Mr. Disraeli, on Saturday last, assisted in opening the new -
workmen's town, building near Lavender Hill by the " Artisans, Labourers, and General Dwellings Company (Limited)." This Company, of which Lord Shaftesbury is the soul, is building in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, and London, workmen's faubourgs,—towns of small houses, fitted up with all modern conveniences. The Company finds it can build houses with from eight to five rooms, and let them for sums varying from £26 a year to £14 3s., and yet earn a dividend of more than seven per cent. The town on Lavender Hill, called the Shaftesbury Park Estate, will consist of 1,200 houses, and supply accommodation for at least $,000 people, and yet will pay. As Mr. Disraeli said, " this result in some degree solves a question which had perplexed. Parliament," for although none but the highest-paid workmen 044 inhabit these houses, they will help to relieve the general pros? sure. The labourer, unfortunately, cannot use them, as unless he lets lodgings, he cannot pay a third of his income for rent. There is to be no public-house in these towns, and a workman who attended the ceremony pleaded that there should be no pawn-shop either, a curious illustration of the length to which tho proletariat would go in restriction. Suppressing the banker lest one should borrow is surely the redactio ad absurdum of grandmotherly legislation.
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