574 Of the Salubrity of Warm Rooms. 



of no small importance, especially when I consider 

 that it can hardly escape the observation of my reader 

 that few persons can be better qualified by their own 

 experience to give an opinion on any subject than I 

 happen to be to give mine on that under consid- 

 eration. 



I went to Germany many years ago, with as strong 

 a prejudice against warm rooms as anybody can have ; 

 but, after having spent twelve winters in that country, I 

 have learned to know that warm rooms are very com- 

 fortable in cold weather, and that they certainly tend 

 to the preservation of health. 



Having occupied a very large house, in which there 

 are several apartments that are furnished with open 

 chimney fire-places, I have had an excellent opportu- 

 nity of making experiments of the comparative advan- 

 tages and disadvantages of warming rooms with them 

 and with stoves; and my opinions on these subjects 

 have not been hastily formed, but have been the result 

 of much patient investigation. They have been the 

 result of conviction. 



Were there any thing new in what I recommend, I 

 might be suspected of being influenced by a desire 

 to enhance the merit of my own discoveries or inven- 

 tions ; but, as there is not, this suspicion cannot exist, 

 and I may fairly expect to be heard with that impartial- 

 ity which the purity of my intentions gives me a right 

 to expect. 



It may perhaps be asked by some, what right I 

 have to meddle at all in a business that does not con- 

 cern me personally? Why not let the people of this 

 country go on quietly in their own way, without tiring 

 them with proposals for introducing changes in their 



