368 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



are several ways in which this can be done which I can but name. We 

 can create new cities on new sites, with all the advantages and none of 

 the drawbacks of the old ones — garden cities of the type so eloquently 

 and convincingly advocated by Mr. Howard, in which the needs of in- 

 dustry and the needs of humanity will be reconciled. Charles Kingsley 

 in his philanthropic ardor foresaw something of the kind for he 

 dreamt of cities — which should be " a complete interpenetration of city 

 and country, a complete fusion of their different modes of life and a 

 combination of the advantages of both, such as no country in the 

 world has ever seen." And his vision has come to pass. We have 

 Bourneville and Port Sunlight — cheering oases in the industrial desert 

 — and better still we have Letchworth, gradually coming into being, on 

 a broader basis and with greater amplitude of design. Letchworth 

 is still incomplete, but two visits to it have enabled me to appreciate 

 the judicious way in which it has been mapped out, the excellence of 

 all its sanitary arrangements, and the rapid progress it is making. It 

 is full of promise, and it would, it seems to me, be a national calamity 

 should any want of financial support prevent the project in its entirety 

 from being carried to a successful issue. It is to provide for 30,000 

 inhabitants, and that will not be much of a depletion for congested 

 London, but whenever Letchworth is an accomplished fact, other garden 

 cities will be undertaken. The transference of manufacturing indus- 

 tries to the country is feasible; it has indeed been going on for some 

 time both in this country and America, in the avoidance of high rents 

 and rates, and where suitable sites in the country can be provided with 

 suitable accommodation for workers, with cooperating industries 

 around, and with facilities for obtaining power, industries will congre- 

 gate and garden cities arise. 



Another way in which we can tap our great cities of their clogging 

 superfluities of population, is by establishing in our dominions be- 

 yond the sea, land colonies, under some such scheme as that so ably 

 excogitated by Mr. Eider Haggard. There are in our cities crowds of 

 men and women brought up on the land, who have drifted into the city, 

 and tossed about there as social flotsam, miserable failures, who with 

 families of young children would gratefully embrace the chance of re- 

 turning to conditions such as formed the surroundings of their youth, 

 and of rectifying their own mistakes, by placing their children's feet 

 on the path of prosperity. Such families carefully selected, settled in 

 parties, if possible made up from the same towns at home, in well 

 chosen localities, under skilled and sympathetic management and with 

 necessary financial assistance to start with would undoubtedly do well as 

 have done the indigent settlers at Port Amity, while their removal 

 would clear the air of our towns at home. 



But the best of all methods and the most promptly available for 



