318 REPOKT— 1869. 



its containing the excretal refuse of the population, it was desirable the term 

 sewage should not be restricted to the liquid discharged from sewers in places 

 where there is a thorough system of sewerage combined with water-closets 

 and a copious supply of water, or, in other words, where the water-carriage 

 system of disposing of excretal refuse has been adopted, but that it should, 

 for the purposes of this inquiry, be understood as comprising excretal refuse 

 in any state. This extended appHcation of the teim sewage seemed to be 

 the more desirable, since there are many towns and places that are at present 

 debarred from adopting any measures for dealing with their excretal refuse 

 by doubts entertained as to the sanitary efficacy of such a system as that just 

 mentioned, and by a knowledge of the difficulties attending the disposal of 

 the sewage produced under that system. In order to ensure an explicit 

 understanding on this point in aU correspondence and communications, the 

 following resolution was passed at a meeting of your Committee on the 5th 

 of January, 1869, viz. : — 



" That the Committee do interpret the word ' sewage ' in the instructions 

 of the Association as meaning any refuse, from human habitations, that may 

 affect the public health ;" and this interpretation of the term was specified in 

 aU applications for information. 



Bearing in mind the circumstance, already referred to in the introductory 

 remarks, that formerly town-sewers were essentially drains, the objects of 

 which were simply and exclusively the removal of surface- and slop-water 

 by the most direct course to the nearest stream, as well as the fact that such 

 sewers, originally intended only for drainage, have in various ways come to 

 be confounded with and used as sewers for removing excretal refuse as well 

 as the surface and subsoil water, it was, for these reasons, considered to be 

 especially important to make a marked distinction between drainage and 

 sewerage, and, with that object, to designate the removal of surface and sub- 

 soU water from land by permeable channels " drainage by drains," and the 

 removal of excretal or other refuse from dwellings, factories, streets, &c., by 

 water throi^gh impervious conduits, " sewerage by sewers." According to 

 this distinction, a drain should be understood as a permeable channel adapted 

 throughout its entire length to remove water from the soil surrounding it ; 

 while a sewer should be understood as a channel sufficiently impermeable to be 

 adapted for conveying away house refuse without allowing either the refuse 

 to escape tlirough its sides or water to penetrate from without. 



One of the first steps taken by the Committee was to apply to Her 

 Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department for his assistance in ob- 

 taining information from foreign countries respecting the practices prevailing 

 abroad for disposing of the refuse of towns, villages, public institutions, facto- 

 ries, dwellings, &c., and having reference to the sanitary condition of the dis- 

 tricts in which they are situated, the state of rivers, or the support and in- 

 crease of the produce of the soil ; to this application Mr. Secretary Bruce has 

 given effect by transmitting from time to time very valuable information, 

 received from the following countries. 



Received from the Home Office. 



15th March, 1869. From Hamburg. — 1. Statement as to the sewerage in 



Hamburg. 2. Plan of sewers in Hamburg forwarded by Mr. Ward to 



Lord Clarend(m. 

 16th March, 1869. From Saxe Coburg Gotha. — Statement as to removal 



and disposal of refuse from dweUings in Gotha, in a despatch from Mr. C. 



T. Barnard to Lord Clarendon. 



