BUILDIHG. 31 



might make one for the comparatively small cost of 

 materials. 



There is also a privy fixture intended for either house- 

 closets or out-door buildings. It conveys dry earth or 

 ashes into the vault from a reservoir of any size chosen, 

 and as a disinfectant is just as effectual as the high- 

 priced closet. The removal of deposit from a vault is, 

 however, not as easily accomplished as in the closet 

 arrangement, which merely requires an occasional empty- 

 ing of a small box. But in adopting the fixture the 

 building can of course be remodelled with a little labor. 

 The fixture is sold by closet-dealers and accompanied with 

 directions enabling any carpenter to fit it into place. 

 Any common privy can be made quite decent and inodor- 

 ous by having a little dry earth shoveled into the vault 

 every day, and the vault occasionally emptied. A box or 

 barrel of earth can be kept in a corner of the building, 

 and a very little answers the purpose. 



No privy should be used as a receptacle for slops. 

 Often in villages and in the country they are, by this 

 thoughtless usage, transformed into cesspools, whose far 

 reaching poisons poisoning not only the air, but de- 

 scending into wells and cisterns sooner or later bring- 

 ing the doctor's carriage to the door, followed perhaps 

 by that still more sombre vehicle, the plumed hearse. 



With good drains, means for promptly disposing of all 

 slops, garbage, and decaying matter, the dry-earth princi- 

 ple applied to the rank offenses just alluded to, pure 

 water, and plenty of sun and air in all the apartments of 

 the house, the farmer may safely count on having secured 

 the best of "life policies" not only for himself, but for 

 every member of his family. 



