act that the increase in
expense bears most heavily on the small householder with a family whose
need is out of proportion to the income. Many a parent who grieves the
loss of his child would gladly have paid a reasonable sum for repairs, but
would have been in the poor debtors' court if he had allowed the plumbers
to enter his house. The new laws made since he bought his house require
diametrically opposite things, and the old fittings must all be torn out
as well as four times as costly put in.

It is a sad fact that the advantages of all modern sanitation are so often
denied to those who need and who would appreciate them. The renter has
here an advantage over the owner. He can call for an examination by the
city or town inspector before he takes a lease; the capitalist owner must
then put matters right. But as yet a man has a right to live with leaky
sewer- or gas-pipes in his own house without being disturbed by an
inspector. How far into the century this will be allowed is uncertain; in
time there will be an inspection of the premises of the small owner.

The only remedy in sight is for an investment of capital in up-to-date
houses of various grades in city, suburbs, and country; such investment to
bring 4 per cent, not 40, or even 15, unless by rise of land values. No
better use of idle money could be made at the present time. In
"Anticipations" Mr. Wells writes: "The erection of a series of
experimental labor-saving houses by some philanthropic person for
exhibition and discussion would certainly bring about an extraordinary
advance in domestic comfort; but it will probably be many years before the
cautious enterprise of advertising firms approximates to the economies
that are theoretically possible to-day." This is truer now than when Mr.
Wells was writing.

The great difficulty in the way is the first outlay. So many things will
have to be designed, patterns made and machinery built to make them; for
this advance in construction will not be by hand-made things. There will
be more head-work put into the various articles, but the mass of
constructive material must be machine-made, at least for the family of
limited income. And these articles need not be ugly. There must be many of
the same kind in the world, to be sure; but if the design fits the
purpose, this may not be an evil. No one objects to a beautiful elm-tree
in his field because in hundreds of fields there are similar elm-trees.
Slight variations in