Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 22.djvu/28

18 and sanitary engineers. As has been seen, the proprietor of the Heath House, at his own instance, placed his plumbing fixtures in an annex.

C. and W. Leland, Jr., proprietors of the Ocean Hotel, Long Branch, announce that "none of the sleeping apartments have water, nor are they connected in any way with water or drainage pipes." Drs. Hunt and Hughes, recognized sanitary experts, have examined the premises, and certify that they regard the arrangements "as a sample of sanitary completeness." The same thing has been done in the lately added portion of one of the largest and most popular hotels in this city, namely, the Sturtevant House; and, about a year since, the Fifth Avenue Hotel "changed the pipe-basins of about fifty of its best rooms for basins with pitchers, to avoid any possibility of complaints on the score of sewer-gas."

Mr. George Harding, of Philadelphia, has erected a very large and elegant hotel on the Catskill Mountains—the "Hotel Kaaterskill"—which is said to have no rival in its construction and completeness, but in which there are no stationary basins, and the plumbing is confined to the rear end of the building.

A gentleman is now constructing a handsome residence in Fifth Avenue, and he informs me that, recognizing fully the danger from sewer-gas, he has placed all those fixtures which he proposes to use at the rear end of his house. He has, however, extended his plumbing throughout his house, because in the case of his death the house may be sold, and some might object to it if it did not contain all of the "modern improvements"; but he has made arrangements to cut off completely all of the plumbing except that which is in the rear of the house, and in this condition it will remain so long as it is occupied by his family.

Mr. John Honeyman, while defending architects from the charge of incapacity made by the doctors, says in the London "Architect," that they were "among the first to point out the dangers arising from the general introduction of water-closets."

"The Sanitary Engineer," describing the "sanitary appliances" in the elegant mansion of W. II. Vanderbilt, recently constructed in Fifth Avenue, says, "As for stationary wash-hand-basins, they are almost unknown, there being but two in the whole house—one in a dressing room or retiring-room off the billiard-room, and one in a private bathroom."

Indeed, stationary basins are now excluded from many of the most fashionable hotels in the country, and, if I am correctly informed, from several public and private houses in this city which I have not mentioned; although most of them continue the more objectionable practice of having the water-closets in the same building with their guests and their families.

The "Medical Record" for July 8, 1882, contains a letter from Dr.