GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 13 



its way into every closet, chink, piece of furniture, and even books and 

 papers. All cottages of this kind harbour snails and slugs in the ivy, and 

 spiders under the eaves of the thatched roof; and wherever there are spiders, 

 there are also abundance of flies. As there is always a garden attached to 

 such cottages, it is almost certain, if on a clayey soil, to abound in snails, 

 slugs, worms, and, if the situation is low, perhaps newts. Some of these, 

 from the doors, or at all events the back-door, being generally kept open, are 

 quite sure to find their way not only into the kitchen, but even into the 

 pantry and cellars. Slugs, when very small, will enter a house through a 

 crevice in the window, or a crack in the door ; find their way to the moist 

 floor of the pantry or the cellar, and remain there for weeks, till they are of 

 such avsize that they cannot retreat. There are few persons indeed who do not 

 experience a feeling of disgust at seeing the slimy traces of a slug in any part 

 of their house, not to speak of finding them on dishes in which food is kept, 

 or even on bread ; or at discovering an earwig in their bed, or on their linen. 

 The kitchen, in low damp cottages of every kind, almost always swarms with 

 beetles and cockroaches, and the pantry with flies ; while, from the closeness 

 and want of ventilation in the rooms, it is almost impossible to keep fleas, &c., 

 from the beds. If a large dog be kept in or near the house, as it frequently 

 is, or if a stable or cow-house be near, the fleas from the dog, the horses, or 

 the cows, which are larger than the common kind, will overspread the carpets, 

 and find their way to the sofas and beds. Having lived in cottages of this 

 kind ourselves in the neighbourhood of London, we have not stated a single 

 annoyance that we have not ourselves experienced ; and we have purposely 

 omitted some. Two of these, offensive smells and rats, are the infallible 

 results of the want of proper water-closets and drainage ; but these evils, 

 great as they may seem to be, are much easier to remedy than the others 

 already mentioned, which are, in a great measure, inseparable from the kind 

 of house. Two others, the danger of setting fire to a thatched roof, and its 

 liability to be injured by high winds, are sufficiently obvious ; but it would 

 hardly occur to any one, who had not lived in a house of this description in 

 the neighbourhood of London, that a thatched roof is, of all roofs, thi; most 

 expensive, both when first formed, and afterwards to keep in repair. A 

 plumber or a slater, to repair a lead or a slate roof, may be found everywhere 

 in the suburbs of large towns ; but a professional thatcher must be sent for 

 from the interior of the country. For example, the nearest cottage thatchers 

 to London are in the Hundreds of Essex on the east, and in Buckinghamshire 

 on the west. We have dwelt more particularly on the evils incident to a 

 thatched cottage, because in it, all cottage annoyances exist in an extreme 

 degree ; but the truth is, that all the cottages which have not their ground- 

 floors so much elevated above the surrounding surface as to be perfectly dry, 

 and their rooms lofty and well lighted and ventilated, are subject to the same 

 evils, though not quite to so great an extent. Notwithstanding all that we 

 have stated, we do not recommend our readers never to take a thatched, or 

 other fancy or ornamental cottage ; we only wish to point out the inconve- 

 niences and extra expense to which their doing so will render them liable. 

 We think we may safely assert that tlie same family that would want two 

 servants under ordinary circumstances, would require three in a cottage of 

 the kind we have been describing. 



16. The land of cnttntry house least liable lo inconvenience is one that stands 



