Some years ago Edison precipitated a mild wave of excitement by the perfection of a process for moulding houses complete in a solid block, much along the lines followed by the housewife in the preparation of jellies and other similar table dainties. He suggested the erection of a mould to the design of the desired house, including both internal and external artistic embellishments, and then to run the concrete into the metal shell in liquid form and to allow it to set and harden. Then the mould was to be demolished, leaving a solid monolithic-structure from foundation to roof, and without a crack or a joint. The mould, naturally, was built up in sections, which could be standardized and interchanged, so that once a set of moulds had been acquired a house of any desired dimensions might be erected. Of course, this demanded an imposing array of moulds, entailing heavy initial capital expenditure. Edison frankly admitted this to be the weak point in his scheme, because the mould bill for the construction of a “poured” house, as it was called, costing £240--$1,200--would be at least £5,000--$25,000. Consequently the suggestion was impracticable, unless the builder were given an imposing house-building scheme to complete, to enable him to distribute his mould charges in such a manner over the houses as to increase the actual building cost of each only by a trifling amount. Edison’s conception aroused extreme interest in America and provoked widespread ridicule in these islands. The “poured” house was regarded in the same light as was the telephone upon its first appearance in London. As the latter was declared to be merely a “scientific toy,” so was the poured house described as nothing but a wild dream. But, be it noted, antagonism and objection have been levelled from the fickle standpoint of theory; we have no practical experiment to guide us in our assault upon Edison’s idea. Instead of setting to work to prove, or disprove, the practicability of the poured house we wasted time in academic discussions concerning “sweating walls,” condensation, coldness in winter, and to embark upon high-falutin diatribes concerning the imperative necessity for such abstract demands as “breathing bricks,” and other fantastic ideas which possibly are of interest but do not advance the realization of the cheap house, contribute to the solution of the housing question, or proffer a single step towards the utilization of waste.