BUILDING A COUNTY.


imprisoned inmates calling for water or air. One day it was neces-
sary to give a patient a hot bath. While attendants were making
ready he thought he would assist to hurry along the arrange-
ments by turning on the hot water in the iron bathtub. He
noticed with the first flow of water there came a black mass of
filth. An investigation discovered that the tubs had but one out-
let for the waste water, which was the same orifice through which
entered the clean water, and that a settling bend in this pipe
caught the last outflow of filth which was flushed back into the
basin with the incoming clean water. Such a sickening piece of
plumbing should never have been installed, but it was what had
been used for years. Some of these old iron tubs can still be seen
piled in the basement and ought to be placed on exhibit with the
thumbscrew of the Inquisition. They have now a bath house
where the patients are laid on a board, thoroughly rubbed by two
attendants working daily, so that each patient is attended to at
least twice a week all the year round, and the water is not drawn
from polluted sources but from extensive settling basins which
have been recently installed. The patients are given, in addition
to the regular and nutritious food served, such other healthy food
as suits the taste of each patient in fact, the sick are treated like
guests rather than as factors in a systematic routine, and Dr.
Gordon seeks their happiness and their restoration. Going down
a corridor one night he noticed his steps echoed in the long uncar-
peted floor and, being reminded that the guard made that journey
every two minutes by a watch clock at each end, he had the store
house searched and all the old carpets made up into narrow hall
rugs, which are now rolled out every evening and laid away after
daylight. He then saved $100 a month by combining a dozen din-
ing rooms into one, and the meals are warm and fresh when
served'. Some of these dining rooms were almost a quarter of a
Imile from the kitchen.
The plumber had arranged the steam heating system, so that
all the drip was carried back to the boiler through the ground,
out of doors, reaching the boiler cold. He caused the whole sys-
tem to be dipped on the reverse, and got the water back to the
boiler at 154 degrees hot, thereby saving thousands to the state
in fuel.
A few years since he had in the great conservatory of the
asylum a century plant in bloom. The aged old plant had been
cared for a half century, when it began to show signs of doing

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