INTERNAL ARRANGEMENT OF TOWN-HOUSES. 829 



den draughts of cold air, wbicli are driven up the well-hole, as it is 

 called, by the opening of the street-door. 



There is no reason why the ordinary narrow entrance should not 

 be increased two or three feet, so as to make a moderate-sized hall, in 

 which you may have a fireplace, which will help to supply warm, fresh 

 air all over the house, and, by a little care in planning, the first flight 

 of stairs at least may be screened from view. 



There are now very many good ventilating grates which can be 

 so arranged as to provide, with communication from the outside, 

 warmed fresh air, and if one of these, of sufficient size, be placed in 

 the hall, it will not only help to ventilate it, and to lessen the evils of 

 heated and foul air generated by the gaslight, but can be made the 

 means of introducing warmed fresh air all over the house. 



The staircase itself, whether it be of wood or stone, should never 

 rise more than six and a half inches to each step, and, if possible, a 

 landing or resting-place should be arranged every twelve or fifteen 

 steps. In ordinary London houses the half -landing is suflicient, but 

 all winders are fatal to a good staircase. 



In the hall it is essential to have proper ventilation ; if you shut 

 the screen or inner hall doors, as a rule, the air becomes contaminated 

 and heated by the gaslights, and the staircase and passages are fed 

 with foul instead of fresh air. It is essential, therefore, that a proper 

 supply of fresh air should be brought in independent of the door, and 

 this can be done by means of a proper ventilating grate, or, if there 

 is no fireplace, by a simple ventilating letter-box, or by some such 

 arrangement as that which I have suggested for the dining-room ; in 

 fact, in every room throughout the house fresh air should be brought 

 in, either warmed over hot-water coils, or direct through tubes com- 

 municating with the outside, or through some of the best of the now 

 numerous ventilating grates, which are made so as to feed the house 

 and counteract the evils caused by overcrowding, or by the products 

 of combustion of gas or oil-lamps. 



The library may be arranged as a comfortable and quiet apartment 

 at the back, while the front space may be devoted to the morning or 

 general reception-room, in which all the cheerfulness which the out- 

 look into a London street allows can be obtained ; but do not sacrifice 

 the entrance and hall entirely to these rooms. Give an extra foot or 

 two to the passage-way of the house, and you will not only make it 

 more imposing and important, but will add materially to its comfort 

 and convenience when you receive guests, and to its healthiness by 

 providing a larger shaft for air circulation. 



The basements of London houses are generally so badly arranged 

 and ventilated that they add materially to their stuffiness ; for, as a 

 matter of course, all foul air is apt to fly upward, and if the base- 

 ment be foul, heated, and unhealthy, it forms the practical reservoir 

 from which the v^hole house derives a large amount of its general 



