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 CHAPTER XIII.

will now be interesting to consider some of the more striking effects; which will be produced on our now overcrowded cities by the opening-up in new districts of such a vast field of employment as the reader's mind will, it is hoped, be now able to realise with some degree of clearness. New towns and groups of towns are springing up in parts of our islands hitherto well-nigh deserted; new means of communication, the most scientific the world has yet seen, are being constructed; new means of distribution are bringing the producer and the consumer into closer relations, and thus (by reducing railway rates and charges, and the number of profits) are at once raising prices to the producer and diminishing them to the consumer; parks and gardens, orchards and woods, are being planted in the midst of the busy life of the people, so that they may be enjoyed in the fullest measure; homes are being erected for those who have long lived in slums; work is found for the workless, land for the landless, and opportunities for the expenditure of long pent-up energy are presenting themselves at every turn. A new sense of freedom and joy is pervading the hearts of the people as their individual faculties are awakened, and they discover, in a social life which permits alike of the completest concerted action and of