The closets are on the dry system: they are only large enough to contain one week's refuse, and are regularly emptied from cleansing passages at the rear: they were adopted, after considerable inquiries, from the plan of the closets at Ripleyville, Bradford, where the water-closets at first in use had to be removed; and work very satis factorily.

The population in the dwellings at present is 1,020, as compared with 960 before the clearance of the area.

The death-rate over the entire population housed in the company's dwellings was, for the year 1884, at the rate of 18.3 per 1,000, which compares very satisfactorily with that of the city. In comparing the mortality of persons living in improved dwellings with that of an unhealthy city containing those dwellings, allowance must be made on the one hand for the facts that mortality among artisan classes is higher than that of the superior social grades, and that in artisans' dwellings is always to be found an undue proportion of children, and, therefore, of lives at unhealthy ages; and, on the other hand, consideration should be given to the circumstance that inhabitants of artisans' dwellings are carefully selected from a class who in their turn are entitled from their aspiration for improved dwellings to rank a 'peg' above their fellowworkmen, content with their homes; and also that there is a large proportion of inhabitants of artisans' dwellings in the healthy age-periods of twenty to forty years.

The Dublin Artisans' Dwellings Company own twentythree acres in all, and, when their present engagements are completed, will have provided within ten years of their formation cottage accommodation for about 1,050 families, and block buildings for 200.

Their Royal Highnesses, after having visited one of the slums in Golden Lane, drove up to the Coombe, attended by Mr. Francis Knollys, private secretary, and Captain Hammond, R. N., naval aide-de-camp to Lord Spencer. They were received by Mr. Richard Martin, chairman, and Mr. Edward Spencer, secretary to the company, and by them conducted into one of the one-storey cottages in Reginald Square.

Their Royal Highnesses spent about ten minutes in the cottage, inquiring the position and wages, &c., of the tenant's husband, and then examined the yard and closet.

The Prince of Wales was pleased with the concrete walls and expressed a favourable opinion as to their durability he also approved of the sanitary arrangements, and thought the dry system preferable to water-closets for such dwellings.

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On leaving the cottage the Princes were surrounded by a large and enthusiastic crowd, amid the cheers of which their Royal Highnesses drove away.

SANITARY MATTERS IN FRANCE.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

A PREFECTORAL circular, lately issued in Paris, directs that dead bodies are not to be conveyed beyond the limits of the prefecture, unless inclosed in an oaken coffin, of which the planks are om. 027 thick, the iron bands om. 03 wide, and om. 004 thick. If the body has to be removed to a distance exceeding 200 kilomètres (133 miles) the coffin is to be made of lead o m. 002 thick. It sometimes happens that when bodies are removed to a distance of 200 kilomètres (133 miles) fluids and gases escape from oaken coffins; this unseemly sight and overpowering odour have vividly impressed the municipal authorities who have loudly called for a reform. The Préfet of Police, adopting the advice of the Conseil d'Hygiene, has decreed that henceforth dead bodies, removed to a distance of 200 kilomètres, must be placed in a coffin lined with India-rubber or cardboard steeped in tar.

The Préfet of Police has requested the Conseil d'Hygiène to examine the subject of the boat-washhouses on the Seine, and to consider the desirability of dirty linen

being washed in the river. A commission has been named consisting of M. Sax, M. Riche, Baron Larrey de Luynes, M. Lagneau, and M. Jungfleisch to report on the question.

M. Brouardel, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence and Lecturer on Hygiene, has been promoted to the rank of Commander of the Legion d'Honneur. Dr. Proust, General Inspector of Health, has been named chevalier of the same order.

M. Bouchardat, the Veteran Professor of Hygiene at the Paris Medical Faculty, has resigned. It is rumoured that Dr. Proust will be his successor.

M. Gérin-Roze and M. Duguet, at a meeting of the Société Médicale des Hôpitaux, described three cases of lead-poisoning resulting from handling chemical braise. Braise is a special kind of charred wood, sold only by bakers; it is merely the burned wood left in their furnaces when the fires are extinguished. The women attacked by lead-poisoning dried and packed braise which had been steeped in lead nitrate. All the workers were perfectly healthy before working in a factory of chemical braise, and most of them continued in a good state of health until the workshop, which was a large airy room, on the third floor, was removed to a small ill-ventilated room underground. People who eat meat grilled over fires of braise thus prepared are liable to lead-poisoning, also tailors, who use this braise for their hollow irons. M. Labbé has observed lead-poisoning produced by eating bread which had been baked over wood painted with lead pigments.

The Préfet of Police has issued the following decree. A special service is to be organised for inspecting houses and apartments let furnished within the limit of the Prefecture of Police; the territory included in the Prefecture and situated outside the fortifications is divided into four districts. A health inspector of furnished apartments is appointed to each district, and is obliged to visit at least once a year all furnished houses and apartments in his district. All furnished houses recently put on the list must be visited by the health inspector, also all lodgings which pass from the hands of one landlord to another. In the case of infectious disease breaking out in a lodging. house, the health inspector pays a visit of inspection with out loss of time, and makes the necessary arrangements to ensure the safety of the public health. In case of illness or forced absence on the part of the visiting inspector he is replaced by a colleague. After each visit a report is sent in to the Préfet of Police. A general report is sent in by every inspector in the month of October.

Le Conseil d'Hygiène et de Salubrité de Paris has raised the question whether in the interest of public health isinglass ought to be used by pastry-cooks in making creams. In France, an article called Japanese Pearls' (Perles Japonaises), made with isinglass, is sold for making a soup which is highly esteemed. As isinglass is perfectly innocuous, the Conseil decided that it is not necessary to prohibit its use; nevertheless, when used in the preparation of creams and jams, the public are to be made aware of the nature of the article they buy.

Le Conseil d'Hygiène et de Salubrité Publique of the Seine discussed at a recent meeting a report on the danger of infectious diseases being propagated by work. shops where bedding is purified and the wool recarded. It was decided that such establishments should be included in the second class of unhealthy establishments and not in the third, as at present; therefore, when the Minister of Commerce has sanctioned this change, the above operations will be carried on in houses where hygienic precautions are more rigorously observed. It is also forbidden to recard the wool of mattre-ses, to beat that material or horsehair, in the streets of Paris.

M. Ch. Girard, the principal of the Paris Municipal Laboratory, has sent in his report to the Préfet of Police. It constitutes a handsome volume in quarto, numbering 816 pages. ['Documents sur les Falsifications des Matières Alimentaires et sur les Travaux du Laboratoire Municipal.' Deuxième Rapport. One vol. Paris : G.

Masson. 1885.] The chapters on mineral waters, wine, cider, vinegar, milk, contain full information concerning their production; also the different methods of falsification, and the means of discovering them. The same information may be gathered concerning cheese, meat, fat, tallow, oils, cereals, bread, macaroni, vermicelli, &c.; coffee, cocoa, chocolate, sugar, syrups, tinned meats, and vegetables and fruits. Nearly all hair dyes sold as inoffensive vegetable preparations contain mineral poisons. Antiphelic milk contains either nitrate of silver, sulphate of copper, lead acetate, or mercuric chloride. Lead carbonate or subnitrate of bismuth are used in rouges and powders; sulphide of arsenic and lead monoxides are found in epilatory pastes and powders. The chemical inspectors of the Municipal Laboratory paid in 1883 5,340 visits of inspection to the Paris markets, 22,312 to the restaurants, 2,065 to beer-shops (brasseries) and coffeeshops (cafés), 1,488 to pork-butchers' shops, 4,574 to baker shops, 7,433 to grocer and fruit shops. Honest tradesmen approve of the Laboratory surveillance, and dishonest tradesmen have somewhat abated their fraudulent practices since it has been instituted. Many of the principal French towns have established municipal laboratories on the model of the Paris Laboratory.

The April number of the Revue d'Hygiène has several very interesting articles. One by M. Vallin, in which the author treats of the connection between the use of sewage for agricultural purposes and the incidence of typhoid fever, is of general interest. It appears that the deaths from typhoid fever in the French army have always been much more frequent in the southern garrisons than in the northern. For instance, dividing the corps d'armées into three groups, we find the following proportion of deaths from typhoid fever for every 10,000 soldiers :

The figures may differ year by year, but the Northern garrison has always the greatest immunity from this disease. We are told that M. Brouardel attributed the great mortality in the south to the fact that sewage was there freely used on the fields in proximity to the barracks. M. Vallin proves, as we think satisfactorily, that this assumption of M. Brouardel cannot be supported, and that the comparative healthiness of the northern garrisons must be attributed to other causes, which at present he does not attempt to classify.

Another article consists of the report of MM. Vallin and Hudelo on the question of the propriety of allowing sewage matters to enter sewers when properly constructed and flushed. The Commission de l'Assainissement of Paris, in its sitting of July 5, 1883, adopted a resolution authorising the discharge of sewage matters into suitable sewers. But, fearing lest later experience and fuller knowledge of the subject might have discredited to some extent their use, MM. Vallin and Hudelo, the secretaries of the two subcommissions, were requested to prepare reports upon the subject.

The reports, which treat the subject from the hygienic and technical points of view respectively, both support the use of proper sewers.

Now that the Commission has, with due deliberation arrived at this opinion, it is to be hoped that they will initiate with as little delay as possible a thorough system of main drainage, and relieve the city from its myriad cesspits, fixed or movable. There are other well written papers and reviews, which make up altogether a decidedly interesting number.

THE Corporation of Richmond (Yorks) are providing a new cemetery at an estimated cost of about 2,000/.; one of the laudable features of the plan is that as a precaution against infection the mortuary is divided from the rest of the chapel by a glass screen.

FOOD THRIFT.

THE cheap and nutritious meal given to the unemployed in Lisson-grove, by Dr. Norman Kerr, having proved a most successful experiment, the committee of the Emmanuel (Maida-hill) branch of the Church of Englard Temperance Society organised, by desire of Mrs. Tanner, the vicar's wife, a Penny Supper for about 160 poor people The Misses living in the vicinity of Edgware-road. Cameron, of the South Kensington School of Cookery, prepared the haricot stew, which formed the supper, and which was well tasted and apparently much appreciated. After the soup hot coffee and brown rolls were served to each person, free of charge. Dr. Norman Kerr gave an introductory address on behalf of Miss Cameron, and also stated the object of the Society, which was to demonstrate that palatable and nutritious food could be obtained at a very trifling cost. He said it was a common error to suppose that meat was the only or the most nutritious food; here, for instance, was an excellent soup, made from the simplest and least costly ingredients-haricot beans, onions and potatoes, which absolutely contained three times the amount of nutrition of the same quantity of lean meat. People appeared to imagine that if any were sick they needed nourishment,' and were ready to force them to eat meat; but invalids were more likely to be injured than benefited by such a course of treatment. Miss Cameron explained how she had made the soup, which contained the three necessary constituents of human food, namely, nitrogen, carbon, and mineral salts. This could be made at a cost of about a penny per head, for four persons-a pint of haricot beans 2d., lb. onions d., 2 lb. potatoes Id., and seasoning d. At the termination of the proceedings every one present was offered some of the soup to take home, and received clearly-printed instructions for making it.

SANITARY MATTERS IN AMERICA.
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

TENEMENT-HOUSE INSPECTION.

THERE is attached to the Health Department of the City of Chicago a bureau for the inspection of tenement-houses, dwellings, and factories. It is in charge of Chief Inspector W. H. Genung, and, as showing the practical workings of such a department, some of the features as presented in the superintendent's report for the year 1884, just made public, will be mentioned.

There were 28,092 inspections made during the year, and the following information concerning each building is on file in the Health Office.

Are

Date; location; ward. Owner or agent, address; description of the building, storeys, size, material. Number of families in building, rooms, persons, males, females, boys, girls. Is there a store, workshop, or factory on the premises? If so, where? Kind of business; employer. Number of employés; males, females, boys, girls. there any dark, damp, filthy, or unventilated rooms? Are the water-closet rooms clean and properly ventilated? Description of out-houses and barns, and how used? Is the surface of lot below street-level, and how much? Are the plumbing works in good repair, and well trapped ? Are the buildings and yard properly connected with the sewer? Is the cellar well ventilated? Is it clean and dry? What part of the premises need lime-washing? Sanitary condition of space under building, yard, alley, street gutter, corner catch-basins, and vicinity. Number and location of catch-basin-, water-closets, and privies, and their sanitary condition. State what nuisances exist. Is the water supply adequate and on each storey? Any violation of ordinance? Action taken by inspector, and remarks.

From the above abstract of an inspector's blank, it may be seen that the sanitary information concerning the tenement-houses is reasonably complete in Chicago. Beside

the 28,092 examinations made under city ordinances, there were 3,240 examinations made under the state law, of buildings in process of construction. The owners or occupants of 1,932 and 483 shops and stores complained of sanitary defects in the plumbing, drainage, or ventilation in such buildings, special examinations being made and the defect corrected.

The employment of children under fifteen years of age for more than eight hours a day is forbidden, and the ordinance pretty generally obeyed.

Improvements of a permanent character were made in 4.229 buildings of all classes, and included such repairs and construction of catch-basins, trapping and ventilating house-drains, sewers, and soil-pipes; ventilating bedrooms, work-rooms, bath and water-closet rooms, supplying light and ventilating shafts, providing adequate water supply, supplying proper traps for plumbing and drainage; guarding dangerous machinery; providing egress from buildings likely to burn, &c.

It is recommended that the law be changed so as to compel all plumbing to be constructed in plain sight. This provision, Mr. Genung believes, would encourage the plumbers to do better work and to use better material; would educate the public to know good plumbing and material when they see it; it would greatly improve the sanitary condition of houses, and make repairs easy to perform, and defects easy to locate.

The following is an instructive summary of what one department, with an entirely inadequate force, can accomplish :

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SANITARY SUPERVISION OF HOTELS.

It has remained for the Sanitary Protective League of New York city to originate an entirely new sanitary movement. It has prepared a Bill, which it will try and get passed by the State Legislature, which provides that in all towns and cities in which there are boards of health, the owners or keepers of all hotels and lodging-houses shall apply to such boards for sanitary certificates, which shall certify to the good sanitary condition of their houses. These certificates shall not be granted to houses which have not freedom from dampness of site or cellar, proper drainage and plumbing, absence of foul and noxious odours, adequate supply of water, direct light in sleeping rooms, and at least 600 cubic feet of air-space for each occupant. Each innkeeper must obtain and display this certificate, as failing to do so subjects him to damages for sickness of occupants during such negligence, and, in case of death, the executors of the deceased have cause for action.

STATE SANITARY SURVEY.

By far the most ambitious piece of sanitary work being accomplished in the States at the present time is the sani

tary survey of the State of Illinois. Blanks have been provided to every health officer, and he is expected to see that a complete sanitary survey of his locality is made and sent to the secretary before warm weather sets in. The tabulated returns will make an invaluable reference for the study of epidemics.

EMPLOYERS AS LANDLORDS.

MESSRS. CHUBB'S NEW DWELLINGS. AN illustration of the protective interest which employers are again beginning to show towards their workpeople will be found in the dwellings wh ch have just been com pleted and opened for the well-known firm of Messrs. Chubb in connection with their works, Glengall-road, Old Kent-road, S.E. The wishes of the workpeople were consulted before the scheme was put into effect, and a committee of the employés will undertake the general details of management, as it is usually admitted that the interested parties generally are the best judges of their own requirements. The buildings, so far as they at present extend, consist, on the ground floor, of a large dining-hall, 60 feet by 28 feet, in which 150 persons can dine, and twice that number can be accommodated when the hall is used for concerts or meetings, a coffee bar, reading-room, kitchen and offices; above are three floors of dwellings, nine rooms on each floor, so arranged as to be let in tenements of one, two, three, or four rooms, without alteration. All room doors open to an external gallery, so that the possibility of foul air passing from room to room is avoided. Access is given to them by a stone staircase open to the air on one side and the balconies or galleries on the front elevation, so that the air cannot be conducted from floor to floor. The floor is flat, of Portland cement concrete on iron joists, serving as the customary drying ground.

Each tenement is provided with a cooking-stove by Barnard & Co., or the Carron Co., cupboard and coallocker, and each room has two ventilators out of sight, formed in the meeting rails of the sashes. The usual form of dust-shoot, with self-closing door on each floor is also adopted here, receiving the ashes and smaller kinds of refuse, conveying it to the basement, from which it can be removed without entering the building; this shaft is also carried up and ventilated above the roof. A laundry is provided on each floor of dwellings, so that the tenants need not be far from their rooms and families when washing. Coppers and sinks are also provided, the waste-pipe of the latter discharging over a grating in the open air. W.c.'s are provided on each landing, and are assigned to the separate tenements, the tenants being furnished with their own keys. Doulton's Lambeth closet has been used with his vacuum waste-preventer, a very efficient and economical combination. The soil-pipes are of iron, and are carried down outside the building into manholes, the upper ends being continued above the roof for ventilation. They are jointed in red lead, and tested by being plugged and filled with water.

The drains are of grey stoneware pipe laid in straight lines, and with regular fall from manhole to manhole, no bend or junction being used. All drain-pipes are jointed in Portland cement, and have been tested by having been filled with water after the lower ends had been plugged with clay. The bottom of the manhole in each case has been formed in cement concrete to the contour of the pipes connected to it. In the last manhole, before the drain reaches the sewer, a glazed stoneware capped syphon-trap has been inserted to shut out foul air from the sewer. The drain is ventilated from end to end by pipes carried above the roof. Doulton's grease trap has been fixed outside the building to receive the wastes of bar and kitchen sinks.

The water supply is on the constant system, and no water can be drawn except direct from the main. The water for supplying the w.c.'s is stored in a cistern above them, and

is entirely independent of the drinking water. Tylor's 'waste not' tap, which will allow one bucket of water to be drawn and will then close itself, unless turned again, has been used to check waste at the pail services. The ventilation of the hall is effected by large inlet-ventilators placed under each window (see diagram), which admit the air from the outside into a chamber under the windowcill, from whence it can be passed into the room by lifting

Picturesqueness has been considered by fencing in a space of ground in front of the building, and it will be laid out as a garden for the use and enjoyment of the tenants. The work has been designed by Mr. E. Hoole, F.R. I.B. A., who has previously given much study to the practical working of the question in more or less similar shapes; and it is intended, if the present experiment should meet with the success it undoubtedly deserves, to extend the buildings-provision having been made in the plan to enable this to be accomplished when necessary.

the window-board which is hinged as a flap (shown by the dotted line). As these cills are high, and the air has an upward tendency, no draught results. A series of outlet ventilators have been formed in the cornice, communicating with special flues, which are carried up in the walls of the building.

The Dining Hall, Coffee Bar, and Reading Room are heated by steam, which is conveyed by wrought-iron pipes round the walls.

All the cooking is by gas, the apparatus being supplied by Mr. Thomas Nock, of Birmingham. The fumes from this gas apparatus are collected in a large iron hood immediately above it, which terminates in flues carried up to the top of the building. This iron hood is covered externally with looking-glass panels in ebonised wood frames, and forms the show case behind the bar, being furnished with shelves which carry glasses and orna

ments.

The flooring of the entire ground storey is composed of Lowe's wood-block paving, and consists of a bed of Portland cement concrete, six mètres thick, covered with a layer of asphalte, on which the wood blocks are laid while it is hot. They are thus securely held in their places, damp is prevented from rising, and a warm noiseless wood floor of good appearance is obtained, without any air space below in which dust or objectionable matter can accumulate.

Except in the living rooms and bedrooms, the brickwork has been worked fair' and left unplastered; and in the ground storey a pleasant decorative effect has been obtained from the natural colours of the pine ceiling; the red-brick walls and the high Portland cement dado being finished at the top by one course of glazed bricks with a scroll pattern.

The ground-floor water-closets and urinals are easily accessible from the dining hall, but are isolated by an open area, which must be crossed before they can be reached, thus preventing any accumulation of foul air in close proximity to the building. All the staircases are of York stone, and the balconies are formed of wrought iron chequered plates. The ground storey and staircases are lighted by gas, which it has not been considered advisable to bring into any of the living rooms.

BRICK v. STONEWARE SEWERS.

FOR some years past it appears to have been the practic for the Vestry of Paddington to put in large brick sewers in all cases, without regard to the number of houses to be drained. The erection of ten new houses in Manor Place, a short road with only one outlet, and in which not more than thirty houses can be built, recently led the Vestry to resolve to put in its regulation brick sewer of sufficient capacity to drain a town. A tender of 9871. was accepted, and this came up for sealing on Tuesday, 'pril 21, Sir Charles Locock, Bart., in the chair. The Rev. Mitchell Cox proposed that the seal of the Vestry be affixed to the contract, whereupon Mr. Mark H. Judge, A. R. I.B.A., proposed the following amendment :-- That inasmuch as there is no evidence that the existing 12-inch pipe sewer in Manor Place is defective, and as a 12-inch sewer is of sufficient capacity to drain more houses than can possibly be erected on the one side of Manor Place which can be built on, this Vestry is of opinion that it would be an unwarrantable expenditure of money to 1 y any new sewer in this road, and that to put in a brick sewer 3 feet 9 inches by 2 feet 6 inches, as proposed, would not only be a gross waste of public money, but would require, in addition to the cost of the sewer, 9877., a further outlay in the erection of a tall ventilating shaft to prevent the sewer from becoming a nuisance and danger to the neighbourhood, including the new recreation-ground, which has been laid out at so great a cost; it is therefore resolved that before contract for a new sewer in Manor Place, the opinion of a voting on any proposal to fix the seal of the Vestry to the sanitary expert be obtained upon the following points :I. Whether the existing 12-inch pipe sewer is of sufficient capacity to drain the existing houses in Manor Place? 2. Whether, if all the land which can be built over in Manor Place should be covered with houses, a larger sewer will become necessary? 3. In the event of a new sewer being considered necessary, should such sewer be a 3 feet 9 inches by 2 feet 6 inches brick sewer, or a glazed stoneware pipe sewer of some smaller capacity? 4. What provision should be made for the ventilation of the sewer recommended? And that it be referred to the Highway Committee to submit these four questions to one of the following authorities, viz., Mr. H. H. Collins, Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects; Dr. W. H. Corfield, Professor of Hygiene and Public Health, University College, London; Mr. Rogers Field, Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers; Capt. Douglas Galton, C. B., F.R.S., Chairman of the Council of the Parkes Museum of Hygiene.' This amendment was seconded by Mr. James E. Hill, and on a division was carried by 27 to 17 votes. Mr. Judge received the support of Col. Burchard, C. B., Dr. Bush, Mr. Collins, M.P., Mr. Edmeston, F. R. I.B.A., Mr. Fardell, Mr. Overseer Mills, Rev. R. F. Spencer, LL. D., Dr. Danford Thomas, Dr. Willis, and Dr. Parker Young. Strange to say, the construction of this enormous sewer was supported by an architect, Mr. H. Wilkinson.

THE last quarterly report of the medical officer for the city of Durham states that of the four fatal cases of smallpox that occurred during the thirteen weeks, it was found that none of the victims had been vaccinated.