1. Feuars' Cottages. -The chief objections which we have to these are the two following:-first, the forming of sleeping-rooms in the roof, and making them so small, and with such diminutive windows, that they never can be well ventilated; and, secondly, the not raising of the ground floors 1 ft. or 2 ft. above the level of the surrounding surface. The importance of a continual supply of fresh air to health, and of dryness to warmth, is not at all understood by the dwellers in cottages generally; otherwise we should not have so many of these buildings with small window-frames fixed in the wall, so as not to admit of opening them for ventilation. A low damp floor is doubly injurious, by the evaporation of its moisture carrying off heat, and by the vapour in the atmosphere of the room diminishing the proportion of oxygen in every mouthful of air inhaled by the lungs. The windows should always be made large, and their sash-frames contrived to open, either by having hinges, or by being suspended and balanced by weights. The floors should not only be raised, but on all moist soils the material used in raising them should be loose stones, rendered level at top by smaller stones and gravel, and finished either by pavement, or a composition of lime, smithy ashes, and clean sharp sand. Where fuel is very scarce and dear, flues might be formed in these floors, and these might be heated occasionally in winter by fires of brushwood. The feued cottages in the village of Catrine, in Ayrshire, are exceptions to most others which we have seen in the west of Scotland, in dryness, light, ventilation, and, in short, in all other respects. The radical cure for these evils is to be found in the scientific education of the rising generation at the parochial schools. Once render men fully aware how essential pure air is to the human frame, and how much dryness contributes to warmth, and they will take care not voluntarily to live in dwellings deficient in these important particulars. In the mean time, something may be done towards opening the eyes of the reading part of the adults, by cheap tracts, and by essays on the subject in the newspapers and magazines.
