DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52829#0091
51
from experiments made in hospitals, they find that the unwholesome
vapours issuing from invalids do not mount to the top of the apartments,
but are suspended not much above the evaporating bodies.”
Kitchens which are only ventilated at the top, not having windows in
the walls — and even with them, if too high up — are never free from
dust. It has been ascertained, that from the great rarefaction of the air
in such apartments, vapours, and particles discharged from stewing-
stoves, will not rise to the ceiling; but, if not carried off by apertures a
few feet above the level of the stoves, hover about for a time, and
descend.
Nothing can be more inconvenient—and therefore out of place — than
pointed windows (ecclesiastical features) in ordinary sitting-rooms. In
the first place, there can be no shutters, consequently no security, above
the springing of the arch; and in the next place, the curtain draperies
must of necessity be so deep as to obscure all the glass above that level,
and deprive the apartment of its due share of light, unless indeed the
windows be out of all proportion in size or number. Palpable as this
error surely is to the meanest observer, modern builders most unac-
countably persist in it; and that, too, after admonition.*
There has not, probably, been any other improvement in building so
decided as that which has taken place in the way of glazing windows.
In point of cheerfulness, warmth, and cleanliness, the modern manner is
infinitely better than the ancient; although the eye of an antiquary finds
* The pertinacity with which this practice is adhered to, even by men who are re-
puted to know better, reminds one of a tale told of an obstinate priest, who, although
admonished of his mistake, would always read in the Latin service of the mass, Mumpsimus
for Sumpsimus; and refused to alter it, having, as he observed, “ no liking to new fashions.”
from experiments made in hospitals, they find that the unwholesome
vapours issuing from invalids do not mount to the top of the apartments,
but are suspended not much above the evaporating bodies.”
Kitchens which are only ventilated at the top, not having windows in
the walls — and even with them, if too high up — are never free from
dust. It has been ascertained, that from the great rarefaction of the air
in such apartments, vapours, and particles discharged from stewing-
stoves, will not rise to the ceiling; but, if not carried off by apertures a
few feet above the level of the stoves, hover about for a time, and
descend.
Nothing can be more inconvenient—and therefore out of place — than
pointed windows (ecclesiastical features) in ordinary sitting-rooms. In
the first place, there can be no shutters, consequently no security, above
the springing of the arch; and in the next place, the curtain draperies
must of necessity be so deep as to obscure all the glass above that level,
and deprive the apartment of its due share of light, unless indeed the
windows be out of all proportion in size or number. Palpable as this
error surely is to the meanest observer, modern builders most unac-
countably persist in it; and that, too, after admonition.*
There has not, probably, been any other improvement in building so
decided as that which has taken place in the way of glazing windows.
In point of cheerfulness, warmth, and cleanliness, the modern manner is
infinitely better than the ancient; although the eye of an antiquary finds
* The pertinacity with which this practice is adhered to, even by men who are re-
puted to know better, reminds one of a tale told of an obstinate priest, who, although
admonished of his mistake, would always read in the Latin service of the mass, Mumpsimus
for Sumpsimus; and refused to alter it, having, as he observed, “ no liking to new fashions.”