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in regard to the public health, or to that other matter of vital im- 

 portance to the second port of the world — its navigation. It is true that 

 Liverpool ranks high in regard to its death-rate,but it is, excepting 

 London, not only the most populous city in the United Kingdom, 

 but the most thickly populated. Seven times more people are crowded 

 upon each acre of its area than is the case in Hobart ; and such over- 

 crowding has had its inevitable result. But the sewerage works under- 

 taken, and the compulsory introduction of water-closets, have greatly 

 reduced and are still reducing the death-rate. And not only so, but 

 the action of the system, by raising the character of the occupiers of the 

 lower class of teuementary property, has satisfied house-owners that 

 the money expended in carrying it out has been profitably spent. 



Since the above was written I have seen in the Lancet of the 12th> 

 of June a notice of Dr. Stopford Taylor's report on the sanitary con- 

 dition of Liverpool for 1885, and the following facts and observations 

 are taken therefrom :— The average annual death-rate of Liverpool for 

 the 10 years 1841-50 was 36 to the thousand, it is now 237. If the 

 death-rate had continued even at the decreased mortality rate of the 

 10 years, 1851-60, Liverpool would, last year, have lost 3,917 more lives 

 than were lost. And if, as is usually assumed, there are 10 cases of 

 illness to every death, there were in Liverpool last year 39,000 less 

 cases of disease than the average of the time before sanitary 

 works were undertaken. If the calculation of the late eminent 

 actuary, Dr. Farr, be correct, that the average value of every life to 

 the community is £159, after making the necessary deduction for the 

 mean value of his subsistence during the various periods of life, and 

 in its various conditions, Liverpool saved last year £622,803 in 

 monetary value of life alone, without taking into account the con- 

 tingent savings of expenditure for the illnesses above mentioned, of 

 loss of work, doctors bills, funeral expenses, etc.,- contingent savings of 

 at least equal value. I commend all this to the consideration of 

 those who think all expenditure under the Health Act as waste of 

 money. 



One other point in connection with the discharge of sewage into 

 the Derwent remains to be considered. As has been already mentioned 

 the sewage of Hobart is already discharged there, and will be so 

 whether water-closets be constructed or not, but at present it is mixed 

 with street sewage containing heavy mineral matters. This, in 

 most cases, first flows from the gutters into the various rivulets, along 

 the borders, and among the stones of whose channels it is partly 

 deposited, as their offensive condition shows. These rivulets enter the 

 harbour at various points, none of which are in the direct tideway, 

 consequently the matters brought along by the current of the rivulets 

 getting into comparatively still water are quickly deposited— the 

 matters being road detritus mixed with coagulated grease, soap-suds, 

 and fecal matter, and the banks formed by the deposit are consequently 

 composed of these matters. Every time there is heavy rain it washes the 

 borders and beds of the rivulets, and carries down some more detritus 

 mixed with these washings, and deposits them on the banks in course 

 of formation. The banks thus formed being of sand and earth mixed 

 with putresoible matter are certain to become offensive. 



But under the proposed system of sewers the condition of things will 

 be quite different. The sewage will be unmixed with sand and earths 

 It will only hold in solution and suspension matters of about the same 

 weight as water, consequently there will be no tendency to form 

 banks by immediate deposit, and the sewage will be discharged into 

 the tideway. The rivulets will naturally continue to bring down sand 

 and earth, and that cannot be helped, but the sand and earth will not 

 be putrescible, and consequently will not be noxious either while 



