210 REPORT—1874. 
preceded by more than one Roman Emperor, tried their hands at drainage ; but the 
incessant civil and religious wars, with the absence of general simultaneous effort, 
defeated every attempt. A permanent staff of engineers, such as we find in 
Holland in connexion with the dykes, a well-digested plan of action, with unin- 
termitted personal supervision, would all prove requisite. The antiquated Appian 
Way and railways excepted, no properly constructed roads traverse this vast 
region. There are no dwellings either; at least the poor labourers who reap the 
sparse crops in the season, when their sweltering day’s toil is done, sleep absolutely 
without a roof over them in the open, and with little sustenance beyond a slice of 
water-melon and a crust. The Pontine Marshes are said to derive their name 
from Pometia, one of the perished cities. Roads and even canals appear to have 
been constructed so far back as the times of Appius Claudius, Julius Cesar, 
Augustus Czesar, Trajan, and subsequently by Popes Boniface, Martin, Leo, Sixtus, 
and Pius. The French also made some attempts; but, all these notwithstanding, 
the Pontine Marshes are Pontine Marshes still. The reclamation of the Agro 
Romano, as Dr. Balestra most justly insists, in point of canalization and subsequent 
culture ought to extend simultaneously to the whole of the implicated surfaces 
(“ all’ intera campagna, assolutamente a tutti t terreni”’). No operations, however, at 
least in certain localities, ought to be conducted in July and August, as the paludal 
poison or malaria at such periods is simply homicidal. Periodical overflows of the 
Tiber should also be prevented. Such occurrences, as shown in the great recent 
increase of intermittents from the bursting of the banks of the Po, are greatly 
conducive to paludal disease. Raised tram- and causeways, in fact, ought to inter- 
sect the whole region. Canals extending to the sea, aided at their outlets when 
needful by the steam-engine, should carry off every particle of stagnant water. 
Salt water and fresh ought nowhere to be permitted to mix. Labourers should be 
safely housed in suitable localities, or, when season and position permitted and 
required, conveyed nightly to their homes on the hills. Steam-ploughs, steam- 
reapers, and steam-mowers, as far as possible, must be made to supersede human 
toil. And, lastly, I would have serried masses of the Eucalyptus globulus, Helian- 
thus or sunflower, Pistia stratiotes, and others, as the editor of the ‘Pabellon Medico’ 
in May last urges, to extend along highways and around dwellings, in short every 
locality where human beings require protection from the baneful influence of marsh 
miasma (‘‘ como preservador de las fies de acceso”). The pine-trees generally 
and the various individuals of the natural order Myrtacez, indeed, seem highly 
antagonistic to malaria, qualities more or less appreciated in .ancient as well as 
modern times. It is, in truth, almost incredible that nations should, at a vast 
outlay, keep playing at soldiers and sailors when, as in the case of the Italian 
Maremma and the watery expanses of Ireland, highly removable blights are 
permitted to eat into the very vitals of the community. 
Reformatory and Industrial School System, its Evils and Dangers. 
By Hans M‘Morpm, M.A. (Belfast). 
The author directed attention to the evils and dangers of the Reformatory and 
Industrial School system. The governing committee is a private and self-elected 
body and practically irresponsible. The tax-payers have no voice in the selection 
of the persons who control and distribute the funds. The Reformatory and Indus- 
trial Schools are prisons, for the inmates are deprived of personal liberty. The 
supervision exercised over them is inadequate. Our jails are subjected to the most 
regular and careful supervision. Voluntary associations should not be entrusted 
with the punishment of crime. The committees, moreover, are not bound to 
receive all whom the magistrate or judge may send. The cost of the system is 
enormously great, and in addition to its revenue from the public funds, it intrudes 
on the supplies intended for truly charitable institutions. Though the condition 
of destitution is that most prolific of physical imperfection, the schools will not 
receive the deformed child. The schools must pay, and therefore a selection is 
necessary. The system is competing unfairly with the artisan and trader. Some 
committees tender for orders; they being subsidized by the public funds can— 
ee 
