28 The Housing of the Agricultural Lahourer. 



to enable the household washing to be done in it : space for a 

 mangle and a low table for a wash-tub must be provided. A 

 steam-consuming copper should be fixed, and the wash-house 

 well ventilated with air-bricks fixed in the outer wall just under 

 the ceiling. 



It is doubtful if a bath should be provided in an agricul- 

 tural labourer's cottage. In many country districts the water 

 supply is inadequate, and when the rainwater supply gives out 

 water for domestic purposes has often to be fetched in pails 

 from a considerable distance. As a rule there is no demand 

 for baths, and the supply has not hitherto resulted in stimu- 

 lating one, the bath, when provided, being almost invariably 

 used for storing coal, potatoes, soiled linen, &c. This may 

 in some degree be due to the fact that it is generally placed 

 either in the scullery, which, when used as the chief living 

 room, is not a convenient bath-room, or else in a bedroom, 

 where it entails the maximum amount of trouble, as the water 

 has to be carried upstairs, and afterwards baled out and carried 

 downstairs again. The general practice seems to obtain of 

 bathing the children in a portable bath before the kitchen fire 

 on Saturday nights, and there does not seem to be much 

 reason why much more than this should be required. 



However, in many cases it will probably be desired to 

 provide a bath, and the wash-house, when planned under the 

 main roof, would seem to be the most convenient place for it. 

 If it be arranged so that it can readily be filled with hot water 

 from the adjacent copper, and emptied by a waste pipe dis- 

 charging over the gulley or a channel to the gulley outside, 

 it may perhaps be put to a legitimate use. The bath should 

 be small and of such a shape that it would not require a great 

 quantity of water. It should be covered with a table top on 

 independent supports, hinged to open upwards and form a 

 shutter against the lower part of the window ; and it might 

 be well if the floor were sunk an inch or two below the bath 

 so that the table top would be at a convenient height for 

 working at a washtub. 



The staircase is nearly always planned to start from the 

 small lobby immediately inside the front door, and sometimes 

 directly from the living room, and these are no doubt the best 

 ])ositions for it in urban districts ; but in the country cottage 

 it would appear more desirable to have it in close proximity 

 to the l^ack door when both front and back doors are provided. 

 The back door is almost always used by the inmates of the 

 house, and by most callers, the front door being very seldom 

 used except by occasional visitors and for social functions. 

 When one calls at the front door of a labourer's cottage, the 

 difficulty that is generally very evidently experienced by the 



