DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



saturated with carbon and other impurities, 

 and thence dark, shiggisli and clotted — that it 

 must now be renovated by fresh air, containing 

 a large proportion of oxygen, for which purpose 

 the air already in the lungs or once inhaled and 

 respired therefrom is no titter than the ashes of 

 yesterday's fuel would be to make a new fire 

 for to-day — that for this purpose every adult, 

 healthy human being needs to inhale about 

 eighteen breaths per minute of about one pint 

 of fresh, pure air each, making over two gal- 

 lons of air per minute — and that the inhalation 

 instead of air already deprived of oxygen and 

 loaded with impurities by respiration is a pro- 

 cess alike baneful to health, strength and life — 

 these truths are not generally understood, or 

 their importance could not fail to be realized and 

 respected. It is not possible that men and wo- 

 men would consent to be shut up in a close, 

 crowded, low-roofed car, having possibly one or 

 two small, utterly inadequate apertures for the 

 escape of vitiated air, but none at all for the 

 ingress of that which is pure, and that, while 

 thus poisoning themselves, they would raise a 

 row against any one who should kindly and 

 slightly raise the window by his side, if they 

 only knew what they were doing. Nor would 

 they build costly churches and commodious 

 halls for public meetings, and there huddle for 

 hours, enduring discomfort and imbibing the 

 seeds of fatal disease, if they only knew that 

 copious ventilation was the very first require- 

 ment for such halls, and that they might far 

 better, even during a tempest, sit there without 

 any roof at all over their heads than with a roof 

 which imprisons and returns upon their lungs 

 the poisonous, corrupting exhalations from their 

 own chests and bodies. 



So with private dwellings. A man has toiled 

 liard and long for a competimce, and, having 

 finally attained it, resolves to build a house after 

 his own heart. He grudges no expense to se- 

 cure an agreeable location and prospect, pure 

 water, spacious rooms, tasteful draperies, ample 

 bedding, elegant furniture. &c., &,c., providing 

 carefully and bountifully for every want but the 

 first and greatest of all — pure fresh air. He 

 might have .secured this in every room of his 

 mansion for some paltry twenty or thirty dol- 

 lars; yet he neglects it and leaves his children 

 to fester in their own corruption night after night 

 until they finally sicken and die, for want of 

 that element which God abundantly and freely 

 supplied f(H- their sustenance, but which he in 

 his dense ignorance has perversely shut out and 

 rejected. 



Our architects, so called, are shamefully in 

 fault in the premises. They have no right to 

 be ignorant of the necessity for ample ventila- 

 tion ; and if not ignorant, they have no right to 

 construct slaughter-pens and coffins where they 

 are paid for erecting proper dwellings. They 

 have no business to plead, " My employer did 

 not want ventilation;" for if tliey know their 

 siness they know full well that he vitally 

 it, though the density of his ignorance 



prevented his desiring it. They are paid to 

 know what he does not ; and they should never 

 draw the plan of an edifice of any kind without 

 providing for its thorough ventilation as a mat- 

 ter of course. Should the employer interpose 

 objections, (which he rarely will.) it is their 

 duty to enlighten and convert him. If he should 

 insist on exalting his obstinate stupidity above 

 the architect's scientific knowledge and practiced 

 skill, (which not one in a hundred will do,) the 

 latter should quietly say, '■ Sir, I have studied 

 faithfully and labored hard to acquire the re- 

 quisite knowledge of architecture ; if you think 

 I have not succeeded, please employ some one 

 else ; but if / direct the construction of this 

 house, it must be thoroughly ventilated; lean- 

 not in good conscience be responsible for any 

 other." 



"Why," says Thickskull, "whence comes 

 all this clamor about ventilation? If it is so 

 vital a matter, why did not our wise ancestors 

 know something about it ? Why didn't the want 

 of it kill them, I'd like to know? I mistrust 

 it's one of the new-fangled '/s/ns, and closely re- 

 lated to socialism and infidelity!'' 



Most conservative Thickskull, your fore-fath- 

 ers did not thrive in the absence of ventilation, 

 but because they had it. It is precisely because 

 we have all departed, necessarily and irrevoca- 

 bly, from their habits that special attention to 

 ventilation has become so necessary. They 

 lived far more in the open air and less in crowd- 

 ed assemblages than the present generation does ; 

 they sat around huge firesides which voraciously 

 sucked all the vitiated air up chimney. They 

 slept oftenest in spacious unpartitioned chambers 

 and garrets, whence the stars were visible through 

 the crevices in the sides or roof. Such bed-rooms 

 needed no ventilators — need none now. The 

 mischief is that you cannot have them or will 

 not sleep in them. The hospitable old fire place 

 has been narrowed and lowered, or has given 

 place to a stove or furnace ; the bed-room is 

 ceiled and papered; the doors are listed, the 

 floors caulked, and the modern house, though 

 in some respects more commodious and com- 

 fortable, is far less healthful and invigorating 

 than those which it has supplanted . Hence the 

 necessity for special regard to ventilation. There 

 were hovels and dens of old, mainly in cities, 

 where the poor herded in atmosphere fouler if 

 possible than that of our modern churches dur- 

 ing service, and of our mansions on soiree nights ; 

 and from these Spotted Fever, Black Death, 

 Plague, and other pestilences went forth to de- 

 va.state the world. If you want these results of 

 the wisdom of our ancestors back again, just 

 blunder on in defiance of the monitions of science 

 respecting respiration and air, and you will very 

 probably be accommodated. 



Growth by Magic — All Parishasbeenniar- 

 velling, for some time past, at the exhibition, 

 by a M. Hebert. of a process by which the 

 this gentleman causes the blossoms of plants to 



