COMMON SENSE SANITATION. I49 



the next is to bury it in the ground, and the last to discharge it through sewers 

 into the nearest water course. The first is the most expensive, though clearly 

 the only perfect destruction of it- the second, though a natural rendering of "earth 

 to earth," will only answer in districts comparatively sparsely setded, while the 

 last is that best adapted to the conveniences of most cities, though by no means 

 satisfactory in a hygienic sense. 



In London, after the Thames river had become an intolerable nuisance by 

 reason of its filthines's as a scavenger of the immense city, the removal of the sew- 

 age was handed over to the Metropolitan Board of Works. The general plan adopted 

 was that of intercepting sewers, which receive and convey the entire mass to out 

 falls far below the city ^vhere it is discharged, twice every twenty-four hours, from 

 immense reservoirs, upon the flood tide and, theoretically at least, borne out to 

 sea. At Edinburgh where the natural facilities for its disposition are far better, 

 the sewage and rainfall are discharged at the conveniently near sea oudet at Porto- 

 bello. At Glasgow, the sewage is emptied into the Clyde, and later, the foul mud 

 of that stream is dredged up and conveyed in barges to a deep Loch more than 

 twenty-five miles off. 



In New York and Boston the most serious trouble has been experienced from 

 the same causes, and gigantic engineering enterprises are being considered and 

 adopted for the relief of the people from the effects of pouring such vast amounts of 

 sewage into the streams and bays near those cities. To show how the presence 

 of such matters affects the health of the localities, where they are exposed, it is 

 only necessary to refer to the case of Glasgow, where the sewage, though de- 

 posited in a wide and deep Loch out in the country, has engendered new types 

 of disease and converted one of the healthiest seaside resorts into a pestilential 

 fever center. In this city our only practicable resort is to deliver our sewage into 

 intercepting sewers which shall conduct it to the Missouri river, at a proper dis- 

 tance below the city. P'ortunately its rapid current is our sure safeguard against 

 any possible return of it to afflict us with its evils. The main thing to guard 

 against then, is ill-constructed, ill fitting, leaky pipes, through which the deadly 

 sewer gas escapes and, penetrating our houses, poisons our families. 



When a respectable householder, in his anxiety to avail himself of every 

 means of making his home pleasant and healthful, connects it with a main sewer 

 he runs a risk beside which exposure to small-pox is a trifle. He places himself 

 at the upper end of a tube, which, if defectively valved and trapped, leads into his 

 house, by natural laws, gases, which, evolved from the outpourings of hospitals, soap 

 factories, slaughter houses, hotels and dwelhngs, are unutterably foul and malig- 

 nant. Common sense says, keep such pipes out of your houses, or if you cannot 

 do so in cities, then see to it that the connections are made by conscientious ex- 

 perts who understand the dangers and their prevention, and that the main sewers 

 are fully ventilated, and in such a way as not to force them into our dwellings, 

 nor discharge their offensive effluvia at our prominent street corners in the faces 

 of our wives and children as they pass by. 



