182 Sewage and Sewerage. [April, 
be satisfied,” precede the words from the Prophet Micah, quoted by 
Dr. Hunter in his now famous Report,* “ And thy casting down 
shall be in the midst of thee.” But .as Mr. Simon, to whose good 
office we owe the Report just alluded to, promises another shortly, 
which shall show us what such towns as Worksop and Salisbury have 
really gained by cleansing and keeping themselves clean, we will 
say no more now and here of the value, urgency, and importance 
of Sanitarian Reform, but proceed to the details of Sewers and 
Sewerage. 
We may do well to begin by passing in review the different 
methods which have been proposed and adopted for dealing with 
sewage whilst within the precincts of our towns, and indeed, of our 
very houses. All modern and most ancient plans for dealing with 
sewage refuse aim or aimed more or less directly at its destruction 
or removal. The Jews used the agency of firet in the valley of 
Hinnom, for the purification of their city ; and while in the Wilder- 
ness they used eartht outside their camp as their disinfecting agent. 
The Chinese and the Japanese have a system for removal of sewage 
in substance, either without the admixture of other matter, or as 
compost, but without mixing any special deodorant with it. Agrippa 
did for the Romans, in the time of Augustus, what Mr. Bazalgette 
has done for the Londoners in the time of Queen Victoria, and the 
rush and volume of his main drains has been commemorated by 
Pliny, and earned the title of “ torrens cloaca” from Juvenal. 
Side by side with these and other systems for the removal of 
excreta there has existed from time to time a system for its non- 
removal,—and to it we will now devote a few lines. It might have 
been hoped that this system was definitely numbered with the 
things of the ;ast, but we are informed that even in these days it 
has its adherents, much as Paganism, which it resembles in the 
“matter of foulness, retamed and regained occasionally a few votaries 
long aiter the acceptance by the civilized world of a purer form of 
faith. 
~ Mr. Rawlinson declares that though some of the rivers in Lan- 
cashire are indescribably foul—so foul, in fact, that birds can walk 
over them in places—they are less injurious to health than are the 
cesspools with which the towns in that county are so richly honey- 
combed.§ <A delicate nostril, we are told, can detect the peculiar 
odour of these abominations in many a well-furnished house in con- 
tinental cities, in spite of the fumes, whether of tobacco or other 
* «Seventh Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, 1864.’ Appendix, 
p. 256. Micah vi. 14. 
+ Bazalgette on the Main Drainage of London. ‘Proceedings, Institution 
Civil Engineers,’ vol. xxiv., 1864-5, p. 3. 
t Deuteronomy xxiii. 12, 13. 
§ ‘Hvidence before Lord Robert Montagu’s Committee on Sewage (Mctropolis},’ 
p. 147 (3,937), p. 186 (4,219 , p. 177 (4,058 . 
