70 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



The casual visitor to our rural districts is 

 frequently led by the picturesque exteriors 

 of our country cottages to ignore the existence 

 of the damp and squalid accommodation 

 within. Mrs. Allingham's charming sketches 

 of " the cottage homes of England " must not 

 blind us to the fact that the general standard 

 of rural housing is disgracefully low. A lady 

 drew my attention in the Midlands to a 

 " beautiful old cottage." Beautiful it certainly 

 was, with its framework of dark oaken beams 

 among the white " roughcast," the red roses 

 trailing over the lintel, the thatched roof 



The lovely cottage in the guardian nook, 



With its own dear brook, 

 Its own pasture, almost its own sky. 



But inside there was no place in the one 

 small living room free from draughts, water 

 trickled through the worn-out thatch, the 

 floors were cold and damp. Upstairs were 

 two small bedrooms, where slept a man and 

 his wife, two sons and a grown-up daughter. 

 A very small proportion indeed of village 

 bedrooms contain a fireplace. Yet think 

 what it means to nurse a case of, say, pneu- 

 monia, in an unwarmed bedroom. Far more 

 attention is bestowed in some places on healthy 

 accommodation for horses and dogs than on 



