410 APPENDIX. [No. XXXVLc. 



springs, pure and good water should be supplied. On the sewage-ground 

 itself pure water should surely be at hand at stations within 250 yards 

 of each other at a minimum, and it would be no great hardship to place 

 such a number of stand-pipes. The penalty for such an obvious neglect of 

 sanitary principles might be 20 a day. 



There is reason to suspect that milk on sewage farms has been 

 directly adulterated with sewage, which unfortunately is very difficult to 

 detect, and permits more to be added with impunity than when pure water 

 is used ; but at any rate, when employed on sewage farms, cattle should 

 at least have wholesome water for beverage. Wherever the wells in the 

 neighbourhood of sewage-grounds are poisoned by sewage, a similar 

 penalty might be enforced for neglect to supply pure water for the wants 

 of man and beast. 



Sanitary science forbids the use of well-water contaminated with 

 sewage, but sanitary administrators take no heed of communicating 

 sewage to the wells of their neighbours, as they appear to think that 

 sanitary science is unimportant when any expense to themselves is in- 

 curred. Shallow wells, for instance, near the Croydon irrigation-grounds, 

 are unfit for use. 



Sewage towns have always been very jealous of giving information, 

 because it may lead to expense, but Boards of Health ought not to be 

 allowed to shelter themselves iinder a suppression of facts. It was only at 

 a late meeting of the medical officers of health, to which I was politely 

 invited, that all present went away, at 10 o'clock on Saturday night, 

 firmly impressed that Oroydon was perfectly healthy and free from all 

 fever. We were all astonished, but delighted, for many of us considered 

 that Croydon was in great peril of serious epidemic diseases. Judge my 

 surprise, however, when the first person who came before me on Monday 

 morning at the Bank of England informed me that his child had typhoid 

 fever. My informant stated that he knew of other cases, and of some 

 deaths, and subsequently that his wife and servant had died. These were 

 followed on the following Wednesday by the declaration by the Registrar- 

 General of five cases of death from fever from Croydon, and the following 

 week of another five cases. On further inquiry from the inhabitants of 

 Croydon, I found that cases of fever were interspersed all over the town, 

 that a great epidemic was raging in it, so that at the very time that a 

 member of the Council Board was giving information to the medical 

 officers of health of this great metropolis, the excreta of numerous fever 

 cases were being distributed over the sewage-grounds, and no precautions 

 were being taken that fever f*cal matter was not served with salad upon 

 the tables of the inhabitants of London, Croydon, and the neighbouring 

 villages, and no means were taken to prevent innocent persons from 

 drinking the effluent water which, according to the information of persons 

 whom I employ to watch the conduct of the sewage-grounds, was to some 

 extent running direct from the water-closets of Croydon to the affected 

 stream. The public have a right, after such facts, to possess accurate 

 knowledge. At Florence, the rate of death from fever I have myself seen 

 to be posted weekly at the door of the Registrar to warn the inhabitants, 

 and what can be done at Florence can be done at any farm sewage town ; 

 then, is it not desirable that the Legislature shall enforce it to be done, 

 under a penalty for every omission of 20, and that any person wilfully 



