330 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



the very first importance that the water-closet should be always jvnd instantly 

 <yind easily accessible, as in proportion as this is not the case, the calls of na- 

 tui-e are postponed. This never can be done with impunity, for nature never 

 does anything in vain nor out of time. But it is singular to observe how she 

 never allows herself, as it were, to be trifled with ; if her call is not heeded, it 

 is less and less urgent ; her appeals to the nerves of sensation are less and less 

 strong, until they cease to be felt ; the inclination passes off, and it may be 

 hours before she has recovered strength to call again, but with this unvarying 

 result : the next day the call is made later, and later, and later, until after 

 a while it is omitted for a whole day, and before the person is aware of it it is 

 found that the bowels are constipated — that several days pass without an evac- 

 uation, and with this certain uncomfortable feelings are observed entirely new 

 to the person in question; they are simply "symptoms," the indications that 

 disease is setting up in the system, such as headache, cold feet, bad taste in 

 the mouth on getting up in the morning, an irregular appetite, qualmishness, 

 an absence of accustomed vivacity ; and in due time there is actual disease in 

 the shape of sick headache, sour stomach, piles, wasting diarrhoea, catarrh, 

 " the least thing in the world gives me a cold," dyspepsia, with all its horrors, 

 or a general decline of the whole system. Every observant physician knows 

 that more than half of all ordinary diseases have their foundations laid in a 

 constipated condition of the bowels — that is, a failure in them to act every day 

 with almost the regularity of the rising of the sun ; and he further knoAvs that 

 the beginning of this irregularity Avas brought about by deferring the calls of 

 nature until company was gone, until the chapter was finished, until the news- 

 paper was looked over, until some work in hand was completed, or until *' the 

 coast was clear." It is in this as in thousands of other cases that the greatest 

 of calamities arises sometimes from almost inappreciable causes ; and in all hu- 

 man record there is not a stronger exemplification of it than in the case in 

 hand. There are thousands and tens of thousands of intelligent and observant 

 persons in mature life, and still later on in years, who would cheerfully give a 

 large portion of what they possess if they could have a natural, regular action 

 of the bowels every day without any artificial aid, and who can and do look 

 back in vain remorse to the times when there was a proper and healthful reg- 

 ularity, and to the occasions and manner of their first breaking into it, simply 

 for the want of a little personal energy, a little self-denial, a small modicum 

 of force of will, which would resolutely, and even impatiently, clear out of its 

 path those trifling, those cobweb obstacles which were in the way of our physi- 

 cal duty, as it were. But it is not always that nature allows persons to escape 

 with a moderate or protracted or slow punishment. There are multitudes of 

 cases recorded where, from motives of false delicacy, as riding in public vehi- 

 cles, waiting for others, or for daybreak to come, or from sheer laziness, the 

 power to pass water has been taken away, acute inflammation has set in, and 

 death has followed in two or three days. It is well worth while, then, to say 

 all that has been said, if by it a single family should, in the erection of a new 

 house, or in the remodelling of an old one, be led to make a wise and practical 

 use of the facts which have been presented, in having a privy constructed with 

 two or three apartments, appropriated to the different classes o.f the family, so 

 that one may never need have to wait on another for a single instant, and also 

 that approaches may be made with as much privacy as practicable, and by a 

 path protected from the weather, to be used when inclement, and by another 

 to be used in good weather, and still as distant from the house as can be con- 

 veniently arranged ; for example, to be approached through the wood-house 

 or' perhaps through the garden. The deposits should be made in a Avater-tight 

 plank box, placed on the surface of the earth, on runners or wheels, to be re- 

 moved and emptied once a week, and buried in a compost heap. The faeces 

 of one individual will fertilize an acre of ground every year to an extent greater 



