" THE ENGLISHMAN'S FIRESIDE." 215 



the broadest part of the whole caricature, especially when we 

 consider that, according to this theory of the cheerfulness 

 of fire-gazing, the 16-inch idiot must be the most cheerful 

 of all human beings. 



The notion that our common fireplaces and chimneys af- 

 ford an efficient means of ventilation, is almost too absurd 

 for serious discussion. Everybody who has thought at all 

 on the subject is aware that in cold weather the exhalations 

 of the skin and lungs, the products of gas-burning, etc., 

 are so much heated when given off that they rise to the 

 upper part of the room (especially if any cold outer air is 

 admitted), and should be removed from there before they 

 cool again and descend. Now, our fireplace openings are 

 just where they ought not to be for ventilation; they are at 

 the lower part of the room, and thus their action consists 

 in creating a current of cold air or "draught" from doors 

 and windows, which cold current at once descends, and 

 then runs along the floor, chilling our toes and provoking 

 chilblains. 



This cold fresh air having done its worst in the way of 

 making us uncomfortable, passes directly up the chimney 

 without doing us any service for purposes *of respiration. 

 Our mouths are usually above the level of the chimney 

 opening, and thus we only breathe the vitiated atmosphere 

 which it fails to remove. 



Not only does the fire-opening fail to purify the air we 

 breathe, it actually prevents the leakage of the lower part 

 of the windows and doors from assisting in the removal of 

 the upper stratum of vitiated air, for the strong up-draught 

 of the chimney causes these openings to be fully occupied 

 by an inflowing current of cold air, which at once de- 

 scends, and then proceeds, as before stated, to the chimney. 

 If the leakage is insufficient to supply the necessary amount 

 of chilblain-making and bronchitis-producing draught, it 

 has to enter by way of the chimney-pot in the form of oc- 

 casional spasms of down-draught, accompanied by gusts of 

 choking and blackening smoke. It is a fact not generally 

 known, that smoky chimneys are especial English institu- 

 tions, one of the peculiar manifestations of our very supe- 

 rior domestic comfortableness. 



