1 68 LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



the cottages almost nominal, a dozen families 

 were found to make the experiment. In less 

 than a year and a half the scheme was aban- 

 doned. At no time were the cottages all 

 occupied after the first month, and it required 

 great inducements to prevail upon the tenants 

 to remain more than a quarter. The reasons 

 given by them for returning to New York 

 were, in all cases, the same : the women of 

 the family were lonely they missed the society 

 of the tenements. They missed the life of 

 the streets, the drunken brawls, the yells and 

 screams, the dirt, the noise, the heat, the foul 

 air, and language of the slums. The children 

 may have enjoyed the country, but their elders 

 wanted society. Going higher in the social 

 scale, it seems to be very much the same story. 

 People with not much to think about cannot 

 get on without the crowd, no matter what kind 

 of a crowd. I am convinced that this is a far 

 more potent factor in keeping people in great 

 cities and attracting them than the prospect of 

 better clothes and whiter hands which the shop 

 offers to the young man from the farm. There- 

 fore in order to wean city people, who ought 

 not to live in the city, away from improper 



