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1911] 8
cheese " for which Islington was famed, there now dwell a third of a million
of people,
Then gradually the residents began to feel themselves hemmed in as the
rural aspect of the place vanished, and therefore, they began to desire more
room for themselves and for their children,
At first the movement outwards was slow, then it increased more quickly,
until at last it became considerable, and the parish, Highbury in particular,
suffered, Lately, however, there has undoubtedly been an opposite tendency, so
that it is hoped that the tide has now definitely turned,
2, In their greed to build as much as they could on a given piece of land,
builders, who were for the most part of the speculative class, erected houses
with basements, which in the older buildings were almost, if not entiiely,
below the level of the street, These answered very well so long as there
was no servant difficulty, but as it increased so did basements become unpopular
; particularly as the mistresses then found it necessary to be more and
more in their kitchens, The servants, themselves, too, objected to them, and
many flatly refused to take situations in houses with them, The result of this
agitation was to increase the demand for non-basement houses, which could
not be fully met in Islington, nor for the matter of that in many of the metropolitan
boroughs, People, therefore, went farther afield, for the most part outside
of the County of London, where non-basement houses were built, But now
they find out not only that they are almost as crowded in some of these districts as
they were in Islington, and that the real country seems as far away from them
as ever, but also that their servants long for the amusements of London which
they can obtain so cheaply and so abundantly there, People with limited
means, too, discover after a while that although rates and rents may be less,
yet living is dearer ; and that frequent visits to town by wives and children
for clothing and the like, together with the cost of season tickets for the male
members of a family, more than counterbalance other gains ; and that after all
the pleasures of the garden in summer, a fortnight to a month of which is lost
during the annual holidays, do not compensate for the long, and ofttimes
dreary evenings of the winter, These are all telling in favour of the reaction
which has set in, and which is certain to become stronger as time passes,
In the newer districts very attractive houses have been largely built in
the Queen Anne style, but without the Queen Anne solidity, They have
nice artistic exteriors, but the rooms are sometimes dark, the French windows