PLAGUE SEED BEDS.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 158, 22 September 1883, Page 3

PLAGUE SEED BEDS.

Philanthropists and theorists have for ages past. been striding to found a Utopian city. The modern Antseos; who gains strength from contact . with the country farm-land, is puzzled to understand why tens of thousands of men and women herd together, in towns and cities. It is one. of the problems of civilisation which baffles science. The majority of people to .whose minds the idea vaguely suggests itself, find consolation and rest in the equally vague reflection that the thing is, that it is one* of the inevitable, tendencies of civilisation, commerce, and the world's growth, and that, after all, " whatever is, is best." The late Eoberb Dale Owen, and other philanthropists of the early part of the present century, started an agitation and published pamphlets with a view to the establishment of model towns on hygienic principles. The late Duke of Kent patronised the movement, and gave ifc considerable importance; but beyond some isolated and spasmodic efforts in which Owen's little fortune was ruined, the project was futile, and passed away among hundreds of ' other philanthropic theories, like the attempt to discover the Elixir of Life and tfte Philosopher's Stone.

1 In later times, capitalists like Sifr GPitns Salt jiave realised the idea 1 on a small '^caU, principully for the amelioration of the condition' of the indos-

trial classes crowded-' : togefcher. in unhealthy fa cvd tories ;' but the movement has not assumed N any considerable 1 dimensions.' ■< It ihaWp how*> U evei», borW some ' frttit in' providing cheap •. and -» • r healthy homes ' for the poor> and has perfi'aps'W done somethinig to arrest that deterioration of tn& British face, which might other wise* have resulted •<»/ from the employment of , a "large proportion; of * l the population' iii factories' and' 1 badly 'drained-^ cities. It has also lent a< stimulus to the exer-^ tioris of modern professors: of sanitary Soience; ■•'-: engineers, and municipal authorities/ irr awaken?. '? ing an intereat in the laws of health, and in the use of safeguards against epidemics. ,_ _...,

Even iriNew Zealand some well-meant,; but; it unfortunately abortive endeavours haye ■•■ been ■; made to prevent a repetition of those blotehes^bn?/our boasted civilization and ; modern'" science* ■• which people in older countries inherit from the if ignorance of their forefathers — - attempts' * to •••• set up a legislative barrier Against, the cupidity :• of great land-owners, who • desired' to rget ■■: the utmost possible frontage out ■of their £ cut-up estates, with ( as much cynical contempt ;' for the health of their fellow men; and women, aye,' and helpless little children, and the human race, ■■•- as an old Yauxhall carver, who could produce; > countless gossamer flakes, like gold-beaters' skin,rfrom a single ham, had for the sharpened holi- ! day appetites "of his customers. We have a* vivid and rather painful recollection of a rather ••• Btout person in spotless white, in old boyhood's ■• * days, at Vauxhall, who was such an adept in the;art that the utmost precautions were necessary in order to prevent 1 his sandwiches being carried v away by the faintest zephyr. But this is by the way. The only connection between the two - ideas is that some of the great land-owners \ appear to have taken the Vauxhall carver as their model. Mr Charles O'Neill, when he was a member of the House of Representatives for the Thames, made repeated attempts to pass a. " Plans of Towns Bill," but he found the' great ' squatters and landowners stolidly arrayed against him, and hia measure was invariably' defeated by the New Zealand " Lords." As ancestry had ' done nothing for them, they were unwilling to . make the smallest sacrifice for posterity. Ifc' mattered not to them that in after generations thousands of peoj)le might perish like' scabby sheep in pestiferous lanes and alleys, because'' 1 they knew that the world would last their time, and they were hasting to become rich. c / '.,'

It is consolatory, in the course of a hurried retrospect like this, to be able to point to &p least one distinguished protest against that species , p£ . modern greed and Mammon worship. Nothing \ sheds so much lustre on the ermine as those great, deliverances occasionally come from, the, calm sphere j«f. - judicial irnparti&LLfcy, and uprightness, andWvluch, in the midst of the sordid struggle of modern existence, awaken the mind of men and women to the deeper truths and problems of life. The remarks of Mr Justice Gillies, .< in reference to the application of the late Mr , Beckham's trustees, for the Court's approval of the plans for the sub-division of the estate with, private streets 40 feet wide, deserve not only the . careful consideration of all thoughtful people, but should be treasured up for the next elections ■ for. the General Assembly, with a view to general ( legislation on this important matter of the widthof streets. " •.'.,.•

The man "who subscribes to the hackneyed phrase, " Every man for himself," must be a ' wretched specimen of a citizen, and a still, worse specimen of humanity. There is something higher and nobler in this world than that.. It , is the duty of every man to strive to leave the' world in which he moves somewhat — however , little, but according to his lights — better than he , found it. The man who, with a single eye. to. his own immediate profit, can recklessly doom, .hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of citizens to live in pestiferqus lanes and alleys, while his own immediate heirs are revelling in luxurious . idleness* and the free air of a .magnificent estate,, is an enemy of his species, and will have a big reckoning to pay when the fruits of his avarice are no longer of any avail or value to himself. This may sound like a sermon or a twice-told tale, but it is true. :

The Metropolitan Board of Works at Home had to raise a loan of £3,000,000 to widen out some of the narrow streets of London, to root out plague spots and the nurseries of crime, disease, and death. There may come a time when ' even in New Zealand, with all its freedom from those epidemics which .afflict densely populated , countries, the people will have to make similar sacrifices for the short-sightedness of their fore- . fathers, and it behoves the present . generation, in the full consciousness of its duties and respon- , sibilities, to bequeath as few evils or burdens to . posterity as the exigencies of the times will allow..