1r.) TER EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."1 SIR,—May I contribute a
word from personal experience on the cottage question ? You say you dare not copy the old cottage-builders in the proportion of window-space allotted in proportion to wall-space. I venture to say that most inhabitants of cottages would be glad if you would so dare. I happen to live in a house designed by a modern architect with a passion for light and air, with the result that after some months' trial I was forced to spend a considerable sum in alterations before any room could be found fit to sit in,— where one could be free from a draught on the back of one's head. The same architect planned a cottage which has so many doors and windows that I am told the inhabitants can never get warm. The result, of course, is that more than half the windows made to open, both in house and cottage, are not opened. I am convinced that it is a fallacy to assume that as much window-space is required in country cottages, where the inhabitants spend most of their time out of doors, as in towns ; and in this respect architects are following the wrong line taken by the Local Government Board. One window in each room is as much as any cottager will open. The rest he regards merely as draught-providers. And it should be remembered that it is no use to reply that he has a fire- place in each room to warm it if required, for he cannot afford more than one or, at the most, two fires during the autumn and winter, except in case of illness, when it is a matter of force majeure. The modern architect, I am con- vinced, spends half his time contriving ventilation which in practice is not used, or is regarded as a mere nuisance. Comfort is too often sacrificed to sanitary idealism, and I am heretic enough to doubt whether any one is a penny the better in health. You merely substitute a certain cold in the head for a highly improbable attack of tuberculosis.—I am, Sir,
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