316 REPORT — 1869. 



of Towns' Commissioners state, in their first Report, that " in some of the 

 larger and most crowded towns all entrance into the sewers by house-drains 

 or drains from water-closets or cesspools is prohibited under a penalty;" 

 while in other i^laces, including part of the metropolis, the entrance of house- 

 drains was deemed " the concession of a privilege subjected to regulations 

 and separate proceedings with attendant expenses," tending either to restrict 

 the use of sewers for the purpose of removing excretal refuse and the drain- 

 age from pits containing it, or to confine the advantages of this plan to 

 the wealthy. 



The removal of the domestic nuisance and inconvenience attending the use 

 of privies and pits for collecting the refuse, by the introduction of water- 

 closets, gave rise in this way to the creation of a toiim nuisance ; the old town 

 sewers or drains proved inadequate to the duty thrown upon them ; for in 

 some instances an improved water-supply was taken into a town without 

 any means being provided for taking it out again : the pent-up overflow 

 from cesspools, connected with water-closets, satm'ated the subsoil, the water 

 of wells became permanently polluted, foetid water rose in the cellars of 

 houses, rendering the air impure by its exhalations, sickness followed, and 

 eventually there arose a loud outcry against the cesspool system as an into- 

 lerable nuisance, affecting not merely individual houses but the town generally. 



The plan proposed as a remedy for this evil was the general adoption 

 of water-closets, combined with a system of thorough town sewerage, the 

 connexion of house-drains with the sewers being made compulsory on the 

 owners of houses under certain conditions. By this means the necessity for 

 allowing excretal refuse to accumulate at all near dwellings or within towns 

 was to be done away with ; this refuse was to be ;;t oace removed from dwell- 

 ings into the sewers by a copious use of water, and swept rapidly through them 

 out of the town with the waste water from houses and the surface-drainage. 



By this plan the whole of the water entering a town is eventually 

 polluted either by use or by admixture, and then constitutes what is now 

 commonly termed town-sewage, the expeditious removal of which from the 

 vicinity of towns is indispensable for the health of the neighboiu-hood. 



This system, known as the water-carriage system, has been largely 

 adopted in this country, and, as a consequence, both the drainage of towns 

 and the removal of the excretal refuse have been in many cases effected by 

 the same means. The utilization of this town-sewage as manure, by irri- 

 gating land, was contemplated at the outset, but it was not enforced, and it 

 has been carried out only in a few cases, the sewage as a rule being dis- 

 charged from the sewers into any adjoining river or into the sea, this being 

 permitted so long as it does not create a 'nuisance. Individuals or towns 

 injured by the discharge of sewage in this way were left to obtain what 

 redress they could by legal means. The adoption of this system is well 

 known to have given rise to much litigation, and many towns where it has 

 been adopted have been placed in a very difficult position in consequence of 

 injunctions by the Court of Chancery prohibiting the discharge of their 

 sewage into watercourses. 



Moreover the adoption of the water-closet and sewerage system of dealing 

 with excretal refuse has been followed by a greatly augmented pollution of 

 rivers, which is now acknowledged to have become an evil of national 

 importance, and is still a subject of official inquiry. At this point, when the 

 measures adopted for removing successively the domestic nuisance and the 

 town nuisance, arising from the disposal of excretal refuse, have given rise to 

 a national nuisance, it has become a very serious matter to determine what 



