360 
MÜLHAUSEN. 
month, to take effect from the 1st of the following month. Many landlords, 
however, let their houses on the understanding that the tenancy is terminable 
any day on either side : in such cases it is customary to display the intimation 
by placard at the main entrance : “ Here no notice is given.” 
The most interesting feature of the industrial housing arrangements 
of Mülhausen is the experiment which has been carried on for more than 
half a century by a society philanthropic in its ends yet thoroughly 
business-like in the means by which these ends have been attained, and 
whose outcome is seen in the quarters of the town known as the Old and New 
Cités. Visiting the houses which form this distinctly industrial colony, one is 
able to observe by concrete examples the entire evolution of the Mülhausen 
working-class dwelling. The “ Société Mülhousienne des Cités ouvrières ” 
(Mülhauser Arbeiter- Q uarti er - Cesel 1 schaff ) was founded in 1853, with the 
object of erecting small dwellings which might be sold to workingmen at cost 
price or be let to them at rents which should not exceed interest on capital and 
the cost of repairs. The earliest of the houses so built date from 1853 to 1857, 
and though they are in structural and sanitary arrangements out of date they 
continue to lodge willing occupiers, who are in many cases owners as well. 
The houses of the original type were built in rows and were one-family houses, 
with a living room and a kitchen downstairs and two small bedrooms upstairs, 
the living room having an area of about 132 square feet, the bedrooms being 
97 square feet and 90 square feet respectively, and the kitchen 66 square 
feet. The structure of the house is the simplest possible—the outer door 
opening direct iflto the kitchen, the kitchen opening laterally into the living 
room, and ending in a short flight of stairs, at the head of which are two plain 
rooms, 9 feet high, one reached through the other. There is cellaring, but the 
building is not high enough to afford loft space. There are 220 houses of this 
class. 
The second type of house did not materially differ, and with modifications 
it continued to be erected until the middle of the ’eighties, by which time 650 
more dwellings had been added to the Cité. The principal improvement was the 
increase in the size of the rooms, though their number remained as before—down 
stairs a living room and a kitchen, upstairs two bedrooms ; the area of the living 
room being 190 square feet and of the bedrooms about 190 and 90 square feet 
respectively, and the height of the rooms being 9 feet, as before. Like the 
houses of the first type these had small gardens to the front. 
The third type came in the years 1877 to 1887 and was a smaller structure. 
It was still a single-family house, but it had only one story, with cellaring, 
and contained two rooms and a kitchen. The kitchen was approached direct 
from the outer door and it opened in turn into the first room, which looked 
to the front, and gave entrance to a smaller room behind. Of this type 
140 houses were built. 
A more important modification of the Cité design was marked by the 
next type, which was chiefly favoured between the years 1887 and 1893, and 
of which 200 houses were erected. Two single-family dwellings were now 
built together, in blocks of two stories and a cellar. Below were two rooms 
and a kitchen, and for the first time a corridor or vestibule was added, while 
above were a good bedroom and a store-room which could also on emergency 
be used for sleeping. It was a superior type of house in every respect and 
corresponded more faithfully with modern ideas of health and convenience. 
A later type, adopted in 1895, was a two-family house, built in couples 
like the last type, each of the two stories containing two rooms and a 
kitchen, while storage was provided both in the attic and the cellar. Here, 
again, the outer door opened into a vestibule, while all rooms were inter- 
communicable, their size being —kitchen 80 square feet, living and bedrooms 
each 150 square feet. All the later types have likewise gardens. 
Such was the original design of the Cité dwellings, as planned and first 
tenanted. In the main the general scheme remains unaltered, yet in course of 
time many of the older houses have undergone modification at the hands of 
successive owners. The benevolent design of the Société des Cités Ouvrières has 
one serious defect, in that no provision was made to prevent these working-class 
houses passing out of working-class occupation and possession. In the absence 
ot such a safeguard many of them were sold and re-sold, and ceased to be