Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/321

 1868.] Small Houses for the Many. 261 SMALL HOUSES FOR THE MANY. •YTyHILST Philadelphia increases, VV northwardly and westwardly, with amazing rapidity, we are yet con- cerned to see, that nearly all the new buildings are either for business, or else as homes, only adapted to the occupancy of men particularly well to do. Rents have increased far beyond their strict relative proportion, and there is some fear, lest we shall not be able much longer to repeat our always hitherto truthful boast, that the Quaker City es- chews tenement-houses, and provides each of her families with a separate home. We are not addressing ourselves to that class of projectors whose one per- vading idea is cent per cent. In their logic, things are always worth what they will fetch. But, in the true sense, things are not always worth what they will fetch. The mass of any community, under any form of government, will, for many generations, if not always, be the poor. " The poor ye have always with you." But, emulating the example of Mr. Peabody, our philanthropic capital- ists would do well to erect well-planned, neat, and substantial blocks of little homes, specially adapted to the wants of respectable young couples starting housekeeping ; require good references of reputable standing, and charge a rent not exceeding seven per cent, on the in- vestment. The prosperity of the rich cannot last without the prosperity of the poor. If the latter are gradually impoverished to pauperism, or even if they are denied modest little separate homes, the spirit of personal independence, whence arises public liberty, declines to extinction. The petty householders and small land- owning yeomanry of England were her real bulwark for ages. The hopeless peasantry of France were so man 3' pow- der-magazines, being slowly charged for the explosion of the Reign of Terror. Our own proud stand among the nations of the earth could never have been taken or held, without the prevalent small di- visions of property. Goldsmith was not exactly right. The accumulation of wealth itself is really prosperity. It is only when it all falls into the hands of a very few, that a land is ruined. Let us read him a little differently: " Hard fares the land to hasteuing ills a prey, Where fortunes concentrate, and men decay." We must also remember, that the Amorico-Saxon, which, from constant immigration, really is beginning to have more of the essential Anglo-Saxon blood in it, than the so called Anglo- Saxon itself, is a race like the Spanish before the days of Don Quixote, whereof every one feels himself to be "As good a man as the king, only not so rich." SERPENTINE AS A BUILDING STONE. By John C. S a very. SERPENTINE, recently introduced into Philadelphia as a stone for choice edifices, has long been regarded with much favor, as a building material, in Chester and Delaware counties, Penn- sylvania, where it exists in great abun- dance. Some of the most elegant and impos- ing buildings in both counties are con- structed of it ; and it is said to pre- serve its freshness of appearance and beauty of color for a greater length of time than most other kinds of stone, as well as to afford the driest and most durable of walls. Its color, which it owes to a small