STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 177 



"water-carriage system " of removing excreta. This consists in simply 

 turning all faecal matter at once into the common sewer to float off to 

 the point of discharge. The water-carriage system is so cheap, con- 

 venient and effective that it is not likely to be supplanted in our time. 



There is but one competing system, the so-called (from its inventor) 

 Liernur system in the city of Amsterdam, Holland. That city can- 

 not discharge its sewage into the sea because it lies too low in the 

 water. By means of powerful air pumps, operated by steam power, 

 the sewage is sucked through iron pipes to a central receiver. There 

 the water is expressed, the solid residuum dried and converted into a 

 valuable manure. The system is reported to be effective, very favor- 

 able to good sanitation, but not economically cheap. 



Modern sewage is composed, then, of excreta and foul water, with 

 or without rain water. A previous generation thought to have dis- 

 posed of sewage by turning it into underground drains and shutting 

 it out of sight. All it had accomplished was the partial removal of a 

 nuisance from door yards and kitchens to the mouth of the sewer. I say 

 partial, for the sewer itself now became the nest and brooding place of 

 deadly gases, which no Yankee ingenuity in traps and seals has ever 

 completely shut out of houses. The royal blood of England was poisoned 

 almost to death but a few years since by sewer gas emptied into a 

 palace through the most scientific appliances. 



And the question is before us this hour: How shall we dispose of 

 our sewage so that it shall not dispose of us? 



English experience here furnishes the most valuable suggestions. 

 The immense increase of manufacturing establishments, such as wool- 

 en mills, pap'^r mills, dyeing and printing works, bleacheries, gas 

 works, etc., so polluted the rivers of England that parliament inter- 

 vened in the famous Rivers Pollution act of 1867. The operation of 

 this act led to numerous experiments for purifying sewage. 



Besides this there was, as there had been for centuries, the sewage 

 problem of London. In former times ^the slops of London went into 

 the Thames as that stream flowed through the town. Then the out- 

 lets of the sewers were carried down stream, and then still further 

 down. A half million tons of solid matter turned into that river yearly 

 have threatened to ruin navigation, have destroyed the fisheries and 

 created a nuisance beyond the power of words to describe. 



Without going into details, we may group the English experiments 



under three heads. Of course I do not count the ancient no-system 



of simply letting sewage flow where gravitation and tide would let it 



flow. 

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