HODGE AT HOME.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1584, 30 October 1912, Page 6

HODGE AT HOME.

THE PRETTY COTTAGE, AND HOW THEY LIVE IN H\ (By S. V. Bracher.) Danuury, Essex, September 20. Until tho holiday season was quite over one could not take a walk in this large and scattered village without seeing artists, in ones and twos and hall-dozens, at every turn of the road or point of picturoiijiio vantage on the common. They were sketching tho old cottages. Aad the cottages should look very well in tho London art galleries, lor even where Dm walls do not quaintly lean, or the roofs deijgJitiully tag, they aro of such odd, irregular shapes, and. of such harmonious colours in ancient bricks and tiles and weather-stained wood and plaster, I hat (hey appear to bo a result, like- the gardons anil hedges around them, of a friendly co-operation, between man and nature. And yet I cannot pick up a local paper without finding something about tho extremo difficulty of housing tho rural poor and I can hardly talk to an inhabitant without hearing about the dearth, the smaUncss, tho dampness, and tho unhealthmess of the cottages. These troubles nro Hot ueiv, am! they aro not confined (o Lssex. iho wretched inadequacy of the housing of tho agricultural labourers was notorious even before Tennyson and luugsley exposed it in verses of an appalling and almost indecent frankness. There nave been Royal Commissions and Acts ot Parliament, and still ihe evil, though in some- respects lessened, is of terrible proportions. Inspection by tho local nuthonties, kept up to the mark by (lie Local Government Board, has led to better, though far from perfect, sanitary conditions, but there is still a great scarcity of cottages, and much overcrowding. The evil is recognised by all parties, and while the "Daily News ami Leader" has a special" traversing Somerset and Norfolk, the "Daily Mail" has a correspondent careering through Wiltshire. Tho stories they have jo tell could, I suppose, be paralleled in every county. They could certainly be capped in Essex."

A Coltago Interior. I visited an empty cottage the other day. The farmer who owns it prefers not to let it, though men come several miles every day to work for him. The cottage contains four small rooms. Two of them nro under a lean-to roof, which is so low that a man of average height cannot stand upright. The windows in these two rooms are single panes of glass, one, small one in each room—and one of them will not open. The other opens into an outhouse that has been used as a stable. The plaster within doors is stained with damp, fnr there is no damp-course in the brick walls, and the floors—also of brick—are laid direct on tho earth. I was told that a«.couplo who lived there brought up a family of fourteen children, somo of whom were now iu good positions. Had not my informant been a serious and respectable man, I should havo thought he meant horizontal positions in tho churchyard.

"Young People Driven Away." In a striking report on the housing of tho working classes in Essex, the County Medical Officer sounds, according to a Chelmsford paper, "something liko a note of despair as to the probability of anything being dono by tho local authorities, tho majority of tlie membeiß of which seem generally to oppose action beiiig taken on the ground of expense." He finds that good work has been done in the improvement of existing cottages, but what is urgently needed is a supply of better cottages. "Many cottages that are occupied aro barely lit for human habitation, and continue to bo occupied merely because there aro no better houses into which tho /tenants can move. There is a general want of cottages with three bsdrooms, and in consequence of this overcrowding from time to time occurs, immorality is fostered, and infectious diseases- spread. In many parishes young people are being driven away becauso they wish to marry and cannot obtain a cottage in which to reside." "Chargeable to tho Union." I pick up the "Essex Herald" and read how Harry ltunciniaii, labourer, of Chelmsfort , , was charged with neglecting hie wife and family, whereby they had becomo chargeabto to4hd union. It seems that Eunciiian could not get a houso to live- in. "I have dono my best," he said, "to get a houso all over the town. I walked to Stock last Saturday week and tried there, but I was unable to get one. I What am I to do? I am in good work that will carry me through tho winter." So tho Runciman family became inmates of the Chelmsford Union Workhouse. Ho says ho offered to pay the guardians tor tho maintenance of his family, but they refused to tako his money, saying that they wero not running the placo os a lodging-house. He, on tho other hand, refused to do the task-work imposed upon him at the workhouse, contending) presumably, that ho was not thero as a pauper. For this offence he was fined Is., and ie. costs. -Ho was given tinio to pay, but did not do so. After a few Veeks lie comes before the Bench again, charged this timo with allowing his.family to becomo chargeable to His miiin. Ho tells tho magistrates that ho would take his family out of tho workhouse, if ho could get a house. He has kept on looking for one, and lias even searched as far afield as the town of Draintree. People would not even .et him have a four-roomed cottage. The chairman: Why: Defendant: Becauso I have so manv childien. My mother brought up fourteen of us in a four-roomed cottage, and the-re was not a quarter of tho illness thero is now.

No attempt seems to have been made to discredit tho defendant's version of the case, but tho Bench, consisting of a colonel, a Knight of the Bath, and three esquires, could think of nothing bettor to do than to sentence Runciman to a month s hard labour. I confess I do not know how they could have helped him to get a house.

New Use for a Henhouse, It was reported to one of the Rural District Councils in this county a few days ago that children were "still" living in the workhouse because of the lack of room in the cottages. Yet a motion to build cottages at once was defeated. At the lastmeeting of the Dunniow Rural Council, tho sanitary inspector reported that in « case of overcrowding in a cottage a lodger had ceased to slecn in tho house, but slent in a honhouso adjoining u'pigstye. The man had stated iliat ho could not get another lodging. It seems that it barely pays to build decent cottages and let them at 3s. u week, and oven this is admittedly a higher rent than tho farm labourer can pav out of his lls. to 16s. for a Week's work. Meanwhile tlio Local Government Hoard insists that housing schemes must be self-sup-porting. No wonder if to manv who trufv desire a better state of affairs the situation presents itself os a deadlock.