136 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1892. 



keepers to realize that barren simplicity is better than foolish 

 adornment. 



But while it is easy to overdo in house decoration there is no 

 danger of overdoing in cleanliness and sanitary precautions. 

 People have been building and living in houses for thousands of 

 years, yet strange to say they do not know how to build them 

 for perfect health and comfort. Once in a while, after some 

 epidemic of diphtheria, typhoid fever, or other deadly disease, 

 there is a public outcry against our methods of house-drainage 

 and building, and the builder is denounced as "the curse of 

 families." We sometimes feel like giving up life in our modern 

 dwellings, where sewer-gas and subterranean poisons too often 

 find a home, and taking up our abode in tents among the fields. 

 In this age of scientific invention and physical knowledge, a 

 good dwelling-house ought to be as healthy a place as there is on 

 the planet ; and, if it is not, the art of the architect and that of 

 the sanitary engineer, were not combined in the construction of 

 it. As a matter-of-fact, in by-gone years there has been little 

 connection between architecture and sanitary engineering. The 

 architect has drawn the plans and looked after the t\?sthetic 

 aspects of the structure, and the plumber has looked after the 

 sanitary arrangements in an imperfect way ; and each has acted 

 upon the theory that art and hygiene are not only unconnected, 

 but are in some respects incompatible with each other. Whereas 

 the architect and the plumber should always act in unison, as 

 artistic and sanitary construction ought always to be combined 

 in the erection of every house. 



After the house is erected and occupied every part of it from 

 cellar to attic, including the yard and outbuildings, should be 

 kept clean and wholesome, and absolutely free from filth, mould 

 and decaying matter of every sort. A few decaying vegetables 

 in the cellar or some cubby-hole may breed the germs of diph- 

 theria, typhoid fever or other malignant disease. Cleanliness, 

 we are told by Saint Paul, is next to godliness, and this divine 

 precept is as applicable to the cellar and back yard as to the 

 parlor and front yard. The condition of the cellar and rear 

 premises of a house is a better test of the owner's real character 

 than anything to be found in the drawing-room or on the front 



