WORKING MEN'S CLUBS.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 384, 29 October 1874, Page 2

WORKING MEN'S CLUBS.

(Manchester G-uakdian.) Of the numerous schemes devised for providing improved house accommodation for the masses of the people, not the least interesting is that which has resulted in the Shaftesbnry Park Estate, the first portion of which was opened on Saturday last. The workman's town, which is situated at Lavender Hill, covers about forty acres of ground. The plans provide for the erection of 1,200 houses, which, at a very moderate computation will accommodate 8,000 persons. Four hundred and seventy-nine houses ha\ c already been completed, and it is anticipated that by November next 270 more will be ready for occupation. The estate has been laid out by a private company, whose operations, it may be observed, are not confined to London. Every care has been taken to give what may be called a model character to the buildings erected, and that working men appreciate the privilege of escaping from the over-crowded, ill-ventilated, and pestilential courts of London is provided by the fact that the application for houses on the estate largely exceed the accommodation at the disposal of the committee. It is one of the special merits of this enterprise that it is free from the slightest taint of patronising charity. It is a paying commercial concern. Goo«l rents are demanded for the Company's houses at Shaftesbury P.ai'k as elsewhere, and the shareholders have been enjoying dividends which will probably compare with anything earned by the lower class of house property in our largo towns. Another excellent feature of these settlements is the facility they offer to tenants to become their own landlords. Many workmen, it may be expected, will avail themselves of the opportunity thus afforded for purchasing the houses they occupy, and habits of thrift will thus be promoted which must tell powerfully upon the condition of the people. This is a movement which demands our most cordial sympathy, and its wide development ought to be assured, for, taking the most prosaic ground, it is not often that men have the chance of at once gratifying their philantropic feelings and drawing 74 per cent from the objects of their solicitude.

No absurdity seem.s too great for a French audience. An intelligent Chinaman recently gave a maitnee on the language and literaturo of his country — in his own language. Some wags having nailed the sides of a number of tea-chests to the en-trance-door, the police carefully protected them, imagining them to be John's programme of his seance. Tho aflair was a complete success — the hall was crowded, and the lecturer applauded. Sir William Ferguson has caused plaster casts to bo made of the fractured arm-bone by which Dr Livingstone's body was identified. They will be placed in tho museums of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, and King's College, London.