"For a man's house is his castle."

After individual cleanliness and regularity, erect your next house in which you intend to live, or that you expect to rent to another, or remodel your present residence, to correspond with the following:—

Sanitary House.—It should stand facing the sun, on dry soil, in a wide, clean, amply-sewered, substantially-paved street, over a deep, thoroughly ventilated and lighted cellar. The floor of the cellar should be cemented, the walls and ceilings plastered and thickly whitewashed with lime every year, that the house may not act as a chimney to draw up into its chambers micro-organisms from the earth. If your lot is situated so that you cannot face your house either east or south, construct the rooms in such a way that your parlors and sleeping apartments will receive the sun at least 3 hours during the day. All windows should extend from floor to ceiling, adjusted to let down from the top, and in position to secure as much as possible of the through currents of air. The outside walls, if of wood or brick, should be kept thickly painted, not to shut out penetrating air, but for the sake of dryness. All inside walls should be plastered smooth, painted, and, however unaesthetic, varnished. Mantels should be of marble, plate, iron, or, if wood, plain, and, whether natural, painted, or stained, varnished.

Interior wood-work, including floors, should all show plain surfaces and be likewise treated. No paper on the walls, no carpets on the floors, but movable rugs, which can be shaken daily in the open air—not at doors or out of windows, where dust is blown back into rooms—should cover the floors. White linen shades, which will soon show the necessity of washing, should protect the windows. All furniture should be plain, with cane seats, without upholstery. Mattresses should be covered with oiled silk. Blankets, sheets, and spreads—no comforts or quilts—should constitute the bedding.

Of plumbing there should be as little as is necessary, and all there is must be exposed.

The inhabited rooms should be heated only with open fires, the cellar and halls by radiated heat, or, better, by a hot-air furnace, which shall take its fresh air from above the top of the house and not from the cellar itself or the surface of the earth, where micro-organisms most abound. Let there be no annual house cleaning, but keep it clean all the time, and have it gone through thoroughly at least four times per year.

Of course a corner lot is always preferable, but how often it is supposed that the benefit consists alone in a commanding position, in a chance for architectural display, when the greatest boon is the increased opportunity for sunlight. The atmosphere of a room where the sun never shines is never agreeable or healthful. Science has taught us that the sun is the source of all life. It will effect more than tons of disinfectants and chemicals to purge and sweeten the air of a house. Let the building be exposed to the south, and keep shade trees from checking the sun too much. Verandas and broad piazzas often do as much harm as they give pleasure—especially if they are all covered with vines. Be more careful about plumbing than people are wont to be. Do not practice economy by trying to cut down plumbing bills. When a contractor agrees to erect a house, either withhold this part from him or see that he employs the most skilled labor. Ventilation cannot be slighted, for upon it health greatly depends. If you can in any way afford it, use incandescent electric light instead of gas or oil. The reason is a powerful one. An ordinary gas jet destroys as much pure air and oxygen as five men—a good-sized oil lamp equal to three men. Add to this the heat that comes from such methods, and we see the strong advantage of the incandescent electric light. This vitiates no air, gives off no perceptible heat. Though there are stories that electric lights injure the eyes, from careful observation we find that it hurts the eyes of the majority no more than any artificial light.

The Sanitary News urges people not to paper or paint the interior walls of houses. Arsenical poisons are used in coloring wall paper. Mold collects in flour paste used in fastening paper to walls, absorbing moisture and germs of disease. Glue also disintegrates, so that any friction removes small particles, to which germs attach and float in the air. Undecorated walls, ugly as they are, the News insists are the only healthy ones to live within.

Dr. Cushing, of this city, thus ends his lecture on "Healthful Houses":—

"The essentials then of good house building are, first, a dry soil, a good foundation, exposure to the sun, and, next, good plumbing by reputable men at whatever cost necessary for first-class work, warming and ventilating by open grates rather than by steam heaters and stoves, clean floors and clean walls; and now, if there be no decomposition of animal or vegetable matter allowed in the immediate vicinity of the house, we shall have done the best that the present state of science will permit toward making our houses healthful."

The Hotel Del Monte is the only perfectly clean hotel in America. It is located at Monterey, Cal., not over a quarter of a mile from the ocean. The prevailing winds are from the sea and would naturally blow over the sands towards the house. Now the cause of dirt has virtually been killed by the planting of trees, brush, and by the laying of asphaltum walks and sod-ground drives on this windward side. The only dirt is that which is brought there by travelers—this is easily kept down. The moral is here: If possible prevent dust and dirt by stopping the cause.