SANITARY DKAINAGE OF WASHINGTON. 19 



such waste material a considerable quantity of animal and vegeta- 

 ble matter is apt to find its way. 



"The license to deposit waste-water becomes an incentive to 

 throw refuse, garbage, etc., and often, twenty-four hours after clean- 

 ing, we find these alleys again in a filthy condition. The drains 

 become obstructed by small deposits, and the waste-water, etc., soon 

 accumulates and becomes offensive." 



He, of course, suggests the obvious and satisfactory remedy, — 

 the construction of sewers for the whole length of the alleys. 



There are other points in your Health Ofiicer's report which it 

 would be worth while to consider here, did time suffice. I com- 

 mend the original document to your careful attention, and will 

 return now to the question of house drainage. 



I have long held to the opinion that defective house drains are 

 a far more important factor in the production of disease than 

 defective sewers, and that more of the sewer gas, to which so many 

 of our ills are ascribed, is produced by decomposition in pipes 

 inside the house than by decomposition in sewers outside the house. 

 Defective sewers are common enough in all conscience, though 

 their construction has been much improved within the past ten or 

 twenty years, but defective soil-pipes and water-closets and traps 

 are almost universal. The beginning of their improvement dates 

 from a very recent time. Nominally our houses are often built 

 under the direction of architects, but in reality this most import- 

 ant part of the work is generally left to the unrestricted control of 

 mechanics who, however intelligent and faithful they may be in 

 their manner of working, have had no training, and at least no 

 suflacieot instruction as to the whole effect of what they attempt to 

 do. The journeyman plumber does the work that he learned to do 

 when he was an apprentice ; the apprentice learned what his boss 

 taught him; and his boss learned it when he was an apprentice. 

 There are many praiseworthy exceptions of course, and their 

 number is rapidly increasing, but I am speaking now of existing 

 work, done five, ten, twenty years ago, at a time when the architect 



