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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
It is quite possible , however , to make such arrangements as wilL enable the members of a building association to buy a house for some ludicrously small sum at a cost , for example , of ten guineas for a four-roomed house and the land on which it stands . The plan is , to buy a piece of land , and to mortgage that land far a considerable proportion of its value , to devote the money , with the receipts of the subscribers , to the building of a set of houses ; which are finished
successively as fast as possible , the members balloting for their turn of occupation . In this manner- a member may pay during the first three years at the rate of 17 ? . 13 * . for a house , the rent of which would usually cost him 151 . 10 s . ; in the next period of three years he will pay at the rate of 1 GZ . 13 s ., and for the remaining four years 11 . less : at the end of the ten years , he will have paid 101 . 10 s . over and above his ordinary rent , but will be in possession of a house and land .
We are not taking an imaginary case , but are presenting only the results of the prospectus issued by " The Albert Investment and Sanitary Building Association , " which has been ; in operation for three years . Some of its houses are finished , and are in possession , of the members entitled to them , subject to a mortgage which will be redeemed within the period stated * So far as accounts go , the plan is certified by the Actuary to the Gommissioaers for the deduction of the National Debt . The Society comprises first-rate names
forth from the apathetic portions of society , and converted into active promoters of these promising schemes . " We speak of course without commendation of any one in particular . Those who join them must look sharply after the general character of the leading men and the ability of the acting officers . If they do that , they may rest tolerably confident in the results ; and we know no reason "why persons of solvent means should not within a reasonable space of years become houseowners as well as householders and residents .
amongst its trustees and directors , and it . issues an annual report to the shareholders . The houses are built upon improved plans , especially upon the principle illustrated by Prince Albert ' s houses at the Exposition of 1851 , / the scheme is also applicable to leasehold property , such as the new village which the Society proposes to build at Forest-hill ; and great care is taken to secure salubrity of site as well as sanitary arrangements . It must- be understood that the " Albert " specially addresses itself to working men .
The same principles , however , are applicable to projects of any dimensions or character . The nature of the association is the samethat of obtaining a large capital by combined subscriptions and securities . It would of course be necessary to define the limits of choice for members ; but it would be quite possible to do so with some considerable freedom in the selection of plans . For example , a society might be established on the principle of giving a variety of plans for the option of the purchaser , some plans being suited to a larger or smaller number of shares ; or the plans might be varied without any diversity
m the cost . In the neighbourhood of Manchester there is a piece of ground set out as a park , in which , we believe , plots may be obtained , for building , not in the ordinary form of rows or squares . The same principle might be applied of course in the nei ghbourhood of London ; leaving to members , probably , the choice of the exact spot , but preventing them from approaching any nearer than certain distances . In this way a great deal of variety might be secured , either for the taste or the convenience of the purchaser , with a consequent advantage in accommodation and in picturesque effect .
There ia no necessity more grievous to the householder than that of paying for a class of accommodation that he does not desire . Many a man is living in a largor house than ho wants , because he desires to secure a particular character of neighbourhood . Some havo houses of tt inOro ornamental kind , because > with 'plainer houaea you frequently nna bad situation and wovae drainage , if not very indifferent ventilation and building . By a duflicionfc assortment of plans , those who entor upon tho occupation of houses with a view of ultimate ownership , might be drawn
Untitled Article
THE CRT FROM THE LOOM . * Que correspondence impresses us with the urgency of the pressure of the whole class of hand-loom weavers . At the best of times their condition is barely tolerable ; at other times it is worse than intolerable . The earnings of a hand-loom weaver seldom reach 10 s . a week ; in times of depression they are as low as 6 s . ; and we can remember occasions even of comparatively favourable times when the lower rate obtained in some places . In 1839 , for example , while the hand-loom
weaver at Stockport could earn 9 s ., the rate at Bolton was 4 s . ; and this rate can only be earned by incessant labour , by toiling as long as human flesh and blood can bear . ^ Nor is there any promotion ; the hand-loom weaver must in these days work at that rate from youth till old age . According to the ( Economist , therefore , he must not marry ; but according to human nature he does . According to the CEeonomist , he ought to rise from that miserable mode of life , and transfer his la " hour to another employment . So he
will if he is a genius , but if he is an ordinary man he cannot . Should he not educate his children to do so , then ? - ^ -he cannot afford it . He might send them to state schools— -if sect would , let such things exist . Yet no , he cannot afford even that ; he wants them at home to add Is . 6 d . a week , or , perhaps , 2 s . a-piece , to his wretched income . No doubt they must work as he does , from earliest morning till midnight . Even childhood kicks against that total sacrifice of life . " When there is any vigour of vitality in the child , it takes some flogging to drag him into the mode of existence . Sickly children give in without the flogging .
the admission of a species of lodger or fellowworkman , a tramp who takes a hand in the house as a journeyman , and being too many for the small tenement , he is an intruder in every sense of the word—often a corrupter , always a nuisance . While the workingclasses loudly clamour at the middle-classes for sacrificing everything for gain , those very workpeople will sell themselves , their incom e , their honesty , and the morals of their homes , in order to turn—it can scarcely be said an honest penny—but a filthy and polluted farthing . They must be excused , however , for their choice is only between that mode of life and starvation .
Without any species of margin beyond living from day to day , about as well as the shipwrecked mariner lives , the weaver has no means for insuring against sickness , infirmity , old age , or anything else . How can he rise ?" Those who tell him to improve the state of his class by not marrying- —that is to obtain an advancement in the peerage of life by having no heirs to his household , —or to transfer his labour to another iaode of industry , might as well preach agility-and free ageiicy to a man in the stocks .
Again , the hand-loom weaver complains that capitalists ^ consumers , and agents , conspire to beat him down . ~ Now a capitalist makes no more profit by hand-loom weaving trade than he does by any other ; rather less , since it is an unthankful and doubtful branch of trade ; and ' no man who has money or connexion for any more agreeable commerce will undertake , it . It is , therefore , essentially a mean trade . The agents are the creation of the system , not the creators of
it . And as to the consumer people do not buy waistcoating or fancy petticoats on principles of philanthropy : they neither see the haiid-loom weaver , nor know anything about him . They buy what pleases them best in the shop , if it comes within the means of their purse ; and if a few of them would care , still fewer would be able to send a gratuity to the weaver when they paid the price of the purchase , to say nothing of the chance that the gratuity would be lost or embezzled by the way .
There is , however , one escape , and that is emigration . We do not in truth see any other . The hand-loom weaver must continue as he is , or go . If he could only get bodily thrown to some other part of the globe , -with hands and head , he could scratch a subsistence out of the soil , and being free could vise . It would bo salvation to him if he could only attain to the condition of the shipwreck mariner . To be a shepherd in Australia would be to stand at the bottom no doubt , but
still at the bottom of the mountain , on whose summit lies wealth , independence — terroatrial paradise . To be a labourer in Michigan , would possibly bo to die of some illness in work too rough , for the enfeeblod frame . But even a short life of sickness with some hope in it , would be better than a life of hereditary mortal sickness without hope . The hand-loom weaver has no means individually , and the emigration commissioners only grant
assistance tor passages ; but there arc such things as subscriptions , such things as Government grants ; there are modes of conveying groat numbers to Australia , or to America ; antl ii tho hand-loom weaving class could concentra te its attention and ita energy upon this point , it might procure tho aid of other classos , and succeed in transplanting itself from a soil where it sustains a life of chronic death to one whoro it would run its chance of ordinary
mortality . . Some of those facts wo havo taken from the pamphlet quoted in th « foot note It is 1 ) V a Girvan weaver , who has practicall y llluatratod the moral that we urge . Ho ia jiovy on hia way to Australia .
It is the parent that breaks in the white slave , and the very few facts which we have stated , with one or two more , will show the totally disorganised state of many a home . The wife also must devote her health and life to " pirn" winding unless slue can take a loom , and although the labour is light , it is mostly beyowd the strength and endurance of the female limbs . Ignorant , incessantl y toiling , with the instincts not quite deadened , the appetites rendered morbid , the hand-loom weaver sickens for some kind of excitement , especially when , at times of depression , poverty enters the door in a worse form than that of
starvation — the dun , And the hand-loom weaver ' s dun is a devil of a peculiar combination of horns—he ia the agent , the middleman , who goes about distributing work and collecting produce . This agent speculates for himself . In times of depression , lie makes advances , and buys up goods to ' sell ; ho ia also a dealer , a walking tally-shop , making advances , selling wretched goods on credit , — he is at once the mortgagee , the shop creditor , tho employer , patron , cr imp , sweater , and driver of the wretched hand-loom "weaver , whom he has enabled to know a lower level than hand-loom weaving would of itself have found . '
Sometimes tho household is dtvettsifted bv — . ' Ml - A Voico from t / te Loom „• Iwing a |> ri « f akottfli of tho Condition of the Unnd-loqn Wenver . fvitli a fyw stmy thougiita conneotod tlioruwith . By a GirVnn Weaver . Glasgow . Printed at . tho Sentinel pfiltfe , Antigua-pliice , Nolson-stroot . 1854 .
Untitled Article
September 16 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 877
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 16, 1854, page 877, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2056/page/13/
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