SANITARY DRAINAGE OF WASHINGTON. IT 



ing the pumping of sewage, we have the conspicuous example of 

 the Surrey side of London, where not only house drainage, but a 

 large part of the storm-water as well, is lifted above the level of 

 high tide, the lift varying from 28 to 48 feet. The adoption of 

 this plan here would immediately relieve the whole problem of its 

 difficulties. Surface water being left to take care of itself, as at 

 present, drainage to any desired depth could easily be given to tiie 

 houses of even the lowest parts of the city. 



This would involve, it is true, the complete re-sewerage of all of 

 the lower district, but it is, I think, easily demonstrable that no 

 other device would be free from grave sanitary objections ; and if 

 the new sewers are adjusted to the work of foul drainage only, as 

 are those of Memphis, now nearly completed, the cost would be 

 incomparably less than that of the original storm-water system. 



Aside from storm-water removal, the carrying away of foul sew- 

 age, and the drainage of the flats about the city, attention is 

 urgently demanded to a radical and almost universal improvement 

 of the interior drainage of houses. Dr. Townshend, the Health 

 Officer of the District, in his report for 1879, says: "I think it is 

 safe to say that of the thousands of houses in the District of 

 Columbia which have house-sewer connections, scarcely one hun- 

 dred can be found which have any vent for these sewers outside the 

 house-rooms." He also says, in speaking of the escape of the 

 gases of the sewers into dwellings : " What remains for the sanita- 

 rian, however, is to warn an indolent public agijinst resting in the 

 fancied security of contrivances for the repulse of this arch enemy, 

 which recent research and a better insight have proved to be 

 worthless in the fulfilment of the purpose desired. A few years 

 ago it was considered all-sufficient upon constructing a water-closet 

 in a house to place under the bowl a piece of bent pipe made to 

 hold half an inch or so of water, which was to act as a barrier 

 against all gas, no matter what the pressure under which it was 

 held in the sewers. Numbers and numbers of water-closets erected 

 2 



