On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
be reduced to about fifteen pounds . Lighting and warming , with an abundant supply of hot and cold water , would be performed much under twenty pounds , without any labour to the inmates . The price of washing would be reduced at least one half , for the
washerwoman would need no horse and cart to carry home the clothes , and she would risk no robbery or mistakes , or bad debts . The price of provisions would be reduced probably to something like two-thirds , and variety would be attained without trouble ; and moreover , cold meats and unwholesome food would not need
to be eaten to prevent waste . Health would benefit by this arrangement . Thus from eighty to one hundred pounds per annum would amply pay for lodging , domestic servicej lighting , warming , and washing for a family of five persons , and such perfect accommodation as no private dwelling ever yet attained at double the expense . One hundred per annum would suffice to secure an ample supply
of wholesome food in great variety , and a man with an income of three hundred per annum would have a third left for clothing and other expenses , and all this would be absolutely without the time of any member of the family being taken up with any duty of drudgery . The whole time might be disposed of in the improvement of their own minds , or of the minds of others . There would
be no need with rational people to send children to school , as they might be educated at home ; but if a school were required , it would be easy to apply the dancing and music room to that purpose during the day . The teachers would of course form part of the establishment . Such a community of rational people , well arranged , would offer a greater sphere of comfort than any other mode of life which our present knowledge enables us to devise .
It is a trial which would scarcely fail of success . The reader will observe that the plan is calculated for one side of a square . Three other similar ranges of buildings would make the square complete , and the space enclosed would serve for public walks and gardens . A small theatre or a lecture-room , or music-room , might also be erected in the centre , where the whole of the inhabitants
might occasionally assemble . There are many who will at once pronounce the scheme Utopian . Let them show it to be so . Let them show that there is any one single portion of the plan herein set down which is not in actual practice in some workshop , or private dwelling , or clubhouse , or inn . If there be , I will agree that it is Utopian . Let
them show that there is any thing in it beyond a combination of actually-existing physical means , in order to enable human beings to unite for purposes of economy , and yet to lose no jot of privacy , and I will be content to be set down as a wild schemer instead of a plain ' practical' man . As regards the building calculations , I do not pretend to accuracy , —merely to an approximation , *—but I cannot be very far wide of the truth . Should
Untitled Article
582 Housebuilding and Housekeeping .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1834, page 582, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2636/page/52/
-