[Illustration: Fig. 7.--Pail privy. Well constructed, ventilated, and screened. With proper care is sanitary and unobjectionable]
In plan the privy is 4 by 4½ feet. The sills are secured to durable posts set about 4 feet in the ground. The boarding is tight, and all vents and windows are screened to exclude insects. The screens may be the same as for pit privies or, if a more lasting material is desired, bronze or copper screening of 14 squares to the inch may be used. The entire seat is hinged, thus permitting removal of the receptacle and facilitating cleaning and washing the underside of the seat and the destruction of spiders and other insects which thrive in dark, unclean places. The receptacle is a heavy galvanized-iron garbage can. Heavy brown-paper bags for lining the can may be had at slight cost, and their use helps to keep the can clean and facilitates emptying. Painting with black asphaltum serves a similar purpose and protects the can from rust. If the contents are frozen, a little heat releases them. Of nonfreezing mixtures a strong brine made with common salt or calcium chloride is effective. Two and one-half to 3 pounds of either thoroughly dissolved in a gallon of water lowers the freezing point of the mixture to about zero. Denatured alcohol or wood alcohol in a 25 per cent solution has a like low freezing point and the additional merit of being noncorrosive of metals. The can should be emptied frequently and the contents completely buried in a thin layer by a plow or in a shallow hand-dug trench at a point below and remote from wells and springs. Wherever intestinal disease exists the contents of the can should be destroyed by burning or made sterile before burial by boiling or by incorporation with a strong chemical disinfectant.
[Illustration: Fig. 9.--A well-ventilated privy in Montana]
A privy ventilated in the manner before described is shown in Figure 9. The cowl, however, is open on four sides instead of two sides as shown in Figures 7 and 8. The working drawings (figs. 7 and 8) show that the construction of a privy of the kind is not difficult. Figure 10 gives three suggestions whereby a privy may be conveniently located and the approach screened or partially hidden by latticework, vines, or shrubbery.