GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 3 



opinion on this subject by saying that the present manner of 

 disposing of storm-water in sewered towns by removing it from 

 the surface where it is needed to the sewer where it creates 

 a nuisance is a relic of barbarism, and that its continuance 

 indicates an overriding of reason by tradition." This he later 

 qualified by saying: " I think that the necessary sanitary 

 requirements may be met by the combined system if due atten- 

 tion is given to the details, and if enough money is spent." He 

 aroused much controversy among engineers, and the sanitary 

 advantages of both methods were discussed at length. 



In the second annual report of the Massachusetts State 

 Board of Health, 1881, p. 25, is a paper by E. C. Clarke, 

 then engineer in charge of the Boston sewers, giving briefly 

 all the arguments in favor of the combined system; and a paper 

 by Benezette Williams, in the Journal of the Ass'n of Eng. 

 Soc., Vol. IV, page 175,* gives additional discussion from the 

 same point of view. In his Jpook on Sewerage, Col. Waring 

 devotes a chapter to the question, discussing the papers here 

 referred to, and, while disavowing himself a hard-and-fast 

 advocate of the separate system, practically says that storm- 

 water sewers are incidental, and that for them only main 

 outlets are in any case needed, while the sewers of his system 

 are everywhere essential. 



The arguments for the combined system are as follows: 



i. Sewage from houses forms only an inconsiderable part 

 of the noxious materials that constitute the wastes of a town; 

 chemical analysis fails to detect any great difference between 

 the sewage of a water-closet town and that of a town where 

 earth privies and the pail system are used; that is, the waste 

 water from sinks, baths, laundries, and the wash of paved 

 streets contains enough organic matter to be nearly as foul, 

 chemically, as the discharge of water-closets. This other mate- 

 rial therefore requires as careful treatment as the water-closet 

 matter. 



To this it is answered that while this may be true so far as 



* See also Jour. Ass'n. Eng. Soc., Vol. Ill, pp. 37, 67, 158, 183. 



