CITIES OF SUNSHINE

Evening Star, Issue 19763, 13 January 1928, Page 2

CITIES OF SUNSHINE

WHEN CLOTHES WILL'HARDLY OS NEEDED

Scientists are now agreed that sunlight is the source oi : all life and energy. Sir Philip Gibbs, in the 1 Sunday Chronicle, 5 envisages the city of the future as a City of Light, in which the present ills of the flesh will bo eliminated through the utilisation of ultra-violet rays in the home, office, anil factory.

Although there has been a general improvement in the health of many peoples, due largely to soap and water and an efficient drainage system—for which we must thank tho engineers—there are (writes Sir Philip) many competent observers at the present time who believe that the human race is not improving its physical health or the mentality that depends so much on the healthy body, but in many countries, and especially those who believe themselves to be most “ civilised, 5 ’ is falling back and weakening. Civilisation is producing its own diseases. In stature and even in weight of brain we are not equal. BREEDING FROM THE UNFIT. Writers like Lothrop Stoddard, Dean Inge, and men of more expert knowledge believe that this modern civilisation of oiu-s is doomed because the white races in industrial countries are largely engaged in breeding from the unfit and eliminating their best types. Hence the propaganda of the eugenists, who are in a hurry to develop a State system of birth control and scientific mating which will prevent the propagation of undesirable weaklings and produce tho noblest typos of manhood and womanhood. Personally, without much scientific evidence beyond general observation of human life, I think there is not much in this eugenic business. I think it is largely unworkable because men and women will revolt against any polio© supervision of their loves and passions, and will utterly refuse to be treated like cattle bj scientific overseers. It is not upon tho science of eugenics but upon the improvement of environment that the progress of humanity is to be expected so far as health of body and mind may counteract the evil influences at work in onr industrial civilisation. LIGHT IN DARK PLACES. Instead of continuing to breed from the unfit in the underworld, all the people of to-morrow may be raised to the status of tho “fit 55 because the underworld has been removed and H(»ht has shone in dark places. That surely is the line of progress marked out by modern research. ' Even in this limited field science has great adventures ahead which are likely to alter many things in social life for our children. _ The era of Light is beginning. Perhaps one should say it is coming back again after a period of industrial civilisation which has created many maladies of mind and body. The light of tho sun is the source of all life and energy. Tho physicists who are studying new sources of power find it in stored-up energy which came originally from the sun. SUN WORSHIPPERS.

For years we have been shutting off the very origin of vitality by living in dark bouses behind window panes which keep out the ultra-violet rays, by dwelling in cities beneath a pall of smoke which cannot be penetrated by those life-giving vibrations, by dressing ourselves in clothes which keep the sunlight from our bodies. These modern sun worshippers, like Dr Sateeby, Dr Leonard Hill, and Dr Rollier, of Leysin, have produced

wonderful evidence showing tho effect of light, natural and artificial, on such diseases of darkness as tuberculosis, rickets, lupus, and lung diseases. They are now engaged in attacking darkness in all its lairs. London and other English cities lose something like 50 per cent, of sunlight owing to smoky chimneys, and the death rate moves up steadily during tho dark months of the year. “The City of the Future,” says Dr Saleeby, “will be a city of light.” The new forms of power which are coming to us—and those which wo already possess—will be used more and more to replace dirty coal-driven plants and open fires by electricity or some other clean sources of energy. NIGHT BANISHED. Night and its gloom will be banished from city streets, which will be flooded by artificial sunlight. If men still have to sit in offices, as almost certainly they will, they will sit in rooms with largo windows made of “vita-glass” which allows tho passage of ultra-violet rays, and their houses will be very largely glass houses, from which they mustn’t throw stones. The city man who sits at these “ vita-glass ” windows will not wear a light linen collar round his neck, or black clothes which keep light from the pores of his skin. He will not wear many clothes at all indoors, because his rooms will be wanned—with enough moisture to keep him from being dried up as he is being now in his present conditions of central heating, which is sapping the vitality of many people—and his costume will be light, airy, and elegant, like that of a Greek philosopher without his cloak. SKIRTS ABANDONED.

Women will go on “casting their clouts ” as they are already doing by some unconscious and healthy instinct of vital progress which has no tiling to do with tho decrees of fashion. I am firmly convinced that the skirt will bo abandoned altogether, at least for all forms of exercise and outdoor life, as it has already dwindled to insignificance We shall not be so easily shocked by the sight of the human form. Modesty may be preserved with very little aid from tho dressmaker or the fashion artists, and purity of the mind increased thereby. Human society will demand more light under the open sky, more leisure to walk in woods and fields. There will be a revolt against industry if it denies this boon to men.

Apart from this return to nature, this breaking down of much that we have built up,, badly, I see no assurance that man will be any happier when that Day after To-morrow comes to us with its astounding possibilities. Even the health of the body is not everything, though it is a great deal. Now luxuries, greater speed in the rhythm of life, new power over machines, control over the chemistry of life, will not increase human happiness unless the mind and spirit of men and women are satisfied and relieved of fear, anxiety, and strain, with some spiritual joy in the present.