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said of bath and lavatory pipes; and owing to defective 
construction water-closets all more or less leak at one oj 
more of their many junctions. Nurseries being generally 
next to bath rooms, the consequence is that our children are 
freely exposed to sewer gas. The scullery, the bath room, 
and the room next the closet, are sure to be tainted spots. 
The remedy for all these evils is very simple. Of course 
the reconstruction of our sewers will be an expensive pro- 
ceeding, but not so expensive as imperative. In recon- 
structing these, their size, their shape, their fall, their depth 
will all have to be reconsidered. A maximum depth must 
be established below which no house drain must be laid. 
As a rule sewers, main and minor, are not sufficiently 
get-at-able. House drains must be made capable of easy 
examination at definite points, and examination should be 
periodic. The fall should be such that their contents should 
never stagnate, but flow on uninterruptedly from the house 
to the sewer junction. All direct communication with 
houses should be cut off. That is, all inlets to drains 
should be outside houses. Household slop-water and slops 
should fall on to a trapped drain inlet outside the house. 
Even the water closet should do this. No brick- work 
drains should be allowed, and socketed glazed pipes should 
be imperative for house drains. The semi-socket I count 
a socket, but cannot allow the plea of ease of pulling to 
pieces to weigh for one moment in favour of the mis- 
chievous unsocketed pipe. In addition to these precautions 
all basements should be waterproof, and a really efficient 
system of sewer ventilation established. 
I have always preferred that system urged by Mr. Peter 
Spence, viz., a cupola fire shaft at chosen sewer junctions. 
What we want is a system which shall cause the external 
air to turn inwards rather than outwards; rather euter the 
sewers than escape. 
Trapping is an important point. Hitherto traps have 
