The Deadly Plumbing of American Hotels

The Lancet of London, one of the foremost medical journals in the world, warns all travelers of the dangers which it says attend a lengthened stay in an American or a Canadian hotel. The plumbing arrangements are declared to be defective in many cases, and conspicuously bad in others. Frequently there are no traps at all under the basins, or, where there are traps, the pattern is said to be such as to afford no safeguard against the introduction of sewer gas into the apartment. Indeed, it would seem that even a short sojourn in a hotel of this description would suffice to sow the seeds of disease; and a correspondent of the Lancet avers that he was made seriously ill by sleeping only one night in a room where there was a fixed basin communicating directly with the sewer without any intervening trap. He kept the windows wide open, and filled the basin with water on retiring, but the whole of the water was sucked out through the waste pipe during the night, and the presence of sewer gas was plain in the morning. 'It is dangerous,' says the writer, 'for any adult to reside in a hotel with such imperfect sanitary arrangements, and the air of the room would not improbably cause death to a delicate child.' This is a matter about which American hotel keepers should be very sensitive. We do not mean that they should resent these statements as being untrue or exaggerated, for we believe there is a good deal too much truth in them. But our landlords should be sensitive enough to such criticism to reform the evils thus pointed out.