184 Air and Water Foisoning 



the desire to add to my store of material and of information, 

 I sallied forth with the Inspector after midnight, and 

 inspected several places, including various premises in 

 and off Bourke-street. One of these deserves to be 

 mentioned, as it contributes largely both to the flow of 

 water and to the too familiar stench of Bourke-street east. 

 It was the pubhc-house called the " Australian Felix," at ■ 

 the N.E. corner of Bourke and Russell-streets. At the time 

 of this visit the bilge was being puhiped out, and the smell 

 was so disgusting and so strong, that at a short distance it 

 might have been mistaken for tliat arising from the opera- 

 tions of nightmen. I do not know the internal arrangements 

 of the premises in question, but a great part of the nuisance 

 is easily explicable. The cellarage of this house is the 

 lowest point in a thickly peopled block, containing some of 

 the veriest hovels that disgrace the city. The water and 

 filth, fsecal and otherwise, with which the soil is saturated, 

 percolate the ground into these cellars, from which the 

 pestiferous liquid is nightly pumped into the street. 



Case V. The sample which I took on that occasion for 

 the purpose of examination was from the gutter in Swanston- 

 street on the east side, and south of Bourke-street. This 

 gutter drains nearly the whole of Bom^ke-street east, and 

 the blocks lying to the north of it. It affords therefore, a 

 good sample of genuine sewage of a populous district, and 

 it was studiously taken at a point where no individual 

 interest was immediately concerned, as I wished it to 

 illustrate the general question. 



Case VI. After this was finished, and when I was about 

 commencing to draw up my report, the Health Officer drew 

 my attention to a serious evil existing in Fitzroy Gardens, 

 where an open sewer, for it is nothing else, traverses this 

 popular place of resort. It is not generally known, but 

 ought to be published, that the gully running through the 

 Gardens from north to south, and forming in its route what 

 have been humorously termed the Fallah Falls, is nothing 

 more nor less than the sewer draining a portion of the Victoria 

 Parade, but more particularly the blocks on the south side 

 between that thoroughfare and the Gardens.. The occasion 

 of our visit appeared to be a general washing day, and the 

 character of the liquid was masked by soapsuds; but the sample 

 brought to me by the serjeant on a Saturday evening, when 

 it was assumed to be free from such adventitious dilution. 



