AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN HOMES. 51 



as affecting our health." Our homes, I say ; I mean to include 

 our whole manner of living. I think there are but few houses 

 in which any of us live, here in Franklin County, which do not 

 in some way conduce to avoidable sickness and disease. It may 

 seem extravagant to say so. I believe it to be the fact with the 

 houses occupied by all classes of people. Farmers, mechanics, 

 merchants, professional men, all alike live in unhealthy houses. 

 Every day that I ride about this county, I see houses that are 

 situated in unhealthy localities, on the north side of hills, in 

 damp valleys near swamps, and meadows where fatal miasma 

 is bred. Riding in the evening, you often pass from a warm, 

 dry stratum of air into one that is cold and damp and chilly. A 

 house situated in the latter cannot be as healthy as if situated in 

 the drier atmosphere. 



Very many houses are made unhealthy by a superabundance 

 of shade trees. I could point you out houses within five miles 

 of this spot upon which the sun rarely shines, in which the air 

 is like that of a cellar. That house is not a healthy one to live 

 in. It is very pretty and poetical to have a house embowered 

 with graceful elms and symmetrical maples ; very comfortable 

 is such a house in the hot, sweltering days of such a summer as 

 this just past. But it is not healthy, that is all. The people do 

 not all die off at once, it is true, but they have not that measure 

 of vigor and strength they ought to have, and would have if they 

 did not live so much in the shade. It has become the fashion 

 to set out shade trees about the house — a good fashion if not 

 carried to excess. Trees are often too numerous, and set too 

 near the house. Tliey absorb the air and sunlight, both of which 

 are indispensable to health. 



I must speak of another source of ill-health in our houses. It 

 is the condition of the drains and water-closets. There are 

 multitudes of cases where these things are so bad as to be a dis- 

 grace to the owners and occupants. In front of the house all 

 will be very clean and tidy and dry and wholesome, and bear 

 all the marks of taste and refinement, but go round to the back 

 door, and all is changed. There is filth and disorder ; amid 

 decaying vegetable matter, chips, blocks of wood and timber, 

 and rotting weeds, there will be a pool in which is collected the 

 water from the sink, reekhig with poisonous exhalations, and 



