THE CLOSET

So far as the health of the family is concerned, the most important
feature of the bathroom is the closet. Here it would be simply folly
for us to let any consideration of dollars prompt us to substitute an
inferior or out-of-date apparatus for the safe kind. It would be
better to sell the piano or even to steal the money from the baby's
bank.

The only safety against sewer gas in the closet is to prevent it (the
gas) from entering the house, and to make sure that gas from the water
pipes is given an adequate exit and compelled to make use of it. The
old-style washout closet was a pretty good assurance that the one gas
would get in and that the other could not get out. The siphon closet
of recent manufacture seems to be a much more dependable sort of
contraption, though we need not accept as gospel the makers' assertion
that it is perfection.

The most reliable way to shut out gas is with water. Even in the old
closets it was supposed that the outlet pipe would be kept covered with
water, but as one could not see where the water was or was not, the
supposition wasn't always to be regarded as proper material for an
affidavit. Many a person has moped around and growled at the weather
or the cook or anything he could think of to blame, when it was the
cheap old plumbing arrangement he hadn't thought of that was at the
bottom of his misery. Sometimes, too, we think a little sewer gas is
preferable to the plumber and his bill; but that is a very silly
thought indeed.