1884.] CIVILIZATION AND ITS WASTES. 275 



any money in it?" I said, " Not ai-ed! There is life and 

 death there, but no money. "We are going to make a square 

 appeal to the legislature, and if you have got principle enough 

 to help us, help us; if you haven't, help your master, the 

 Devil." (Applause.) I let tliat man slide. I have been 

 around there with Prof. Brewer, a member of the Board of 

 Health, and he knows it and knows how it looks. Here is a 

 cash capital of three or four hundred thousand dollars, and 

 they do not care whether a life is worth a thousand dollars 

 or two cents. 



Prof. Brewer. They said their works were worth a mil- 

 lion and a half when the city was talking of buying them. 



Mr. Webb. I took a census of the town of Hamden, and 

 I think I found but five or six of the inhabitants of that town 

 who had not had the fever and ague, more or less, and d large 

 number of tliem most of the time. 



Now, what can we do ? I say, le the Legislature pass a law 

 that every one of those ponds shall be cleaned. (Applause.) 

 There are many large places where the pond, when the terri- 

 tory was originally flowed, was quite deep, but the accumula- 

 tions of silt and the deposits of vegetable matter that has 

 grown up and decnyed, have made the water comparatively 

 shallow, and it is full of pond lilies and all kinds of water 

 grasses, which are growing up and decaying. Let the Legis- 

 lature say that those ponds shall be cleaned, and let Yankee 

 ingenuity invent a dredge that shall clean them out and throw 

 the mud upon the borders of the pond and the farmers will 

 carry it off. It comes to the matter of dollars and cents. How 

 much is a life worth ? But when people unite and say this 

 thing must be done, and make a row about it, then the capi- 

 talists, who are interested, will hire experts by the hundred, 

 and every one of them will swear just as he is paid to swear. 

 (Applause.) There is no use talking. That is the square 

 truth, exactly. Now, then, we have got to face the music to 

 do anything in this regard. We have got to clean the ponds, 

 and we may have to clean the house, to some extent. 



Dr. Jenkins. I have been a little interested lately in 



