butcher's or butterman's shop, the walls of
which have been lined with them, or standing
before a fireplace of which they have formed
the main decoration, must have been struck at
once by their appropriateness in all ways; for
not only is the effect produced on the eye by
their use extremely agreeable, but they have
besides the advantage of ensuring the utmost
cleanliness wherever they are introduced. This,
indeed, is one of the special advantages belonging
always to glazed surfaces. A glazed surface
is not susceptible of permanent contamination
by dirt, whether in a dry or liquid
form It is indeed hardly capable of serious
pollution at all. Whatever lights upon it finds
no hold, and is not retained as it would be in
falling on a dry, or rough substance. If liquid
descends upon a glazed surface, it either glances
off it, when the position of such surface is
vertical, or remains outside if it is horizontal,
never sinking into it, and disappearing at last
by a process of evaporation; while if, on the
other hand, the matter which rests on this same
surface be of a dry, instead of a liquid nature,
it is removed in a moment with the mere
whisking of a feather brush, or of a common
duster. We must all have noticed that when
dirt of any kind lodges—which it rarely does—
upon the face of a mirror, it is most easily
removed; also that the glass of our windows
is cleaned in a very few minutes, and by the
use of no more formidable machinery than a
cloth and a basin of water.

The advantages belonging to this kind of
hard polished surface, then, being so obvious,
in this particular respect of its imperviousness
to the action of dirt, one cannot help asking
why it should not be more extensively given to
all such structures as are, by the very necessities
of their existence, continually in contact with
that abominable mixture of soot and dust of
which London air seems to be mainly
compounded? Why not present to that grimy
element a wall or rampart, which it cannot
penetrate, or get hold of, but off which the
filth of which this same sorry atmosphere is
composed, will glance as an arrow does off a
steel breast-plate? Why not in short—to put
the subject of this inquiry in two words—why
not construct our London houses with a glazed
surface composed of tiles or glazed bricks, next
the street?

This idea, which at first seems a little startling
is in reality both simple and easy of execution;
and it seems a legitimate subject for
surprise that it has not been suggested, and
the experiment tried, long ago. What could
be more simple—since we know of a means
of averting a certain evil—than to employ
it in a case in which that particular evil
oppresses us in a special degree. The evil at
present under consideration is the lodgment of
dirt on the walls of our houses; if we know
how to construct a wall on which the dirt will
not lodge, ought we not in common reason to
avail ourselves of such knowledge? And this
knowledge it can hardly be denied that we do
certainly possess. Such a wall as would
present an impregnable face to the assaults of dirt
in every one of the legion forms in which it is
encountered in this town, it would be by no
means difficult to set up. There are, indeed,
two ways in which this object, the importance
of which there can be no doubt about, might
be accomplished. It might be effected either
by facing the house which we desire to protect
from external defilement with an outer layer of
tiles, like a veneer; or building the wall of the
house itself with bricks, one side or end of which
—the side or end, of course, next the street—
should be glazed in the same manner as the
tiles are. There might be some practical
difficulty in the making of such bricks. It is not
easy to understand of what sort; still it behoves
any one not a brickmaker by profession to
abstain from speaking with authority as to the
feasibility of constructing bricks with a glazed
or partially glazed surface. With regard to the
tiles, however, it is possible to speak with more
of certainty. We have ocular demonstration
of their fitness to form an outer coating or
facing to a wall; as witness the sides of such
shops as those above alluded to, or the sloping
reflectors past which the light glances so brightly
as it descends into the tunnels of the
Metropolitan Railway at some of their stations, which,
as is the case at Baker-street, have been found
especially difficult to light. The effect of the
structural use of tiles, in all these cases, is
eminently satisfactory, and seems distinctly to prove
the possibility of employing them for this
purpose of facing the walls of our houses.
Concerning the applicability of glazed bricks to a
similar use, the writer confesses that he has
little real doubt, though he has thought it right
to speak with some degree of hesitation on the
subject. Common sense suggests that it would
be as easy to make glazed bricks as glazed tiles;
and, supposing this to be so, it seems probable
that the bricks would, on the whole, be the
best for this purpose, inasmuch as, being an
integral portion of the wall itself, they would
not be liable to displacement, as might be the
case with the tiles.

Were London built of houses with such a
surface as this, the fitness of which is here
advocated, the advantages which we should gain
would be enormous. Among them certainly
not the least would be the doing away with the
necessity for those periodical paintings, which
are such a source of vexation to householders
under existing arrangements. What a thing
it would be to escape the series of annoyances
which this infliction brings upon us every
three or four years—annoyance of having a
scaffolding raised before the house, by means
of which we are continually expecting that
burglars will obtain access to our premises;
annoyance of finding working men hanging
against our walls, like samphire gatherers at
their "dreadful trade," and looking in at the
windows at unpropitious moments; annoyance
caused by the smell of paint; and, finally,
annoyance of receiving a very long bill for
what has disturbed the peace of one's house-
hold so very much, and resulted in such a