822 REPORT—1899. 
or the necessary training, or whether the fatigues of a too frequent maternity make 
her réle as a housewife too difficult for her to support, the woman of the people is 
generally, on the other side of the Channel, a rather poor cook, an indifferent needle- 
woman, aud a still more indifferent hand at repairs.” Asa consequence, he says, the 
English workman has often no alternative but to wear his garments in holes or to 
replace them by others. Given an equal income, there is probably no doubt that 
a French working-class family will be better fed and better clad than a corre- 
sponding English family dealing in the same market, and will lay up a larger 
stock of the household goods, and especially linen, which are the pride of the 
French peasant. 
The waste resulting from the immoderate use of alcohol and from the wide- 
spread habit of betting, serious as they are, need not detain me, as I wish to confine 
myself more particularly to waste which can hardly be called intentional. It is 
not suggested that every man should confine his expenditure to what is strictly 
necessary to maintain his social position. The great German writer on finance, 
Professor Wagner, is accustomed to say that ‘parsimony is not a principle.’ It is 
sometimes, indeed, a bad policy and a wasteful policy ; and life would be a very 
dull business if its monotony were not relieved by amusement and variety even at 
the occasional expense of thrift. Le Play refers to tobacco as ‘the most economical 
of all recreations.’ How else, he asks, could the Hartz miner ‘give himself an 
agreeable sensation’ a thousand times in a year at so low acost as 10 francs? 
But nobody would wish to see a free man using his tobacco like the Russian 
prisoners described to me by Prince Kropotkin, as chewing it, drying and smoking 
it, and finally snuffing the ashes! Nor should we desire to eradicate from society 
the impulses of hospitality, and even of a certain measure of display. An austere 
and selfish avarice, if generally diffused, may strike at the very existence of a 
nation. 
Another respect in which French example may be profitable to us is the muni- 
cipal management of funerals (pompes funébres). Many a struggling family of 
the working classes has been seriously crippled by launching out into exaggerated 
expenses at the death of one of its members, and especially of a bread-winner. 
The French system, while preserving the highest respect for the dead, has some 
respect for the living, who are frequently unable and unwilling at a time of 
bereavement to resist any suggestion for expensive display which seems to them 
a last token of affection as well as a proof of self-respect. 
As regards housing, the English cottage or artisan’s house is regarded on the 
Continent rather as a model for imitation than as a subject for criticism; but the 
pressure of population upon space in our large cities, jommed with a love of life in 
the town, may possibly prove too strong for the individualist’s desire for a house 
to himself. If we should be driven to what Mrs. Leonard Courtney has proposed 
to call Associated Homes, the famillistére founded by M. Godin at Guise, and 
rooted in the idea of Fourier’s phalanstére, will show us what has already been 
achieved in this direction. Dissociated from industrial enterprise it might easily 
become popular in England. Somé of its collective economies are certainly de- 
serving of imitation, and the experience not only of the Continent, but also of 
America, may soon bring us face to face with the question whether the prepara- 
tion of dinners, in large towns, should not—at least for the working classes—be 
left to the outside specialist like the old home industries of taking and brewing. 
An excellent example of scientific observation is ‘Les Maisons types’ by M. de 
Foville, the well-known master of the French Mint. He describes in detail 
the various forms of huts, cottages, and houses scattered over France in such 
a fashion that it is said the traveller in a railway train may tell, by reading 
the book, through what part of the country he is passing; and he gives the reasons, 
founded upon history or local circumstances, for the peculiarities in architecture to 
be observed. The book is a useful warning against rash generalisations as to the 
best type of house for a working man. 
A well-informed writer shows, in an article in the ‘Times’ of the 28th ult., 
that not less than fifty million gallons of water a day might be saved in London 
‘without withdrawing a drop from any legitimate purpose, public or private, including 
