Sec. 14.] FARM-HOUSES. 277 



303. Reasons why a Dwelling should be Light.— Tliere is a mania for dark- 

 rooms. People do not appear to be aware of tlie fact, that dark rooms are 

 deleterious to Lealtli. Hear what Florence Nightingale says upon this sub- 

 ject : 



" A dark house is almost always an nnliealthy house, always an ill-aired 

 house, always a dirty house. Want of light stops growth, and promotes 

 scrofula, rickets, etc., among the children. People lose their health in a 

 dark house, and if tliey got ill, they cannot get well again in it. Tliree, out 

 of many ' negligences and ignorances ' in managing the health of houses 

 generally, I will here mention as specimens. First, that the female in 

 charge of any building does not think it necessary to visit every hole, and 

 corner of it every day. How can she expect those who are under her to be 

 more careful to maintain her house in a healthy condition than she who is 

 in charge of it? Second, that it is not considered essential to air, to sun, 

 and to clean rooms while uninhabited ; which is simply ignoring the first 

 elementary notion of sanitary things, and laying the ground ready for all 

 kinds of disease. Third, that tlie window, and one window is considered 

 enough to air a room. Don't imagine that if you are in charge, and don't 

 look to all these things yourself, those under you will be more careful than 

 you are. It appears as if the part of the mistress was to complain of her 

 servants, and to accept their e.xeuse — not to show them how there need be 

 neither complaints nor excuses." 



We beg of all who build houses, as well as those who keep them, to 

 become aware of the fact, that there is a generous abundance of sunligiit in 

 the country, yet the observer is often convinced that a majority of country 

 houses ai"e but scantily provided with this first requisite of health and 

 comfort. 



In reference to admitting light freely into our houses, the words of a writer 

 on the subject are pertinent. He says : " From several years' observations 

 in rooms of various sizes, used as manufacturing rooms, and occupied by 

 females for twelve hours each day, I found tluit the workers who occupied 

 those rooms which had large windows, with large panes of glass, in the four 

 sides of the room, so that the rays of the run penetrated through the whole 

 room during the whole day, were much more healthy than those who occu- 

 pied rooms lighted from one side only, or rooms lighted through very small 

 panes of glass." Notwithstanding the cheapness and facility with which 

 glass can be obtained, there is a deficiency of windows even in what is 

 usually considered the better class of American dwellings. Sitting rooms, 

 cheerless enough in having one or two small windows, almost extinguished 

 beneath heavy drapery of paper and doth, are exceedingly common. For 

 ordinary rooms, white cotton cloth fastened on rollers, as paper is usually 

 hung for window shades, is sufficient for the purpose of screen— admitting 

 at the same time a dift'used and softened light. 



Dark colors upon the walls, absorbing inore or less of the prismatic rnys, 

 are also unfavorable in their effects. The writer just quoted found that in 



