbs is open to
criticism. Many of the decaying towns
are within fifteen to twenty miles of cit
| les like Worcester, Hartford and Provi-
dence, and twelve to fifteen miles of
places like Willimantic and Norwich.
| The trolley with its consequences of
more frequent mails increase of news
paper reading and telephone communi-
cation will reduce to a minimum that
factor in the exodus which consists of
the young farmers dislike for the SOM
Violence of his birthplace. New activity
and new conveniences will partially rec
oncile him to his town.
| The movement for good roads is a
good second to the trolley. BY increas-
ing transportation facilities it will en-
large the market for his crops. Market
gardening in particular will benefit. In
many towns produce which was not
marketed on account of the difficulty of
taking it to the city will before this CEN
fury is slowed away in lavendar and
cedar be drawn to an urban market
over road macadamizeo for third or a
half or more of it's length, or carried IN
a trolley freight car. Old farms will re-
new their youth.
! Mr. Fletcher's closing words are wor-
{! thy of careful consideration. I'VE in
the United States he says, Cherish A
deep love for the farms and villages
from which most of US have sprung and
whence we must chiefly recruit the en-
ergies of race that is consuming its
strength in smoky cities. Is it not pos
sible that the fierceness of the rage for
wealth will one day abate, and the peo-
pie begin to look about them for the
sweetness and serenity which human
nature longs for in its highest moments
and which are best found under pure
sky, amid the quietness of nature!
When the farmer and villager begin tc
study more how to enrich and beautify
farm and village life, when perfect
roads, daily mails, the telephone, the
electric railway, the manual training
training schools shall have carried into
the remotest corners the blessings OF
the new civilization, it may be that the
incentive to live in cities will be largely