CONSTRUCTION OF FARM COTTAGES. BY D. J. BROWNE. It has been justly remarked, that, a traveller, in passing through a strange, but civilized country, might form a correct judgment respecting the social condition of its rural inhabitants by observing attentively the state, character, and general appearance of their dwellings; and that, a clean, fresh, and well-ordered house exercises over its inmates a moral no less than a physical influence, and has a direct tendency to make the members of the family sober, peaceable, and considerate of the feelings and happiness of each other. Nor is it difficult to trace a connection between habitual feelings of this sort, and the formation of habits of respect for propriety, for laws in general, and even for those higher duties and obligations, the observance of which no laws can enforce; whereas, a filthy, squalid, unwholesome dwelling, in which none of the decencies common to society, even in the lowest state of civilization, are known to exist, tends directly to make every dweller in such a hovel, regardless of the feelings and happiness of each other, selfish, and sensual; and the connexion is obvious between the constant indulgence of appetites and passions of this class, and the formation of habits of idleness, dishonesty, and even of crimes of higher degrees. Thus, in travelling over the wide domain of the inhabited part of the United States, one can judge, in a measure, of the character of the people by what is written in the expression of their dwellings. On leaving any of the Atlantic cities and progressing inland, he first passes through the motley and sometimes squalid suburbs, which chiefly owe their existence to the late unparalleled prosperity of commerce, the progress of manufactures, and their two indispensable comcomitants-internal improvements and foreign immigration. Here, we may see cottages of every grade, color, and finish, which fancy, caprice, or carelessness might devise, with now and then, at the interval of a few miles, a stately mansion, in imitation of some purse-proud lord; or, on the brow of yon eminence, there may be seen a castle-like structure "Embosomed high in tufted trees," |
