blade of the spade, of course), and masses of
mortar, road drift, horse-hair, and musty
straw. Three old shoes, with the remains of
nailed soles; a piece of rotten waistcoat, with
rusty metal buttons; some old rope, and a
broom-handle; broken crockery, such as bits
of tea-cups and basins, and brown delf-ware;
a rusty knife or two; an old hat (a very difficult
thing, indeed, for a spade to deal with,
at twelve or thirteen inches below the
surface); a number of clothes-pegs; half a prop;
a battered pewter-pot; and here and there a
complete bed, or mine, of broken laths,
shavings, and miscellaneous rubbish,—buried
at nearly the depth of a spade, or a spade and
a half. As for altering the shape and direction
of the walks, let the reader think of the
expense, and trouble, and time of that—all the
gravel to be raised with a pickaxe, and carried
elsewhere, and fresh mould, for two feet depth,
to be brought from a nursery. In the country,
these matters are not difficult to manage, with
the help of a single gardener; but, in a small
suburb-garden, such "improvements" are
seldom to be ventured.

I have said that my back second-floor
window commanded a view of a very long
row of new houses and gardens, which I had
seen manufactured from the very earliest
stage. A brief account of the principal
processes will explain all that has been previously
related, and a great deal more; the truth of
which tens of thousands of householders will
recognise, but too readily. I shall begin at
the beginning.

My dressing-room window overlooks an
irregular piece of fallow land, which extends
from the furthermost end of my garden wall
over an extent of some flve hundred yards in
length, by one hundred in breadth. This land
is covered with a sort of rank grass, which
gives it the look of a neglected field, like the
"sluggard's garden;" but the soil of this
vegetation is only a few inches deep, the whole
piece of land being of yellow clay. Except
in the hottest season of the year, it is always
in a damp condition, and whenever there has
been rain the whole surface reeks, and a fog
rises all over it.

On this "very desirable plot of ground for
a building lease," Mr. Roomy, the builder, of
Lumbago Place—a respectable, business-like
man—determines to build a row of houses,
each with a good strip of garden, and makes
contracts with his bricklayer and carpenter
that the entire row, extending the full length
of the desirable plot of land, shall be
completed, and made, what is considered by
builders, "habitable," on or before the
beginning of next March. It is now November.
They must be all ready to receive visitors of
the Great Exposition—so there's no time to
be lost.

The ground is forthwith measured off, and
levelled, and cart-loads of bricks, and
scaffolding poles, and planks arrive. That damp
clay land will need a pretty good foundation
for the houses, of broken brick-rubbish, and
gravel. We look in vain for the depositing
and arrangement of anything of this kind.
Can it be?—is it possible they can intend?—
yes—and my shaving-water has got cold from
my continually stopping to look down upon
the bricklayers' operations—it is a fact, that,
after merely cutting off the grass for turf,
they have begun to build upon the bare clay!
The first house has actually been placed upon
the bare damp soil, without even the pretence
of any intermediate foundation whatever.

The construction of the house-drains, I
perceive, is upon the old bad plan. Instead of
glazed earthenware pipes of some four inches
diameter in the bore, they are laying down
the old fashioned brick-built drains, of twelve
or fourteen inches square, and with the branch
drains intersecting them at right angles,
instead of long acute angles in the direction of
the outward flow. Moreover the drains are
constructed on a level, or nearly so, and with
no calculation for the proper degree of fall, or
graduated descent, so that on any occasion of
a temporary stoppage, owing to improper
substances having got into the drain, or a flooding
from heavy rains, the whole of the sewage
having no downward pressure from its own
weight, will inevitably flow back to the house,
and deluge the cellars and ground floors most
odoriferously.

I believe they intend to make the out-fall
of the drains, according to the new regulations,
and drain down into the main sewers.
But I have seen several consultations in
certain curious spots, where a cesspool would
have been preferred, but for the salutary fear
of a visit from the Metropolitan
Commissioners of Sewers, whose surveyors are worthy
of far better masters. The builder, however,
does the "next best thing;" he builds a
brick dust-hole close under the kitchen window,
and in a line beneath the dining-room
window.

Of the materials of which the house is
built, as of its slight and rapid structure, I
shall not pause to speak, nor of its inward
inconveniencies in the arrangement of the
rooms, and general clumsiness, and want of
forethought and contrivance; because these
things so much depend on circumstances, that
they are almost beyond the pale of influence
except inasmuch as one can put people on
their guard to look well into all such matters
before buying or tenanting any house. It is
a question for individuals. Let their eyes be
widely opened to it. But the external form
of a house, row, or street, is a public question
of taste. The character of the nation in
respect of its buildings, is, more or less
implicated in it, as every "Prospect Place," and
"Paradise Row," attests, not to mention the
average run of all suburban "Terraces," and
"Streets."

The form of the house that has grown up
before my eyes is that of a box, or chest set
upright. It has four walls, or sides, with a