Country Life
RACK RENT COTTAGES.
Few people, even among those possessed of incurably urban minds, will deny that the reconstruction of village life would do Britain infinite service. Recent experiences con- % ince me that nothing so surely prevents this consummation as the ownership of cottages by comparatively poor people. For example : accident took me this week into two cottages which were sold some years ago for £85 the pair. It was a fair price, perhaps : the buildings, so called, are old and damp, made of laths and plaster and weather board. The rooms are very low and very dark. There is no indoor privy or other sanitary arrangement. The garden is about six yards square and scarcely sees the sun after twelve o'clock. The cottager has had to be content for the last twenty-five years with this confined plot, though land within twenty yards is derelict and regarded as valueless. For his three-roomed house the man pays 6s. a week rent and his neighbour in a similar box pays rather more. In other terms, the rent for buildings sold for £85 is over £31 a year. The owner, of course, pays the rates. * * * *
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