Mr. J. Fenby, C.E., read an ingenious and careful paper
last Saturday at the weekly meeting- of the Birmingham Society of Artizans, on the plan which has been so often proposed for building houses for the working-classes in the country and bringing them in by train for a penny a head to their work. He was evidently not fanciful in his estimates, taking care to put them rather over than under the mark, and he showed very conclusively that 2d. a. day per head would pay a railway com- pany well for carrying a working-man some ten miles in and out. Then he estimated the cost of houses sufficiently large to be healthy at- £120 each to build, for which he would charge 6s. a week, or £15 12s. a year, including all rates. As to this ls. a week for railway fare must be added, the artizan's real rent would be 7s. a week, or £18 4s. per annum,—a very high one, —but this would include a garden, for which. Mr. Fenby thinks he might gain some 2s. Gd. a week on the average, reducing his actual cost of rent and carriage to 4s. 6d. a week. But even that is a high rent to a man who makes probably not over 25s. or 30s. on the average, if so much. Could not adequate houses be built for £80 or £90 at least ?
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