notice, do the work required, and may recover in a summary manner the expenses incurred by them in so doing from the owner, or may by order declare the same to be private improvement expenses (sect. 23 of the Public Health Act). This section applies both to urban and rural sanitary authorities. Drainage of New Houses in Urban Districts.-It is unlawful in any urban district newly to erect any house or to rebuild any house which has been pulled down to or below the ground floor, or to occupy any house so newly erected and built, unless and until a covered drain or drains be constructed, of such size and materials and at such level and with such fall as appears to the urban authority to be necessary for the effectual drainage of the house. Such drain or drains are to empty into any sewer which is within 100 feet of the house; or, if there be no sewer within that distance, into a covered cesspool (sect. 25). Contravention of this section involves a penalty of 50%. It will be noticed that this requirement does not extend to rural districts, unless the local authority has been invested with urban powers, which are often not applied for until a multitude of new houses have been erected on the most flagrantly insanitary principles.

Other Regulations.-Every urban authority (including, of course, rural authorities invested with urban powers), may make by-laws with respect inter alia to the drainage of buildings (sect. 157). The owner or occupier of any premises is entitled to cause his drains to empty into the sewers of the local authority on condition of his giving due notice and of complying with the regulations of the authority in respect of the mode in which the communications between such drains and sewers are to be made, and subject to the control of any person who may be appointed by the authority to superintend the making of such communications (sect. 21).

Nuisance from Drains.-The definition of nuisance given in sect. 91 of the Act includes any drain so foul or in such a state as to be a nuisance or injurious to health,' for the abatement of which the proceedings specified in the subsequent clauses of the Act may be taken. (See Chapter III. of the Hints.) Every local authority must provide that all drains, water-closets, earth-closets, ashpits, and cesspools within their district be constructed and kept so as not to be a nuisance or injurious to health (sect. 40).* The obvious object of these clauses is the repression of nuisance from drains when it has arisen.

But for the prevention of disease by insuring proper workmanship in the first instance there is practically no effective legislation whatever.

Powers under By-laws.-The by-laws which individual local authorities may propose for insuring proper drainage of buildings of course vary according to local circumstances. But inasmuch as all these by-laws have to be approved by the Local Government Board, it may fairly be assumed that the model code prepared by that Board-to which they have shown a great disposition to adhere-represents all the regulations that are likely to be put in force anywhere. These regulations require that the drains shall be of proper size, material, fall, and position; that they shall be imbedded in concrete, ventilated at each end, and that the inlets shall be trapped. The drains must be trapped from the

⚫ For the steps to be taken when written application is made by any person to a local authority, stating that a drain, water-closet, &c., is a nuisance or injurious to health, see sect. 41 of the Public Health Act, quoted on p. 16.

sewer, there must be no right-angled junctions, and at least two untrapped openings, as near the lower and upper extremities of the drains as practicable, must be provided. Under these model by-laws every person who intends to erect a new building must send in complete plans and sections of every floor of such building, with a description of the intended mode of drainage, and a block plan showing the intended lines of drainage and the intended size, depth, and inclination of each drain, and the details of the arrangement proposed to be adopted for the ventilation of the drains.

Before covering up any drain the builder must send a notice to the surveyor of the date when the drain will be covered up. If he neglects to give such notice, and in that case only, the surveyor may have the work cut into, or laid open, or pulled down, if he cannot otherwise ascertain on inspection whether the by-laws have been contravened. The surveyor is to have free access to the work at all reasonable times for the purpose of inspection during construction, and also within a period of seven days after the completion of the building. But the surveyor cannot claim to render the occupation of a new building conditional upon his certificate as to the structural and sanitary fitness of the premises.

§ 22. Drainage Law of the Metropolis. In the metropolis a little more is regulated by Act of Parliament, but there are no by-laws in force which impose the useful regulations contained in the Model By-Laws of the Local Government Board. Thus sect. 73 of the Metropolis Management Act, 1855, makes obligatory the provision of proper drains to every house, but goes a little more into detail than sect. 23 of the Public Health Act of 1875, and provides that it shall be lawful for the vestry or District Board of Works to cause the said works to be inspected while in progress, and from time to time during their execution to order such reasonable alterations therein, additions thereto, and abandonment of part or parts thereof, as may to the vestry or board or their officers appear, on the fuller knowledge afforded by the opening of the ground, requisite to secure the complete and perfect working of such works.'

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Sect. 75 of the same Act prohibits the erection a new house unless a proper drain be provided, and sect. 76, as amended by sects. 63 and 88 of the Metropolis Management Act, 1862, requires that seven days' notice to the authority must be given of the intention to lay or dig out the foundation of a new house, or to make any drain, under a penalty of 57. and 27. a day. Every foundation must be laid at such level as will permit the drainage of the house in compliance with the Act, and every drain must be made in the direction, manner, form, and of the materials and workmanship, and with such branches, &c., as the vestry shall order, and every such drain shall be under the survey and control of the authority. Sect. 82 gives the authority power of inspection of drains at all reasonable hours in the daytime, and power to open the ground in any place they think fit.

Improperly making or altering drains is punishable under sect. 83 by a penalty of 10/., and if matters are not remedied within fourteen days, the local authority may do the necessary work and charge it to the person offending. Drains found in bad order or condition or requiring cleansing, alteration, or ¡ amendment, must by sect. 85 be put into proper

condition within a specified time, failing which the vestry may execute the necessary works.

Thus it will be seen that in many respects the Metropolitan law is inferior to the law of the provinces. There is no authority which can enforce the enactment and practical carrying out of adequate by-laws. The Metropolitan Board of Works, which can control the foundations and the stability of buildings, has no power over their drainage; but all is left to be regulated by the various vestries and District Boards of Works according to their own lights.

and that the pipes from the closets are in direct communication with it. It should be his first desire to ascertain this, and, having done so, to have the cesspool treated in a proper manner by ventilating it, and by severing it from the house drain by means of a disconnecting chamber with syphon and fresh air inlet. Fortunately these contrivances are now almost legion in number, but there are still many precautions to take, whatever pattern may be decided upon, and these will hereafter be figured and explained in sufficient detail.

If the residence is in a town or city and the

§ 23. Disconnection of House Drains from Sewers. The duties of an inspector of nuisances are, in truth, so very varied that it is necessary for him to be more or less perfectly acquainted with all the sanitary equipments of a residence and their several workings. If the residence is, for instance, in the country, where there is no sewer and the outfall is into a cesspool, and complaint is made of bad smells pervading the house, he will likely enough discover that the cesspool is unventilated, has never been emptied for years-if at all since it was built

delivery be into a sewer, the disconnecting arrangement is still necessary if the house is to be properly treated, and although it is not yet made incumbent upon a builder to provide a disconnection between the house-drain and the sewer, nor upon the inspector to insist on one being provided, he should, nevertheless, be fully acquainted with its action, and able to explain the necessity of such disconnection to the occupier of the house. He will also find it very necessary to ascertain whether there is a flaptrap at the end of the drain where the latter joins the sewer.

Having discovered and remedied a direct communication between the house-drain and the cesspool or sewer, his next desire should be to ascertain the condition of the house-drain, as to sufficiency of fall, soundness of the joints, and freedom from deposits, as it would be of no use to insert a disconnecting syphon in a drain which was faulty in any of the above respects. The methods of ascertaining the condition of the drain should therefore be within his knowledge, and he should be capable of directing the workmen how to proceed.

T

of air through the drain. Or the inspector may discover that the soil-pipe is unventilated, which I would also account for occasional foul smells. When the smell is persistent in the neighbourhood of the soil-pipe, he will likely enough discover that. it has been eaten into holes by the foul gases from sewer or cesspool; and a ready means of ascertaining this, with the least expense, should be known to every inspector.

The chief cause of smells in a house-the drain and soil-pipe being found correctly treated and in

$24. Soil and Waste Pipe.

It very frequently happens that smells pervade a house, and the underground drains have nevertheless been found in passable condition. In all probability the soil-pipe will be to blame. The soil-pipe may be found to have a trap at the foot, and an air inlet syphon put in the house-drain without the workman having taken into account the necessity for the removal of such a trap in order to obtain a current

good condition-will in all probability be discovered at the sinks. They may be found to have a direct communication with the drain, and ventilating the drain into the house, especially when the sewer is charged with a great quantity of storm water. The inspector should therefore be acquainted with a means of ascertaining whether there be a trap underground between the sink and the drain, or not, and, above all, he should be able to dictate what must be done to abate the nuisance. Mere disconnection would

be sufficient in some cases. This would be easy to prescribe when the sinks are close to an open yard or area, but it becomes more difficult when such a near open space is wanting, and when the sink is in the centre of the house. The best means of compromising matters in such a case ought to be at his fingers' end, so to speak, and a knowledge of where risk ceases is here very essential. An inspector ought also to be able to say in what respects an upstairs sink fails to satisfy the requirements of health, what are improper methods of delivery, and how to remedy the evils.

There are also a number of points in connection with baths and lavatories which an inspector of nuisances should be well acquainted with, and it is often in the neighbourhood of these conveniences that foul smells make themselves manifest. Here, again, ordinary disconnection, if there be an easy chance of obtaining one, would suffice, but it sometimes happens that there are difficulties in the way, and these difficulties have to be met in a reasonable manner. Moreover, there are extra precautions beyond simple disconnection which are possible, and it is well to know in what these consist and when they are really advisable. Often enough, it is just as easy to provide these further precautions as to leave them out.

$ 25. Rain-Water Pipes.

When examining the rain-water pipes, there are also several complications of faulty delivery, which it is necessary to amend, and it will be necessary to take notice of these in due course, and point out the proper mode of dealing with these pipes. When they have been led down an outside wall and deliver the rain-water into a drain passing through an open yard or area, it is easy to deal with them in a safe manner. The difficulty is how to treat them when they descend, for instance, in the centre of the house. Something must then be done, because unless a rainwater pipe be disconnected at the foot, it oftener than otherwise ventilates the sewer and house-drain at a point very little above the upper bedroom windows and very frequently underneath the dormer lights.

It is still very common for builders, despite the outcry of common sense, to use the rain-water pipes as a descent for the soil from the closets, thus causing the rain-water pipe to perform double duty and rendering it almost impossible to disconnect the pipe at the foot. The inspector should be able to point out the reasons why this combination pipe is very undesirable in all cases, and especially dangerous under certain conditions. For just as the rain-water pipe, if communicating direct with the drain, may ventilate the drain at a dangerous level, the evils become still more possible when the rainwater pipe is made a means of conveying the closet soil to the drain. He should also be able to prove the insufficiency of merely trapping the foot of the pipe, and be able to demonstrate how sewer gas, as it is called, can be given off through the trapping

water.

$26. Water-Closets.

Every inspector of nuisances will doubtless be conversant with the various kinds of closets, and be able to readily distinguish between an old Bramah valve apparatus, a valve closet of modern pattern, a pan-closet with its huge container, a hopper pattern apparatus, and what is now generally called a wash-out closet, because he can see these in nearly

every plumber's window. But this is not sufficient to qualify him to decide many faults which may present themselves to him during a close inspection of a large, or even a moderately sized, residence. He should be cognisant of all the errors made wilfully by the builder to save expense, and of the blunders made by incompetent workmen—the treatment of the safe or tray under the closet apparatus, for example. And a wise inspector, seeking to improve himself in every way, should, on all occasions, when improper entries present themselves, be able to sketch these in his note-book for future reference.

It is, moreover, not only necessary for an inspector to be able to point out the faults of a closet, but he should be competent, as well, to deal during his examination with the entire belongings of the closet. For instance, he should be able to say whether the flushing power is sufficiently ample, under what conditions the closet connects directly with a cistern, and why it is dangerous to drink water from a cistern which supplies a closet, with wire and lever, or even when the supply to the closet is through a modern valve. It is here that many lamentable faults of omission are committed by some inspectors, forgetful or ignorant that their examination should extend not only to the drainage proper of a house, but to everything in connection with such drainage. A cistern which has its standing waste or overflow pipe leading into the closet trap, or into the soil-pipe, or combined rain-water pipe and soil-pipe, becomes in that case as much a part of the drainage system as the underground drain itself. The inspector's knowledge should enable him to decide what to do under all the readiest and most useful methods of remedying circumstances, and he ought to be able to point out each evil.

$27. Floor-Traps.

Then there is the question of floor-traps, or entries into the drain system inside a house. Such entries are often found at the kitchen jamb, for the drippings of the hot-water tap, under scullery sinks, in larders, washhouses, and passages, for the purpose of taking away the water which has been used during the scrubbing of the floors. Where have these been injudiciously and even dangerously mitted to remain? These entries into the drain have placed, and under what conditions may they be perof mischief has accrued from them, and it should be all carefully to be considered, as an immense amount one of the first matters of exploration when examining a house. For if a floor-trap be wrongly treated, the immediate neighbourhood will smell most offensively, and wherever there is a smell there is a corresponding amount of danger.

$28. Bad and Good Drainage Illustratea.

It may serve a good purpose before entering into separate details to take a comprehensive view of the matter, and compare an unsanitary house with a sanitary one.

of a dwelling situated in a street where exterior Fig. I represents the plan, somewhat lengthened, drainage was impossible, and although, despite of this, the house might have been made a healthy one, everything had been done in the contrary direction through ignorance. The underground drain from the scullery sink A is laid without sufficient fall, is not surrounded by concrete, and the trap between the house drain and the sewer placed at J in the front area vault is of the cesspool order shown in the section (fig. 2). The butler's sink G and house

keeper's room sink F both deliver direct into the drain, as shown, and without disconnection of any kind. The rain-water pipe E and that at M do the same, the former ventilating the drain and sometimes the sewer, in the first case level with the top bedroom window, and the latter almost direct into the drawing-room. The front area surface-trap at H also discharges over a bell-trap, and, worse than this, there are two floor-traps inside: one at the kitchen fire jamb at C, and one in the floor of the larder at s, which both connect directly with the drain and act as ventilators to the drain when the trapping water has dried up or the bell covers have been removed.

The treatment of the closets in this example is also objectionable on every ground. The servants' apparatus at N is placed inside the house, and is of the long hopper pattern, difficult to keep clean. The two uppermost closets are pan closets, and these deliver into an unventilated soil pipe, as does also the ground-floor closet at D. The delivery of the housemaid's sink on the topmost floor is into the trap of the adjoining closet, and the bath delivers equally improperly and dangerously into the closet opposite it. There is, moreover, no pure water supply for the dwelling, as the upper cistern in the roof supplies the two upper closets, as well as the kitchen, and the draw-off tap on the top floor, and the cistern over the ground-floor closet-supplying that closet and the servants' convenience below-supplies the basement sinks F and G as well. The waste pipes of the two cisterns also deliver into the closet traps. There are several other departures from sound sanitary rule, not the least being that the basement paving is simply laid upon the bare earth.

Let us take now the case of a house which is very fairly treated in respect of its drainage, and where all has been that could well be done, considering that the drains must perforce run through the house (see figs. 3 and 4).

In this case the drains have been laid with a sufficient fall towards the sewer, surrounded by concrete, and a proper disconnection system has been introduced at x in the front area, with a fresh air inlet. The drains have also been laid in straight lines with inspection manholes at v v. At D in the small central open yard has been placed a gulley, and into this is received, in disconnected fashion, the waste of the lavatory C, the drip from the kitchen jamb B, the bath waste descending the pipe s, and the surface water of the yard. The surface water gulley in the front area at J receives the waste from the house-keeper's room sink at G before being taken into the disconnection chamber, and the other sink and rain-water pipes H and I are treated in a similar manner, as will be seen on the contracted plan, fig. 3. The scullery sink A in this case delivers into an open trap U in the back yard.

As regards the closets, a servant's wash-out apparatus has been fixed in a front vault at K, with suitable flushing arrangement requiring only a touch of the chain to release its contents, and the closet also delivers into the disconnection chamber.

The house closets have been placed in a wing building, and the cistern at the top of the house, shown in section fig. 4, supplies nothing but flushing water to the closets. The housemaid's sink and the kitchen boiler are supplied from an adjoining cistern, with a partition between them, and the cistern overflows are into the open air. Above all, the soil-pipe F is outside the house and is ventilated to above the

parapet, as shown on the section. The rain-water

down-pipes are disconnected at the foot, as may be seen in the front area in the section. Nothing delivers directly into the house-drain except solely the soil-pipe; all else is disconnected. The basement flooring also rests upon sleeper walls and not upon cold earth. (To be continued.)

A FEW HINTS AS TO WHAT TO DO IN CASE CHOLERA VISITS ENGLAND. By W. DAWSON TURNER, M.A.

AT the present time, when a visitation of cholera is certainly a possibility, I shall be doing, I think, a public service by calling attention to a few simple and easy precautions, within the power of every, or nearly every, man or woman of intelligence to take, in case this terrible disease visits England. I will endeavour to be as brief as I possibly can, and will only premise that I was in Alexandria in the years 1865 or 1866, when the cholera was at its height and all business in the town was suspended, and that I had the good fortune to meet, and have a conversation with, the physician at the head of the English hospital there, and to profit by his instruction.

1. Though this is a matter of common course at at all times, keep your dustbins and middens as sweet and clean as circumstances will admit. No throwing of decaying vegetable matter, still less of animal matter, into them by the cook, or the kitchen maid, and then hiding them with a sprinkling of dust and ashes-Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem Texta diu,' the plain English of which is, 'the stench will come through,' and very likely, if sufficiently malodorous, give you, or your children, or your servants, that terrible complaint, 'pyæmia,' that is, blood-poisoning; if it does not help as handmaid to the cholera.

Also, under this head, flush your drains, sinks, and sewers with carbolic acid, or with Condy's fluid, from time to time, and do not be sparing in their use they are cheap enough, and anything is cheaper than being ill.

2. Do not indulge too much in fruit, especially not in stone-fruit, if cholera, or even diarrhoea, be much about; and let whatever fruit you do eat be neither hard and unripe, nor tainted and decayed. The hard, half-ripe plums of Gibraltar and Malta, greedily devoured by the foolish English soldier, bear the very apposite name of Kill John.'

3. Decidedly abstain from beer at your dinner, especially from the adulterated stuff sold as such at London pot-houses. It is best to keep off all alcohol together for a time, and to put yourself on the temperance diet of milk or eau-sucré at your dinner. If you are taking no meat at your meal, then you may take as much tea, cold or hot, as you like at your meals; better without milk and sugar than with; but do not drink tea if you are eating meat at the time. The tannin that tea contains is likely to interfere with the action of the gastric juice in digestion of the meat.

4. At your dinner let your main vegetable be rice. In fact, you had better take rice, boiled or baked, at every meal, in case cholera visits us. This cannot be too strongly urged. The English physician of the hospital at Alexandria, to whom I have already referred, told me that he not only put all his patients who were capable of swallowing on a rice diet, but that he urged on all over whom he had any in