xlviii 



Taylor, of Adelaide, in acknowledging the receipt of Mr. Mault's re- 

 port, s-id he had no doubt, from his experience of what had been done 

 elsewhere, that of Hobart, with its natural facilities, could be made 

 under that system, one of the best-drained cities in the world. 



Dr. Perkins said, in speaking about Hobart, he had never said any- 

 thing about its healthiness or unhealthiness ; he had simply quoted the 

 death rate, and left people to draw their own inferences. If they draw 

 fallacious iuferences, it was their fault. He was well aware of the 

 many circumstances that affected the death rate — old age, the pro- 

 portion of the sexes, and other influences that operated against taking 

 the death rate as a test of the sanitary condition of a town. With 

 regard to what Mr. Morton had said about Edinburgh, he had resided 

 five years in that city, and knew >hat the water system was almost 

 universal. It certainly had some vile places, one of which was known 

 as the " Forty Twas," but the system adopted by the city was the 

 drainage and water system. It was certainly a fact that typhoid had 

 broken out in the better part of Edinburgh while it was absent from 

 the poorer part, but to argue from that that it was the water 

 system which introduced the typhoid fever was a great error, and arose 

 in the first instance from the opinion of some doctors that typhoid was 

 solely a sewer gas fever instead of being taken in with the drinking 

 water as well. He quoted an extract from Dr. Parkes, an eminent autho- 

 rity on hygiene, who gave the statistics of the decrease in deaths for 

 zymotic diseases on the continent by i he institution of underground 

 drainage, and contended that cholera had been abolished by that 

 system. Only last year an Australian town had saved a total of 139 

 lives by an underground system of drainage. If such a magnificent and 

 successful result followed from the initiation of underground drainage, 

 was it fair to raise such objections as a want of proper flushing or many 

 other absurd and trivial objections against it ? He was prepared, as 

 a member of the Board of Health, to adept what was best under all 

 circumstances, for each particular town. It did not follow because the 

 water system was best for Hobart, that it should therefore be advocated 

 for every other town in the colony. He was prepared to receive impres- 

 sions from all quarters of the world, and to advocate that which was 

 best for any particular place. The two systems had not been fairly 

 contrasted durirg the debate. Mr. Woollnough did not consider, when 

 he stated how objectionable he found the waterclosets, that they were 

 usually placed inside a house, where the earth closets were placed 

 outside. When they came to consider the earth system there were 

 all sorts of details to be settled. In speaking of the watercloset system, 

 Mr. Bastow had said " they are contrary to the first principles of 

 sanitary science." But by all principles of sanitary science the water 

 system was the best. Sewerage was something to be carried away 

 as speedily as possible, not something to make money out of. It was 

 because water carried away all this matter at once that it fulfilled the 

 laws and maxims of sanitary science. These were not his own opinions, 

 but the opinions of all authorities on hygienic; science. Then sewerage 

 was not a matter of mere human excreta ; there were the refuse and 

 slops of the kitchen, the stable, cowshed, and household slops The 

 only defect in the earth system, which was admirable from some points 

 of view, was that it did not make provision for the disposal of various 

 liquids of an objectionable nature, which, having no provision made for 

 them, were poured down the gutters. Flushing did no good, for the 

 housekeeper "poured them down again, and they were left to fester in 

 the sun, and in the end, after polluting the air, find their way to the 

 sea. He could not see how any other system than the water system 

 could be adopted in Hobart, if it was desired to make it a sweet and 

 wholesome city. It was no pleasure to him to say Hobart was not a 



