Ventilation.

the numerous alkali works to my sleeping-room window , and I found to my surprise that my watch and studs were coated with a dull—something I do not know the name of : yet I breathed that atmosphere . I wonder if my lungs were coated also ? In a population of 150 , 000 , and in a district where

coal is comparatively cheap , and where it is the custom to have large fires and large fire-grates , nothing so economical and also so beneficial can I recommend as what is popularly called "the Builder ' s fire . " I have adopted it for the last few yearsand I think with great advantage : I

, am certain that I have done so in my office . The process is this : — " Cover the bottom of the grate with a plate of sheet-iron . This alone will save more than one-fourth the coal , and preserve a better fire . At a cost not exceeding Is . the experiment may be tried . The saving will be more than

half this in each week . " I can certainly affirm that , where a coakscuttle was most essential to keej 5 the fire alive U | D to six o'clock in the evening , I now need no such thing ; and I have , moreover , a fire that can burn from six to eight hours without stirring ( with Newcastle coalstoo ) and from

, , which no smoke of any importance ascends . The fact is , as the fire burns downwards , it consumes the carbon , and hence there is no smoke . I now come to our dwelling-houses .

After a dry foundation to a dwelling-house , a free circulation of air underneath is the next best thing . I once had the misfortune to live in a house in the centre of which was discovered an unused well ; and to Avorship in a church in which a huge rubble drain crossed , which at times gave

out a hazy rainbow appearance . And I have seen grass growing under sitting-rooms , shavings decomposing under floors , and earth heaped up against the outside walls of a house nearly up to the window-sills . Cesspools have been known to be within the open yardin whichalsowas to be

, , , found a well of drinking water ! I once saw—I must admit that it was many years ago—a donkey that lived under the stairs which led to the room ! On the one hand , in cosey , old-fashioned houses , we see the tidy-looking sand bags on the sittingroom windows , to keep out the dust and the

draught ; on the other hand , we see the modern middle-class Mrs . M'Clarty shutting up her rooms until they are fusty , and opening them only on sj ) ecial occasions for the pleasure and benefit of her visitors ! She " could-na be fashed" to open doors and windows , and to dust the furniture every day : besides the things get soiled and destroyed .

Bad as this may be , it is nothing to the danger to be apprehended by closing the fireplace in sleeping apartments . I have heard the remark more than once , " Oh ! it is only a bed-room !" As if it were no matter about the room in which one spends the larger portion of one ' s life . Conceive of a room with a bed and a sleeper in it : sand bags are on the windows ; the keyhole is

stopped up with paper or rag ;* and the fire-board nailed against the fireplace . On the supposition that the air of the room has been changed during the day—and I believe the air of some rooms has not been changed for months—the sleeper inhales the oxygen and exhales the carbonic acid . As he

sleeps the poison rises upwards , fouling portions of the pure air as it ascends . From the ceiling , as hour by hour passes , the foul air gradually accumulates and forms a stratum thickening with every respiration . In his bed , perhaps requiring steps to get into itand with drawn curtains , the deadl

, y poison lowers itself , until it comes in contact with his face . No fireplace opens its throat to carry off ' this poison ; no window crevice sends in a draught of air to supply the exhausted oxygen . Let him lie on but a few hours more , and the insidious gas will lull him to a deeper slumber—till—if

Providence prevent not—he sleeps for ever ! Such a case occurred only last year at East Hampstead , on the estate of the Marquis of Downshire . Three men slept in a room 10 ft . 10 in . by 8 ft . 10 ., and 6 ft . 7 iu . high . In the morning one was found lying face downwards dead . The surgeon deposed that he believed death had arisen from suffocation , and from the unwholesome air of the room .

Bed-room windows should be opened the first thing every morning , both top and bottom . They should , remain open all day , and if possible a little all night . There is a great deal of unreasonable prejudice about night-air . Miss Nightingale , in her admirable " Notes on

Nursing , " observes , in reference to night air , "What can we breathe at night but night air ? The choice is between pure night air from without , and foul night air from within . Most people prefer the latter . What will they say if it is proved that fully one half of the disease

we suffer from is occasioned by people sleeping with their windows shut ! An open window most nights in the year can never hurt any one . In great cities , night air is often the best and purest air to be had in the twenty-four hours .

One of our highest medical authorities on consumption and climate , has told me that the air in London is never so good as after ten o'clock at night . " A few years ago , I had occasion to spend the night with a professional brother in the neighbourhood of Manchester . He informed me

that he always slept with his bed-room window open . The way that he became accustomed to it was this : when on a sketching tour in Norfolk , the only lodgings he could get in the village were at a small cottage . His sleeping apartment boasted of two small windowsin both of which

, was a broken pane . Although it was cold weather , he informed me that he found it so pleasant and agreeable , that he adopted the plan ever since . The varying temperature between night and day , summer and winter , bad weather and good , is in