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sweet and wholesome city, being a native of it and having his home 

 there. He would be proud to find it the best in Australia, so far as its 

 sanitation was concerned. There had been a great deal of criticism of 

 Mr. Mault's scheme, but no alternative system had been submitted 

 that would deal with all the slops. Liverpool could not be compared 

 "with Manchester, because the large number of sailors arriving there, 

 brought contagion from all parts of the world ; but the death rate of 

 Liverpool had fallen since the underground system of drainage had been 

 carried out from 31 to 24 per thousand. Still Liverpool, from a sanitary- 

 point of view, had not all the advantages. Taking Hastings, a town with 

 33,000 inhabitants, which had a death rate of 17 per 1,000, they found 

 • that the perfect system of underground drainage had been carried di- 

 rectly into the sea there for £53,000, or less than Mr. Mault's estimate. 

 Indeed, he believed if the drainage of Hobart could be accomplished for 

 £100,000 he would not think it too much for such a boon. At Dover, 

 where the death rate was the same as Rochdale, it had been reduced 

 from 27 to 14, and Mr. EdwinChadwick said if the same system of water 

 -closets and drainage carried out at Dover had been carried out at Koch- 

 dale the death rate there would have been reduced to 14. These facts 

 went far to prove that with an underground system they were not likely 

 to have all those diseases they heard so much about, but were likely 

 to abolish them altogether. As a member of the Board of Health he de- 

 sired to see Hobart placed in the position she ought to occupy — the first 

 in a sanitary point of view among all the cities of Australasia. 



Mr. Mault in replying said he desired to approach the subject in the 

 same liberal and open manner as had been adopted throughout the dis- 

 cussion, and though he felt warmly on the subject he hoped that he 

 would not be taken to have any one-sided view of his own case. He 

 thought they were to be guided in considering this question by a con- 

 sideration of law, and he was sorry to find the Hobart Local Board 

 had, while deciding not to adopt the scheme proposed, substituted one 

 that has a direct infringement of existing laws. They deliberately pro- 

 pose that all the sewerage of the city shall be conveyed to the sea in the 

 open gutters, notwithstanding that in the Police Act any person deposit- 

 ing any objectionable matter or liquid in the streets or gutters was liable 

 to a fine or imprisonment. The main objections against his system were 

 economic ones. Mr. Bastow commenced his paper by saying that if the 

 Government would give £60,000, a system of underground drainage 

 would be preferable. He did not under-estimate questions of cost ; but 

 where danger to the life and health of a large number of people was 

 being considered, the question of cost became secondary. Mr. Bastow, 

 for the purpose of upsetting the estimate made, assumed certain erroneous 

 data. For instance, Mr. Bastow had assumed a depth for the sewers, 

 that had he looked at the plans he would have found would have 

 taken them below the sea level. In support of his estimate he contended 

 that at the prices under the Government works contract now in 

 force, the works could actually be construsted for £40,360, exclu- 

 sive of the cost of supervision. He had allowed £25,625 for two sizes of 

 pipes, and he found out that at Launceston, where a good deal of that 

 kind of work was being done, and at the price of labour there, these 

 two pipes could be laid down for a little under £10,000. He instanced 

 these cases to show that he had been careful to fully estimate. Nothing 

 had been advanced against him by way of argument to prove that his 

 estimates were wrong. The comparison as to the cost of the work, 

 under the dry system at Manchester, with what it would be in Hobart, 

 was altogether fallacious, owing to the much greater numbers in Man- 

 chester. The opponents of his system would furnish no estimate of the 

 cost of carrying out any other. In consequence of this he was obliged 

 to furnish the figures for the other systems as well as his own. Nearly 



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