612 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



ting off water from the household during two months every winter must be stop- 

 ped. It is the business of the plumber to put in the pipe so that it will not 

 freeze, to jacket it with resin or plaster-of- Paris, or with some other non-conduct- 

 ing material, so that it will not freeze up. There is nothing that brings your art 

 into such disrepute as the yearly freezing of the water service pipe, and the little 

 money you make by repairs of frozen pipes is more than ten-fold counter-bal- 

 anced by the fears and prejudices of house-holders against plumbing on account 

 of this aniiual bursting of pipes and the expenses and damage incurred thereby. 

 No plumber should ever put in any water pipes which he knows will freeze up, 

 without a decided and vigorous protest. With regard to drainage pipes all should 

 demand that the work and material be equal to the most advanced knowledge 

 of this service. To affect this purpose the work will have to be inspected by a 

 practical plumber acting under municipal authority, and municipal authority will 

 have to be secured through the members of the city council. Here you may 

 meet with difificulty, but perhaps not with as much as you may expect. I be- 

 lieve that Kansas City to-day is ahead and in the lead of all the cities of the 

 State in sanitary matters and that the public sentiment here is more progressive 

 than elsewhere within the State. 



The greatest drawback in this city is want of money. We need money for a city 

 hall, for a hospital, some people think for a market house, and for grading and 

 sewering the city, so that our legislators are apt to think we have none to spare 

 to pay more city officials. It seems to me, however, that the inspection of plumb- 

 ing is too important a matter to be delayed on account of the demands on the 

 treasury, and that the expenditures of the city, in other directions, should be 

 so curtailed as to leave a fund for the inspection of plumbing. Within the last 

 ten days numerous complaints have been made to me of sickness induced by 

 drainage or soil-pipe gas. I have been so busy that I could not inspect the local- 

 ities reported, but I fear that on inspection the complaints will be found to be 

 true. 



Again, if the inspection of plumbing is delayed for a number of years it will 

 be a very difficult matter to remedy defects, and property owners will be indig- 

 nant at the great amount of work to be torn out of their buildings. In a matter 

 of such vital interest to the public health, the expense of a plumbing inspector 

 ought not to form any valid objection, and I believe will not when the facts are 

 properly presented to the city council in regard to the legislation which you re- 

 quire. I hope, gentlemen, that before another year your influence will be felt 

 throughout the country. Other associations within the same time have achieved 

 a national influence and reputation. The master plumbers of Chicago, for ex- 

 ample, illustrate the truth of my statement, as shown by the following extract 

 from a lecture recently delivered at Hershy Hall by Dr. O. C. DeWolf, health 

 commissioner of that city. The doctor says : 



"One year since you did me the honor to invite me to address you on such 

 a subject as would mutually interest us as sanitarians, and, on that occasion, I 

 met, for the first time, a body of artisans of whom I had known much and seen 



