54 COTTAGE ARCHITECTURE AND COTTAGES. 



sands of happy and contented families that it has quenched the fire 

 upon thousands of hearths that the small proprietor has been forced 

 from his useful position that the poor man has been robbed of 

 his garden and his cow and finally it brings to light a vast and 

 dangerous mass of population and discontent exposed to the influ- 

 ences of demagogues and the teachings of an impure religion. 



Well may the cheek of the patriot glow when he stands upon the 

 quays of Liverpool or Glasgow, and sees thousands and thousands 

 of his countrymen proceeding into voluntary exile, in order to escape 

 the pressure of home misery. Well may his heart burn within him 

 when he recognizes in these pilgrim-bands the very essence and sinews 

 of a nation's strength the provident and thrifty labourer and his fa- 

 mily who is carrying his industry and his hard- won earnings to some 

 land where poor laws and corn laws where taxes upon every article of 

 production and consumption have no existence, and where he hopes 

 to find a field for his labour ; as this is all that he wants and this 

 merry England denies him. This alienation from their native soil 

 we consider as an evil of the first magnitude. It has arisen from the 

 labourers having been deprived of the little plots of land they once 

 enjoyed, and which raised them above the condition of mere hirelings. 

 Thus being deprived of every extraneous resource, and left dependent 

 on the varying labour-market, they were prepared to sink at once 

 into the slough of despond spread around them by the operation of 

 the poor laws. And now when the evil has become too heavy to be 

 borne, and steps are taking to amend this state of things, the suffer- 

 ings of the stranded victims are becoming awful. Accounts reach us 

 daily of the most heart-rending scenes ; and the cry is gone forth 

 " Give us land give us land and save us from the workhouse." 



Yes, we say, give them land restore the means of helping them - 

 selves save them from the workhouse the lowest degradation to 

 which a freeman can be subjected and we shall hear no more of 

 Emigration Committees, which are the foulest proofs of the unhealthy 

 condition of the social union. 



The construction of cottages in general is exceedingly defective as 

 to fire-places, and we are sorry that Mr. Smith's book passes over the 

 matter lightly. A great deal of fuel is wasted in ordinary grates, and 

 the flues are almost invariably short and direct, and serve only as out- 

 lets for heat, instead of serving for its diffusion, as well as the carry- 

 ing away of smoke. Mr. Smith indulges in some sensible observa- 

 tions enough on the applicability of coal-gas to the purpose of heating 

 cottages, but he forgets that coal-gas, to be made economically, must 

 be made on a large scale, and that consequently, in country districts, 

 it does not deserve the name of domestic fuel. In large towns a good 

 deal might be done with it, and we have no doubt that before long 

 some scheme will come into notice that will make it available. 



We must conclude our observations by again urging upon the at- 

 tention of the owners of property, the importance of well-built cot- 

 tages, both to the value of their property and to the moral and social 

 amelioration of the working man. How little the subject is under- 

 tood by the best meaning men, is obvious from an inspection we 

 made not long ago of some improved cottages, built on the estate of 



