model city there are no underground cellars, kitchens, or other caves,
which, worse than those ancient British caves that Nottingham
still can show the antiquarian as the once fastnesses of her savage
children, are even now the loathsome residences of many millions of
our domestic and industrial classes. There is not permitted to be one
room underground. The living part of every house begins on the level
of the street. The houses are built of a brick which has the following
sanitary advantages:--It is glazed, and quite impermeable to water, so
that during wet seasons the walls of the houses are not saturated with
tons of water, as is the case with so many of our present residences.
The bricks are perforated transversely, and at the end of each there
is a wedge opening, into which no mortar is inserted, and by which all
the openings are allowed to communicate with each other. The walls are
in this manner honeycombed, so that there is in them a constant body
of common air let in by side openings in the outer wall, which air
can be changed at pleasure, and, if required, can be heated from the
firegrates of the house. The bricks intended for the inside walls
of the house, those which form the walls of the rooms, are glazed in
different colours, according to the taste of the owner, and are
laid so neatly, that the after adornment of the walls is considered
unnecessary, and, indeed, objectionable. By this means those most
unhealthy parts of household accommodation, layers of mouldy paste and
size, layers of poisonous paper, or layers of absorbing colour stuff
or distemper, are entirely done away with. The walls of the rooms
can be made clean at any time by the simple use of water, and the
ceilings, which are turned in light arches of thinner brick, or tile,
coloured to match the wall, are open to the same cleansing process.
The colour selected for the inner brickwork is grey, as a rule,
that being most agreeable to the sense of sight; but various tastes
prevail, and art so much ministers to taste, that, in the houses of