72 



SEWERAGE OF THE CAPE PENINSULA. 



Name of 

 Municipality. 



Water 

 Supply. 



Cost per 

 1,000 gallons. 



Assessable 



Value per 



head. 



Remarks. 



From this it will be seen that the total extent of these un- 

 sewered municipal areas is 13,438 acres, or roughly 21 square 

 miles, and embraces a population of about 65,000. 



It will also be noted that the annual cost of the pail removals, 

 which is done only once a week, amounts to no less a sum than 

 £11,645. I^ addition to this large expenditure, Mowbray 

 spends £900, Rondebosch £782 and Claremont £1,854 annually 

 on the removal of its slop water, whilst the expenditure of 

 Woodstock and Maitland for this branch of its sanitary work 

 is not stated. And in this connection it may be remarked that 

 in all the areas mentioned only a proportion, and in most cases 

 only a small proportion, of the bedroom and kitchen slop 

 water is removed, the remainder, with waste water from baths, 

 domestic washing" and so forth, being run on to gardens, yards, 

 open spaces or into street gutters. Filthy liquid still runs 

 down many of the open street channels, and the river Liesbeek, 

 which should be a beautiful crystal stream — whose banks are 

 thickly populated on both sides — is nothing" more or less than a 

 foul and intolerable open sewer during tlie hot and dry summer 

 months, and a menace to the public health. Surely all reason- 

 ably-minded people will agree with me when I say that such an 

 existing state of affairs, in one of the most beautiful portions 

 of sunny South Africa, leaves much to be desired and calls 

 loudly for a drastic change. 



Notwithstanding all that has been said and written upon this 

 important subject during the past 20 years, the fact remains 

 that a very large and thickly-populated portion of the Penin- 

 sula is to-day in the same state as it was in 1891, when Mr. 

 •Clement Dunscombe, a well-known Sanitary Engineer, vv-ho 



