1884.] CIVILIZATION AND ITS WASTES. 263 



mento was peopled entirely by men, in August, 1849, and the first 

 woman appeared Kke a wonderful vision, some time later. 



I do not recollect that the condition of our water-works was ever 

 the subject of much remark, although every one might have known 

 it. People who can't very well help themselves, touch such topics 

 lightly, in self-defense. Some of us who had time went above, 

 toward the American Fork, for water. A little copy of Preissnitz's 

 water-cure was among my choice possessions. It saved me much 

 pain, if not life; but sanitation was an imknown word among my 

 fellows. 



Owing to the long, dry season of that climate, the fecal matter 

 around Lake Sutter would not have been washed into the waters 

 of the lake until the winter rains. So we were for the most part 

 using the leach of preceding evacuations. 



The sickness prevalent was appalling, only it wasn't to us, for 

 we didn't stop to think about it — death and disease were so com- 

 mon. The next year was the dreadful cholera year, when we lost 

 fifty daily in a population of 4,000. By that time we must have 

 had some wells dug, and in one way or another began to get our- 

 selves weaned from that horrible slough-water. Of the air on its 

 banks I have said nothing. Buildings went up around Lake Sut- 

 ter, and so it became less private. 



I would not have occupied your minds with this view of the first 

 settlement of Sacramento, if I did not believe that at the same 

 time you would get a glimpse of the carelessness of a pure water 

 supply which has attended the beginnings of all colonies in all new 

 countries. The reckless, enterprising fellows, who begin new set- 

 tlements, soil the brook the first thing they do. "We can reason- 

 ably suppose they did it at Athens, and at Rome, as at Rugby, Ten- 

 nessee — or wherever heedless speculators ever went into camp. 



Veteran campaigners, when they think the matter over, will 

 agree with me. The last camp-meeting I attended in New Eng- 

 land — a good while ago, 1 must confess — was no exception to the 

 filthy rule. 



Let man go where he will, he carries the material inviting 

 trouble with him, and not one time in a hundred, in my observa- 

 tion, does he keep it out of his drinking-water — almost never out 

 of the air. How can we tell, in a crowd of houses, whose leaky 

 cess-pool stands plumb over the subterranean stream that feeds our 

 well ? No wonder we were sick with all manner of fevers on the 



