The Heating Of Our Houses

Entering tho door of onc of our " comfortablo " modern houses, whnt mei A puff of scorchod air from a register, ivlolent ot' banking iron, - or of boilcd air from a stisim heator. Th; thermoi is standing ut about 71. We advanue to the parlor. Th . ro matters aro even worse, for no outside coUi has entered with 1110mentary freshness. The plaats in the window look ycllow and forlorn. Orninous cracks aro visible horo and there in tho furniture- nay, a strip of ornamenta] vcuccr has actually split off from tho piauo and lies ón tho carpet. Our hostess, coming for ward to greot us, is wra] in a little shawl, and remarles that it is an awful day ; that she liasnt boon out, of course, but even in the warm house has feit the cold. In effect, sho looks blue and pinched. Whereat we wonder, for the room fech insunvrably hot ; but wc place ourselves beside her where she sits cowering over the register, and eonvorsa1ion goos on with what spirit it may under these circumstaiiccs. At the end ot' an hour wo are sorprised to find ourselves a little chiüy. That is our head is hot enough - a little too hot, porhaps- but both hands and fcet are cold, and we are inolined to ágree with our friend when she opines that ' the giri ' must have let the ftre go down. Bilt glanoing at the thermometer, we stare to see that tho ueroury has risen inatead of tallen. It is now at 80". And, after all, why should we wonder? Nature ia inevitable in her rutributions, and we, no lesa thau the poor gerauium in the window, must suffer the penalty of a deranged circuhttion when we viólate her laws of temperatura. Bad i uuugh, if this were all! Ono can live and be useful under the bifling dÍ8oorafort of cold oxtremities, as our worthy forefathers sntKciently proved. But how muoh of life and of life's best energies, of thought, of wit, of good humor, of aspifation, goes down through thosu holes in tho floor into nethor silenco ? As from some Kobold's oave, the invisible gnomes of the furnace climb, emerge, and steal from us the choicost, finest, most intangible part of ourselves. Xo man ever livel and worked his beat in a room heated over (iSu - a sentence wo should like to engrave in letters of gold on the iron plate of every register and the front of every steam heater in the land from iiiis day forth and forever. The time may come when a perfect system of house warming, one coinbining healthfulness, comfort andecoiumi y. i be introduced. But certain it is, we have nono such now. The hot-water furnace, in which a largo chamber well SttDulied with freshairis heated by coils of pipe i filled with boiling water, and the warinth ! taken thenoe and diffused ovor tho house, approaches inoro nearly to the ideal than any other in all respecte savo one : it is 80 costly that only tho most luxur.'ou-! vbuilt numataaa eaa aihtd toanjoy it. Opea íires aro not snffioieut, exoept in the most moderato winter cold, to th artificiullv-stimulated doruan'd ibr heat made by tho human raceto-day; and oven in the caso of that oheapest of faela, coke, they oost more than furnaco. Tho big baso burning hall stoves, which make many of our country housos socomfortable, tako room whi:h cannot bo aff'orded in city entries, where eaoh inch of space is procious. And the air-tight v;iriety - warranted by a good deacon who dealt in tho articlo in tho days of our youth, to burn up evory bit of a noxious gas which, as ho was informeel, aboundcd in tho air, and the name of which w;is - oxygen ! - what can be said in its favor ? It is best left to silenco, Biid to that necessity on which it bases its sole claim to human tuloration. Thorc romain, thon, for the average house, only the hot-air furnace and tlie steam hoater. Both have inseparable nvils conneoted with them, both advantages equally inseparable. In ono abundant moisture is providod ; in tho other, an unfailing supply, barring accidents, of outcr air. And eithor can bo mado tolerably comfortable and Bufficiently wholesome only by intelligent watchfulness, by a stricfc regulation of heat, by obsorvation of thermometers, by periodical care of evaporators and water pans, by renewmg tlic air of rooms through open Windows, and tliat perpetual vigilanoe which is the price of most of the good tilines we enjoy, and, abovo all, of that healthful iood which we consume with our lungs, and without which wo can oniov nothinsr. -