[Footnote 1:  Massachusetts R.L., 106, secs. 56 to 60 inclusive.]

It is a curious commentary that the very dream of the social reformers of only twenty years ago is so rudely dispelled by the march of events; for in the late nineties it was the hope of the enthusiast, particularly the student in electrical science, that the factory system might in time be done away with, and by the use of power served from long or short distance over wires to a man’s own habitation, all the industries of manufacture might be carried on in a man’s own home—­just as used to be the case with the spinners and weavers of olden time.  Far from being a hope, it turns out that this breeds the very worst conditions of all, and the most difficult to regulate by law.  For modern homes for the most part are not sanitary dwellings in the country, but single floors or parts of floors in huge tenement houses in great cities.  It is probable to-day, therefore, that there is a perfect reversal of opinion, and that the social reformer now dreams of a world where no work is permitted in the home, other than ordinary domestic avocations, but all is compelled to be done in factories under the supervision of public authorities—­a splendid example of the dangers of hasty legislation; for had we carried into law the eager desire of the reformers of only twenty years since, we should, it appears, have been on a hopelessly wrong track.

It should be noted, however, that the reform of conditions is very largely arrived at by a different path—­that of the building laws in our cities.  No more arbitrary rule exists to-day or was ever in history than the despotic sway of a board or commission created under modern police-power ideas.  In everything else you have a right to a hearing, if not an appeal to the common-law courts and a jury; but the power of a building inspector is that of an Oriental despot.  He can order you summarily to do a thing, or do it himself; or destroy or condemn your property; and you have no redress, nor compensation, nor even a lawsuit to recover compensation.  Therefore, if the sweat-shop reformers may not constitutionally regulate the conditions and business of sweating so far as they would like to go, they can turn about and directly regulate the actual building of residences where the trade is carried on.  They can require not only so many cubic feet of air per person in the sweat-shop, but so many cubic feet of air per person in every bedroom; as Ruskin said, not only, of grouse, so many brace to the acre, but of men and women—­so many brace to the garret.  A California law[1] once made it a criminal offence for any person to sleep with less than one thousand feet of air in his room for his own exclusive use!  It is indeed a crime to be poor.

[Footnote 1:  See Ah Kow, Nunan, 5 Sawyer, 552.]