22 WILLIAM M. HAMLET. 



cheaply, and above all effectively, is an important one. What is 

 to be done with it 1 ? This is an oft-repeated cry. involving a 

 question that has tried the patience and ingenuity of whole genera- 

 tions of men, while with too many of us this repugnant subject is 

 shelved, the burden of dealing with it being laid on whomsoever 

 will take it upon his shoulders. Men, ostrich-like, pretend not to 

 know of die existence of the evil, 'pass by on the other side,' leaving 

 it to Bumbledom to grossly mismanage. 



To enumerate or describe a tithe of what has been done and 

 suggested, and the multitude of schemes that have appeared, would 

 fill a volume. Such a task I do not intend to enter upon ; it is 

 enough to know of the existence of a putrescible liquid that must 

 — profitably or otherwise — be removed and disposed of : a duty 

 imperative on the part of the body politic. 



Methods of removal are mechanical, and belong to the domain 

 of the engineer ; methods of disposal are of another order, and 

 belong to the domain of biology and chemistry ■ so that biologist, 

 chemist, and engineer, join forces in attacking a problem, old as 

 when Tarquinius Priscus first sought to do the same for ancient 

 Rome twenty centuries back, when the famous Cloaca Maxima 

 discharged itself into the Tiber. Hitherto, what has been done? 



After great expenditure of time, energy and money, the latter 

 probably running into millions, men begin to ask how mankind 

 has borne with the evil in the past. The answer is, that water- 

 carried sewage was unknown in pre-Roman times, everything 

 being expeditiously returned to Mother Earth from whence it 

 came. With us moderns, the method of removal by water con- 

 siderably enchances the difficulty. With the idea of returning 

 excreta to the soil the sewage farm came into existence, but 

 experience has shown it to be a dismal failure, resulting in water- 

 logging and fouling land that could otherwise be turned to more 

 profitable uses. Now let us apply the method of fermentation to 

 ordinary sewage, what must happen ? In the case of sugary liquids, 

 we see the cells of Saccharomyces cerevisce break down the con- 

 stitution of sugar, yielding carbon dioxide and alcohol. What 



