MANURES. 233 



" the other, How shall it be made a means of fertility to the soil, 

 " and thus an item of national wealth ? 



" The annoyance that results from want of care in putting our 

 *' exuv'tcs out of the way is not often encountered among us in 

 " the public manner that is common in the old countries where 

 *' poverty and necessity have made people less fastidious than we 

 " are. We do not establish our privies in our front halls or next 

 *' the staircases of our houses, and the openings of our sewers do 

 *' not send forth the choking stench that nearly prostrates the 

 *' stranger walking by, as is the case in many a German city. We 

 *' provide well-ventilated temples in our groves and gardens in 

 " honor of Stercutius, or by the costly aid of plumber and potter 

 " furnish water transportation by a speedy route to some dark 

 " grotto of earth or ocean cave, and this is well as far as it goes. 

 " But our poor are already in their own filth, and as our towns 

 " enlarge and build more densely, the well-to-do, and even the 

 " rich, must sooner or later be swamped in the impurities of their 

 " own and of past generations. 



" Nothing is better established than the connection between 

 " human excrement and certain fearful epidemics. 



" It is on all hands admitted that cholera is most frequently and 

 *' certainly transmitted to healthy persons by the intestinal evacu- 

 " ations of those who have been sick with this disease. The 

 " instance of the outbreak of this malady in a country town of 

 " Maine, that followed the unpacking of a sailor's chest contain- 

 " ing the soiled garments that eight months before had served in 

 " his last hours on the other side of the globe, is but one of a 

 *' multitude that settle this point. 



" Typhoid fever, a form of disease very prevalent among us, is 

 " often traceable, with scarcely less certainty, to privy vaults, sess- 

 " pools, and sewers. It is stated that Prince Albert, of England, 

 " probably contracted the disease that was fatal to him from the 

 " foul air that found its way into his study out of a forgotten 

 " sewer through a crack in the wall. 



" Most often it is our drinking-water that brings into us the con- 

 " tamination. New .Haven is built upon a gravel plain, and the 



