ur "boys" will not hinder him--nay,
they will lend him a helping hand if need be. But suppose he lets
lodgings, suppose he has empty rooms in his house; then the people will
make the lodger understand that he need not pay his former landlord any
more rent. Stay where you are, but rent free. No more duns and
collectors; Socialism has abolished all that!

Or again, suppose that the landlord has a score of rooms all to himself,
and some poor woman lives near by with five children in one room. In
that case the people would see whether, with some alterations, these
empty rooms could not be converted into a suitable home for the poor
woman and her five children. Would not that be more just and fair than
to leave the mother and her five little ones languishing in a garret,
while Sir Gorgeous Midas sat at his ease in an empty mansion? Besides,
good Sir Gorgeous would probably hasten to do it of his own accord; his
wife will be delighted to be freed from half her big, unwieldy house
when there is no longer a staff of servants to keep it in order.

"So you are going to turn everything upside down," say the defenders of
law and order. "There will be no end to the evictions and removals.
Would it not be better to start fresh by turning everybody out of doors
and redistributing the houses by lot?" Thus our critics; but we are
firmly persuaded that if no Government interferes in the matter, if all
the changes are entrusted to these free groups which have sprung up to
undertake the work, the evictions and removals will be less numerous
than those which take place in one year under the present system, owing
to the rapacity of landlords.

In the first place, there are in all large towns almost enough empty
houses and flats to lodge all the inhabitants of the slums. As to the
palaces and suites of fine apartments, many working people would not
live in them if they could. One could not "keep up" such houses without
a large staff of servants. Their occupants would soon find themselves
forced to seek less luxurious dwellings. The fine ladies would find that
palaces were not well adapted to self-help in the kitchen. Gradually
people would shake down. There would be no need to conduct Dives to a
garret at the bayonet's point, or install Lazarus in Dives's palace by
the help of an armed escort. People would shake down amicably into the
available dwellings with the least possible friction and disturbance.
Have we not the example of the villag