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huge trench of a square foot or yard in section. The 

 reason for this frequent anomaly probably is that the 

 larger the ditch is the greater its cost, and the greater its 

 cost to the municipality, the larger the amount of money 

 which sticks to certain fingers. Whatever the reason may 

 be the results are disastrous. In the first place, the cost of 

 " draining " the streets is ruinous to the municipality ; in 

 the second place, the ditches frequently do not drain the 

 streets at all, but merely constitute strings of stagnant 

 puddles running in front of the houses and breeding thou- 

 sands of Anopheles. Thus in Freetown, Sierra Leone, 

 there are numerous old trenches cut in the solid rock at 

 great cost, and always full of nearly stagnant water ; and I 

 have often seen the same thing elsewhere. Many gutters, 

 moreover, are made without any due deference to fall, and 

 are almost level from end to end. Other principal causes 

 producing stagnant pools are neglect to repair the surface 

 of the roads ; carelessness and want of supervision regard- 

 ing the disposal of storm-water from private premises ; and, 

 very particularly, out-crops of weather-worn rock, which 

 is not only full of hollows itself, but "contains" the surface- 

 water by natural ridges of stone. 



The way in which most municipalities would deal with 

 such defects is the following : The local engineer would 

 be asked to prepare a scheme of surface drainage for the 

 town. After a year's surveying (with a thousand pounds 

 spent on maps and measurements) the scheme would be 

 ready. The cost would probably work out at a thousand 

 pounds for every few acres. The scheme would be sub- 

 mitted for approval to the superior government, which, after 

 another year or two spent in considering it carefully, would 

 reply that there are no funds available. 



