Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/27

 The answer to the last question bifurcates somewhat. In the earlier future of (say) twenty or thirty years hence, probably the greatest tendencies will be towards concentration on the one hand and exceedingly rapid transport on the other. What the ultimate practice will be, it should not be difficult to guess when we see how these tendencies are likely to work themselves out.

During the last twenty-five or thirty years of the nineteenth century the tendency of workers in great cities was more and more towards suburban life, men travelling to and from the cities in increasing numbers, to increasing distances, and at increasing speeds. Even mechanics, even labourers and the other humbler wage-earners (to say nothing of clerks not earning much more, but spending their money in a different manner) nowadays travel considerable distances to their work. But in spite of what is complacently regarded {by railway and tramway directors) as rapid conveyance, there is lately manifest an increasing impatience against the time subtracted from men's leisure by the two daily journeys, an impatience very naturally increased in the case of manual workers of both sexes by the utter inadequacy of the legislative control imposed upon railway and tramway companies.

Crowded trams and trains, with desperate men and weak women fighting a daily battle for