Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-06-14


doubt-glven pence-that they will soon be
very numerous and fruitful. Why should
not number of families live in assocta-
ton, 1t Is asked have a common kitchen,
common dining room, perhaps common
kindergarten nursery, a common library
even? Already we have with all sorts of
unknown associates) common bake house
at the bakers, common laundry-the hor-
rors Of washing day no longer wreck the
peace of homes as they did in the days of
Leech. Why not go further? Why not
have a common restaurant-and so on?
To which l would heartily respond, why
not?
The Small Household Unenglish.
1t seems always to be thought nowadays
that such suggestions are novel innova-
tons upon the natural habits Of mankind
AS a matter Of fact. it Is the clerks small
house and the laborer's cottage that are
the unusual, exceptional sort of homes in
this country. They are things of yester-
day. In the seventeenth century. except
for some rare shepherds or outcasts hut,
you would have found nothing of the sort
Nearly every one lived in large households.
The old English farmhouse had its labor
ers and maids living In. they had hearty
merrymakingS and sociable table; the
old English craftsmen and merchants kept
their 'prentices and helpers in one house,
and by way of consequence the prentice
married his masters daughter. There was
little or nothing of the dreadful isolations
of modern life before the eighteenth CEN
fury Those idea-tight house boxes in
which life goes on even as George Gissins
presents 1t, those lonely men and women
In lodgings, those over-worked wives look
Ing I'D out of the muddie of their unendinS
homework like creatures fallen into a pit.
are incidents of a phase. These things are
an accident Of English social development
recently come, and soon. l hope. to pass
away again. We shall not return to the
| nj ia oh 1iyiDg-in but shall on
to develop new methods of association.
q remember what enlightening discov-
cry it was to me to find In little hotel at
the baths of Leuk jolly customary dinner
table of the tradespeople of the place-men,
women, sons and daughters, and the doctor
and priest together. In England every small
bridesmaids family eats Its hastily and
badly bought badly cooked meal in jealous
secrecy, with the haste due to profound
boredom, at home. Before l thought the
thing over that seemed the only possible
way. But 1t isn't in the leastD
Communal Clubs.
Now. If we are going In seriously for
other ways, II we are to return to more
social and cooperative life-and fail to see
how our community can get civilized all
through IT, it does not-then / think 1t Will
be necessary to live In houses very different
ly planned and built from those we occupy
today The houses will have to be assoct-
ated and cooperative. too. Social develop
ment and the development of housing must
go on together, and one must wait upon the
other.
1t seems to me that the most Immediately
practical way of running the common table.
the common reading and social room, the
kindergarten a common circulating library
subscriptions trained nurse, medical ad-
vice, an isolation hoSpital-a dozen other
amenities of civilized life, Is upon club lines
Imagine a number Of people living conven-
iently near one another, and having similar
tastes, clubbing for these things; they
would all pay regular subscription for the
common services. and get their meals ana
so forth at tride above the bare cost
Would it not be possible to cater for them
collectively as cheaply and far better than
each individual woman now caters for her
separate home? Instead OF each woman
having a kitchen and scullery of her own,
there would be the club offices. Instead OF
each woman buying things extensively in
small quantities they would be bought on
wholesale terms by the common caterers.
All the accommodation that would be need
ed in the individual home itself would be
night nursery, bed rooms and a little sitting
room, music room, or parlor, or whatever
one liked to call 1T. Perhaps. in addition. a
small pantry for incidental refreshments.
That means a much simpler house and a
less expensive house than even the 930 a
year eight-roomed villa of our suburbs. So
that there would be not only a saving in
catering, but a saving in housing, and, l
think a saving in several other ways
The Club Mansion.
Suppose now all these private houses be-
longing to the club members were to be
made into one building-not in flats; there
is no sense in fats except in a crowded
town, where ground values are high. and
we settled in a previous paper that it is bet
ter for most people to go away from the
center, where work and business are done.
into residential suburb With reasonably
cheap ground it is not only prettier and
more airy to build long and low. but also
probably as cheap as to build narrow and
high; the walls need not be SO massive,
there need be no big staircases, lifts the
like Suppose, therefore. a sort of terrace
of houses with the club apartments at the
center, with piazza or some such covered
way joining up the separate homes with
+bot Or tho houses might even he de-