Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/394

380 surveyors insisting upon certain thicknesses of walls, but give them no power to reject inferior materials, or to prevent scamping and unsound work, and the disregard of all known sanitary laws, and of the commonest precautions to insure health and comfort.

It is surely time that every house erected in the great centers of habitation should have some systematic supervision, so that ordinary precautions shall be insisted upon to secure proper sanitation, to prevent the use of grossly inferior materials, and to prevent these plague spots being formed in our midst; for it must be borne in mind that every house built under the system I have condemned not only tends to the individual discomfort of the special occupier, but adds materially to the unhealthiness of a neighborhood.

In the building of new and the rebuilding of old houses, it is essential that proper regard shall be had to the rapid growth of sanitary science, and not only to comply with, but "anticipate as far as possible, its many requirements, and especially those of them which will, I believe, in a few years be considered by the population at large as absolutely necessary for habitable dwellings, not only as regards the actual sanitary fittings and appliances of the houses themselves, but also as regards their actual construction from the foundation upward, and also more especially as regards the light and air spaces with which they are surrounded."

If our towns are to be reconstructed and added to on healthy and proper principles, each house must be properly constructed, and certain fixed rules insisted upon, as regards proper general health arrangement and sanitation; for "the same rule," to quote Dr. Richardson, "applies to accumulation of health as to the accumulation of wealth." "Take care of the pennies," says the financier, "the pounds will take care of themselves." "Take care of the houses," says the sanitarian, "the towns will take care of themselves." It follows, therefore, that so far as common-sense laws can be applied to the rebuilding of the houses of closely packed communities, they should be on some general and uniform system, so far as laws of health are concerned, which all must follow. But this only applies to sanitation; so far as general arrangement is concerned, the wants of the individual must necessarily be consulted; and, so far as the artistic improvement of our towns is concerned, I am strongly of opinion that the greater the variety of designs, the greater will be the artistic character and general picturesqueness of our streets.

To sacrifice internal comfort, light, and ventilation to some special order of fenestration, Greek, Roman, or Italian, or to the cramped and narrow lines of a mediæval fortress or building of by-gone ages, seems to me to convey nothing but poverty of thought, or narrow-minded conventionalism, as opposed to all true principles of architecture as it is to the wants and requirements of the people of the nineteenth century.