(_a_) Modern conveniences may fairly be said to be the bane of modern society, or at least of such of its members as have the questionable good fortune to be housed within the same four walls with every device that a misguided talent for invention has led the American mechanic to provide for the comfort and convenience of the occupant. Properly regulated, there is no element of modern house-building more conducive to health than such a system of plumbing as brings within reasonable limits the labor of supplying abundant water at every point in the house, and obviates the need for exposure and removes the temptation to neglect and postponement attending the use of out-of-door houses of convenience. The spigot and the water-closet are the two essential sanitary agents which the plumber offers to us. The bath may be replaced by the sponge, the stationary wash-basin may be, and generally should be, replaced by the bowl and pitcher of our fathers, but there is no sufficient {216} substitute for an ample supply of water on each floor of the house and for a cleanly water-closet placed within doors. The evil that the plumber has inflicted upon the race is due very largely to his not having held his hand when he had fairly provided for our reasonable requirements. When he fills our bedrooms with stationary basins, connects our refrigerators with the sewer, provides twenty outlets for water which had better reach the drain through less than half that number, and incidentally underlays all our floors with pipes, every foot of which is a possible source of danger, he turns what ought to be a blessing into what is too often an unmitigated curse.