"As to the floors, _they are usually made of clay, covered with rushes_ that grew in fens, which are so slightly removed now and then, that the lower part remains _sometimes for twenty years together_, and in it a collection of spittle, vomit, urine of dogs and men, beer, scraps of fish, and other filthiness not to be named. Hence, upon change of weather, a vapour is exhaled, very pernicious, in my opinion, to the human body. Add to this, that England is not only surrounded with the sea, but in many parts is fenny, and intersected with streams of a brackish water; and that salt fish is the common and the favourite food of the poor. I am persuaded that the Island would be far more healthy, if the use of these rushes were quite laid aside, and the chambers so built as to let in the air on two or three sides, with such glass windows as might be either thrown quite open, or kept quite shut, without small crannies to let in the wind. For, as it is useful sometimes to admit a free air, so is it sometimes to exclude it. The common people laugh at a man who complains that he is affected by changeable and cloudy weather; but, for my part, for these thirty years past, if I ever entered into a room which had been uninhabited for some months, immediately I grew feverish. It would also be of great benefit, if the lower people could be persuaded to eat less of their salt fish; and if public officers were appointed to see that the streets were kept free from mud and ----, and that not only in the City, but in the Suburbs. You will smile, perhaps, and think that my time lies upon my hands, since I employ it in such speculations; but I have a great affection for a country which received me so hospitably for a considerable time, and I shall be glad to end the remainder of my days in it if it be possible. Though I know you to be better skilled in these things than I pretend to be, yet I could not forbear from giving you my thoughts, that, if we are both of a mind, you may propose the project to men in authority; since even Princes have not thought such regulations to be beneath their inspection."