Q. I have a water-closet on the second floor of a country house, with the soil-pipe carried to the roof and ventilated. The waste runs into a closed cesspool some thirty feet distant, with a trap shutting it off from the house. I should like to ask, first, if it is necessary to have a vent on this trap which would be of necessity only a few feet from the water-closet vent, one just within and the other just without the wall. There is no chance for foot-ventilation, as there is only a grass-plot near by where children play. Second, is there any harm in a covered cesspool, which has never filled up in ten years, but which leaches through a gravelly, sloping soil into a small sewer, with no wells or neighbors to contaminate? There is a dispute about the vents being necessary, and it is hard to decide where doctors disagree. I wish you sanitarians would come to some agreement on certain points, and then we laymen would not so often be nonplussed, and, as it were, liable to fall between two stools.

A. Your waste or drain pipe should be extended to the " small sewer," and not be allowed to contaminate the soil near the house. There should be a vent just inside the outer trap, and there is no harm in having this open on the front lawn, for the draught is inward at this opening and up through roof of house by the soil-pipe. Since the water-closet trap is on the second floor, there must be twelve feet or more between the traps, and even if less, the lawn vent-hole is needed to establish a thorough draught. No sanitarian who is worthy of the name will question the propriety of establishing such a draught.

Secondly - With a cesspool in a gravelly soil only 30 feet from the house, there is great risk of foul gases making their way into the house. As regards differences of opinion, it is as well to remember that not everyone is a sanitarian who calls himself such. Amateur counsel in such matters is plentiful, but in the end often terribly expensive.