I warn you against having openings of any kind into the drains from the basement It is a very common thing to have a trap under the tap for the kitchen boiler, leading into the drain; these are most dangerous things to have. If the sinks, baths, and waste-pipes are cut off it is perfect folly to have traps in the floor of the house connected with the drain, and the greatest danger of all is to have a trap of the kind commonly known as the bell-trap, in the floor of the house connected with the drain; it is one of the worst contrivances ever devised, and has no redeeming point. It consists of an iron box through the bottom of which a pipe passes to the drain; the cover is a perforated plate which has a bell-shaped piece of metal fixed into its under surface; when the cover is in place the bell is immediately over the top of the pipe which projects above the bottom of the box, and the rim of the bell dips into the water, which of course stands in the box at the level of the mouth of the pipe. The disadvantages it has are: that the water is only about half an inch deep, so that the pressure of the air in the drain is often sufficient to drive the foul air through that small quantity of water; the difference between the temperature of the air in the kitchen and that in the drain is sufficient to cause this foul up-draught, especially when some of the water has evaporated; and that whenever the top is removed the trap is gone, and these traps do not let the water run very readily, consequently the trap is frequently taken up, and the foul air gets into the house, causing diarrhoea, typhoid fever, and so on.

Water-closets should be of as simple a construction as possible; hopper closets with flushing rims and 1 1/4-inch supply-pipes are well suited for general use. Pan closets are bad contrivances, on account of the large iron "container" which always becomes foul; valve closets are far better. D traps should never be used, but always S or P traps, and when a leaden tray or "safe" is placed under a water-closet or a bath, the waste-pipe from it must go through the wall into the open air, and not be joined to the closet trap.

With regard to sanitary matters connected with towns, all sewers of towns ought to be well ventilated at the level of the streets, else foul air will come from them into the houses. The common sewers of towns ought always to end freely; if they end under the level of the sea or of a river, the water will be backed up in them some time or another, and foul air will be produced in the sewers and spread disease in the town. The only instances in which adoption of the water-carriage system in towns has been attended with an increase in the death-rate from typhoid fever have been instances in which the common sewer has ended under water. In all other instances, without exception, where the water-carriage system has been introduced, the death-rate from this fever has been diminished, and cholera abolished. What is to be done with the sewage from the towns? It is commonly turned into rivers The Romans found out how convenient the drains were to convey refuse matter away from the towns, and the natural place to end the drains was the river, and that is why our sewers now in the great majority of cases end in the rivers. The evils of this are that the sewage makes the rivers foul, renders the water unfit to. drink, and, in the case of small rivers at any rate, the sediment blocks up their course.

Sewage should he got rid of upon the land, and although there are very great difficulties in the way of it, I can safely say that there is no other system that has been suggested which is capable of purifying sewage water. Irrigation farms should he carried out upon the principle of downward filtration, and though it is the exception for them to be made to pay, still I think you will all agree that if it is the best way by which this water can be purified, so that it shall be fit to run into the streams again, it ought, whenever practicable, even at a certain amount of expense, to be carried out, and if we cannot make it successful from a monetary point of view, we shall most certainly derive from it very valuable crops of grass, which forms excellent food for cattle to supply us with milk, the food which is specially needed for the children in all our large towns; one of the most important causes of the great mortality among the children in our towns has been shown to be due to the want of milk for them, and this want may be most certainly supplied by large grass farms irrigated with the foul water from our large towns.