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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



August, 1905 



The Observer's Note -Book 



Foreword 



I HE personal affairs of the Observer are of 

 interest only to himself. There are times he 

 wishes they were not so pressing and annoy- 

 ing, a trait, he is persuaded, of quite general 

 occurrence in the human race. One must, 

 indeed, consider oneself if one would live, 

 and it is impressively true that, if one does not consider one- 

 self no one else is apt to. The only persons in the world ab- 

 solutely certain of being cared for are criminals. There are, 

 of course, homes and retreats for the aged, for the sick poor, 

 for the mentally deficient, for certain groups of indigents; 

 but there are always more of these people than can be accom- 

 modated in the retreats provided by private and public char- 

 ity, and lodgment in them is often difficult. The criminal, 

 however, is finely provided for, once he is caught, convicted 

 of crime, and placed behind the bars. The State may not 

 love him, it may not even wish to be burdened with him, but 

 it cares for him like a long lost brother, even if it subjects 

 him to the indignity of manual labor, and feeds him on coarse 

 food. The criminal, thus, has no cares; his food and lodg- 

 ing are provided. He has only to wait, and wait, and wait. 



The Observer has no wish to paint the criminal's lot as 

 happier than his own ; he doesn't believe, for a moment, that 

 there is any joy in such an existence. But the criminal does 

 not have to concern himself with food, clothing and housing, 

 and thus escapes some of the weightiest cares that character- 

 ize human existence. And herein the Observer's lot differs 

 widely from the criminal, for all these living questions vitally 

 affect him. Just now his special battle with existence is to 

 read, digest and summarize the accumulations of a month's 

 time on his library table. Piled high with books and papers 

 of all sorts, he wonders if the polished top will ever again be 

 visible. His task, to be plain, is to cull from this material, 

 which grows so rapidly and so quietly that it seems to be 

 self-perpetuating, such matters of interest as will be pertinent 

 to the scope of this magazine, and of interest and value to its 

 readers. His table is large and the accumulations upon it 

 are deep and wide-spreading. At the beginning it almost 

 seems as if the entire range of human knowledge will be cov- 

 ered. This may, indeed, prove so in the end — but now to 

 the beginning. 



Suburban Development 



Many years ago the Observer located himself in a remote 

 suburb of the metropolis. It was an ancient corner that 

 progress had not touched, and which had so long passed out 

 of existence as to have been all but forgotten. His nearest 

 neighbor grew cabbages by the thousand each year; great 

 fields stretched out on all sides of him; the pungent odors of 

 the fertilizer saturated the air in the early spring; the tinkle 

 of the seed planters smote it in due season ; the nightly de- 

 parture of the market wagons was the most exciting event. 

 There were, of course, frogs in the distant ponds, mosquitoes 

 close at hand, flies to bother one at all times; but these were 

 mere details, quite insignificant beside the eternal quiet of the 

 place and its remoteness from the roar of Broadway. 



There was joy in this remoteness because it seemed assured. 

 But the hand of progress has reached out, and now, in place 

 of corn fields and potato patches, the speculative builder has 

 seized upon the land, and row upon row of small houses, 

 deftly arranged for the accommodation of two families, has 

 usurped the farm lands, and " development " and " pro- 

 gress " are in full swing. The Observer is still able to look 

 from his windows upon the smiling country, but now he need 

 go but a short space upon the earth to find himself in a built- 

 up section, choked with building houses, awaiting only a 

 noisy and assertive populace to entirely destroy his quiet. 



Of course he is prejudiced, and fails to understand the 

 value of these improvements. And yet, quite apart from his 

 personal bias, he thinks there is reason for his feelings in 

 this matter. Here was a vast, open tract of country, so 

 remote from the business parts of the metropolis that a 

 journey to it filled a considerable part of the day, morning 

 and evening. Surely here, if anywhere, there was need of a 

 real suburban development, with houses spaced in lawn and 

 garden, with streets shaded with graceful fyees, with all the 

 beauty and all the delight of real suburban living. The 

 vacant fields may have been a waste, the farms may have 

 been unprofitable, but surely there was no need to trans- 



form them instantly into rows and rows of mimic flats, giv- 

 ing the people who came here no more air and freedom than 

 on the great East Side, save for the wider streets and the 

 absence of the trucks. 



Yet such are the ways of men that no space that could, by 

 any possibility, have been built upon is being left without a 

 building. Solid row after solid row, with the horrible cor- 

 ner store, line streets where, but a few years since, were 

 yearly crops of potatoes and corn. No doubt, from the real 

 estate standpoint, perhaps from the owner's standpoint, cer- 

 tainly from the standpoint of the speculative builder who 

 hopes to persuade a number of persons to buy their own 

 " home " in this cruelly treated region, there has been " im- 

 provement "; but it has not been improvement that is real, 

 that helps to better living, that makes a better city, that tends 

 to uplift and help. 



And how strange those fields are now ! For the last time 

 the plow was brought into use. Without ceremony, indeed, 

 such as might properly have accompanied this solemn rite, 

 but with bawling and profanity, and with no thought at all 

 of the significance of the work. The ground broken, then 

 come the wagons and trucks to remove the soil. If perchance 

 a bed of sand is found, the fortunate owner scoops out his 

 land, places it on an adjoining space, piles it mountain 

 high, and smacks his lips over the wealth he has extracted 

 from an ungrateful ground. 



Just as little of the ground will be scraped out for the 

 houses as possible, for prices must be kept down, and there 

 is no money to use in digging deep, in laying strong founda- 

 tions, in preparing good cellars. Then begins the building; 

 the foundations of stone or of brick. Up go the walls. All 

 sorts of workmen appear. There will be union men and 

 non-union; you can distinguish them by the time they begin 

 work in the morning, the union laborers righteously refusing 

 to begin until the hour set by their rules, the others, ap- 

 parently, willing to begin at any time. There will be blacks 



