Q. I now live in a house in which the plumbing was finished last July and passed by the Board of Health Inspector. On the second floor is a valve pan-closet. This valve is supplied direct from the rising main to the pump that is intended to pump water into the tanks and over sinks on each floor above. I have seen the pump upstairs discharge water over the sink when the water-closet below was in use, that smelled like the contents of the water-closet. Of course, the closet happened to be in use at the moment, and the valve being open the suction from the pump above drew the foul air from the closet-bowl so that the water was impregnated with it. I thought it was against the law to connect any more closets to drinking-water mains. How is this?

A. The editorial comment on this was as follows: " It is probable that the work in this house was begun before the plumbing law went into operation, which was about October, 1881. We have taken the trouble, however, to have a sketch prepared, so that all our readers can fully realize the character of the risks incurred when valves on water-closets are supplied by branches from the main water-supply from which water for drinking and cooking is drawn. Figure 79 fully illustrates the nasty practice, and its very probable consequences, yet water-closets are fitted up in this way in great numbers of houses in this city, and aside from the wastefulness of water attendant on this method, the risks to health which have been demonstrated over and over again are such as should compel our health authorities to institute a systematic inspection of all the houses in this city, and they should, as rapidly as possible, require the disconnection of all direct supply to water-closets, and the abandonment of the filthy practice that ignorance and cupidity has made so prevalent."

Figure 79.