averaged over L3,200 per annum.

While in the district of Bournville, the opportunity must not be lost
of becoming more closely acquainted with the village around the works.
Away beyond the factory stretches an estate of nearly 500 acres, set
apart for the purpose of "alleviating the evils which arise from the
insanitary and insufficient accommodation supplied to large numbers of
the working classes, and of securing to workers in factories some of
the advantages of outdoor village life, with opportunities for the
natural and healthful occupation of cultivating the soil." As yet only
some 450 houses have been erected, pretty, picturesque cottages all of
them, for the most part semi-detached, each on its sixth of an acre,
more or less, housing in all a population of about 2,000.

[Illustration--Black and White Plate: Fishing Pool, Bournville.]

It was compassion for the ill-housed work-people of Birmingham that
led Mr. George Cadbury, the founder of the village, to undertake so
splendid a task, and having accomplished it, he crowned it by making a
gift of the whole to the nation, placing its administration in the
hands of a Trust. In doing so he laid down ideal stipulations for its
development, and for the regulation of the villages which may in the
future be built out of the income of the Trust. The principal of these
are that factories or workshops shall never occupy more than one
fifteenth of the area; that no house shall occupy more than one-fourth
of the ground allotted to it; that in addition to wide roads and the
ample gardens thus secured, one-tenth of the area shall be reserved
for public open spaces for ever, parts of which are to be used as
children's playgrounds. At present no intoxicants are sold or prepared
on the estate, and if ever the trustees should see fit to permit this,
it is to be as a co-operative undertaking, the profits of which shall
"be devoted to securing for the village community recreation and
counter-attraction to the liquor trade as ordinarily conducted."

Such a scheme affords a model for public bodies tackling the housing
problem in earnest, and is fraught with great hopes for the future.
The annual income, nearly L6,000, is to be applied first to the
development of this estate, and subsequently to the purchase of
estates near Birmingham or other large towns, and the establishment of
new villages thereon. A most important feature is, that although the
rents are calculated to yield a fa