Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1870-04-01

EDITOR STAK:-On Tuesday evening, at the
Unitarian Church, DIR. Bellows, of New York
delivered an able and eloquent discourse upon
the nature OF a true Christian council. The
huent and eloquent orator could not fail of
making an impression upon his audience, al
though seldom has orator spoken under such
disadvantages of physical discomfort to his lis
teners. Who IL responsible for the heated,
stified atmosphere of the place we do not know ,
but this We do know that not even the angel
Gabriel could have a moral right TO be listened
to under such conditions a. oppressed the
dience at that church on that evening. They
held themselves very quiet-breathlessly so;
(they ooaIdnt breathe y A few were obliged to
aim for the door before the sermon was closed:
many took advantage Of the rising of the con-
gregatiOn for the last singing to escape from the
painful reminder of the Calcutta black hole
among whom As the COMPLIMENTARY neither
any remained TO the final close we are unable
to say. A friend who sometimes attends other
churches in the city tells me that this hot at
mesphere. poisoned by the rebreathingof many
beings, Il a condition with evening congrera-
tons in several churches here, and that when
he has been to church he has sometimes been
" afraid he was in the other place - and, indeed
he had been obliged to give up going where
ventilation was so absolutely ignored. Is
" every hody's business nobody ~ Is there no
one, or no number Of persons, whose duty it is
10 see that the public are not entrapped into
such struggle for existence a crowded house
without proper ventilation imposes upon the
sufferers?
Washington, March ., 1870. H.CI.
trutlS
but she will excuse us for saying that the fault
OF bad ventilation in the church, the lecture
room and the school room is in nine cases ont
CT ten due to her own sex. The love of pure
air and plenty of it is a wrinkle that our Ameri-
can women will have to acquire from their
healthier sisters the other side Of the Atlantic
Let an unsophistieated janitor undertake to let
down the windows in a crowded room and he
will be very soon reminded by some delicate
wasp-waisted beauty OF half pint lung capacity
that the ventilating apparatus is not made for
use. We remember when John Is. Gough
lectured some years ago in the lecture room of the
~ street Presbyterian Church. The room was
packed with human beings, the atmosphere
soon grew most oppressive, one or two tainted
but though there were abundant means of VEN
tlation they could not be made available. for
the moment the attempt was made to let
down a window the eighth of an inch there
was protest from the female quarter.
We witnessed precisely the same thing at a Sun
day school festival recently, where the audience
was packed like herrings, and the state of the
atmosphere was shown by the moisture upon the
windows and the flushed faces of the children:
but through the whole evening not breath OF
fresh air was permitted to enter, because two or
three bare-neekedwOmen objected. Their
was that the children emerged, reeking with
perspraton, into the cooler air, and we doubt
not that many laid the foundations of disease
leading to the grave from the sudden change.
A few days ago gentleman told US that he Wis
tied a sehOol-room in which there were some
eighty seholars-a small room with low ceilings,
no air allowed to enter at the windows, (which
were arranged to let down from the top,) and
the atmosphere close and fetid beyond descrip-
ton The teacher, a really sensible and accom-
Pushed young lady, did not seem to have the
Snen,est idea that there was anything wrong
about the ventilation of her room.
We wish our correspondent God speed in her
work of reform in this matter. but We wouId
suggest that it will be necessary for her TO begin
with her own sisterhood.