The choice of a house is a matter of no small moment. It must be directed necessarily in the first place by the means of the inmate, or by the needs of his position or profession.

It is usual to say that the rent and taxes of the house should not exceed the eighth part of the occupier's income. We believe that this rule is rarely carried out. A man often requires a large and well-situated house in town for his profession; it would be ruin for him to live in a cheap house in a shabby or poor neighbourhood; or well-born and well-connected poor people find that they must (to retain their position in society) live in a higher rented locality than they can quite afford. In these cases the housewife will often be required to exercise more vigilant economy than might otherwise be necessary. (Let us advise her to practise it on superfluities and dress: but of this hereafter).

Next to the requirements of means and position, we must put those of health. In fact they ought to be our chief consideration, for no house is cheap if it be ill-drained, ill-ventilated, damp or dark, - defects on account of which houses are often let cheaply, and considered bargains. Alas ! is the dwelling cheap which is paid for with life, or energy?

Let the householder, therefore, select as healthy a locality as circumstances will admit, with a clear passage for air at the front and back of the house - taking care that the outer air does not pass over any nuisances, as dirt-heaps, uncovered sewers or ditches, in its way to the open windows, bringing poison - slow and fatal - on its wings!

His next care should be to inquire carefully about the drainage of the future home. The hirer should ascertain if there is a sufficient fall for it; if the pipes are large enough to carry off accidental stoppages; and above all, if there are syphons placed to prevent the return of bad gas. Without these no drainage is perfect. It is often difficult to ascertain the exact truth as to these facts from the landlord, or from previous inmates; but on entering upon the occupancy a little attention to the smells of the house will suffice to prove whether all is right or not. The landlord is bound to keep the drainage in order, and an appeal (if he refuses) to the inspector of nuisances will shortly set all right. But we warn the housewife that she must herself be careful that the servants do not pour cabbage water down the back kitchen sink; as the smell of it - a singularly unpleasant one - is so strong that it will penetrate all over the house, and produce the suspicion of a bad drain. The water in which any kind of cabbage has been boiled, should be thrown away out of doors, in a distant corner of the garden, if possible; chloride of lime dissolved in water should occa. sionally be poured down the drains also, to secure disinfection of all kinds.

Miss Nightingale says, " It would be curious to ascertain by inspection how many houses in London are really well drained. Many people would say surely all or most of them. But many people have no idea in what good drainage consists. They think that a sewer in the street, and a pipe leading to it from the house is good drainage. All the while the sewer may be nothing but a laboratory from which epidemic disease and ill health is being distilled into the house. No house with any untrapped drain-pipe communicating immediately with a sewer, whether it be from water-closet, sink, or gully-grate, can ever be healthy. An untrapped sink may at any time spread fever or pyaemia among the inmates of a palace.*

"The ordinary oblong sink is an abomination. That great surface of stone, which is always left wet, is always exhaling into the air. I have known whole houses and hospitals smell of the sink. I have met just as strong a stream of sewer air coming up the back staircase of a grand London house from the sink, as I have ever met at Scutari; and I have seen the rooms in that house all ventilated by the open doors, and the passages all unventilated by the closed windows, in order that as much of the sewer air as possible might be conducted into and retained in the bedrooms. It is wonderful!

"Another great evil in house construction is carrying drains underneath the house. Such drains are never safe. All house-drains should begin and end outside the walls".

Ventilation is of as much importance as good drainage. The air we breathe contains the principle of life or death. Oxygen, or pure air, is life-giving; carbonic acid (or impure air) is fatal to animal life.

The free circulation of air prevents the accumulation of the vitiated particles which form carbonic acid, and thus increases the amount of oxygen.

The clanger of breathing impure air is great. It is carbonic acid (a state of bad air) which frequently kills the miner, or the man who descends into a well; it is the carbonic acid in the air of crowded rooms, or churches, which causes head-ache and drowsiness, for it is a narcotic poison, and from it also (tainted with other impurities) come the fatal fever, cholera, and many other kinds of infection. Every room, therefore, should be well ventilated, especially sleeping-rooms, which should never be used unless there is a fire-place in them, or a panel of perforated zinc in the door. We will explain why: - The breath of each person occupying a room corrupts a certain portion of air. A part of the air imbibed by breathing is returned by the exhaled breath in the form of carbonic acid. Thus gradually, if there be no ventilation or circulation of fresh air in the room, the whole atmosphere of the chamber becomes poisonous and sometimes fatal, producing death in sleep - a kind of apoplexy, or if it is survived, generating afterwards putrid fever.

It was the carbonic acid exhaled from their own lungs, and not dispersed by ventilation, which killed the unhappy prisoners of the Rajah of Bengal in the Black Hole of Calcutta, as the small chamber in which they were confined was called. It is carbonic acid settled on the floor of the Grotto del Cane, in Italy, which stupifies the poor dogs sometimes driven into it; it is carbonic acid settled in the jungle - through which no wind can penetrate - that kills men and beasts in the fatal Valley of Death in Java; and the same deadly foe to life and health exists in every ill-ventilated and over-crowded house. Let us therefore, if we would be well and happy, carefully supply our apartments with pure air by ventilation - -opening windows and keeping the register of the fireplace open.

* "God lays down certain physical laws. Upon His carrying out such laws depends our responsibility (that much abused word), for how could we have any responsibility for actions, the results of which we could not foresee - which would be the case if the carrying out of His laws were not certain. Yet we seem to be continually expecting that He will work a miracle - i.e., break His own laws expressly to relieve us of responsibility".

We must here observe that the eye of the mistress is especially required to secure that the stove-registers are left open when no fires are in the grates. Housemaids almost invariably shut the register when fires are not lighted, and many a headache and morning drowsiness may be traced to the fact. The unconscious occupant of a chamber falls asleep in a room with closed shutters and door, and shut-up grate; gradually his breath poisons the air, and, if the room be small, he has before morning absorbed into his blood (by re-breathing) the tainted air which carries in it the seeds of disease. An open register admits fresh air to replace that which is vitiated by breathing. If air enters by chinks or keyhole, the draught will be towards the fireplace; therefore care should be taken not to place the bed between the fireplace and a door or window.

A fire in a room is a great purifier of the air, and when it can be afforded should be used in bedrooms.

There are always two currents of air in a room; one of hot air flowing out of the room, and another of cold air flowing into the room. This may be proved by holding a lighted candle near the top of the door. You will perceive on doing so, that the flame will be blown onlwards towards the hall or passage. But if you hold the candle at the bottom of the door the flame will be blown into the room; this is not the case when there is a fire in the room; then an inward current is drawn through all the crevices.

Heated air always ascends towards the ceiling, and floating about in the upper part of the room, escapes through any opening or crevice to be found there. The empty space (vacuum) left by the ascent of the hot air is instantly filled by the outer and colder air rushing in. This cold air drives or presses the hot air out. Thus the reader will perceive that to free the air of a room from impurity the windows should be opened at the lop, - to cool a room the windows should be open at the bottom, that is, the lower sash should be raised, as the cold air will rush in there. The upper sash must be opened for ventilation.

There is no draught from the open upper sash, as thought; the warm and bad air rushes out of it. There is a considerable draught from an open lower sash, as through it cold air is rushing into the room. This fact is very important to be known by those who are nursing invalids.

A ventilator is absolutely necessary when gas is burned in the room.

We add here a paper on ventilation, by an eminent surgeon whose instructions may be taken as authoritative. '