In China and the East generally, be it remembered, the large population lives upon one plane. It has been left to Europe and America to try the experiment of piling the city populations in heaps, of housing them in many-storeyed buildings, some of which (in America) are fifty times the height of a man. The facilities for overcrowding which are afforded by big schemes of water-supply and sewerage are now well understood, and have caused the formation of 'Building Societies' throughout the country. A large number of these societies during the past few years have been proved to have been dishonestly managed, and have involved widespread financial disaster amongst the poor and thrifty. The mode of proceeding of these societies is to buy up, on the outskirts of towns having a system of sewers and a common water-supply, plots of land abutting on roads which have been sewered at the expense of the ratepayers. These plots are then sold to purchasers who pay 10 per cent. deposit for possession, and pay the rest of the purchase money in monthly or quarterly instalments for a term of years, 10 or 15, as the case may be, with 5 per cent. interest. Thus the artisan, having paid a most exorbitant price for a plot of ground, starts in life with a mortgage round his neck, and probably finds, should anything interfere with the regular payment of instalments, that he has a hard-faced usurer to deal with, who merely concealed his identity behind the title of 'Company, Limited.' The accompanying diagram (fig. 31) gives a good idea of the development of a district subsequent to sewering. It has been copied from the prospectus of a Building Society. A A A is an old road having houses on the north side only; B B B is an old road with houses on the south side only, _i.e._, seven dwelling houses in a course of more than half a mile. The space between A A A and B B B was, until a few months ago, a market garden full of fruit trees, and about nine acres in extent. A few years ago A A A and B B B were sewered at the expense of the ratepayers, and very soon afterwards this market garden was bought by a 'Building Society' and converted into a 'building estate.' [Illustration: Fig. 31.] It is obviously a very 'eligible' estate, for there is a Railway (R.), with a Station (S.), a Post and Telegraph Office (P.O.), a Church (Ch.), and two Public Houses (P.H.). None of the elements of modern civilisation are wanting. After the sewering of roads A A A and B B B, the District Council, in a fit of zealous extravagance, destroyed the gravel paths at the side of B, and put a 12 by 6 inch kerb, and laid half a mile of granolithic pavement for the benefit of the aforesaid seven houses.