MANURES. 85 



points to the other and wonders why no one 

 is found to make use of this valuable com- 

 modity which now goes to waste, but no 

 one takes hold. " The Romans reverenced 

 Cloacina, the goddess of the sewers, and 

 the statue which they found of her in the 

 great drains of Tarquinius was beautiful as 

 Venus's self; but they honored her, doubt- 

 less, only as a wise sanitary commissioner 

 who removed their impurities, and, so doing, 

 brought health to their heroes and loveliness 

 to their maidens. They only knew half her 

 merits ; but in Olympus, we may readily be- 

 lieve, there was fuller justice done. Al- 

 though weaker goddesses may have been un- 

 kind may have averted their divine noses 

 when Cloacina passed, and made ostentatious 

 use of scent-bottle and pocket-handkerchief 

 Flora, and Pomona, and Ceres would ever 

 admire her virtues, and beseech her benign 

 influence upon the garden, the orchard, and 

 the farm. But the terrestrials never thought 

 that/^jc urbis might be lux or bis, and they 

 polluted their rivers, as we ours, with that 

 which should have fertilized their lands. 

 And we blame the Romans very much in- 

 deed; and we blame everybody else very 

 much indeed ; and we do hope the time will 

 soon be here when such a sinful waste will 



