Page:The Ethics of Urban Leaseholds.djvu/31

Rh those who make these efforts will admit that they themselves would not be satisfied with such poor substitutes for homes. A month's experience of 'Institution' life would perfectly suffice to show the value that young men and women set on public-houses of this kind. They soon discover that such education as they most require is not to be obtained in reading-rooms, but in the circle of their families and friends at home. It is the want of such home education that sends half the population to the taverns and saloons; the other half lament such painful error, but they still maintain and help to propagate the cause of all the evil.

The outcry for the opening of museums and the theatres on Sunday is due chiefly to the want of spaciousness in urban living rooms. The people are domestic, fond of home, and naturally hospitable; but these virtues are on leaseholds specially forbidden. To be social, 'given to hospitality,' the great majority of Londoners must get away from home; they can have no 'church in their house,' they must 'forsake the assembling of themselves together'—quite a different thing, it may be here explained, from modern church attendance—and they 'treat' their fellows at the tavern bar; or in the reeking gin-shop, or the beer and brandy tea-garden, seek such enjoyment as excitement and indifferent companionship will give, in place of all the dignified and solid comforts of a home.

And here, again, the higher classes scarcely understand the popular demand. They need no galleries or museums to amuse them on a Sunday; their own rooms are large enough for social intercourse, and so they see their friends at home, a thing the working man is not allowed to do. His Sunday seldom is to him a day of happiness and rest; he gets no quiet, has no real relaxation and but miserable change. Instead of doing work he suffers irritation, and to avoid this suffering he systematically leaves his house and family, and 'breaks the Sabbath.'

An intelligent observer will perceive how greatly this