COTTAGE ACCOMMODATION. 271 



might mean not only a closing order which 

 would turn them on to the streets, but also 

 the implacable resentment of their landlord, 

 who is probably also their employer, not much 

 progress is likely to be made. And should 

 new cottages be built, the higher rent exacted 

 without higher wages to meet the increase, 

 or having to face the possibility of being 

 stranded without any wages at all, deters the 

 cottager from meeting trouble, as he would 

 say, half-way. 



In a village in which I was elected a parish 

 councillor, I had to make my visitations to 

 insanitary cottages stealthily by night. In so 

 great a fear do the cottagers live of being 

 turned out of their wretched hovels, that I 

 had to presume upon the fact that I was a 

 parish councillor and assume some kind of 

 official right to examine the dirty puddles 

 from which the cottagers had to draw their 

 water-supply. The owner of these cottages 

 was not only a parish councillor, but was 

 also something much more to the point — a 

 rural district councillor. 



In front of me at this moment lies a letter 

 from a friend, who tells me that he can do 

 nothing with the insanitary cottages in his 



