RURAL HOUSING 327 



B. RURAL HOUSING 

 RURAL HOUSING 1 



ELMER S. FORBES 



RURAL housing as a whole exhibits the same differences, the 

 same degrees of excellence as does the housing of the towns. 

 There are numbers of farms where the dwellings are well built 

 and provided with modern systems of heating and lighting and 

 with every convenience for the economical dispatch of the work 

 of the household, where the barns and outhouses are well kept 

 and clean, and where the sanitation is all that can be desired. At 

 the other end of the scale there are to be found here and there in 

 the country single houses or small groups of houses which exhibit 

 many of the characteristic marks of the slum. Not all, for in 

 the open country at the worst, there is plenty of fresh air and 

 sunlight and space; but there are dirt and filth indescribable, 

 the most primitive sanitation, serious overcrowding and indecent 

 promiscuity. These slum spots exist not only in remote dis- 

 tricts far from the railroads, but close search will find them in 

 many communities where they would not be expected and where 

 their presence is known to but few, on narrow country by-ways 

 and lanes, in wild places in the vicinity of the railways, in ne- 

 glected woodlands; indeed, there is scarcely a hamlet or town 

 within whose limits these disreputable shacks may not be dis- 

 covered. 



Two or three cases may be instanced by way of illustration. 

 The family of a small farmer on the outskirts of a country village 

 was found living in a one room log cabin in utter disregard of 

 the ordinary laws of health and decency. As a consequence, two 

 of the children had been attacked by tuberculosis, and unless im- 

 mediate action were taken there was every reason to believe that 

 all would become affected. Another such family lived in a dilapi- 

 dated combination of dwelling and barn, not fit to be the habita- 

 tion of either cattle or human beings, where the overcrowding was 

 equal to that in the most congested districts of the cities and all 



i Adapted from the Annals of American Academy of Political and Social 

 Science, January, 1914, pp. 110-116. 



