The ideal London sketched by Mr. Frederic Harrison at Toynbee
Hall last Saturday is an interesting rather than an attractive Metropolis. To reduce the present wilderness of houses to a reasonable size—a third or a quarter of the present building-covered area—Mr. Harrison declares that the tene- ment system is an indispensable preliminary. "Those who can't endure tenement life must go into the country and small towns." The mind is rather repelled by the prospect of this monotonous multiplication of Queen Anne's Mansions, but as a set-off we shall have more room for fine avenues, parks, gardens, and boulevards. Though differing widely from the Metropolitan Utopia of the late Mr. William Morris, Mr. Harrison's ideal London resembles it in one respect,—the river Thames is once more to deserve the epithet " silver sliding " applied to it by Spenser ; electric launches are to supplant steamers on the waterway, just as elegant and silent automobile cars are to supplant all horses and carriages in the streets. London, in short, is to be smokeless, smell-less, with a cheap and abundant water-supply conveyed from the mountains by gigantic aqueducts built in the Roman fashion, universal cremation, and a death-rate of not more than 10 per 1,000 among a population reduced by " economic causes" to two millions. Mr. Harrison's millennium is far too mechanical and monotonous to suit our taste. The charm, the privacy, and the individuality of domestic life will not survive an era of co-operative kitchens.
Previous page
