CHAPTER VIL
SMELTER FOR ALL, OB THE HOUSING OF THE
A CONSIDERABLE portion of G-eiieral Booth's book is devoted to the description of shelters, improved lodgings and suburban villages for the poor. As elsewhere remarked this' question is not of such vital importance for India as for England, though the dealing with it is simply a question Of tinte'.
"We would therefore simply refer Our readets to the admirable proposals embodied in Greneral Bodth's book. It is possible that there may be some who will desire that immediate steps should be taken for the preparation of similar quarters for the poor in our terribly over-crowded Indian cities. It is in any case extremely likely that the question will be forced upon us at an early date by the people themselves,
But I have thought it best to narrow down the scheme as much as possible to those things which seem of the most absolute and immediate urgency, and 1 have therefore divested it as much as possible o'f all that could reasonably be dispensed with.
Still I see no re&so'ri why each city should not have its " Poor Man's Me tropole/' as weli as its model dwellings and suburban' villages, for the working classes. I would have these, moreover, as purely oriental as possible with a careful avoidance of anything that might be .European in their appearance and arrangements. There should be tanks for bathing, and washing purposes, gardens, recreation grounds for the children, proper conveniences for cooking,. and quarters in which they would not be herded together like cattle, but given the decencies of life, so necessary and helpful to the encouragement of cleanliness and morality.