Rain-Water.
Another point of great importance is the bestowal of rain-water. The usual method is to conduct the rain-water from the eaves by means of pipes which open directly into an underground sewer or empty over a gully which runs into an underground sewer. This underground sewer conducts the rain-water either to a main sewer or cesspool, and the important fact to be borne in mind is that the length of underground pipes, whose main function is to conduct rain-water, are nothing but prolongations of sewers or cesspools which conduct the gases of putrefaction to many points round the dwelling, either at the ground level or the roof level.
There can be no reason why rain-water pipes should not end in a 'shoe,' and discharge over open gutters which might flow to a gully, if absolutely necessary, at a distance from the house. The practice of taking rain-water direct into underground drains is a great cause of damp walls. A year or so ago the rain-water pipes of a country house well known to the author, which ran direct apparently into the underground drain, were examined. In every case the underground drain was broken and leaky, and in some places completely choked by the roots of plants and trees, while the rain-water got away as it could, and kept the foundations of the walls perpetually soaked.
In the London house, with its cave-dwelling basement and narrow area, it is inevitable that the rain-water must flow to an underground sewer more or less directly, but there is no reason why this Cockney necessity should be adopted in the country. It is obviously advisable to conduct rain-water clear of the walls and foundations. The mediæval gargoyle was useful in this way, and I think I am right in stating that the 'flying buttress' was occasionally made to serve the purpose of a water-gutter with the same object.