COTTAGE ARCHITECTURE AND COTTAGES.* 



WE wish that some of our architects, amongst whom there are 

 many men of talent, would turn their attention from torturing Vitru- 

 vius and Palladio, and from constructing mock-heroic monstrosities, 

 to the advancement of the social and domestic improvement of their 

 humble fellow-countrymen, by teaching the owners of property and 

 the builders of poor men's cottages the best modes of erecting them. 

 The bizarre taste shewn in many modern erections of great preten- 

 sions, is a woeful proof of the declension of this branch of the fine 

 arts. Petruchio's observation on the sleeve of his wife's gown might 

 be well applied to some of the proudest ornaments of our existing 

 race of architects : 



<e A house ! why, 'tis like a demi-cannon 

 What up and down carved like an apple tart 

 Here nip and snip, and cut and slish and slash." 



If, as we have heard some architects urge, nothing but these miser- 

 able affairs will take with the public, we heartily wish the public had 

 them thrust down its throat as a gentle alterative to correct its 

 taste. 



We have before us a little book on the building of cottages suited 

 for the habitation of the labouring classes, in which the subject is 

 treated as it ought to be, and in which due stress is laid upon the in- 

 fluence that the wretched cabins which disgrace many of our rural 

 districts produce on the morals and habits of their occupiers. This 

 view of the homes of the poor has been strongly and forcibly urged 

 upon the attention of the public in Mr. Gaskell's work on the manu- 

 facturing population, and we cannot do better than quote one or two 

 of his remarks preparatory to what we have to say : 



" The owners of cottage property in towns seldom lay out any money 

 upon it; and seem, indeed, only anxious that it should be tenantable 

 at all, long enough to reimburse them for their first outlay ; hence in a few 

 years these houses become ruinous to a degree. One of the circumstances 

 in which they are especially defective is that of drainage and water-closets. 

 No alternative is left to the inhabitants, therefore, but fouling the streets 

 with all kinds of excremerititious matter, and this leads to a violation of 

 all those decencies which shed a protection over family morals. 



" It very frequently happens, too, that one tenement is held by several 

 families ; one room, or, at most, two, being generally looked upon as af- 

 fording sufficient convenience for all the household purposes of four or five 

 individuals. The demoralising effects of this utter absence of social and 

 domestic privacy must be seen before they can be thoroughly understood, 

 or their extent appreciated. By laying bare all the wants and actions of 

 the sexes it strips them of outward regard for decency modesty is anni- 

 hilated and father and mother, brother and sister, male and female 



* Essay on the Construction of Cottages for the Labouring Classes, &c., for 

 which the premium of the Highland Society of Scotland was voted. By George 

 Smith, Architect, Edinburgh. Blackie and Son, Glasgow. 



