No. XXXVI.c.] APPENDIX. 409 



If the addition of faecal matter to grass and hay be right for cattle to 

 eat, as irrigators pretend, then have all former agriculturists been at fault, 

 as they ought to have added fsecal matter to the food wherewith they fed 

 their cows and heifers. 



Either agricultural science is true, and irrigation science is false ; or, 

 irrigation science true, and agricultural science false. 



I have suggested to the engineer of the Leeds works that the final 

 oxidation of animal matter in effluent sewage water may possibly be 

 effected in the water instead of exposing it on the land. For this purpose 

 I have ventured to recommend tentatively that it be run through ponds 

 full of anacharis, which is a rapid grower and gross feeder, and evolves 

 much oxygen. I have also suggested that beds of reeds might be tried for 

 the same object. By experiment it has been ascertained at my garden 

 that the growth of anacharis is enormously promoted by sewage, and 

 the water is much purified thereby, but how far it may be advantageously 

 employed on a large scale experience can alone decide. 



The water, after it has passed over the sewage-grounds, of necessity 

 must pass to the nearest river, except in such cases where the ground 

 absorbs the whole, or where there are underground cracks by which it can 

 be carried away. At a late meeting of the medical officers of health, one 

 of the District Board of Croydon pointed out that persons drank the 

 effluent water, and spoke of it with such apparent delight that but for our 

 natural understanding it might have been supposed that effluent sewage 

 was a good and proper beverage. I have heard other persons descant upon 

 the merits of effluent sewage for the beverage of the inhabitants of neigh- 

 bouring villages, but never for their own use. Now a more disgusting 

 insanitary idea cannot be imagined ; and if the directors of sewage farm 

 towns have not the good feeling to prevent so filthy a use of sewage by 

 their neighbours, they surely should be compelled by law to pay the 

 penalty of their want of decency. 



Those who are likely to drink sewage water are travellers, tramps, and 

 others, who do not know what it is, and if they contracted disease thereby 

 would carry it away to distant places. On this account the entire com- 

 munity is interested in preventing its use unawares. Sewage irrigators, 

 in the height of their enthusiasm for their subject, have been heard to 

 declare that persons have preferred their effluent sewage to the well waters 

 of the district. 



The best protection might be afforded by enacting that every stream 

 conveying effluent water from any sewage-ground should have a notice- 

 board affixed at every point where it abuts upon a highway, or on property 

 belonging to other owners until it enters a river, and that the notice should 

 be placed in legible letters : " Town Sewage, Effluent Stream, Dangerous 

 for Use." The penalty for any neglect should not be less than 50 a day, 

 as the danger is so great and the remedy so simple. With such a notice- 

 board our sense of propriety could never again be offended by innocent 

 persons drinking the water which has passed within a few hours from the 

 water-closets of sewage towns. 



In all sewage farms the water in the district irrigated, or even in the 

 neighbourhood, is more or less poisoned, according to the circumstances of 

 the case, and it is only reasonable that those who poison should afford an 

 antidote to the poison. Before a sewage-ground is allowed to pollute the 



