My first purpose is to have these eight families who dwell under the same roof use nothing but their halls and staircases in common. So in the basement each family shall have a space at the rear of the house, twenty-three feet in width, each having its own exit into its own yard from the laundry and store-rooms which will be situated there. In the front part of the basement, where in the average Boston house the coal and furnace are usually found, will be the heating appliances for the whole building, and heat will be provided in the different stories as it is in the ordinary hotel. There will be speaking-tubes, of course, connecting each laundry with its kitchen above, so that the mistress on the fourth floor can communicate with her Bridget in the laundry, and the only disadvantage will be that once a week the Bridget living on the top story will have to descend four flights in the elevator to reach her laundry instead of running down one flight of stairs, as she would do in the house of the ordinary type. Although I prefer to leave the arrangement of rooms in the suites to the taste of the architect, I will inclose a plan—the simplest possible one which, so far as I know, will be thoroughly convenient. The only objection to it that I can discover is, that it is rather stiff and monotonous; but, as the same thing must be said of our houses as at present constructed, I do not think this a very formidable objection. However, I send a second plan, which will show how it is possible to introduce considerable variety in the arrangement of rooms. In this, as you see, the parlor is placed at the end of the hall, and is thirty-eight feet long, being lighted at both ends. If it should be thought best, half of the suites, _i. e._, the four on one side of the hall, can be built after this second plan. The central passage-way running between the rooms in each suite will receive light through transoms and glass doors, and will be lighter than the halls in the average city house. [Illustration] As the kitchen does not communicate with this central passage-way, the odors of cooking will not be so likely to permeate the house as they usually do in the average Boston house with a basement dining-room. If I have made myself clear, I think you will see that, according to this extremely simple plan of construction, the chief advantages of the average flat and the average separate block house may be combined, and the disadvantages of each nearly eliminated.