153 



sufficient for the ventilation of probably fifty miles of 

 sewers and drains, many of tliem on very steep ground, 

 and the tide flowing up twice in twenty-four hours. 



Mr. Weaver found, as he expected, the epidemic most 

 severe on the outskirts and suburbs, in places of fine situa- 

 tion, and open country. Here was street upon street where 

 the sewage had spared scarcely a house ; and in almost all 

 was a more or less powerful odour of sewer gas. Now 

 this was remarkable, and the explanation he discovered, 

 after some trouble, although the authorities could tell him 

 nothing of it, that many of these streets had a special 

 sewer laid down in front of the houses, with a branch run 

 under the floors of each building, which were filled up with 

 ashes, and the pipe left open for the purpose of removing 

 sub-soil water ! The lower end of each sub-soil sewer 

 joined the mains, contact being supposed to be broken by a 

 syphon, but as these were never looked at from the day of 

 being laid, and as no water flowed from the cellars, in dry 

 weather the syphon speedily became untrapped, and an unin- 

 terrupted flow of gas proceeded into the houses. 



A very good proof of this being the mode of propagation 

 of the disease was furnished in one half of a street, that is 

 one side of it, being without any drainage whatever and had 

 not a single case of small-pox. Now here the privies and 

 slops overflowed the yard and lane and the stench was most 

 unbearable, yet this side escaped. Opposite, all was much 

 cleaner to the eye, but the sewage gas was within the houses 

 and so was the epidemic. So much for our vaunted sani- 

 tation ! 



Now assuming this statement of Mr. Weaver's to be true, 

 it appears that in some cases the germs or particles of 



