Such a system will give the humblest Roadtowner the opportunity of the high class apartment house dweller to say that he is not at home to unwelcome visitors, and yet the Roadtown home built on the ground floor with its windows looking out into a private garden will have all the home-like simplicity of a cottage, and at the same time modern conveniences and luxuries which cannot be found in any King’s palace. CHAPTER V CIVILIZATION THROUGH PIPES AND WIRES The economies of a continuous house under one roof and of railroad and steam shovel, rather than hand and dump cart methods, are sufficient to make the line construction far more economical than any method now in vogue, but even they are greatly exceeded by the additional saving involved in the installation and operation of the pipes and wires of the Roadtown. Witness the present situation. The farmer’s house is alone in the middle of his farm. For every pipe, wire or rail utility with which he is supplied, he must have a plant of his own. If he wishes steam heat, he must put in a boiler; if he wishes electric lights, an engine and dynamo. In practice the farmer, with the occasional exception of the rural telephone, is limited to the products of civilization that can be hauled home in a wagon. The city man is a little better off. City dwellers are close together, close enough that one electric, gas or steam producing plant will do for many hundreds or thousands of families, but by the present plan which enables them to have these improvements, they pay not only the expense of periodic tearing up of the pavements and the house foundation, but a far greater price in the loss of air, sunlight and privacy. The Roadtown has these God-given utilities of country air and light on two sides of the house. Upon the other two sides it has blank walls, but the examination of the average isolated residence will show that there is little to be gained in light or air by the two extra sides and much to be lost in privacy. Upon the two remaining sides, _i. e._, the top and bottom, the Roadtown house has its sidewalk on the roof and its transportation by rails, pipes and wires that are now in the city streets, it has on a far better and economical plan in the basement, now used principally to store old trunks, rubbish and coal. Picture the installation of a new pipe line through a paved street. The expense and the unsightliness, the danger to human life--and this has nothing to do with getting the pipes into a private house.