Clearing house

“ It is also forbidden to use the kitchens, sculleries, or cellars for sleeping rooms, unless specially permitted by the police. The keeper of the house is required thoroughly to whitewash the walls and ceilings twice a year, and to cleanse the drains and cesspools whenever required by the police. ”

“ Such a cellar should never be 'drained,' i.e., it must on no account have a gully in it for the purpose of 'swilling down.' When such a cellar is cleansed, it must be scrubbed and wiped dry precisely like a living-room. ”

“ Our house is in a turmoil from morning till night with women charging in like a mob, or stealing out like conspirators. Their badges, their sandwich boards, their banners lie about in our hall, so much in everybody's way that I sympathized with the infuriated tenant whom I caught one night kicking the whole collection into the cellar. ”

“ Two small windows, destitute of glass, permitted us to peer into the interior of this dilapidated old structure, and we saw within, a floor of beaten earth, a rough stone fireplace, and a few rude horse-stalls. We felt sure that this tumble-down building had been neither a dwelling-house nor a stable, but a noon-house; and the occupants of a neighboring farm-house confirmed our decision. Too worthless to destroy, too out of the way to be of any use to any person, that old noon-house, through neglect and isolation, has remained standing until to-day. ”

“ In the daytime, when the tenants were out at their various avocations, the upper part of the dingy old building was deserted, save by the housekeeper in the attics; while the counting-house abutting on the street was all life and bustle. ”

“ We enter the porch, and find ourselves in the hall, with its great fireplace, its large south window, where sits the mistress at her needlework, as of old; and here is the high table, the [62] wall panelled and carved, where sit the yeoman and his family at meals, whilst the labourers sit below. This very simple yet interesting house is quite a fortress; it is walled up against the stormy gales that sweep the moor. It is a prison too, for it catches and holds captive the sunbeams that fall into the bright little court. ”

“ If you cannot find the clean outlet for these buried drains or tiles below the level of the cellar bottom, then raise the cellar, house and all. No matter if you are accused of having a 'stuck up' house—better be stuck up than stuck in the mud. ”

“ Do not give vent to the fire by breaking into the house unnecessarily from without, or, if an inmate, by opening doors or windows. Make a point of shutting every door after you as you go through the house. ”

“ The Inspector of the Fifth Ward says: “Very few tenements have water-closets in the house; they have privies in the yards, which, as a rule, are insufficient for the accommodation of the numbers crowded into the houses; many are not connected with the sewers; are seldom cleaned, being allowed to overflow in some cases, rendering the neighborhood offensive with insalubrious emanations.” ”

“ Though few of the sounder authorities openly advocated the suppression of Homes, was it not true that they—and he once among them—practically did so by denying any value in their schemes to those emotional and spiritual contributions which alone turned a house into a Home? There lay the heart of the whole great problem. "Four walls," mused Charles, as he swung rapidly down Center Street, "and three meals a day, and even the banisters dusted, to boot—these mere utilities can never make a Home." ”

“ The fire consumed the house itself, except the walls; they took three hundred prisoners, and could hear on the Tuesday night people crying in vaults for quarter, but could not come at them for rubbish. Government ordered the remains of the house to be carted away, any one being authorised to have brick or stone for fetching. ”

“ To wilfully walk through long grass would be sufficient to render him liable.
A person found in a dwelling-house, warehouse, coach-house, stable, or outhouse or an enclosed yard, garden or area, for an unlawful purpose may be prosecuted as a rogue and vagabond. ”

“ As they went over the house they found a trap-door opening into a small vault, which had evidently once been used for the family cellar—for the ancient dwelling was rather cramped in size and accommodations—and, boy-like, they all went down into the moldy hole. ”

“ It has been my lot recently to follow in detail the process of building a private dwelling-house, and the solemn succession of deliberate, respectable, perfectly satisfied men, who have contributed each so many days of his life to this accumulation of weak compromises, has enormously intensified my constitutional amazement at my fellow-creatures. The chief ingredient in this particular house-wall is the common brick, burnt earth, and but one step from the handfuls of clay of the ancestral mud hut, small in size and permeable to damp. ”

“ There is no more frequent cause of the ill-health of domestic servants than the damp and sunless rooms in which they pass so much of their time, owing to the injurious practice of building dwelling-houses, both in town and country, without a cellar under the whole house, drained, and ventilated from side to side. ”

“ Many families living in the same house, and at the entrance of the apartments belonging to each, a strong iron gate to separate the residence of one set from that of another, has likewise an odd melancholy look, like that of a prison or a nunnery. ”

“ Houses in the country are frequently without the convenience of underground cellaring; but every house ought, where it is practicable, to be built over cellars, which, independently of other advantages, contribute very materially to the dryness and warmth of the building. ”

“ Two constables or other qualified persons should ascend to the roof through the adjoining houses. The most efficient assistance can sometimes be rendered by an entrance to the upper part of the house on fire, either by the attic windows, the loft-door, or by removing the tiles ”

“ The uncommunicative old gardener continued his interrupted vocation; his wife, quitting the party and entering the house by a back door, suddenly flung open the windows of the drawing-room, and so admitted the visitors.
There is always an air of discomfort about a furnished house, a kind of grim bareness that suggests an asylum or a prison, rather than a home; and in foreign furnished houses this is specially apparent: there are the regulation amount of chairs and tables it is true ”

“ Everything in the interior of the house was adapted to promote the comfort of its inmates. During the long and cold winters, large, clear wood-fires diffused their genial warmth through all its inhabited parts, the anthracite not having then effected a lodgment. There might be seen that perfection of ancient house-keeping, which, combining liberality with a just economy, studied the convenience of all, and kept every one at their post of duty. ”

“ It is not merely a house divided against itself, but one divided across itself. It is a house in which the first floor is fighting the second floor, in which the basement is oppressed from above and attics are besieged from below. There is a great deal of gunpowder in the cellars; and people are by no means comfortable even on the roof. ”

“ All houses are, I was told, thus held for life; and though in particular cases great discomfort is thereby occasioned, on the whole, the law of life-tenancy is believed to act well, and no departure from it is allowed except in cases where, as sometimes happens, the house is destroyed by natural decay or some unforeseen catastrophe. It is only in the case of strangers that houses are assigned to them by the authorities, as in my case. ”

“ But look at us now. Suppose a posse was to rush the house. They bust into the kitchen side. Where are they? Just the same as if they hadn't got in at all. I bolt the doors from the inside of the big room, and they're shut out agin. Or suppose they take the big room? Then a couple of us slide out on this balcony and spray 'em with lead. This house ain't going to be took till the last room is filled full of the sheriff's men!"
He paused on the balcony and looked proudly over the big, baronial room below them. It seemed huger than ever from this viewpoint, and the men below them were dwarfed. ”

“ Not many houses, but every house in it will have to be rebuilt from the cellars. This quarter is desolation. Large shops, large houses, small shops, and small houses have all been treated alike. The facade may stand, the roof may have fallen in entirely or only partially, floors may have disappeared altogether or may still be clinging at odd angles to the walls—the middle of every building is the same: a vast heap of what once was the material of a home or a business, and what now is foul rubbish. ”

“ Every cellared house—and nearly every house had its cellar—blazed the information abroad. "Cave voutée" (vaulted cellar) , 20 personnes, 50 personnes, 200 personnes, even 500 personnes, indicated shelter in an emergency. In a raid every man's cellar is his neighbour's. Once we harboured some refugees, and that night at dinner the shy member (perhaps I ought to say that the adjective was entirely self-bestowed) , gurgled suddenly. ”

“ This house fixes the attention by its construction and filth. There are no beds, except some loathsome pallets; animal remains, intestines, and the refuse of meals, are rotting in the court; all the chambers look on a corridor completely deprived of air and light; the sinks and the privies of every story are loathsome from ordure and fecal matter. ”

“ Around the selected shelter area, place shielding material-- preferably bricks or blocks, or containers filled with sand or earth--from the ground level up to the first floor of the house, so that the shielding material forms the "walls" of your shelter area. ”

“ The trap of a gully is sure to grow moulds and mildews, and if, as is not unlikely, it becomes unsealed by evaporation, then the gases from the sewer or cesspool will inevitably find their way into the cellarage and the house above it.
An inhabited basement, such as is universal in London, regarded in relation to the house above it, is a very different thing from an uninhabited cellarage. ”

“ The design of the whole structure and the arrangements of all its separate parts exhibit a careful and laborious adaptation of means and material to the two main objects of shelter and defence. The clever constructive idea of turning the house outside in as it were, placing its rooms within its walls, and turning all their windows towards the interior of the edifice, implies boldness of conception and fertility of resource. ”

“ Every house, no matter to whom it belongs, or who holds the lease, who lets or sub-lets, every inhabited house must be licensed by the local authorities for a certain number of inmates, so many and no more ”

“ No building, although within the same curtilage as the dwelling-house, is deemed to be a part of the dwelling-house for the purposes of burglary, unless there is a communication between such building and dwelling-house either immediate or by means of a covered and enclosed passage leading from the one to the other. ”

“ The town in general is left in a better state than we expected; more owing to a precipitate flight than any regard to the inhabitants; though some individuals discovered a sense of honor and justice, and have left the rent of the houses in which they were, for the owners, and the furniture unhurt, or, if damaged, sufficient to make it good. Others have committed abominable ravages. The mansion-house of your President is safe, and the furniture unhurt; while the house and furniture of the Solicitor General have fallen a prey to their own merciless party. ”

“ The residue of the estate, the larger half of all the dead man's possessions, was to be employed in the establishment of a Home for parentless, unprotected, or destitute female children. The trustees of this institution were to find a suitable site somewhere within five miles of the Abbey House, and if possible on the Barradine property, being guided in their selection of the exact spot by expert advice as to the character of the soil, the qualities of the air, and the facilities for obtaining a supply of pure water. ”

“ Earth closets are the exception, cess-pit privies the rule. [In another place 109 cess-pit privies were counted to 120 cottages. And, as might be expected, there was hardly a pure well in the place.]
In one, a market town, there are water-closets, so called from being without water.
Storage of Refuse and Ashes.—Ashpits are conspicuous by their absence. Huge heaps of accumulated refuse are found piled up near the house, sometimes under the windows, or near the well, into which these refuse heaps soak. Where there are ashpits, they are piled up and overflowing. ”

“ Sometimes a house is deserted by its owners for some reason and gradually goes to ruin. As it crumbles the stones and the roof poles are used in the repairing or building of other houses. It is an endless cycle, this building and repairing of houses, and all stages of it can be seen in the town almost any time. ”

“ Houses might be burned possibly, but the inmates would have ample time to fold their nightgowns, pack their trunks, take up the carpets and count the spoons before vacating the premises."
"How much will that sort of stuffing cost?"
"For a wooden dwelling house of medium size a few hundred dollars would cover the first outlay, and the saving in worry would be worth twice as much every year." ”

“ To Show the summary and arbitrary manner in which the house-serfs are punished for occasional carelessness or neglect, the following circumstance is related by the author already quoted: — "Attached to every house is a man called a dvornik or yard-man, whose duty it is to keep the street clean in front of his master’s house, to scrape the snow from off the pavement, and to strew it with sand, to prevent accidents to foot passengers. ”