H. B. in the Toronto Globe writes:

"I think my experience lately in regard to sewer gas, if it is generally known, will put all persons on their guard, and be the means of diminishing, if not totally preventing, typhoid and other similar fevers in the winter season.

"The facts are these: My house has a bath and water-closet connected with a cesspool in my garden, and I have taken every precaution to prevent any foul smell coming into the house, and have been successful, except on a few occasions in the winter, and I could not discover the reason until recently.

During the recent cold snaps with the wind from the east and northeast the sewer smell in my bathroom was intolerable. And I consequently made up my mind that it was caused by some recent obstruction in some of the escape pipes. In my quandary I went on the roof of the house to examine the ventilating pipes, and found the ventilating pipe from the water-closet completely filled up with hoarfrost and ice. I immediately emptied a kettle of hot water down the pipe, and at once the smell disappeared and the bathroom was as sweet as could be; but on came another cold snap, and on again came the smell of sewer gas, and I found again the ventilating pipe filled up with hoarfrost and ice as before, and immediately it was thawed out the smell went away, and as there has been no very cold weather since, I have had no more trouble. Now. sir, it strikes me that if the moist gas from a private house connected with a cesspool is sufficient to cause the complete freezing up of the ventilating pipe, how much more likely must be the pipes in a city like Toronto, where the amount of moist gas escaping must be enormous, and I have no doubt the ventilating pipes are often frozen up the same as I have described, and this should put every person on the alert to examine their escape pipes and keep them clear of ice."

[The above letter to the Toronto Globe relates an experience to which we have often called attention. It was this contingency that induced us long since to advise that the end of soil pipes should be open, without bends, hoods, caps, or cowls of any kind, and in cold latitudes that the smaller pipes should be enlarged from the roof upward to at least 4 inches in diameter, and more if experience indicated it to be necessary in a particular locality]