contracted, although it is advisable to cover them with a wire grating
to prevent their becoming choked with dead leaves, otherwise the water
will overflow and probably find its way through the walls. All joints
to the eaves spouting, and particularly to the rain-water down pipes,
should be made watertight, or there is great danger, when they are
connected with the soil drains, that sewer gas will escape at the joints
and find its way into the house at windows and doors. There should be a
siphon trap at the bottom of each down pipe, unless it is employed as a
ventilator to the drains, and then the greatest care should be exercised
to insure perfect jointings, and that the outlet be well above all
windows. Eaves spouting and rain-water down pipes should be periodically
examined and cleaned out. They ought to be painted inside as well as
out, or else they will quickly decay, and if of iron they will rust,
flake off, and become stopped.

It is impossible to have a sweet home where there is continual dampness.
By its presence chemical action and decay are set up in many substances
which would remain in a quiescent state so long as they continued dry.
Wood will rot; so will wall papers, the paste used in hanging them,
and the size in distemper, however good they have been in the first
instance; then it is that injurious exhalations are thrown off, and the
evil is doubtless very greatly increased if the materials are bad in
themselves. Quickly grown and sappy timber, sour paste, stale size, and
wall papers containing injurious pigments are more easily attacked, and
far more likely to fill the house with bad smells and a subtile poison.
Plaster to ceilings and walls is quickly damaged by wet, and if improper
materials, such as road drift, be used in its composition, it may become
most unsavory and injurious to health. The materials for plaster cannot
be too carefully selected, for if organic matter be present, the result
is the formation of nitrates and the like, which combine with lime and