1902.] FARM SANITATION. 57 



that the ground breathes. It inspires air from above and ex- 

 hales it again through its surface. In the winter time when 

 the outdoor ground is frozen, the chief breathing places are 

 the cellars of our warm houses. Through the warm cellars 

 and still warmer rooms of our dwellings the vile vapors gen- 

 erated in the subterranean storehouses of corruption find 

 exit, while the solids and liquids from the same sources sink 

 downwards to contaminate our wells. 



These special and peculiar contrivances so well adapted to 

 produce an impure air, impure water, and an impure soil are 

 devices of our own invention and construction. Now, if the 

 pale horse and his rider enter our homes and our loved ones 

 are borne to their last resting place, with what propriety can 

 we reverently say, it is the dispensation of an all wise Provi- 

 dence? The minister may offer consolation in the words 

 " Whom He loveth He chasteneth." Loving friends may re- 

 solve that " Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to remove, 

 etc.," but is not such language a libel upon the loving kind- 

 ness and wisdom of the great Lawmaker? And is it not 

 more in accordance with the facts to recall the words of Moses 

 to the rebellious Israelites, " Behold ye have sinned against 

 the Lord ; and be sure your sin will find you out " ? 



The late Col. G. E. Waring said the most objectionable 

 of all unsanitary conditions " about isolated buildings is the 

 noisome and death-dealing cesspool, which is, facile princeps, 

 the great sanitary curse of the country." 



The unsanitary conditions which I have described in terms 

 not too emphatic are in the present light of sanitary science 

 inexcusable and in many cases criminal. There has been 

 many a grief stricken family where should have been written 

 on the death certificate homicide or suicide as the contribu- 

 tory cause. 



There is no practical difficulty in protecting a well or 

 spring from surface drainage. It is an unpardonable offense 

 against the established laws of health to permit the existence 

 of a cesspool on a farm whose broad acres afford ample facili- 

 ties for the safe and profitable disposal of sewage. 



The privy vault is a disgraceful relic of a past and more 

 barbarous age, when even a privy was unknown and the 

 public street was the common receptacle of all manner of 

 refuse and filth. 



