became so marked, that it became unsalable. When at last sold, every sort
of prediction was made as to the risk of occupancy; but, by a thorough
attention to sanitary conditions, no such risks have been encountered."

These deaths were suicides,--ignorant ones, it is true, not one stopping
to think what causes lay at the bottom of such "mysterious dispensations."
But, just as surely as corn gives a crop from the seed sown, so surely
typhoid fever and diphtheria follow bad drainage or the drinking of
impure water.

Boiling such water destroys the germs of disease; but neither boiled water
nor boiled germs are pleasant drinking.

If means are too narrow to admit of the expense attendant upon making a
drain long enough and tight enough to carry off all refuse water to a safe
distance from the house, then adopt another plan. Remember that to throw
dirty water on the ground near a well, is as deliberate poisoning as if
you threw arsenic in the well itself. Have a large tub or barrel standing
on a wheelbarrow or small hand-cart; and into this pour every drop of
dirty water, wheeling it away to orchard or garden, where it will enrich
the soil, which will transform it, and return it to you, not in disease,
but in fruit and vegetables. Also see that the well has a roof, and, if
possible, a lattice-work about it, that all leaves and flying dirt may be
prevented from falling into it. You do not want your water to be a
solution or tincture of dead leaves, dead frogs and insects, or stray mice
or kittens; and this it must be, now and again, if not covered
sufficiently to exclude such chances, _though not the air_, which must be
given free access to it.

As to hard and soft water, the latter is always most desirable, as soft