1866.] Sewage and Sewerage. 189 
discharged into the sewer or drain once a day at least. The whole 
process is simple and efficient, is attended with very little nuisance, 
and is perfectly imocuous to health. The different forms of latrine 
vary in construction and in adaptation to their object.” The 
introduction of this modification of the water-closet system mto our 
over-crowded alleys would be a boon indeed; and its machinery, in 
all its varieties, is, or can be made, so simple that it is less liable to 
derangement, and consequent pestiferousness, than almost any other 
structure intended for the same purposes.* 
Mr. W. Bridges Adams, indeed, is wellnigh, if not quite, the 
only engineer of note now living who would demur to Mr. Bazal- 
gette’s dictum that “the rapid and continuous removal of town 
refuse by water is the best and cheapest mode of cleansing populous 
towns and cities,” and who would consequently disapprove alike of 
water-closet and latrine. In a letter which recently appeared in the 
‘Times, Mr. Bridges Adams writes thus:—“ Those who have 
thought deeply on the subject, and thoroughly recognize the utility 
of the labours of Mr. Bazalgette, as applied to the present time, do 
not believe that water in rivers, or elsewhere, was intended by 
Providence to be a carrier of filth for all time. They believe that 
a noxious substance like the exuvie of plants or animals is rendered 
more noxious by being mixed with water, and that until it can be 
buried underground for the purposes of manure, it is better to keep 
it as dry as possible, and that the transit will thus. be rendered 
cheaper and less wasteful. When the time shall come for this 
perception to be common, the chemical and mechanical practica- 
bility will not be lacking, and we shall be no longer under the 
necessity of resorting to water gravitation to help our laziness, in 
polluting every channel in the land which has a downward slope 
into the sea.” On the other hand, besides the Mayor of Coventry 
and the enormous majority of professional engineers, we have 
Mr. Rawlinson speaking unreservedly in favour of the water-closet 
system, and saying what it is interesting to know with reference to the 
introduction of this system among the poor, that it is possible to havea 
town, such as Alnwick, so “completely water-closeted,” that “ the very 
beggars’ common lodging-houses have water-closets or soil-pans.” + 
The laws which govern the flow of fluids in pipes and in 
open channels have attained that mathematical precision and 
accuracy which renders discussion of them uninteresting and super- 
fluous. Full details as to the size, and shape, and fall of sewers, 
and the quantity and velocity of their contents may be found in a 
paper by Mr. Bazalgette, already referred to (‘ Proc. Inst. Civil 
* See Dr. Williamson : ‘ Edinburgh Monthly Medical Journal,’ Feb., 1866, p. 699. 
** One means of cleanliness should be employed by the poor in common with the 
rich, and that is, the existence of water-closets in their houses.” Dr. Williamson is 
well acquainted with the poor, being one of the oldest parochial surgeons in Scotland, 
+ Evidence before Lord Robert Montagu’s Committee, p. 186 (4,216). 
