due provision must be made for securing the status of the officials so appointed, in order that they may be sufficiently independent of local prejudice and caprice. In no other case will it be possible to induce qualified engineers, who have made sanitary work and requirements the object of their studies, to relinquish other prospects and advantages. The securing of a reasonably safe tenure of office for technical officials will have to be considered in due time.

When this time may be, I do not attempt to predict, but it may at least be suggested that the division of the country into County Board Districts, under the now inevitable County Government Act, would offer a good opportunity for creating a connecting link between the Local Sanitary Authorities on the one hand, and the Local Government Board, or other central health authority, on the other. The appointment of superior sanitary officials, both medical and engineering, is a duty which I should prefer to see placed in the hands of a county authority, of sufficient weight and representative capacity, rather than left to the tender mercies of those possessors of limited ideas who in too many instances form our present local boards. Whether the county sanitary staff should be a wholly local establishment, or whether some such arrangement as the present joint payment of salaries by the central authority should be adopted, is a matter which I consider of small moment so long as the need for permanent efficiency, as opposed to mere present economy, is constantly kept in view. To a neglect of this consideration I am led to attribute a large share of existing sanitary shortcomings, such, for instance, as the two examples with which I have endeavoured to illustrate the present article.

Since forwarding the foregoing remarks for publication, the Society of Arts' Conference on Public Health has been held; and, judging from the full report of the proceedings now available, the formation of County Boards may be anticipated at even an earlier date than I had previously believed probable. At any rate, the opinions of leading authorities on local government unite in condemning the wide gap at present existing between the guiding and the executive authorities, and in advocating the creation of an intermediary body to which the latter shall be subject. The advantages of this step, as bearing upon the views to which I have given expression, are manifestly great, as checking, on the one hand, an excessive and futile degree of centralisation, and preventing, on the other, the ill-advised proceedings which are now only too common among

uncontrolled local authorities.

IMPURE AIR AS A CAUSE OF DISEASE; OR THE INFLUENCE OF SANITARY SURROUNDINGS ON HEALTH.

BY J. WARD, M.D.,

Medical Officer of Health, Cockermouth Union Rural and Keswick, Cockermouth and Workington Urban Sanitary Districts. THE late Dr. Parkes, in his Manual of Practical Hygiene, remarks that 'statistical inquiries on mortality prove beyond doubt that of the causes of death which usually are in action, impurity of the air is the most important; and, whilst admitting that the inquiry touching the bearings of the subject is in its infancy and difficult, it, nevertheless, demands a more searching investigation than has been, or perhaps than can be, at present given.' He also

remarks, The evidences of injury to health from impure air are found in a larger proportion of illhealth-i.e., of days lost from sickness in the yearthan under other circumstances; an increase in the severity of many diseases, and a higher rate of mortality, especially among children, whose delicate frames always give us the best test of the effect both of food and air. In many cases accurate statistical inquiries on a large scale can alone prove what may be in reality a serious depreciation of public health.' The same author sums up as follows. The diseases produced by fæcal emanations on the general population seem to be diarrhoea, bilious disorders, often with febrile symptoms, dyspepsia, malaise and anæmia; all these being affections of digestion or sanguification; typhoid fever is also intimately connected with sewage emanations, either being their direct result, or, more probably, being caused by specific products being mixed with the sewage. In addition, sewer air aggravates, most decidedly, the severity of all the exanthemata, erysipelas, hospital gangrene, and puerperal fever, and probably has an injurious effect in all other cases.'

Speaking of air rendered impure by respiration, the same author remarks, 'In addition to a general impaired state of health arising, probably from faulty aëration of the blood, and to phthisis and other lung affections which may reasonably be believed to have their origin in the constant breathing of air vitiated by the organic vapours and particles arising from the person, it has long been considered, and apparently quite correctly, that such an atmosphere causes a more rapid spread of several specific diseases, especially typhus-exanthematicus, plague, small-pox, scarlet fever, and measles.' Elsewhere he says, 'Bronchitic affections are frequently prothe hot room to the cold air, but are really probably duced, which are often attributed to the change from owing to the influence of the impure air of the room on the lungs.'

Dr. Cornelius Fox, in his Handbook for the Medical Officer of Health, says, 'I have always maintained, and increasing experience has only confirmed my previous conviction, that the impure condition of the air of our houses, be they factories, public buildings, or dwelling-houses, has much to do with the great prevalence of such diseases as phthisis-pulmonalis, bronchitis and pneumonia, which together make up nearly one quarter of the total mortality; and if we could strike a telling blow at that great universal evil-namely, poisoning by impure air—we should do much to save life.'

tained in the pursuit of the inquiry, as to the effect I here lay before my readers certain results, obof impurity of the indoor atmosphere on health, whether such impurity arise from excrement emanation of man or beast, or from the breathing of rebreathed air.

Taking, first of all, pneumonia, a disease which some medical writers have shown to have a disposition to occur during gastric and bilious disorders, especially at certain seasons, as in the autumn or in early spring, during the prevalence of north-east winds, and, more particularly, in constitutions debilitated by the eruptive fevers, or from other causes. The frequency with which adynamic types of the disease have been associated with typhoid fever, has led some to suppose there might be a more or less etiological relationship between the two affections.

Dr. Aitkin, in his work on medicine, remarks, 'In truth, no disease shows more forcibly than cases of

pneumonia do, especially as regards their diagnosis and treatment, that every individual case of disease requires to be made a special study as regards its individual history, progress, combination, and sequence of symptoms.' What does this imply but that, for the most part, there are associated physical causes of the disease which have not been interpreted? If we take into our etiological calculations this product of the sewer, or of decomposing animal excrement, to which we, with our modern domestic arrangements, are, unfortunately, so largely exposed, I contend that we have a causative agent which tends to throw considerable light on the obscurity which enshrouds the causation of many diseases. This will be the more apparent if we are open to admit that water trapping is but, at best, an imperfect and unsatisfactory safeguard against the diffusion of sewer air within the house, of which there is a constant danger from the varying density of the air in the sewers and that of the dwelling. The importance of the inquiry is the more apparent if we are free to admit, what has been stated, that pneumonia, together with bronchitis and pulmonary consumption, make up nearly one quarter of the total mortality. Taking, then, first of all, pneumonia; as the result of my experience, in the capacity of medical officer of health, for a term of about twelve months, during which period my attention has been more particularly turned to the subject: out of eight fatal cases, occurring in various parts of one or other of the urban or widely-extended rural-sanitary districts in the north-west of England, with which I have to do, as observed in children or in people of middle lifeto the exclusion of cases occurring to those advancing in years, the fatality of which might be attributed to the enfeebling effect of age, to a greater or less extent-in connection with all, save one, I detected cause of defilement of the air of the house from filth influence. In three of the cases a byre or stable immediately adjoined the dwelling; and in the remaining four filth influence, from inside or immediately adjacent water-closet, with unventilated soil-pipe or drain, was detected.

With reference to allied affections of the respiratory organs, Rammazzini states that sextons, entering places where there are putrefying corpses, are subject to malignant fevers, asphyxia, and suffocative catarrhs.

Niemeyer, when speaking of acute bronchial catarrh as forming a symptom of typhoid fever, measles, and small-pox, says, 'Here it must be looked upon as a result of the morbid state of the blood which has absorbed some deleterious material, with the nature of which we are unacquainted'.

On investigating the sanitary surroundings of about ninety fatal cases of diseases of the respiratory organs, other than pulmonary consumption, for the most part of an acute or sub-acute character, I observed, generally and with few exceptions, as before, undoubted defects of ventilation, as from absence of fireplace, or air-shaft in lieu thereof, in the bedroom; whereas, in some of the instances, this essential requisite of each inhabited apartment, when provided, was rendered inoperative, in consequence of undue draught or down-smoke from a conjoined or adjacent flue, by being boarded, stuffed or papered over. In some instances the child had been put to sleep with its parents-the bed, moreover, being placed in a recess or close corner of a small, over-crowded room to breathe their devitalized breath the live-long night. In about one-fourth of the number of fatal cases investigated, filth influence,

defiling the house-atmosphere, seemed to be causatively associated with the fatality, as before mentioned, from immediately contiguous, imperfectly ventilated and badly-drained byre, stable, pigstye, filthy privy, water-closet or drain.

Whilst free to admit that during the treatment of acute inflammatory diseases of the lungs, it may be thought necessary, especially in winter, to secure warmth, and that it might be said inspection of these properties had been undertaken prior to the removal of the special provisions for the attainment of this end, yet inquiry elicited the fact that, in the great majority of instances, the provision for ventilation or interchange of air, during the night season, had, for a long time previously, been reduced to a minimum.

The dense nature of the stone which forms the chief building material of my district-the Skiddaw slate-and the thickness of the walls of old houses, might appear to have contributed to this fatal result; and also damp from want of eaves-spouting or from position of the dwelling-house against and below the surface of the ground. In many instances it has been the practice in this, as in some other districts, to build farm-buildings, stables, cow-houses and the like, alongside and under one continuous roof with the dwelling-house; probably in order that the farmer might, with greater facility, be apprized of any illness or attempt at theft of his steeds-a mode of relieving neighbouring countrymen of their property not unknown in the days of border raids-and in part, perhaps, to save the expense of an additional gable, which a detached building would have entailed. The practice, whatever its origin, has told very prejudicially, in many instances, on succeeding generations, and even now there is a tendency to perpetuate the evil.

Again, in the transformation of old residences into cottage dwellings it has been the practice, in not a few instances, so to divide and subdivide the structure that bed-rooms have been formed without any fireplace or other provision for the constant interchange of air. Old stables and byres, adjoining the mansions of past generations, have, in these practical days, also been converted into cottages, and it cannot be matter of surprise what results have followed on the luckless occupants.

Until within a very recent period it has been the practice of certain builders to leave some of the smaller bed-rooms without fireplace or air-shaft in lieu thereof, and Sanitary Authorities, by whom plans of dwelling-houses have been passed, have not always corrected the error.

Referring again to the result of sanitary inspection in this district during a period extending over twelve or eighteen months in which measles have been more or less prevalent, out of some thirty fatal cases of lungcomplication supervening on the disease, undoubted defects of ventilation, of a similar nature to the above, have, almost without exception, been observed. In many instances, as before noted, the bed-room, small as to size and utterly inadequate in itself as to cubic area, has been found destitute of fireplace, air-shaft, or other suitable and proper provision for the constant interchange of air; in others, again, the chimney-flue had been kept sedulously closed, and, in a not inconsiderable proportion of instances, filth influence from a contiguous watercloset, with unventilated drain-pipe in connection therewith, filthy privy or other similarly objectionable influence, has been observed.

In some forty fatal cases of whooping-cough or of

the subsequent lung-complication, which have recently occurred in this district, similar insanitary physical causes appear to have been at work. In a very large proportion of these fatal cases, also, the bed-rooms were destitute of fireplace, air-shaft, or suitable provision for constant ventilation, or, if this had been provided, the defects associated therewith had rendered its application practically inoperative. Bed-room chimney-flues were found, when existing, for the most part boarded or stuffed up; in other instances the bed, where the deceased had slept, had been placed in a recess or corner of the room where the air was specially stagnant; and, in other cases, overcrowding came to aid in the establishing what seemed, gathering weight as the inquiry extended, a well-nigh invariable neglect of the laws of health in this particular. In some sixteen out of the forty fatal cases, filth influence from immediately contiguous byre, pigsties, stable, water-closet, or sewer influence was noticed.

It might appear to savour of the post hoc ergo propter hoc kind of reasoning if I observed, as I am nevertheless compelled to do, that the sanitary investigation of the interior and surroundings of houses where inflammatory affections of the brain have occurred, forces the conclusion that diseases of this class, also, are not infrequently, and it cannot but be inferred causatively, associated with similar insanitary conditions.

Out of some twenty-eight fatal cases of this nature, observed during a similar period, filth influence, from immediately contiguous byre or stable, imperfectly ventilated water-closet; or from sewer influence, as from slop-stone waste-pipe communicating-save imperfect trapping-directly with the sewer, or from drains coursing underneath the house, was observable in some seventeen out of the number; whilst unmistakable defects of ventilation were noted, as from absence of fireplace in the bed-room, or the rendering inoperative of this provision, in almost every other case out of the entire number.

If some seventeen fatal cases of tubercular meningitis be added on to these, we find exactly similar influences at work almost without exception.

Again, in some twenty-two cases of, for the most part, primary convulsions in children, I found like filth influences and defects of ventilation associated with them, whilst many other diseases of infants and young children seemed causatively conjoined with similarly insanitary conditions, such as those returned as dentition, marasmus, atrophy, and the like.

The influence which insanitary conditions exert on diseases of the zymotic order seems now a generally admitted fact; whilst few are to be found who deny the causative association of tubercular diseases with defective ventilation, or the breathing of impure rebreathed air. During a similar period, as above referred to, I have to note fourteen fatal cases of tabesmesenterica, where in almost every instance the bedroom occupied by the deceased was either destitute of fireplace, air-shaft, or other suitable provision for the interchange of air, or, if such provision existed, its utility was practically ignored. Contiguous filth influence was not so frequently noticeable in connection with this disease as in those of an acute or subacute inflammatory nature, affecting specially vital organs, as the brain and lungs.

There can be little doubt but that the influence of insanitary causes bears a most important part in the production of disease in many of its forms; of local diseases, of some termed constitutional, as well as many of those of the zymotic order. The bearings

of the subject are not, I submit, sufficiently weighed by medical writers, except by some of continental celebrity, who very judiciously advise their readers, and may thus indirectly point to sanitary investigation, to fulfil the causal indications when speaking of the treatment of various diseases.

Should it be contended that too much of etiological simplification would tend to disparage the profession in the eyes of the public, the fallacy of such an idea is, I think, self-evident, in these days of general intellectual activity. The subtle influences which affect the threefold nature of man-body, soul and spirit, with two parts of which nature, at least, the physician has to do, are of themselves sufficiently complex to tax the most accurate judgment, whilst the vis medicatrix naturæ frequently stands in need of the most skilful application of the therapeutic agent for its furtherance.

Take a case recently brought under my own immediate observation. The parents of a certain child change their residence, and, from a house comparatively healthy and free from filth influence, come to occupy one with objectionable container water-closet, presumably with cesspool arrangement and unventilated soil-pipe, also with scullery waste pipes communicating immediately with the sewer, and with huge cesspit of privy and ashpit-in all probability imperfectly secured against filth infiltration-under one continuous roof with the back kitchen. Their promising boy, of some six years of age, previously healthy to all appearance, is exposed, shortly after change of residence, to some slight risk of chill and, when evidencing symptoms of illness, is placed to sleep in the bed-room over the kitchen, where the warm air rising from beneath is largely impregnated with filth influence from the slop-stone waste-pipes of the adjacent back kitchen and from the objectionable cesspit of the privy close alongside, and under one continuous roof therewith; in addition to which, the house atmosphere was further rendered impure from the objectionable water-closet arrangement above mentioned. The symptoms are those of peritonitis; but the remedies employed-presumably proving successful in other instances less adversely circumstanced-are, in this case, speedily followed by a fatal result; an issue which appears to me to be physically owing, in no small degree, to the unpropitious surroundings of an insanitary nature which I have pointed out; evils, moreover, perhaps not duly appreciated by the medical attendant who might have more successfully tided over the crisis had he removed his little patient to a part of the house, in the basement, further removed from filth influence.

Take another case brought before my notice in the course of sanitary inspection quite recently. A family came to occupy a badly ventilated, back-toback cottage, situated almost immediately over a water-closet having no drain ventilation. In the course of a comparatively short time, the head of the household succumbs to pneumonia, so far as I can judge from the description of the disease given by the widow; later on, a son, a young man who previous to residing here enjoyed good health, and whose occupation, moreover, that of a blacklead pencilmaker, could not be considered to be particularly unhealthy, suffers also from an attack of pleuro-pneumonia. Though surviving the acute symptoms, his recovery was unsatisfactory, and symptoms of empyema supervene, which, after prolonged existence and the accession of nephritis, terminate fatally. The poor widow, thoroughly disheartened,

is left to eke out, for herself and other members of her family still surviving-and whose very life, under the adverse circumstances pointed out, cannot fail to be endangered—a precarious existence by taking in washing. Surely we may reasonably suppose that, under more favourable sanitary surroundings, a large amount of this suffering and, as we term it, premature death, might have been prevented.

Suffer another history, which appears to have more than a fanciful connection with assignable physical causes, occurring in a farmhouse, in a hilly country district, where the cow-house is under one continuous roof with the dwelling-house, and occupies a site on higher ground than the latter, though a barn intervenes which, if freely ventilated, may tend, in a greater or less degree, to isolate the house-atmosphere from the adjacent filth influence. The father of the family, of middle age, has an attack of apoplexy, which is followed by protracted paralysis for many years, and from which he never recovers; other members of the family frequently suffer from erysipelas, and manifest a tendency to bronchitis; one of the two daughters, remaining at home, a celibate, dies of cancer; the other becomes an inebriate. These are but typical cases, constantly recurring, and the like of which will continue to operate until central authority comes to the aid of local sanitary administration in effecting a remedy; though a farseeing individual may, now and then, avoid the exposure of his family to such dangerous influences.

The late Count Bunsen gave this sage advice to his friends, 'In house accommodation live above your means, in clothing up to your means, and in food below your means'.

Should it not be the aim of sanitary administration to secure for each habitable room, and especially in the overcrowded cottages of the poorer classes, some suitable provision for the constant interchange of air? The amount of cubic space without this provision is, comparatively speaking, a vague and indeterminable quantity, and seldom, if ever, meets the requirements of health.

The Barrack Commissioners recommend a minimum space of 600 cubic feet for each man; insisting, at the same time, that the air should be renewed twice every hour. How far short of this requirement the greater part of the dwellings of the poorer class fall, and how utterly inadequate is the usual provision for the interchange of air without prejudicial draught. How many small overcrowded bedrooms are there which have no provision for permanent ventilation, and how frequently is this to be found where, on the part of the occupants, from various causes it may be, there is a morbid dread of the outer air; where the enfeebling, disease-producing, pre-breathed, fœtid atmosphere, forms the lung aliment during a very considerable part of the life of the unfortunate inhabitants. The sad lack of attention to this important matter of detail is evidenced by the number of plans for houses recently passed by sanitary authorities, if I may judge of other places by what is found in this part of the kingdom, where rooms have been permitted to be built without any fireplace, air-shaft, or other suitable provision for

ventilation.

As for the enforcement of this provision in old properties-a department of work to which all sanitary boards should, through their officials, address themselves-the work is, at present, very uphill and difficult. The public and their representatives, the elected sanitary authorities, are not alive to the important bearings of the work; and the prying nature

of house-inspection, together with the difficulties sometimes attending the provision of even an inexpensive and simple means of remedying the defects pointed out, on the one hand from failing to meet the requirements of the particular case, and, on the other, from inability or reluctance on the part of the owner to defray the cost, call for a more general and unanimous, and, therefore, less apparently singular and obnoxious, effort in this direction.

When once a plan has been passed by a sanitary board for the erection of a dwelling-house, it is a difficult task for the Medical Officer of Health to have to point out its defects, although he may have been no party to the sanction of the plan. Take, for instance, the important point of the relative position of the door, window, and fireplace of a bedroom. When these are placed at one end of the room, the far end-where the bed or beds are usually placedforms a cul-de-sac, where the air stagnating soon becomes very detrimental to the health of the occupants; a suitable air inlet in such a position, even if free from the supposable objection of unduly admitting the cold air, is seldom, as far as my experience goes, provided. How frequently does the careful and diligent sanitary investigator find that existing provision for interchange of air has been rendered inoperative by the closure of the chimney flue owing to down draughts, which the provision of a suitable chimney can or pot might have prevented. In certain country districts the Medical Officer of Health is thus repeatedly called to witness the evils resulting from filth influence pervading the house atmosphere from immediately contiguous byre, stable, or the like, and inasmuch as, in exceptional cases, evil may not apparently result from such an arrangement of the house and farm buildings, as when efficient drainage and free ventilation is secured, and although old-fashioned, time-honoured custom seeks to perpetuate the evil, yet is it undoubtedly the duty of the Medical Officer of Health to protest against the perpetuation of the defect, as well as to endeavour to improve old properties, where defects of this nature are apparent, by securing free ventilation and efficient paving and drainage, as severally applicable.

This work in such cases dovetails into that of the county cattle diseases Inspector's department. When a raid has been made on our badly-ventilated, filthsaturated cowhouses, and when powers have been secured-as by the withholding of compensation, in whole or in part, for cattle slaughtered on the outbreak of epidemic disease, if the internal sanitary arrangements of paving, channeling, ventilation and cleanliness do not come up to a certain standardto enforce the requirements of the laws of health as affecting cattle, we shall have a lighter county rate, and fewer cases of pulmonary tuberculosis, grapes, clyers and its synonymes-affecting the quality of our meat-supplies, and through it the health of the public. The more thorough ventilation, on approved principles, so as to obviate draught, of some of our large cattle auction marts, together with the removal of all offensive gullies, which continue to pour forth their offensive odour, outside the buildings a similar precaution advisable in all cowhouses or stables-well deserves the attention of the proper authorities; great danger to cattle, exhausted by long driving or travel, would thereby, it would appear, be the more avoided. In some towns it is too much the practice to place cottage water-closets-which, as a rule, at least in this district, are unprovided with suitable drain and summit

re

I have recommended and induced one or more of the urban boards with which I have to do, to enforce an isolated position for this house appendage, in new properties of the cottage class, even though at some sacrifice of architectural neatness. This recommendation has seemed the more needful from the state of fouling and block of private drains, constantly recurring, which I attribute sometimes to the carelessness of the householder in failing to flush well after the use of the closet-an argument for the use of trough-closets in cottage properties-or to the large diameter of the drain-pipe, which permits of the passing or trickling by of the water, and the retention of the tenacious clayey deposit at the sides, which, accumulating, eventually blocks the drain. Were it not that the careless householder is apt to allow floor cloths or other improper articles to be thrown down the closet, a four-inch drain-pipe is, in the opinion of certain practical men, better than one of larger diameter, as permitting of a more effectual cleansing with a given volume of water.

Where this state of block of private drains is apt to occur, sanitary boards should provide, at suitable cost, means for periodical flushing by means of the town's hose, and should accordingly inflict a fine on any owner or occupier of property where this state of neglect is permitted to endanger the health of neighbours. The objectionable, dangerous and costly practice of opening up private drains would then be, to a considerable extent, obviated. How often does fatal illness occur in connection with such a state of block or cleansing of private drains?

As the immense and extended bearing of sanitary science on disease as a whole becomes more intelligently recognised, the discrepancies of treatment, as sometimes noticeable, will receive more satisfactory solution in some instances; whilst the aid to the efficient supervision and management of individual cases becomes, in a corresponding ratio, more tangible and reliable. I speak of human instrumentality as acting in accordance with the great principles of health laws, so harmoniously in concert with the Divine Author of all intelligence and truth. We come further, taking a retrospective historical view, to realise more fully the physical advantages, as interpreted by health laws, of the ancient Jewish suggestion of 'Shinnui Mokom', or change of place, which was so frequently followed by the most satisfactory recovery of the sufferer; whilst insight into health conditions and requirements-bearing in mind the immense importance of a pure house-atmosphere directs the aim of the physician towards the securing for his patient a separation or removal, as far as possible, from any influence which would further depress the vital tone already lowered and enfeebled by the inroad of expressed disease.

If any insanitary influence, detected by the expert,

* Talmud Babli, Rosh Hashana, 16 B.

NOTES ON INDUSTRIAL DWELLINGS.
BY ELIJAH HOOLE.

VI. TENEMENTS. UNSATISFACTORY as the one-room tenement is when regarded from a sanitary point of view, there are classes in our town population for whom it is too costly and for whom a still simpler kind of lodging has to be provided. Many single men and single women who are at work all day require a bed-room only. They have no time to spend on cleaning this room, and no money with which to furnish it, but can afford to spend sixpence per night or less in rent if the furnishing, cleaning, etc., be done for them. The Coffee Tavern Company has provided a number of such bed-rooms in London, and the method they have adopted is worthy of extensive imitation, since it has succeeded both pecuniarily and in other ways. Above the rooms in which the manager of the tavern and his family live, which are usually immediately over the tavern itself, a number of small bedrooms or cubicles are formed, each having its own door to the passage or staircase, and its own window to the external air, and being just large enough to contain an iron bedstead and a fixed shelf for washstand, leaving space for a box if the tenant happens to have one. A gas bracket and a few coat and hat pegs complete its furniture, while its toilet appliances are limited to a small fixed looking-glass and a plain white ewer and basin. The bedding is plain but comfortable, and the beds are made and the cubicles kept in order by the manager's wife or her deputy. The manager exercises the necessary control, allowing no one but the lodgers to go upstairs, and turning out the gas at the appointed hour. In the day time, the various accommodations of the tavern are available for the tenants, who take some meals there, and thus increase its receipts. Great facilities both for comfortable and economical living are thus placed within reach of the working man at an exceedingly low price, while to the tavern proprietors a useful mode of appropriating the upper rooms of the tavern building is afforded, thus relieving them of the difficulty of finding appropriate and profitable use for the upper rooms, the ordinary coffee tavern customer having an insurmountable objection to go upstairs for refreshments.

Another plan which seems needed for the housing of a section of the lower stratum of our town population is open to many grave objections in its ordinary form of a common lodging-house; and yet it is difficult to see how some equivalent for it can be altogether dispensed with, since it is the least costly mode of housing single persons of either sex, though certainly not the one to be most desired. The entire absence of privacy, and the close contact into which the inmates of the ordinary common lodging-house