EARLY WORK IN THE BEE-CITY 89 



that ever lived among sanitary scientists ever hope 

 to achieve, if he were given the task of keeping in 

 cleanly condition, perfect ventilation, and even 

 temperature, a building where 10,000 individuals 

 were crowded together storey above storey — a 

 building hermetically sealed throughout except 

 for one small opening at the lowest level, which 

 must serve for all purposes of entrance and exit 

 to its denizens, as well as sole conduit for the 

 removal of the foul air and introduction of the 

 pure? The task would be gigantic enough in 

 the summer-time, when a large proportion of the 

 inhabitants were away at work during a greater 

 part of the day ; but in winter, when all were 

 continuously at home for weeks together, what 

 conceivable device, or combination of devices, 

 could prevent the building soon developing into 

 first a quagmire and then a charnel-house, to which 

 the Black Hole of Calcutta would be a model 

 sanitary retreat ? 



Yet the difference between such a building and 

 a beehive is only one of degree. The same con- 

 ditions are involved, and the same evils must be 

 combated. Relatively, the problem is the same 

 in each. In the case of the beehive, the necessity 

 for this close system of life has been very gradually 

 imposed on its inhabitants ; and age-long custom, 

 working on the individual, has at length produced 

 a race marvellously adapted to its special needs. 

 Probably the habit of retention of faeces while in 



