IMPROVEMENT I SHOULD LIKE TO SEE IN OUR TOWN

IMPROVEMENT I SHOULD LIKE TO SEE IN OUR TOWN

Outline:

1.      In our town, first improvement, housing of the poor.

2.      Fine street, but spoiled by selfish motor drivers.

3.      Bad drains or no drains. Overcrowding.

4.      Beggars. Dirty and hungry dogs.

My home town of Pasrur has a good area, with nice streets and some attractive shops. There it gives an impression of efficiency and neatness. Around my home there are some pleasant houses each in its own little plot of land, with a wall or a hedge. But visit the other end of the towns, where railway workers and poor labourers live. They are in small uncomfortable houses, without windows, and with no garden or compound. In brief, we have a slum area, and as long as there is one standard of living for well to do people and another for the poor, there will be discontent arising from the comparison. Some progressive towns have started to clear away their slum areas.

In our shopping streets, a person walking may have to jump hurriedly to avoid a motor ca dashing through at forty miles an hour. Even if it is moving at a reasonable speed, dust fills the air for a few minutes and as it is setting down another car comes. The blowing of motor-horns is always with us, deafening the ears. A law should be passed limiting the speed of motorists in the streets to ten miles an hour, and forbidding the use of the horn.

In the poor quarter, we still see that horror, the open drain. Filth runs down a little channel by the footpath, and small children play over it. One may ask whether we are living in the middle ages or the twentieth century. We have cholera and dysentery still destroying children, because such things exist. I should at once try by all means to get an adequate drainage system for all quarters of the town, as part of a bold public-health service.

There are no public parks or gardens where poor people can go in the evenings. Although the one public garden is open to all it is too far from their homes, and they seem to shrink from coming there to mix with their wealthier brothers. I want to see open spaces, with grass and trees, in all areas. Children should be allowed to play freely, without being ordered off.

In some of the streets, beggars, still follow and whine for aims. They should, in every case, be investigated. If they are worthless idlers robbing the good natured public, they should be kept in an institution and made to work. There are, too, many unclean and ownerless dogs going about the streets. These are a danger to health, and should also be removed. There are some of the foremost reforms I want to see in Pasrur, my native town.