den draughts of cold air, which arc driven up the-well-hole, as it is called, by the opening of the street-door.
There is no reason why the ordinary narrow entrance should not be increased two or three feet, so as to make a moderate-sized hall, in which you may have a fireplace, which will help to supply warm, fresh air all over the house, and, by a little care in planning, the first flight of stairs at least may be screened from view.
There are now very many good ventilating grates which can be so arranged as to provide, with communication from the outside, warmed fresh air, and if one of these, of sufficient size, be placed in the hall, it will not only help to ventilate it, and to lessen the evils of heated and foul air generated by the gaslight, but can be made the means of introducing warmed fresh air all over the house.
The staircase itself, whether it be of wood or stone, should never rise more than six and a half inches to each step, and, if possible, a landing or resting-place should be arranged every twelve or fifteen steps. In ordinary London houses the half-landing is sufficient, but all winders are fatal to a good staircase.
In the hall it is essential to have proper ventilation; if you shut the screen or inner hall doors, as a rule, the air becomes contaminated and heated by the gaslights, and the staircase and passages are fed with foul instead of fresh air. It is essential, therefore, that a proper supply of fresh air should be brought in independent of the door, and this can be done by means of a proper ventilating grate, or, if there is no fireplace, by a simple ventilating letter-box, or by some such arrangement as that which I have suggested for the dining-room; in fact, in every room throughout the house fresh air should be brought in, either warmed over hot-water coils, or direct through tubes communicating with the outside, or through some of the best of the now numerous ventilating grates, which are made so as to feed the house and counteract the evils caused by overcrowding, or by the products of combustion of gas or oil-lamps.
The library may be arranged as a comfortable and quiet apartment at the back, while the front space may be devoted to the morning or general reception-room, in which all the cheerfulness which the outlook into a London street allows can be obtained; but do not sacrifice the entrance and hall entirely to these rooms. Give an extra foot or two to the passage-way of the house, and you will not only make it more imposing and important, but will add materially to its comfort and convenience when you receive guests, and to its healthiness by providing a larger shaft for air circulation.
The basements of London houses are generally so badly arranged and ventilated that they add materially to their stuffiness; for, as a matter of course, all foul air is apt to fly upward, and if the basement be foul, heated, and unhealthy, it forms the practical reservoir from which the whole house derives a large amount of its general
