BAMBOO FOR BUILDING.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sra,—Has the suggestion ever been made to you that cottages for one or two families could be built cheaply and quickly of cement reinforced with bamboo poles ? Wooden shacks are temporary makeshifts requiring skilled labour to construct and an eyesore unless painted every two or three years. Brick houses are expensive and damp in your climate, whereas reinforced concrete walls can be erected by any able-bodied men or boys and finished in a week. These walls can be whitewashed or covered with vines on the outside and kalso- mined within. They are warm in winter and cool in summer, while the air spaces of the hollow bamboo insure freedom from dampness. The bamboo poles can be brought as deck- loads by ships trading with the East Indies, Asia, Africa or
South America, and the cheapest native labour can be utilized to cut the poles and raft them down the rivers. When lighted and warmed by electricity these homes would go far toward solving one of the most serious social problems
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