The Sun.
London, England, 1849-09-27 00:00:00

fact that the malaria or infeation- of marsh feveri,
such as occur in the Pontine Marshes near Rome,
and of all the deadly tropical fevers, affects persons
almost only in the night. Yet the malaria or poison
from decomposing organic matters which causes these
fevers is formed during the day under the influence
of the hot sun still more abundantly than during the
colder night ; but in the day the direct beams of the
sun warm the surface of the earth so intensely that
any air touching that surface is similarly heated, and
rises away like a fire balloon, carrying up with it, of
course, and much diluting, all poisonous malaria
formed there. During the night, on the contrary,
the surface of the earth no longer receiving
the sun's rays, soon radiates away its heat,
so that a thermometer lying on the ground is found
to be several degrees colder than one hang-
ing in the air a few feet above. The poison formed
near the ground therefore at night, instead of being
heated and lifted, and quickly dissipated, as during
the day, is rendered cold and comparatively dense,
and lies on the earth a concentrated mass, which it
may be death to inspire. Hence the value in such
situations of sleeping apartments near the top of a
house, or of apartments below, which shut out the
night air, and are large enough to contain a sufficient
supply of the purer day air for the persons using thorn
at night, and of mechanical means of taking down
pure air from above the house to be a supply during
the night. At a certain height above the surface of
the earth, the atmosphere being nearly of equal
purity all the earth over, a man rising in a balloon, or
obtaining air for his house from a certain elevation,
might be considered to have changed his country, any
peculiarity of the atmosphere below, owing to the great
dilution effected before it reached the height, becom-
ing absolutely insensible.
Now, in regard to the dilution of aerial poisons in
houses by ventilation, I have to explain, that every
chimney in a house is what is called a sucking or
drawing air pump, of a certain force, and can easily
be rendered a valuable ventilating-pump. A chimney
is a pump—first, by reason of the suction or approach
to a vacuum made at the open top of any tube across
which the wind blows directly ' • and, secondly, be-
cause the flue is usually occupied, even when there is
no fire, by air somewhat warmer than the external
air, and has therefore, even in a calm day, what is
called a chimney draught proportioned to the diffe-
rence. In England, therefore, of old, when the chim-
neypers
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open chimney was tolerably well ventilated in the
lower part, where the inmates breathed. The modern
fashion, however, of very low grates and low chim-
ney openings has changed the case completely,for such
openings can draw air only from the bottom of the
rooms, where generally the coolest, the last entered,
and therefore the purest air is found, while the hotter
air of the breath, of lights, of warm food, and often
of subterranean drains, &c., rises and stagnates near
the ceilings, and gradually corrupts there. Such
heated, impure air, no more tends downward again to
escape or dive under the ehimneypiece than oil in an
inverted bottle immersed in water will dive down
through the water to escape by the bottle's mouth ;
and such a bottle or other vessel containing oil, and
so placed in water with its open mouth downwards,
even if left in a running stream, would retain the oil
for any length of time. If, however, an opening be
made in a chimney flue through the wall near the
ceiling of the room, then will all the hot impure air
of the room as certainly pass away by that opening as
oil from the inverted bottle would instantly all escape
upwards through a small opening made near the
elevated bottom of the bottle. A top window-sash,
lowered a little, instead of serving, as many people
believe it does, like such an opening into the chimney
flue, becomes generally, in obedience to the chimney
draught, merely an inlet of cold air, which first falls
as a cascade to the floor, and, then glides towards the
chimney, and gradually passes away by this, leaving
the hotter impure air of the room nearly untouched.
For years past I have recommended the adoption
of such ventilating chimney openings as above de-
scribed, and I devised a balanced metallic valve, to
prevent, during the use of fires, the escape of smoke
to the room. The advantages of these openings and
valves were soon so manifest that the referees ap-
pointed under the Building Act added a clause to
their Bill, allowing the introduction of the valves,
and directing how they were to be placed, and they
are now in very extensive use. A good illustration
of the subject was afforded in St. James's parish,
where some quarters are densely inhabited by the
families of Irish labourers. These localities formerly
sent an enormous number of sick to the neighbouring
dispensary. Mr. Toynbee, the able medical chief of
that dispensary, came to consult me respecting the
ventilation of such places, and on my recommenda-
tion had openings made in the chimney flues
of the rooms near the ceilings, by removing a
single brick, and placing there a piece of wire
gauze will a liKht curtain flap hanging against
the inside, to prevent the issue of smoke in
gusty weather. 'I he decided effect produced at once
on the feelings of the inmates was so remarkable that
there was an extensive demand for the new appliance,
and, as a consequence of its adoption, Mr. Toynhee
had soon to report, in evidence given before the
Health of Towns Commission, and in other published
documents, both an extraordinary reduction of the
number of sick applying for relief and of the severity
of diseases occurring.. Wide experience elsewhere
has since obtained similar results. Most of the hos
pitals and poor-houses in the kingdom now have these
chimney-valves; and most of the medical men and
others who have published of late on sanitary matters
have strongly commended them. Had the present
Board of Health possessed the power and deemed the
means expedient, the chimney openings might, as a
prevention of cholera, almost in one day, and at the
expense of about a shilling for a poor man's room,
have been established over the whole kingdom.
Mr. Simpson, the registrar of deaths for St.
Giles's parish, an experienced practitioner, whose
judgment I value much, related to me lately that he
had been called to visit a house in one of the crowded
courts to register the death of an inmate from
cholera. Ile found five other persons living in
the room, which was most close and offensive. He
advised the immediate removal of all to other lodg-
ings. A second died before the removal took place,
and soon after, in the poor• house and elsewhere, three
others died who had breathed the foul air of that room.
Mr. Simpson expressed to me his belief that if there
had been the opening described above into the chim

ner, near the Ceiling., this horrid history would not
have been to tell. I believe so too, and I believe that
there have been in London lately very many similar
eases. •

The chimney valves are part of a set of means de-
vised by me for ventilation under all circumstances.
My report on the ventilation of ships, sent at the re-
quest of the Board of Health, has been published in
the board's late report on quarantine, with testimony
furnished to the Admiralty as to its utility in a con-
vict ship, with 500 prisoners. My observations on
the ventilation of hospitals is, also in the hands of the
board, but not yet putdishedp All the new means
have been freely offered .to, the public, but persons
desiring to use them should .be careful to employ
competent makers.

A BRIEF CHAPTER on OLD MAIDS.
(From Eliza Cook's Journal.)
The title of Old Maid, and the ridicule once at•
tached to the condition of elderly female sisterhood,
are rapidly passing away together. The world is
becoming enlightened upon. many subjects. It no
longer tolerates old evils; and amongst others the
idea that women, unless married, are useless and
neglected, querulous fault-finding busybodies; this
idea is being swept away with other dust and rubbish
of the past, amid the general clearing for the " good
time coming."
In society where good taste prevails, we now sel-
dom hear the term of "old maid," the milder appella-
tion of " single woman" being substituted. This is
as it should be ; for wherefore brand, by what has,
from association, become A ridiculous nickname, a
respectable class of females who are in no wise infe-
rior to their married sisters—nay, who are in many
cases a thousand times - better ; for is not your old
maid often one who has had to deny the dearest im-
pulses of her nature, and to stifle all her natural
yearnings for a love and a home of her own, for the
sake of others, devoting her life a living sacrifice to
those who may be perhaps all the while unpercipient
of, ungrateful for, her burdens and her. cares for
them ? Oh !if these women be happy, persist in
being happy, notwithstanding their renunciation of
self and the lingering prejudice against their condi-
tion, why rob them of the smallest portion of their
tranquillity by a silly jest or sneer ?
It is a pitiable fact that young women, especially in
the middle classes, often marry without love, without
even esteem, for him with whom they wed, solely for
the purpose of escaping the stigma attached by the
ignorant and unthinking to the state of old maiden-
hood. Are we far wrong in referring to this dread
of remaining unmarried, the numerous devices of
vanity, the flirting, and dressing, and visiting which
retard the growth of many a rational brain, and cause
the fathers of gay, expensive daughters, to sigh °vs r
their rapidly•diminishing means, and half regret the
day when they rashly took upon themselves the
cares, and risk, and burden of a family ? We know
we are not. When old maids shall be invariably
treated with the respect and consideration which are
their due—when the last joke at their expense shall
have vanished into the Lethe of forgotten absurdities—
then will husband hunting be at its last gasp, and
matrimony again be a sacred thing,
Old maids' pets hare furnished occasion for many
a graceless sneer, for much bitterness and affected
disgust. And wherefore ? Surely those to whom
circumstances, or their own sense of right, have
denied the station of wife and mother, may expend a
portion of the stifled love throbbing within their
womanly hearts; and which, had they married, would
have formed an inexhaustible provision of tenderness