xlvii 



similar to Hobart, where the city was built on several hills and close- 

 to the sea. Edinburgh was much more to the point in considering 

 what should be done in Hobart than Manchester. 



The Rev. J. B. Woollnougii said he was not an expert, but only an 

 outside sufferer, with a great deal of experience, and very little 

 knowledge. He was opposed to underground drainage, because it gave 

 back the gases, whereas the land retained them. It was better to send 

 these things to the soil, which wanted them, than to the water, which 

 did not want them, and did not know what to do with them. He had 

 lived in the Thames Valley, where the question had been fought for 

 years, and was still being fought. They were there called upon to do 

 something, and did something which was not right. At the Army and 

 Navy Club in London he recollected there had been a difficulty with 

 the water system, and in taking up a few boards the usual state of 

 affairs was discovered ; and he had no doubt it would be as bad under 

 Marlborough House and at other large mansions. He had never met 

 a perfect watercloset, and it seemed to be hopeless to expect one. 

 Whatever might be said about the troubles of the earth system, they 

 knew what they were. Each box stood by itself, was comparatively 

 harmless, and could not go far wrong ; but with the water system 

 there was no knowing the extent of the mischief, as the evils of one 

 place was carried around to the neighbours. 



Mr. Ward gave some analyses of sewerage and the proportion of 

 solids to be dealt with in disposing of sewerage under the watercloset 

 system. 



Mr. C. H. Grant said he recollected when he first began to take an 

 interest in engineering works, the Board of Health was established in 

 England under Government auspices. It was very unfortunate indeed 

 in its firs'", efforts, as Mr. Mault would probably recollect. They created 

 a special fever known as the " Croydon fever." At Eastburn, where 

 they proposed to show what a system of public drainage should be, they 

 were almost equally unfortunate. As a matter of fact no special dis- 

 ease had ever been attributed to the pail system. At Paris he recol- 

 lected when he used to visit that city the pail system was carried out, 

 and it certainly was not pleasant the way it was done. In Melbourne, 

 too, it was very objectionable sometimes in the night. But these mat- 

 ters could probably be managed better than they were in those places. 

 _ The Chairman said, before calling upon Mr. Mault to reply, he de- 

 sired to say something from his own experience. He did not think 

 either system could be adopted to the entire exclusion of the other. 

 It depended much upon the way in which the domestic arrangements 

 were constructed, which was the best. He had the advantage of a 

 garden and used a pit with pipes leading to it, from which the "excreta 

 Was disposed of in the garden. It depended upon what conditions 

 existed to determine which system was preferable. 



Br. Hardy thought Mr. Bastow had taken unfair illustrations in 

 Making out his case. To decide the question for Hobart by reference 

 to any other place it was necessary to find a hilly town with great na- 

 tural facilities, and with an immense body of open salt water around it. 

 it was almost absurd to quote Manchester, where they had a ditch they 

 «ad dehled, or even London, with the circumstances existing in Hobart. 

 « was a new fact to him that smallpox was spread by the drainage, 

 -o-e believed typhoid and such diseases were, but had never heard of 

 MiaU-pox being carried about by the drains. Ho believed that Hobart 

 ought to have a model death rate, something very far below anything in 

 the other towns of Australia. 



ot j: ']'. E-" & Walch, in reference to Mr. Swan's question about 



n.er 01tl es, pointed out Adelaide, where, since the establishment of 



underground drainage, the death rate had lowered considerably. Dr. 



