114 
Tlie Labour Bill in Fariidiu/. 
Counties. At Lavender Hill, not far from Clapham Junction,, 
in the south of London, there is now upon the Shaftesbury Park 
Estate what is popularly known as " the Working-men's City."^ 
The houses there are of four classes. Those of the lowest and 
cheapest class, which need alone be mentioned here, contain five 
rooms — two living and three bed-rooms — and the weekly rental 
charged for them is 5s. 9rf., including rates and taxes. Having 
inspected the Lavender Hill dwellings, and visited in all part* 
of Suffolk three-bed-roomed cottages of the same class, I can 
speak of their relative merits with some confidence. The town- 
houses have the advantage of gas and water (though these 
requisites, of course, involve an extra payment), a system of 
drainage, and air-shafts and valves which secure a free ventila- 
tion in every room. The tenants also enjoy the benefit of easy 
access to schools, a lecture-hall, and shops, or a co-operative 
store, where marketing can be done cheaply and quickly. By 
common consent of the tenants, it may be added, no beer-shop 
or other place for the sale of alcoholic drinks is allowed upon the 
estate. On the other hand, few of the people who live here are 
as near to their work as the farm-labourers, even those living in. 
the villages ; while they are under a still greater disadvantage ia 
comparison with the labourers for whom cottages have been 
provided upon the farms on which they are engaged. Probably 
the majority of the inhabitants at Lavender Hill must travel to 
and from their work by means of the neighbouring suburban 
railways ; and the weekly railway fare, even at workmen's rates, 
represents a substantial addition to rental, with a liability to 
increase at the discretion of the Railway Directors. 
Plenty of peasants' cottages throughout East Anglia may be 
fairly contrasted with these workmen's dwellings. I wish the 
number were greater than it is. But, as I have said, much is 
Ijeing done to increase the number ; and the wonder is, with the 
inadequate rentals yielded by such cottages, that they shouhl 
increase in number at all. The rooms of the modern cottage 
are of about the same size, and give the same accommodation,, 
as those of the houses at Lavender Hill. There is invariably 
an oven for bread-baking, not always one for each coltage, but 
one for each pair, built in the rear ; and generally there is a 
common copper for brewing. These two economies, practised 
as a matter of course by the villager, are impossible to the work- 
man in any large town. The pig-sty, with its useful inmate, 
and the garden yielding good crops of vegetables, must riot be 
omitted ; and here, again, these things are not for the workmen 
in towns. 
Th(! comparison, however, may rest not upon relative accom- 
modation, but actual rental. Now, while bs. 9</. is thought a 
