264 tiMEHRi. 



shops, through which blow the steady trade-winds thus 

 preventing any impurity of the air. But when we come 

 to examine the sleeping apartments we are astonished 

 at builders putting no proper bedrooms in the houses, 

 and no proper ventilation in the few that are allowed. 

 There are few houses, even of the wealthy, that have 

 proper bedroom accommodation, and certainly there is not 

 one of the poorer classes with any thing like what ought 

 to be. Even the small cottages that the better class 

 workmen ere6l for themselves are sadly deficient in 

 ventilating openings. The vast majority of the labourers 

 live in ranges or cottages closely packed in yards, the 

 ground of which is covered and infiltrated with every 

 form of house refuse, and giving off gases similar to those 

 of sewers. The ranges are without windows, there being 

 only a door and some spaces closed by shutters. There is 

 no ventilating opening in the roof or under theeaves in any 

 one of them. At night these shutters are closed, and the 

 floor space often the only limit to the sleeping accommo- 

 dation. My work has called me to some such places 

 both in New Amsterdam and in Georgetown, and I have 

 been astonished at the number of people who fly before 

 the do6lor from the room where they had evidently been, 

 and have always noticed the stuffy foul air due to organic 

 matter on entering the house. 



The proper floor space for every sleeping person is 

 about 100 square feet, and the cubic capacity ought to be 

 about 1000 feet with means for changing the air three 

 times in each hour, if we are to keep within ('06 percent, 

 of carbonic acid) the limit of allowable impurity. 



There is, I am always told, great danger in the night 

 air, but I have never been given any proof. I do not 



