第50章 TO THE RESCUE!--THE CITY COLONY.(10)

I propose to establish in every large town what I may call "A Household Salvage Brigade,"a civil force of organised collectors,who will patrol the whole town as regularly as the policeman,who will have their appointed beats,and each of whom will been trusted with the task of collecting the waste of the houses in their circuit.In small towns and villages this is already done,and it will be noticed that most of the suggestions which I have put forth in this book are based upon the central principle,which is that of restoring;to the over-grown,and,therefore,uninformed masses of population in our towns the same intelligence and co-operation as to the mutual wants of each and all,that prevails in your small town or village.The latter is the manageable unit,because its dimensions and its needs have not out-grown the range of the individual intelligence and ability of those who dwell therein.Our troubles in large towns arise chiefly from the fact that the massing of population has caused the physical bulk of Society to outgrow its intelligence.It is as if a human being had suddenly developed fresh limbs which were not connected by any nervous system with the gray matter of his brain.Such a thing is impossible in the human being,but,unfortunately,it is only too possible in human society.In the human body no member can suffer without an instantaneous telegram being despatched,as it were,to the seat of intelligence;the foot or the finger cries out when it suffers,and the whole body suffers with it.So,in a small community,every one,rich and poor,is more or less cognizant of the sufferings of the community.

In a large town,where people have ceased to be neighbourly,there is only a congested mass of population settled down on a certain small area without any human ties connecting them together.Here,it is perfectly possible,and it frequently happens,that men actually die of starvation within a few doors of those who,if they had been informed of the actual condition of the sufferer that lay within earshot of their comfortable drawing-rooms,would have been eager to minister the needed relief.What we have to do,therefore,is to grow a new nervous system for the body politic,to create a swift,almost automatic,means of communication between the community as a whole and the meanest of its members,so as to restore to the city what the village possesses.

I do not say that the plan which I have suggested is the only plan or the best plan conceivable.All that I claim for it is that it is the only plan which I can conceive as practicable at the present moment,and that,as a matter of fact,it holds the field alone,for no one,so far as I have been able to discover,even proposes to reconstitute the connection between what I have called the gray matter of the brain of the municipal community and all the individual units which make up the body politic.

Carrying out the same idea I come to the problem of the waste commodities of the towns,and we will take this as an earnest of the working out of the general principle.In the villages there is very little waste.The sewage is applied directly to the land,and so becomes a source of wealth instead of being emptied into great subterranean reservoirs,to generate poisonous gases,which by a most ingenious arrangement,are then poured forth into the very heart of our dwellings,as is the case in the great cities.Neither is there any waste of broken victuals.The villager has his pig or his poultry,or if he has not a pig his neighbour has one,and the collection of broken victuals is conducted as regularly as the delivery of the post.And as it is with broken victuals,so it is with rags and bones,and old iron,and all the debris of a household.When I was a boy one of the most familiar figures in the streets of a country town was the man,who,with his small hand-barrow or donkey-cart,made a regular patrol through all the streets once a week,collecting rags,bones,and all other waste materials,buying the same from the juveniles who collected them in specie,not of Her Majesty's current coin,but of common sweetmeats,known as "claggum"or "taffy."When the tootling of his familiar horn was heard the children would bring out their stores,and trade as best they could with the itinerant merchant,with the result that the closets which in our towns to-day have become the receptacles of all kinds of,disused lumber were kept then swept and garnished.

Now,what I want to know is why can we not establish on a scale commensurate with our extended needs the rag-and-bone industry in all our great towns?That there is sufficient to pay for the collection is,I think,indisputable.If it paid in a small North-country town or Midland village,why would it not pay much better in an area where the houses stand more closely together,and where luxurious living and thriftless habits have so increased that there must be proportionately far more breakage,more waste,and,therefore,more collectable matter than in the rural districts?In looking over the waste of London it has occurred to me that in the debris of our households there is sufficient food,it utilised,to feed many of the starving poor,and to employ some thousands of them in its collection,and,in addition,largely to assist the general scheme.What I propose would be to go to work on something like the following plan:-London would be divided into districts,beginning with that portion of it most likely to furnish the largest supplies of what would be worth collection.Two men,or a man and a boy,would be told of for this purpose to this district.

Households would be requested to allow a receptacle to be placed in some convenient spot in which the servants could deposit the waste food,and a sack of some deion would also be supplied for the paper,rags,&c.