THE INDUSTRIAL ASH-HEAPS.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sia,—Mrs. Williams-Ellis, in her article on "The Civic Sense Aroused ? " states that "the men who are content with English manufacturing towns as they are are the men who are happy in their work." She omits to make a point which supporth her excellent argument for a civic sense in places like Sheffield (which a just God would wipe out of existence), and that is that the men who are content with English manu- facturing towns as they are are not content to live in them.
The mill-owner removes himself and his family as far away from his mill as he can. How many manufacturers live in that dirty hole, Leeds ? How many of them prefer to live in Harrogate ?
If Mrs. Williams-Ellis wishes to see places like Leeds and Sheffield made as habitable as Rouen (which is a manufacturing ' town), and I am sure she does, then she had better start a campaign to compel mill-owners to live beside their mills. They'll soon begin to clear up the muck then ! When their children have to live near foul factories which belch lung- destroying smoke all day, they will be less content to see their workmen's children living near them.
One would willingly spend a holiday in Rouen, but would anybody but a lunatic spend a holiday in Sheffield or Leeds . or Manchester ? Obviously, Mrs. Williams-Ellis must not abandon her campaign until the answer to that question is in the affirmative.
In the meantime, she might take a glance at the stretch of country between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, seen from the windows of a railway carriage, and then take a glance at Warrington and Widnes. If these places do not make her feel like hitting the first mill-owner she meets a punch on the jaw,' I shall be greatly astonished.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Sr. JOHN ERVINE.
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