retained by the custom of closing the window-blinds and dropping the
inside curtains, so that neither air nor sunshine enters in to purify.
Add to this the strong odor of a new feather-bed and pillows, and you
have a combination of perfumes most appalling to a delicate sense. Yet
travellers take possession of these rooms, sleep in them all night
without raising the window or opening the blinds, and leave them to be
shut up for other travellers.

The spare chamber of many dwellings seems to be an hermetically closed
box, opened only twice a year, for spring and fall cleaning; but for the
rest of the time closed to the sun and the air of heaven. Thrifty
country housekeepers often adopt the custom of making their beds on the
instant after they are left, without airing the sheets and mattresses;
and a bed so made gradually becomes permeated with the insensible
emanations of the human body, so as to be a steady corrupter of the
atmosphere.

In the winter, the windows are calked and listed, the throat of the
chimney built up with a tight brick wall, and a close stove is
introduced to help burn out the vitality of the air. In a sitting-room
like this, from five to ten persons will spend about eight months of the
year, with no other ventilation than that gained by the casual opening
and shutting of doors. Is it any wonder that consumption every year
sweeps away its thousands?--that people are suffering constant chronic
ailments,--neuralgia, nervous dyspepsia, and all the host of indefinite
bad feelings that rob life of sweetness and flower and bloom?

A recent writer raises the inquiry, whether the community would not gain
in health by the demolition of all dwelling-houses. That is, he suggests
the question, whether the evils from foul air are not so great and so
constant, that they countervail the advantages of shelter. Consumptive
patients far gone have been known to be cured by long journeys, which
have required them to be day and night in the open air. Sleep under the
open heaven, even though the person be exposed to the various accidents
of weather, has often proved a miraculous restorer after everything else
had failed. But surely, if simple fresh air is so healing and preserving
a thing, some means might be found to keep the air in a house just as
pure and vigorous as it is outside.

An article in the May number of "Harpers' Magazine" presents drawings of
a very simple arrangement by which any house can be made thorou