No. XXXVI.C.J APPENDIX. 415 



to the fructification and distribution of some serious epidemic. Sewage 

 nuisances may exist for years without generating typhoid fever and 

 cholera, but where the diseases exist they intensify their power to the de- 

 struction of the neighbouring people. At Paris the amount of vegetation 

 is increased by the sewage being used over a deep bed of sand, and so the 

 cultivators are anxious for the profit ; but the use of such vegetation after 

 recent irrigation, with the prevalence of the typhoid which now exists in 

 Paris, may well make all persons fear who value wholesome food as a 

 preservative of health. 



The whole tenor of these observations is to assimilate sewage-grounds 

 and sewage produce to the ordinary state of cultivated land and agricul- 

 tural produce. If any of these precautions are omitted, then secondary 

 protections would be required for example, against tapeworm and 

 diseased meat. There are strong reasons in the past for requiring, under 

 very heavy penalties, that the buyers of sewage-fed cattle should have their 

 names registered in a book open to the inspection of the public. 



Under the system of penalties, which is the very minimum adequate 

 to preserve the public health, the Board of Health of Croydon would some- 

 times have incurred a payment of 350 a day. If this scale of penalties is 

 not found sufficient to restrain the above described reckless career of those 

 who conduct the sewage farms of this country, then the Legislature might 

 make the penalties personal upon the members of the Boards of Health. 

 It is not to be tolerated that those appointed to protect the health of one 

 district should be permitted to impair the health of the neighbouring 

 district. The effect of sewage-grounds, as hitherto conducted, has been as 

 bad morally on the minds of the people as it has been physically on their 

 bodies. Largely exaggerated statements have been made by their sup- 

 porters. Facts are suppressed, or not fairly given. General denials are 

 made to all complaints. The most insolent observations are made to those 

 who point out their dangers. Knowledge is arrogantly assumed where 

 ignorance abounds ; the promotion of sewage-grounds is made a source of 

 revenue at the public damage. Being an independent observer of the mad 

 career which the conductors of the sewage-ground are following, I have 

 placed this paper before the Society to indicate the scientific principles 

 which should guide their safe conduct, and also to serve as a public protest 

 against sewage-grounds as now conducted, that should,Un the future, some 

 terrible calamity occur from their abuse, blame may rest upon the heads of 

 those who recklessly abjure all known sanitary science. 



The discussion that ensued was adjourned, and at a subsequent meet- 

 ing (Jan. 19th, 1876) Mr. Smee said his paper was intended to be a 

 belligerent one, in order to evoke discussion. He was not an enemy to 

 sewage irrigation, and the whole point of his paper was to show that 

 sewage farms must and ought to be properly and fairly conducted. Refer- 

 ring to the letter received from Mr. Hope, he said he considered it ought 

 to be printed in letters of gold, for in that letter the greater part of the 

 sewage questions were dealt with in a practical, philosophical, and almost 

 perfect manner. Time was the very essence of the thing, because if 

 animal matter were taken into the stalk of a plant it required a certain 

 time before it was assimilated, and that point was now conceded by those 

 who knew anything of the subject. Mr. Hope had not mentioned whether 



