in Melbourne. 193 



evil than storing it in open pits adjacent to our dwellings, 

 there to ferment and to set other and more offensive matters 

 fermenting ; and, as the change proceeds, to eat its way- 

 through the walls of the pits and saturate the ground under 

 our parlour and kitchen floors, and to kill us with typhus, 

 cholera, diphtheria, and a host of other diseases, not counting 

 the intolerable nuisance. This occurs more or less every- 

 where in the city, bub is worst where, as in nine cases out of 

 ten, the closet closely adjoins the house, and the ground falls 

 to ward the street. 



In a very illustrative case that lately came under my 

 notice, the floor of the closet which joined the house was 

 two feet above that of the front parlour. It was only 

 emptied when its contents neared the floor. When this 

 observation was made the level of the contents had advanced 

 Kttle, if at all, during some months. For some time an 

 offensive smell had been noticed in the lower part of the 

 house whenever the doors and windows were closed, but as 

 it was known that there was no drain underneath, it was 

 supposed that some of the neighbours had been poisoning 

 rats. Lately, however, the smell assumed a character that 

 unmistakably betrayed its origin, and the cause was then 

 found out. The next neighbour had filled up the cess-pit 

 with chamber slops ; the fermented urine had eaten its way 

 through the mortar of the cess-pit walls, and the liquid 

 then containing in solution and suspension other matters 

 incomparably more offensive and more injurious than itself, 

 had saturated the ground under the house, and in all time 

 to come will probably require the constant and liberal use 

 of disinfectants. 



The recital of this case, which is a typical one, suggests 

 another point, not indeed, within my immediate province, 

 but so germane to the subject that I may be excused for 

 advancing it. It is the abominable practice of building one 

 cess-pit between two adjoining houses. A tenant so situated 

 has no chance of keeping his premises clean, sweet, or 

 wholesome. He is at the mercy of his neighbour who may 

 be filthy, mean, or dishonest. He may forbid in his house- 

 hold the nasty practice of throwing slops into the cess-pit ; 

 he is flooded out, and consequently stunk out by his less 

 cleanly neighbour. He may disinfect ; the neighbour, having 

 an expansive mind, may increase the nuisance in proportion 

 to the capacity of the disinfectant. He gains nothing by- 

 emptying at his sole cost, for the neighbour presumes on 



o 



