Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/652

 628 COTTAGE, FAIl.M, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. a few plans devised by difTerent individuals for that purpose ; previously giving the plan and interior arrangement of ploughmen's cottages as they now exist in Scotland, in Northumberland, and in Wiltshire. 1331. No yreat Iiiij/rofeiiieiit in the Cottages of Farm Labourers, however, can be expected, till tiie farmer looks upon liis labourers in a very different point of view from what he does at present. The relative situation of these two classes is that of seller and buyer, or rather master and slave ; the one trying to get a maximum of labour for a minimum of remuneration, and looking upon his labourer as a being inferior to himself, and, in short, as little better than a beast of burden ; and the other regarding his master as his natural enemy, to be taken advantage of on every occasion where it can be done with imi)unity. With a superior degi-ee of knowledge in both parties, the labour of the servant, and the wages and accommodation of the master woidd be merely looked upon as articles of exchange, inferring no degree of obligation on either side ; and, in those fluctuations in the price of labour which mast ever take place, implying no greater personal subjection, or inferiority of dignity, than now takes place between foreign and British merchants, when regulating their accounts according to the rate of exchange between their respective nations. This desirable result can only be brought about by universal education, by which every man will be enabled to rise in the scale of being, in proportion to his native intellect ; and all will be essentially alike in what relates to manners ; which, after all, have more influence than even intellect in conferring personal dignity. 1332. When evert/ Farmer and the Labourers settled on his Farm shall consider them- selves more in the light of a small cooperative society, and it shall be the interest of the one party to act for the benefit of the other, as well as for his own advantage ; then will the comfort and happiness of both be greatly increased : the labourer will cease to look upon his employer as a hard taskmaster, and the master upon his servant as a mere instrument of labour, or an unwilling slave ; then will kindly feelings be again awakened in both bosoms, and the wish to confer mutual benefits revive. Tyranny and servility have alike a tendency to harden the heart and to stifle all the better feelings of human nature : there is much of both in the present situation of labourers and their employers ; but let labour find its fair value in the market, and be regarded only as an article of barter given in exchange for wages, and the moral condition of the labourer will be raised ; he will feel himself restored to the dignity of a responsible agent, and all the nobler feelings of his nature will be called forth. 1333. One of the first Results of a right understanding between farmers and their labourers will be, the enjoyment of certain accommodations in common ; such as an oven, a brewhouse or cider-house, a wash-house and washing-machine, a mangle, and a mode of heating. We will not go farther than this, though we might anticijiate something nearer patriarchal equality ; for the height of refinement is to return to simplicity : but there is this difference, that the one is the simplicity of knowledge, and the other the simplicity of ignorance. One of the first sources of comfort which, in cold countries such as Britain, the farm labourer will enjoy in common with his employer is, we think, artificial heat. Of all the laborious, wasteful, and extravagant modes of procuring this necessary of life, that of employing open fireplaces is the worst ; being scarcely more than one step removed from the savage practice of lighting a fire in the middle of a hut, sitting round it, and feeding it with boughs. The Chinese, and the Continental nations of Europe, even the semi-barbarous Russians, are far in advance of us in this respect. We have suggested the mode of heating by smoke-flues under the floors ; but even this is a comparatively imperfect mode, to what may be practised in every farmery, after steam sliall have been as generally introduced for driving threshing and other machinery, and cooking food for cattle, &c., as we are persuaded it very soon will be. Our attention has been called to this subject by an enlightened correspondent residing in Edinburgh, whose communication, given in his own words, will enable the Architect, with the greatest ease, to devise the means of heating the floors of farm houses, farm labourers' cottages, and farmery bothies, from the same steam-apparatus which is erected in the farmery for cooking food for the live stock. 1 334. Heating the Floors of Cottages by Steam. " The excellent method you pi-opose for heating the dwellings of the working classes is, unfortunately, limited to situations where a fireplace can be established on a lower level than the floors which are to be heated ; and is, besides, objectionable in localities where the nature of the coal employed causes a rapid deposition of soot, by which the heat abstracted from the fuel is, in great jiart, forced along into the exterior atmosphere. In such situations, an arrangement may be adopted, which has been successfully applied here, in the following case : — The Police Office being built on the side of very steep ground, the front of the building is about 20 feet higher than the back part. A range of cells for prisoners had been added on the lowest level, and were so situated that it became a difficult question how they were