Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 87, March, 1875Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 87, March, 1875
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
Another source of polluted air is the cellars of a great proportion of
the houses. Of course the families living in the several flats of each
building are all dependent upon one cellar, which is divided off into
compartments according to the number of stories in the house. These
compartments, however, are in many instances separated from each other
by a mere partition of laths or rough boards, so that any want of
cleanliness on the part of an individual house-keeper is sure to
disturb all her neighbors. Owing to the custom of allowing small shops
to be kept in the ground-floor of dwelling-houses there is apt to be a
mingling of articles for storage in the cellar such as is neither
agreeable nor wholesome. Thus, for instance, a dairywoman will fill
the shelves of her compartment with pans of milk: her next neighbor is
perhaps a small dealer in wood, coal and turf, and raises a dust
accordingly; the greengrocer opposite makes the air damp and bitter
with his heaps of neglected vegetables; while the butcher not only has
a right to hang up his newly-slaughtered animals and chop his
sausage-meat inside of his particular compartment, but may allow a
living pig or calf, whose death-hour has not yet arrived, to roam up
and down the dark passages, to the increase of the general dirt and
discomfort. In this connection it may be well to enter a protest
against the Munich regulation, or absence of regulation, which allows
every butcher to slaughter pigs, calves and sheep upon his own
premises. To say nothing of the shocking sights and sounds which are
thereby forced upon the attention of the dwellers in the neighborhood
of such shops, it is impossible, considering the defective drainage
and insufficient water supply, that the practice should not be of
serious injury to the public health. There are also many cellars which
are rented out entirely to fruiterers and green-grocers not living in
the buildings as a place to store their goods for the winter. In such
cases the cellars are apt to remain in a filthy condition, and the
smells that pour from the windows are at once a nuisance to passers-by
and a source of danger to the inhabitants of the houses. But it is not
only the living inhabitants of Munich that are corrupting the heavens
above, the earth beneath and the waters under the earth: the dead in
their graves are busy at the same work. It is a pity that all thinking
persons who still object to the practice of cremation as unnecessary
and impious could not be compelled to take up their residence for a
while in the neighborhood of the two great cemeteries of Munich: they
would not be long in crying out for the adoption of purifying flames
and the innoxious columbarium.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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