Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885
Various
Science -- Periodicals
Mr. Pullman, who founded the enterprise on Calumet Lake, has uttered
sentiments like these, and has proved that in this instance it does pay
to make his workmen's families comfortable, and secure from sickness and
temptation. As a financial operation Pullman is profitable. There are now
1,700 dwellings, either separate or in apartment houses, in this town,
where five years ago the prairie stretched on every side unbroken. Every
tenement is connected with common sewerage, water, and gas systems, in
which the most scientific principles and expert skill have been applied.
The price of tenements ranges from $5 per month for two rooms in an
apartment house to $16 for a separate dwelling of five rooms; but there
is a different class of houses for clerks, superintendents, and
overseers. The average price per room is $3.30 a month, or nearly twelve
per cent. higher than in Massachusetts manufacturing towns, where it is
$2.86. Taking each tenement at an average of three rooms, this rate will
pay six per cent. on an investment of $3,140,000, without taking into
account taxes and repairs, or say six per cent. on $3,000,000. But one
source of profit of great moment must not be overlooked, and it is the
appreciation of real estate by the increase of population. This is a
small factor in a great city, at least so far as concerns the humbler
grade of dwellings, but in the country it is enormous. A tract of land
which has been a farm becomes a village of from 1,000 to 10,000
inhabitants. Its value advances by leaps and bounds.
At Pullman, in addition to the shops and dwellings, there are trees and
turf-bordered malls and squares, a church, a theater, a free library with
reading rooms, a public hall, a market house, provided at the expense of
the company. Liquor can only be sold at the hotel to its guests, and then
under restrictions. There is a system of public schools under a board of
education, which is about the only civic organization, strictly speaking,
in the community. One man suffices for police duty, and he made but
fifteen arrests in the last two years. It is reported that the death rate
so far, including the mortality from accidents, has been under seven in
1,000 per annum. In Great Britain the rate is a small fraction over 22 in
1,000. The vital statistics of the United States show a smaller mortality
than this, but they are rendered abnormal by the heavy immigration which
pours into the country. Emigrants are, in the language of insurance men,
a selected class. They are usually at the most vigorous time of life and
of hardiest and most enterprising spirit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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