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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



November, 1905 



Monthly Comment 



NE of the popular magazines recently 

 printed a story concerned with the marital 

 relations of a certain couple who had a town 

 house for the winter and a country house 

 for the summer. The tale opens on a very 

 hot day, and the man realizes it was going 

 to be intolerably hot riding the rail for a whole hour to his 

 suburban home; he detested the place anyway, we are told, 

 and so on, with many ungrateful thoughts of his fine country 

 house. The writer of the story is a woman, and no doubt 

 she thought she had touched a particularly masculine note 

 when she got in her fine work anent the man's dislike of com- 

 muting. It is possible that commuting has its drawbacks, 

 it is possible that many men dislike it, it is possible that many 

 men fail to see the charm that is inherent in a well-kept-up 

 handsome country estate; but all such notions show a total 

 lack of appreciation of some of the most agreeable things in 

 life. They indicate a total lack of real interest in one's 

 place of abode, without which the most splendid home must 

 pall on one; and they show, further, a singular sense of dis- 

 proportion. A rightly maintained summer place is a true joy 

 and delight; it can not possibly be had within near-by city 

 limits, and an hour's trip in the train daily is none too far 

 to travel in order to reach it. The gentleman around whom 

 this tale centers may represent a considerable class of the 

 well-to-do community, and if so there are certainly many per- 

 sons who need to learn what a home is and how to enjoy it. 



Philadelphia has interrupted its efforts to purify its 

 politics for a public rejoicement over its proud supremacy as 

 the great " city of homes " of the United States. The 

 distinction is, indeed, a notable one. A local census has dis- 

 closed the fact that Philadelphia now has 282,1 17 dwellings. 

 Before this stupendous figure the further fact that the city 

 has also 6,703 store properties, 805 churches, 297 public 

 school properties, 5,433 manufacturing plants and 135 

 buildings for the manufacture of malt and spirituous liquors, 

 is of comparatively slight importance. The real significance 

 of this great total is, however, chiefly apparent from a com- 

 parison with other communities. On a basis of a population 

 of 1,400,000, Philadelphia has an average of five persons 

 to a dwelling. In New York the proportion is estimated as 

 20 to a dwelling, in Chicago as 9, in Boston as 8.4, in Fall 

 River as 11. It is a unique distinction and a remarkable 

 result. It brings out afresh the inherent home-loving quality 

 of the Philadelphia citizen. Within the last year 6,848 new 

 homes have been built in Philadelphia, at a total cost of 

 $16,000,000. All these figures are stupendous, and it is 

 not strange that Philadelphia is delighted with its home 

 achievements. 



That the last few years have seen an increase, and a 

 decided increase, in the cost of building materials, is a matter 

 of common knowledge. It is a movement that has occa- 

 sioned much alarm, for the upward tendency has been so 

 marked as to seem general; and while this is not literally 

 so, it has extended to so many materials that the contention 

 need not be questioned in a practical discussion. The build- 

 ing and loan associations, in convention assembled, solemnly 

 agreed to petition the Congress of the United States for a 

 reduction or repeal of the tariff on building materials. The 

 New York Sun very quickly rose to point out that the in- 

 crease to which this convention objected was not caused by 

 any relation of the tariff to the matter or by anything else 

 than the increased wages which are now paid to workers in 



building materials the country over. The argument is 

 beautiful in its simplicity. The most frequently used ma- 

 terials in house construction are wood, iron (or steel), 

 brick or stone. Not one of these, remarks the Sun, has value 

 in its original state; but they do have value when subjected to 

 treatment by human labor. If, therefore, these articles 

 have increased in price, the reason lies, not in the operation 

 of the tariff, but in the increased cost of the labor put upon 

 them. It was quite to be expected, after this brilliant 

 analysis, that the Sun should calmly request those agitating 

 for lower prices for building materials to begin by reducing 

 their own wages as the only remedy. 



The agitation for childless flats continues to be one of the 

 popular topics of the day as well as one of the most volumi- 

 nous, although out of the great mass of words that it has 

 produced there has been little developed of real value, and 

 certainly very little which helps toward improving the situa- 

 tion in any respect. Landlords continue to not want children ; 

 families with children continue to find it difficult to obtain 

 flats. Both parties are at a standstill and a deadlock, and 

 neither moves an inch. It may, however, be pertinent to in- 

 quire if the objection to children has not some real foundation 

 to its intensity. The prevalence of any tradition is regarded, 

 by most historical writers, as affording some grounds for its 

 actuality. The prejudice against children in flats is as wide- 

 spread as the building of tenements and apartment houses. 

 It is neither charitable nor reasonable to assume that every 

 landlord and every agent is a human monster, intent upon 

 depriving little children of homes simply because they are 

 children. Suppose the children themselves are considered, 

 and some explanation sought in them. One need not be 

 a sociological expert to be aware that many children are 

 utterly untrained, that they generate an amount of noise in 

 direct disproportion to their size, that they seldom know how 

 to behave, that they are rarely watched, corrected and 

 guarded by their parents, that they sum up, embody and 

 personify many acute discomforts. It is true that most of 

 these matters only become urgent after the child is able to 

 go around by itself, and the objection to children by the 

 landlords is quite as marked against very young ones which 

 can not be disciplined as toward those of older growth who 

 might be subjected to training. The explanation may not be 

 a complete one, but it at least raises the hope that with better 

 training of children there may come a more tolerant regard 

 for them. Even good behaved children are not as interes- 

 ting to other parents as to their own. It seems singular that 

 so patent a fact should not be more widely recognized. 



Of the ways of wasting time there is hardly a limit. Many 

 consider it a noble thing to do, and as they might be engaged 

 in mischief instead of simply doing nothing there may be 

 some value to the contention. No organization for the 

 promotion of time-wasting has yet been started, but it will 

 not lack for membership should it once be seriously proposed. 

 All time spent in doing nothing is not wasted, but any time 

 spent in a foolish, unnecessary waste is time lost forever and 

 completely to the individual and to the community. A case 

 in point is the time spent in watching building operations, 

 the removal of a safe, or other work of like nature. One 

 may learn a good deal from watching the construction of a 

 building, but the idle men and boys who surround such work, 

 head turned up, mouth agape, hand in pocket, vacancy 

 in brain — these people gain nothing. They have simply 

 time on their hands, and they use it up in any way. 



