In the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the
best, and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but I think
that I speak within bounds when I say that, though the birds of the
air have their nests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages
their wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than one half
the families own a shelter. In the large towns and cities, where
civilization especially prevails, the number of those who own a
shelter is a very small fraction of the whole. The rest pay an
annual tax for this outside garment of all, become indispensable
summer and winter, which would buy a village of Indian wigwams, but
now helps to keep them poor as long as they live. I do not mean to
insist here on the disadvantage of hiring compared with owning, but
it is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it costs so
little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot
afford to own it; nor can he, in the long run, any better afford to
hire. But, answers one, by merely paying this tax, the poor
civilized man secures an abode which is a palace compared with the
savage's. An annual rent of from twenty-five to a hundred dollars
(these are the country rates) entitles him to the benefit of the
improvements of centuries, spacious apartments, clean paint and
paper, Rumford fire-place, back plastering, Venetian blinds, copper
pump, spring lock, a commodious cellar, and many other things. But
how happens it that he who is said to enjoy these things is so
commonly a poor civilized man, while the savage, who has them not,
is rich as a savage? If it is asserted that civilization is a real
advance in the condition of man -- and I think that it is, though
only the wise improve their advantages -- it must be shown that it
has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and
the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is
required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. An