Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/305

Rh of the subject. It is perhaps unfortunate that there is so little in the severe and unpleasant details of this work to commend it to those whose tastes have led them to the study of the more attractive principles of artistic construction and the science of æsthetics. An architect should have the soul of an artist, but there are few men whose nature is so broad as to combine truly artistic tastes with a love for the details of difficult mechanical work, involving the necessity for undertaking comprehensive and exact scientific research. It is the province of the engineer to engage in an occupation of this kind. His natural inclinations and his rigid training in scientific pursuits fit him especially for the direction of matters relating to drainage and sewage disposal.

If we take the testimony of competent sanitary authorities who are constantly employed in the design and execution of systems of house-drainage, it will be found that there are very few architects who can be trusted to prepare specifications for plumbing. In fact, the work of the average architect, in planning and supervising constructions of this kind, has been found to be almost universally clumsy and unscientific. This has been the experience of the writer in almost every case where his services have been called into requisition to remedy serious defects in household drainage which have sometimes caused inconceivable loss and misery. In this connection there may be quoted some pertinent remarks of one of our best known and most reliable sanitary authorities. Colonel George E. Waring, Jr., who recently wrote: "I have had much experience in connection with plumbing work in houses designed and built by some of the first architects of the country, and I do not hesitate to say that, in my experience, I have not found a single case where the architect has made use of the plainest and best developed knowledge of the day on this subject. I may be mistaken, but I think that no architect with whose work I have had to do either wrote or understood the specifications under which the plumbing was to be done."

Perhaps we shall be able to see now a little more clearly why some of our most costly dwellings are veritable whited sepulchres. But what of the plumbers? How is their status to be defined in this connection? From motives of economy, a plumber is sometimes employed to take charge of an entire scheme of house-drainage, and the employer intrusts everything to his care. The unfortunate results of such confidence are seen continually in the unsanitary condition of innumerable houses of rich and poor alike in all of our large cities. There is hardly a parallel to be found in any other occupation where men handle implements of death with such recklessness and with such disastrous consequences. The plumber is a mechanic, and perhaps a tradesman. His opportunities for study are few, and his