78 



DB. B. AKGUS SMITH ON ANCIENT AND 



exhalations from the kitchen and yard. It is well known 

 how rapidly without this door the house becomes aware of 

 what is getting cooked. This part of the house, too, is damp 

 generally. Streets are formed at the backs of houses of a 

 very unwholesome kind. They are much worse than the old 

 towns consisting of narrow lanes. Here there is room only for 

 one person to walk conveniently, and as there is a high wall, 

 and all the ashpits are arranged close to doors opening into 

 these streets, we may be sure that there is behind our houses 

 places where there can be no comfortable living. We must 

 really avoid this system, or there must again be a sanitary 

 inquiry into the system of nuisances. The walls there are 

 generally too high ; there is no need of such height, and with 

 it the places never dry well ; even in a burning summer, 

 large yards will not dry when the walls are high. I believe 

 that ^his part of the house should be as open and dry as the 

 front, and that it may be made just as wholesome, not by 

 more expense, but by more judgment. There is of necessity 

 at the back of the house a good deal of work, of washing, 

 and cleaning ; now wherever water is used, there ought to be 

 free access of air and good drainage ; this is the only way of 

 avoiding the bad effects of what is called dampness. 



We may fairly conclude, I believe, that the backs of houses 

 should be made open, clear, and dry ; this can be done by 

 preventing the high walls now in use, by making a dry ashpit, 

 into which no nightsoil shall be put, and by having such 

 drainage as will prevent the dilapidated state of the pavement 

 of those narrow back streets, which ought to cease as such, 

 and be made merely into open passages, at the most with 

 open railings. If it is said that people like a suitable separa- 

 tion from their neighbours, then I may add that the highest 

 walls now used are really no separation, as they are all over- 

 looked by the windows of the next houses. There would be 

 room in the yard for a water-closet, which might either open 

 into the yard or into the house, and for a bath, such as is 



