A Dictionary of Sanitary Appliances. BY W. EASSIE, C.E. AIR INLETS (continued).-Door inlets.-The necessity for having a ventilating aperture over the doors of bedrooms is now generally admitted. Dr. Ancell Ball, of Spalding, employs for his part a circular valved inlet Before resembling a revolving hit-and-miss ventilator. this is, however, placed a screening of perforated zinc covered with a fine sheet of muslin, and by this means the entering air is well broken up. When it becomes necessary to have a very free communication between the air of a room and the air of the passage, another plan of achieving it is by the adoption of Mr. Harris's supplementary door arrangement. He provides another door or shutter piece, and hinges it to the jambs, and by this means, when the door is partially open, the supplementary door occupies such a position that it closes the side opening which would otherwise exist, leaving the top open for the admission of air into the apartment. The area of this opening is governed by the width of the added door. An increased area of opening is obtained by elongating the supplementary door and curving it at the end, and this modification also removes the necessity for projecting the doors far into the room. Sometimes the additional door is dispensed with, and the door itself is curved, I Harris's Door Ventilator. A (figs. 1 and 2) represents the supplementary door; B the ordinary door; c (fig. 3) shows the curved door arrangement with ventilator at the top. so that when the door is closed at the sides there still remains the opening at the top. This space can be closed by louvres when the communication between the room and the passage is not considered advisable. Air can be admitted into a room by the medium of specially contrived door fittings. Thus a coat-hook can Currall's Ventilating Coat-hook A B Currall's Ventilating Finger-plate. A elevation; B section. be made to effect the desired end, and even to give the entering air an upward motion. A hollow plate carrying the hook is fixed over an opening in the door. And on the outside of the door over the opening is placed a perforated plate to allow of the ingress of air. The plate can be made to carry several hooks. The same inventor, Mr. Currall, has also introduced a combined ventilator and finger-plate. The air is passed in a similar manner through a perforated disc to the hollow finger-plate at the top of which it escapes into the room. A The same simple method of obtaining an inlet of air direct from the exterior air of the street, and through the door into the passage, has been contrived by way of the letter box. hollow letter plate is fixed to the outside of the door in the usual way, and the air enters by way of the perforations at the lower part of the frame. The letter box inside the door is made so as to throw the air upwards. Mr. Currall has also contrived a combined ventilator and door-knocker. The plate is made hollow as in the former cases, and is open or A perforated at the bottom. At the inside of the door a trough plate is fixed, which directs the air in an upward direction. LETTERS B Currall's Letter box Airinlet. A elevation; B section. A B Currall's Door-knocker Airinlet. A elevation; в sec tion; without the trough plate inside. It may be said that such contrivances as these last mentioned ones can effect but a small amount of good, and that inlets could be better provided for in another way. This is, no doubt, correct, but in scores of cases a great deal of good would ensue from the adoption of these fittings, and it is manifest that they can be readily fixed in working order, when it would be clearly a matter of much time and cost to make, for instance, openings in the wall. The creation and maintenance, of a current of air in the hall and staircase cannot be too highly valued, particularly if the air be warmed by a stove or hot-water pipes placed in the former. An excellent twin door ventilating arrangement is manufactured by Mr. D. Gill, of Weston-super-Mare. When the doors are closed an automatically working mechanism at once opens a valve and allows a current of air to pass from the outside of the building between the doors. The inlet valves are inserted in the upright part of the jamb linings, and the outlet ventilator in the upper part under the lintel. The doors when shut maintain a certain distance from each other, and the simultaneous motion to the twin door is effected by the use of a double jointed hinge. The inner door is hung with a deeper rebate in the jamb than the outer door. The lower part of the slide of the valve itself is somewhat inclined, so that when the door is shut the pin causes the slide to rise and the air to 3 2 Gill's Twin Ventilating Door. A (figs. 1 and 2) is the door enter between the doors. When space, B the outer door, and the twin door is open the slide c the inner one. Fig. 3 is an drops down again and covers end view of the pin, and fig. 4 the perforations. the jamb. a front view of the valve in Some such an arrangement as this will be found exceedingly useful in water-closets, for instance, and in hospitals. Instead of fresh air only being admitted between the doors, disinfecting fumes can be made to enter and pass out again without making themselves perceptible in the room. Thus there is a complete isolation of the atmosphere on the outside of the door from that in the closet or ward, and if the upcast power of the outlet ventilator be assisted, there would be a constant diaphragm of moving air between the doors as long as they were closed. Dr. Ball has also introduced into notice a door with an improved arrangement for effecting the ventilation or disinfection of sick rooms and hospital wards. He forms in the lower panels of the door a series of holes, or he fills up the place of the panel by louvres, and these are covered by a sliding frame fitted with perforated zinc, some layers of absorbing and filtering material, such as muslin, being interposed between the perforated or louvred panels and the zinc frame. Above the frame, and fastened to Dr. Ball's Door Disinfector. the middle rail of the door, is placed a bottle containing a suitable disinfectant solution, and into this a capillary wick is dipped. The wick is enclosed in a bent flexible tube, one end of which passes down between the sliding frame and the muslin, so as to saturate the latter, and the other end is left hanging outside the frame. By this means the entering air becomes impregnated by the disinfectant. Sometimes, in addition to the above, a vessel 2. Opening in panels. 3. Louvres. is fixed at the bottom of the 4. The frame. 7. The disinfec- door for the generation of tant solution. 8. Flexible tube. ozone. The bottle containing 9 and 10. Ends of same. U, the disinfectant, and the tube and wick, are all readily ozone generator. removed when not required. (To be continued.) Notes and Queries. TO THAW FROZEN PIPES. THE Plumber and Sanitary Engineer of New York, which constantly grows in usefulness, makes the following practical suggestion with regard to the thawing of frozen pipes : If you can get at them, pour hot water on them slowly, or wrap them with a towel and put hot water on it. The specific heat of water is very high, which makes it a good thing to convey the heat to the pipes. Inaccessible pipes and waste pipes can often be melted out by inserting into one end a small rubber or lead pipe, and pouring or forcing hot water through this small pipe and pushing it forward into the frozen pipes as the ice melts. Sometimes a jet of steam is available, carried through garden hose, and used through a branch pipe. HOW TO MAKE A LINSEED POULTICE. DR. LAUDER BRUNTON writes in Brain:-'When we wish to relieve pain in the chest or belly, we ought to make our poultices in a particular way. The common practice of mixing the linseed meal with hot water, and applying it directly to the skin, is quite wrong, because if we do not wish to burn the patient we must wait until a great portion of the heat has been lost. The proper method is to take a flannel bag (the size of the poultice required), to fill this with the linseed poultice as hot as it can possibly be made, and to put between this and the skin a second piece of flannel, so that there shall be at least two thicknesses of flannel between the skin and the poultice itself. Above the poultice should be placed more flannel, or a piece of cotton wool, to prevent it from getting cold. By this method we are able to apply the linseed meal boiling hot without burning the patient, and the heat, gradually diffusing through the flannel, affords a grateful sense of relief which cannot be obtained by other means. There are few ways in which such marked relief is given to abdominal pain as by the application of a poultice in this manner.' DIPHTHERIA IN MILK. IN his last monthly report, Dr. Whitmore, the medical officer of health for St. Marylebone, comments upon Mr. Power's opinion that milk may be the means of conveying diphtheria to human beings. In conclusion he says:- My object in these remarks is not so much to criticise Mr. Power's valuable report as to notice the somewhat disheartening fact that, whereas a most valuable and important aliment, one of the prime necessaries in the support and nourishment of children, has already been incontestably proved to be the vehicle through which the poison of enteric and scarlet fever is often disseminated, it is also, we are now told for the first time by a high authority, the means of spreading that mysterious and much-dreaded maladydiphtheria. Already a very disquieting effect has been produced in many families, and I am asked what substitute I would recommend for milk, and in what way any supposed infection in milk may be destroyed. After what we have learned from Mr. Power, I think that a commission should be appointed by Government to make a searching inquiry into all the conditions under which milch cows in this country are placed, the nature and quality of their food, their sanitary surroundings, how they are stalled and milked, and, more especially, as to the diseases to which they are subjected-mammitis, for example-which are in any degree calculated to deteriorate or otherwise affect their milk. Such an inquiry would necessarily result in the adoption of additional safeguards against the sale of any milk infected or supposed to be infected, and would have the further beneficial effect of quieting public apprehension.' CERS, INSPECTORS OF NUISANCES, ETC. ANGELL, Mr. Arthur, has been reappointed Public Analyst for the Borough of Guildford, at 267. 55. per ann., and 2s. 6d. for each analysis and report. BAKER, Edward Leopold, M.B. Univ. Edin., has been appointed Certifying Factory Surgeon for the Birstal District, vice Rayner, resigned. EWEN, Arthur Benjamin, M. R.C.S. Eng., and L.M., L.S.A. Lond., has been appointed Certifying Factory Surgeon for the Exmouth District. FAITHFULL, Mr. Frank, has been appointed Clerk to the New Winchester Guardians and Rural Sanitary Authority, at 110l. per ann., as Clerk to the Guardians, and such additional remuneration as Clerk to the Rural Sanitary Authority, the Assessment Committee, and School Attendance Committee, as may be fixed, vice Mr. E. W. Faithfull, deceased. MARTIN, Anthony Herbert, M. R.C.S. Eng., L.S.A. Lond., has been appointed Certifying Factory Surgeon for the Evesham District, vice New, deceased. MURRAY, Alexander Dalton, M.B., C.M. Univ. Edin., L.R.C.P. Edin., L.R.C.S. Edin., has been appointed Certifying Factory Surgeon for the Rickmansworth District, vice Codd. NICHOLETTS, J. T., Esq., of Stuckey's Bank, has been appointed Treasurer to the Bridgwater Guardians and Rural Sanitary Authority, vice Salmon, resigned. OWEN, Wm. Griffith, M.B., C.M. Univ. Glas., has been appointed Certifying Factory Surgeon for the Carnarvon District, vice Jones, resigned. PHILLIPS, Mr. W. D., has been appointed Collector to the Corporation and Urban Sanitary Authority of Haverfordwest. TODD, George, Esq., has been appointed Treasurer to the Bideford Guardians and Rural Sanitary Authority, vice Davie, resigned. TWEEDY, Charles, Esq., Banker, has been appointed Treasurer to the Redruth Guardians and Rural Sanitary Authority, vice Robert M. Tweedy, Esq., resigned. WILSON, Mr. C. E., has been appointed Clerk to the East Ham Local Board and Urban Sanitary Authority. MALTON RURAL SANITARY DISTRICT, Yorkshire. Medical Officer of Health: 80l. per ann. Inspector of Nuisances: 70l. per ann. NEW FOREST RURAL SANITARY DISTRICT. Medical Officer of Health: 1ool. for one year. Application, 8th instant, to E. Coxwell, Clerk to the Authority, Southampton. ROXBY-CUM-RISBY URBAN SANITARY DISTRICT, Lincolnshire. ST. GEORGE THE MARTYR, Southwark. Medical Officer of Health. Original Paper. SANITARY MATTERS IN THE (BY OUR SPECIAL COMMISSIONER.) THE sanitary history of the Isle of Man has yet to be written. He who would essay so lengthy, so unprofitable, and, it is to be feared, so hopeless a task, will find himself checked at the very threshold of his inquiry by the absolute absence of any sort of record, statistical or otherwise, as a foundation for his researches. The Isle of Man, as is well known, has its own Parliament, consisting of the LieutenantGovernor and Council, who form the Upper House, and the House of Keys, an elected body consisting of twenty-four members. The measures passed by the Insular Legislature are known as 'Acts of Tynwald,' from a hill in the west of the island where all the Manx statutes which have received the Royal Assent must be promulgated to render them in law effective. The Acts of Tynwald relating to the public health are scattered over a series of years, and do not equally concern all parts of the island. Thus Douglas and Ramsey (the two principal places) have much more extensive powers for the repression of nuisances than the other towns and villages. Douglas and Ramsey both boast a body known as "town commissioners,' whose powers, although defective, are yet amply sufficient at any rate to check the abominable nuisances which are so rife. The rest of the island is supposed to be under the hygienic care of a Highway Board, which, perhaps naturally, prefers to look upon such few public health duties as it possesses as entirely secondary to its chief function of keeping the highways in repair. In inspecting a place in any other part of the kingdom, one has the advantage of the published records of the deaths in the district, and of the cooperation of the sanitary officials, whose appointments are rendered compulsory by the provisions of the Public Health Acts. Moreover, there is a certain defined law which sanitary authorities have to administer, and it is thus not very difficult to judge whether their duties have been properly carried out or not. None of these advantages exist in the Isle of Man. tions were carried out under the Act at three considerable villages during outbreaks of fever therein. I was not able to glean any particulars as to the number of cases which occurred in these several epidemics. Under any circumstances, infectious diseases, whether they are endemic or not, have only to get a chance to spread with fatal and fearful rapidity, as all the circumstances fostering their spread exist in plenty on the island. ance. None of the sanitary authorities issue any sort of reports, nor have they any systematic skilled assistA medical officer of health is a being unknown; and though at Douglas I saw a weatherbeaten old gentleman, who was pointed out to me as the inspector of nuisances, I should beg leave very considerably to question whether he did anything more than pass on his way rejoicing after inspecting the innumerable nuisances that exist in the town. I found, indeed, a very general ignorance of the duties and object of sanitary authorities. As, therefore, the authorities are almost-if not entirely-absolved from any sort of outside pressure, it is hardly to be wondered at that public health affairs in the island have been allowed to sink to a very low ebb. Under the circumstances mentioned above, it will perhaps scarcely be deemed surprising that I should be unable to give anything like an exhaustive picture of the hygienic features of the island. I did my best to gather what information I could from those-and they were very few-who took any sort of interest in its sanitary condition; but I had chiefly to rely on the evidence of my own eyes and nose. Coming as a stranger amongst people who evidently regarded inquiry into their health affairs as an intrusion and an insult, it is perhaps hardly to be wondered that I should not be received with open arms. If in my intense desire to inspect the internal economy of a Manx cottage household, I penetrated the private domain of a villager, it was my fault if the choice lay between instantly vacating the premises or receiving gratuitous assistance into the middle of the neighbouring pond. Again, when in my stumblings up blind alleys and filthy courts in the most crowded parts of Douglas, I violated the sanctity of an artisan's home (save the mark), it was hardly fair to expect of him that he would greet with effusion the intrusion of a stranger who could evidently be there for no good purpose, from the Manx point of view. Manxmen, I am told, are lazy and careless to a degree in their own land, although, once transplanted, they hold their own against aliens with extreme success and energy. The old Manx race seems to be dying out. The population of the rural districts is diminishing, a great migration taking place into Douglas and to England. Probably the interchange of communication between the island and the outer world will in time break down the old Manx prejudices in favour of overcrowding and filth, and will bring the insular ideas on the subject more in accordance with the sanitary principles which, we would fain hope, are rapidly extending throughout the country. It was not until the last session of the Insular Parliament that an Act was passed providing for the civil registration of deaths. The absence of that sine qua non of sanitary research-the death registers-makes it impossible, therefore, to judge of the prevalent diseases of the island, and of how far they may be prevented. I was informed, indeed, by one of the chief medical men that diphtheria is a very rare disease, and that there has been no epidemic of typhoid fever for twenty years. It would seem, however, that outbreaks of infectious diseases are by no means uncommon in the island, since on several occasions the present Lieutenant-Governor has found it necessary to put At Douglas I spent some little time in trying in force the exceptional powers which he possesses to get trustworthy information as to its sanitary under the insular Nuisance Removal Act of 1851 state and surroundings, with considerably less (the earliest Public Health Act, I believe, in the Manx success than I had hoped. It seems, however, Statute Book). Thus regulations had to be made in to be very generally admitted by all except those 1865, again in 1871, and again in 1873, when cholera who, for trade purposes, shut their eyes to its defiappeared on the island; and in 1873-74-75 regula-ciencies, that it is in a very bad sanitary con dition. Douglas is a considerable place, and appears to be rapidly extending. In 1851 it had about eight thousand inhabitants. It has now nearly double that number. At the census in 1871, the enumerated population was 13,972, and I am assured that it has increased considerably during the past eight years. It is governed by a board of nine commissioners, first appointed by an Act of Tynwald in 1860. This board, it is to be observed, is utterly irresponsible except to constituents who seem to have but a vague idea of what the commissioners are appointed for. Since its constitution the board has been instrumental in laying down what seems to be a fairly satisfactory system of drainage discharging into the sea. Under an Act of 1874, the preamble of which truly enough recites that the streets are in many places narrow, circuitous, and inconvenient,' an entirely new street has been formed from the pier to a hill from which the old town slopes to the sea. Many of the old rookeries of the town were abolished when this improvement was effected, but the absence of any by-laws as to new streets and buildings has permitted houses to be erected with little or no regard to sanitary requirements as regards ventilation and stability. I peeped into the back premises of an enormous trade establishment in the new street, and I found its only yard to be certainly not more than 10 feet square. In another part of the town a house in course of erection accommodatingly fell down bodily during my visit, as a practical illustration of the omnipresence of the‘jerry' builder. It is, however, in the ordinary sanitary duties of cleansing and nuisancerepression that Douglas is so very badly off. I have seldom been in a dirtier town. The dust is not laid by water-carts, horse-droppings lie about the streets for an indefinite length of time, there is no organised system of scavenging, and in the older parts of the town the state of the narrow streets and of the back yards is horrible in the extreme. In the summer of 1877 small pox broke out in the island in a very severe form. So impressed was the Governor at the apathy of the Douglas authori- | ties, that he took the matter altogether out of their hands by appointing a sanitary commission himself, as he was empowered to do by the Nuisances Removal and Diseases Prevention Act, 1851, above referred to. This commission, composed of the high bailiff of Douglas, the head constable of the island, seven medical men, and about a dozen other gentlemen, presented a very valuable report, a copy of which I procured. From this report, which, as the first sanitary report in the island, may be considered unique, I learn that the outbreak undoubtedly originated with visitors from Manchester, one of whom was admitted to the Manx Hospital on SubseJuly 8, 1877, and the other on August 2. quently, notwithstanding all the efforts of the authorities, the disease became diffused, till, between July 8, 1877, and March 11, 1878, 257 cases occurred. Of this number 92 had been vaccinated, 143 had never been vaccinated, I had been inoculated, and 20 had been vaccinated after the incubation of the disease. This outbreak of small-pox occurred when there was no compulsory Vaccination Act in the island. The experience of the epidemic, showed so clearly, however, the advantages of vaccination, that no difficulty was experienced in passing at the last session of the House of Keys an Act based on our English law on the subject, making vaccination obligatory within three months of birth, and providing for the appointment of public vaccinators re sponsible to the Governor. Section 24 of this Act imposes penalties similar to those in Section 126 of the Public Health Act with regard to the exposure of persons suffering from infectious disease; and Section 26 makes it the duty of any householder in whose house any person is infected with small-pox, and of any medical practitioner in professional attendance, to give proper notice at the nearest police station. Obviously such an Act could not have been worked in the absence of the compulsory registration of births; but now that both vaccination and registration have been provided for, it is hoped that much good will result. In the report of the Insular Commission already referred to, the overcrowding of some of the houses in Douglas is stated to be ‘a matter for very serious consideration.' From my own observation I can quite endorse this view, and I further agree in the opinion of the commission that the sanitary condition of the houses is as bad as possible, and must render them hotbeds of disease.' Several instances are recorded in the report of places where gross overcrowding existed, and I took the opportunity of seeing some of these cases myself. One den, called Quilliam's Court, where in one house there were 31, and in another 21, inhabitants, I shall not be likely to forget. I had some difficulty in finding the place, but after threading my way through some evil-smelling, dirty, and narrow streets, Quilliam's Court burst upon my gaze in all its squalor and misery. The town's water, supplied, I should state, by a company, and I believe free from pollution as supplied, was laid on here by a stand-pipe; but the inhabitants were so unclean in their habits that human excrement was scattered all round it. In one corner of the square was a ponded accumulation of foul sewage water, and the whole place was squalid and miserable in the extreme. Broken windows, dirty passages, unkempt women, squalling children, and an all-pervading excremental odour, made up the sum of the miseries of this dreadful court. I did not dare to penetrate the houses, but I was assured that many of the cellars were used as dwellings by the degraded Irish who are forced to find a shelter here. I went also to Hanover Street, to a house where fifty persons were living, and where twelve cases of small-pox occurred. I saw such misery and dirt there as would make the average Englishman shudder, and denounce the recital as exaggerated and untrue. Not far from this was a place known, I believe, by the singularly appropriate name of Little Hell,' which is in an equally disgraceful state. Coming from these See Mr. Wigner's analysis in SANITARY RECORD for November 23, 1877, P. 325. I may here add that the subject of the watersupply of the town has lately been under the consideration of the town commissioners. On the 18th ult. the chairman of the board is reported to have said that he thought they ought to take steps for rookeries, thoroughly nauseated at the abominable stench, and sick at heart at the misery I had beheld, I walked up a slope called Shaw's Brow, and, turning to the left, entered a yard where the excrement from a privy, imperfectly screened from observation, formed a mound of reeking filth right in front of one's eyes and nose. Beneath was one of the old streets of the town, with its narrow and cramped back yards. Each had its own little repository of filth, the oozings from which were lying about the imperfectly paved surface. I am told that even in these yards pigs were kept in large numbers, with the tacit approval of the town commissioners, until, during the small-pox epidemic, the sanitary commissioners routed them all out. They are coming back again, however, now the commission's labours are finished, and the town authorities seem to take no steps to prevent it. I have only space for another specimen of Douglas streets. Walking along by the inner harbour I passed a place called by the name of Fairy Ground.' Let the reader conjure up to himself one of the rows of Yarmouth, let him imagine it evilsmelling and dirty, make the houses dark, gloomy, and unventilated, give them no back yards to speak of, strew the pebbly pavement with cabbage leaves and fish heads, and he will doubtless at once admire the bitter sarcasm of the title Fairy Ground.' I must not dwell further upon this subject now, but I feel bound to point out that as the streets in the old town of Douglas are extremely narrow and tortuous, and the back premises invariably limited in dimensions, it is most important that their sanitary supervision should be actively and continuously maintained. That this supervision has been scandalously neglected is patent to the most superficial observer. The sanitary shortcomings of Douglas are the more to be deplored because in some respects it is very flourishing and attractive. It is charmingly situated, in a semicircular bay, traversed on shore by a tramway from point to point. The hills behind, the really fine promenade, and the houses rising behind each other in terraces, all give a very pretty aspect to the place as it is viewed from the sea; and it is a thousand pities that one should have to be disenchanted by the intolerable dust of unwatered streets, and the stenches from open gratings over drains, to say nothing of the horrors of the old town. The inspection of Douglas monopolised so much of the limited time at my disposal that but little opportunity was left to me for an examination in detail of the rest of the island. Ramsey (population, 3,934), which has, like Douglas, a board of town commissioners, appeared to be considerably cleaner. The streets are narrow, but I was unable to detect any glaring nuisance in the place. The whole of the rest of the island (under the sanitary charge, it will be remembered, of the highway board), seems to be left to look pretty much after itself. Castletown (population 2,320), is old and dirty. The houses are unventilated and their general appearance uninviting. Peel (population 3,513), is a quaint fishing village, with narrow streets that irresistibly carry one's mind back to the old smuggling days. Port Erin is a pretty place, with no conspicuous sanitary defects, charmingly situated in a delightful bay in the south-west of the island. At Port St. Mary typhoid fever has been so prevalent that the highway board have found it necessary to execute some drainage works there. The sanitary callousness of the inhabitants will be best judged by the fact that they had absolutely selected a pump supplying them with water and somewhat screened from the roadway as a fitting spot for their devotions to Cloacina. Conchan, a village about one and a half miles from Douglas, is one of the most neglected places I ever saw. The wells, when there are any, are placed in close juxtaposition with the privies, and a stream which supplies the rest of the village is obviously fouled by the soakings from a farmyard. To this farm I repaired, and as I was told that the water supplied to the house was excellent, I took a sample of it for analysis. The results of Mr. Wigner's examination, which I subjoin, fully confirm my own observations. I could almost see the liquid from the stock yard running into the well. RESULTS OF ANALYSIS. Grs. per gall. 12'60 Loss on ignition after deducting combined car bonic acid Chlorine calculated as chloride of sodium Nitrogen as ammonia Nitrogen as albuminoid ammonia. 1'40 6'552 0129 *0108 The sample contains-common salt, 6'5 grains per gallon; ammonia, 0129 grains per gallon; and albuminoid ammonia, o108 grains per gallon. These results, combined with a most unsatisfactory microscopical appearance, show that it is heavily contaminated with animal impurities, and quite unfit to be used for drinking. G. W. WIGNER, F.C.S. distance lends enchantment to the view. The cottage usually consists of two rooms; the larger, entered from the door, is used as the living room, the smaller, shut off from it, as the sleeping room. Neither has any sort of flooring except the bare ground, worn, as may be supposed, into innumerable holes-the receptacles of all sorts of nastiness. The door is the only way by which air can enter the abodes, except the chimney, when there is one. There is usually a solitary window let into the wall, hermetically sealed against the admission of fresh air. Even in the better class of cottages the windows are not made to open. There are no back windows, and no back openings. Thus through ventilation, or indeed any ventilation at all, is rendered absolutely impossible. The bedroom has to depend for all its air upon the living room, and as there is usually only just room in it for two beds-and such beds-with a narrow space between, the state of the atmosphere in the morning is better imagined than described. These poor people have in general absolutely no privy accommodation. The expedients to which they are thus |