Durango semi-weekly herald. (Durango, Colo.) 1899-1907, 1906-08-06
COUNTRY LIFE AND sLum LIFE,

What is the mysterious attraction
that holds in crowded city tenements
| SO many toilers who would be better
on In the country? The squalid dis
tricts OF cities are congested with a
population living generally in misera-
Die discomfort. while from the fields
and iarmhouses comes cry for more
helpers at better net wages and In
healthful surroundings Cities con.
tinue to grow faster than tts rural
places, and at the expense of farm In
terests. Numerous attempts have
been made to turn the tide, but each
census shows 1t to be running strong
err than before. Rural villages for
workers have been started and the
terms for acquiring homes fixed at
scarcely more than the cost of rent
In cities. but the class invited will not
leave the city quarters, where a fam
lily often swelters through an in
tensely hot summer, cooking and
sleeping in one or two dark rooms,
with the children amusing themselves
In the alleys and cutters. Through
Ihlianthropic efforts some relief Is af-
iorded by vacation Fairgrounds, but
few of the families, even when out of
work, can be induced to remove to a
pleasant country home with the as
surance. of steady employment at
wages from which they could save
something. The spell of the city is
on them immovably.
1t is related of an old woman of the
Sums who was taken to the country
for n free outing of two weeks that
she was back in her dark little den in
less than three days, and explained
that People is better than stumps."
There may be some to whom the
country is nothing more than a col
lection of stumps, but their minds
and souls must be singularly deform.
ed or bluntcd If they can find no
charm in country air, skies, verdure.
freedom, communion with nature.
wholesome living, neighborly human
sympathy. good schools, and sound,
moral atmosphere. This is a year of
fine crops throughout the United
States, The harvest fields offer good
pay for helpers, but can. not get
enough to prevent some of the prod
ucts from going to waste ungathered.
million immigrants year are land
ing at our ports, and yet even In New
York, Pennsylvania and New Eng
land are many abandoned farms be-
cause no working force can be OBJ
tanned. Yet every city tenement, al
ley and Stun is thronged with a mass
OF people whose haunts are those of
bad air, bad food and positive suffer
ing.
In the year 1900 the population OF
London was less than 1000 900. 1t Is
now 100000. New York has grown
still more rapidly, and Will pass Lon
don within 80 or 40 years. Other
large American cities are increasing
in a like ratio. The rural districts
are losing ground relatively, though
their various facilities and opportuni-
ties are constantly improving. Philan-
throphy says: Clear away the old
rookeries; let the sun shine into the
slums; build model tenements; multi
ply vacation play-grour DIS, and add
more small parks and shade trees.
When all this is done, the congested
districts will be little more like the
country, yet at best greatly inferior
to it. Somebody should write a story
about the last of the cave jewellers and
how they must have fought the idea
of abandoning their noisome holes
underground. The psychology OF the
thing survives in the city slums. Per
haps philanthrophy itself is forgetting
that there Is such thing as country
life and rural works of necessity
Globe-Democrat.