of what may be called surface drainage work £20,000. Furthermore, 

 these open gutters would have to be cleansed at least once a day, 

 and in some places that frequency would not be enough to prevent 

 nuisance. The cost of this work, as at present done, is £4 a mile of 

 street — a cost greatly in excess of what it ought to be. But, suppose by 

 contract or otherwise seven-eighths of this could be saved and the work 

 done at 10s. a mile, the yearly cost of a daily cleansing would be 

 £5,500. The cost of water is not included in this — it will be considered 

 further on. We thus get the yearly charge for removing house slops 

 from the city by means of open gutters. 



Interest on cost of works as above £20,000, at 4 per cent. £800 

 Kepairs and maintenance of above, at 5 per cent. ... 1,000 

 Cleansing (exclusive of water) 5,500 



Total yearly cost (exclusive of water) £7,300 



The work done at this cost would not only be in direct contravention 

 of the law as enacted by the 180th and 241st clauses of the Police Act of 

 1865, but would in other respects be by no means satisfactory. In 

 hot weather the gutters would become offensive, in spite of a 

 daily cleansing, and the various rivulets passing through the city would 

 remain what they are — noisome open sewers, constantly needing 

 cleansing, and very costly to cleanse. 



On the other hand, a system of underground sewers capable of 

 removing the sewage not only from the present number of houses 

 in the city, but from double the number, could be constructed for 

 about £60,000, for Hobart is so exceptionally favourably situated 

 for drainage that in none of the streets would deep drainage be neces- 

 sary. By this means the slops could be removed at the following 

 yearly cost : — 



Interest on cost of works as above £60,000, at 4 per cent. £2,400 

 Repairs and maintenance, at 5 per cent 3,000 



Total yearly cost 



... £5,400 



being £1,900 a year less than by open gutters, even if open 

 gutters could be cleansed at an eighth part of the present cost of 

 cleansing them, and this saving of £1,900 a year would be sufficient 

 to pay off the capital cost of £60,000 in 22 years. So on the score of 

 both efficiency and economy, the underground system of drainage is 

 greatly to be preferred for the removal of household slops of all kinds. 

 It must not be forgotten that this question of open gutters against 

 underground sewers does not affect the altogether distinct question of 

 the ultimate disposal of the sewage. Both the gutters and the sewers 

 convey the sewage to the Berwent, but the gutters in taking it 

 there expose it all the way to our sight and smell, and give it 

 every chance by exposure to sun and air to appeal to those senses in the 

 most pronounced and offensive manner possible. Whereas ir. under- 

 ground drains it is conveyed in the condition and under the circum- 

 stances least likely to cause offence. If the problem to be solved were 

 the rapid and complete fermentation and putrefaction of sewage, no 

 better arrangements could be made for solving it than those offered 

 by bad gutters and unmade streets. If the problem were, as it 

 really is, the safest and in every way the most inoffensive way of 

 getting rid of sewage, the true solution is by properly constructed 

 underground drains. There are, moreover, here two other important, 

 points in favour of the proposed sewers. They are these — first — that 

 whereas the existing open drains deliver their sewage into the 

 harbour, the proposed sewers would deliver it into the tideway beyond ;, 



