8o 
On Sanitary Reform. 
[February, 
Why should a manufacturer suffer penalties for discharging 
noxious gases in a town when the local authority is suffered, 
wit impunity, to ventilate senselessly-construdted sewers 
y opening, in fiont of our parlour-windows, apertures for 
the exit oi a poisonous gas much more evil in its effects 
than the hydrosulphur fumes which chemists delight in. A 
case is before the writer at present, in a town (let us call it 
Blackhaven) where several of such wretched ventilators 
discharge their disgusting effluvia right in front of a terrace 
of houses, which become a.t times, in consequence, hardly 
1 a itable. To add to the indecency, a large school pours 
forth its crowd of children close to the place, and nothing 
de lghts them more than to carry on their games right over 
these pernicious and abortive devices. 
It would appear to an ordinary mind that the raison d'etre 
for a sewer is that it shall remove far away those dangerous 
results of organic life which, strictly speaking, it is the office 
of earth to neutralise ; but if you discharge excreta into a 
drain, and then ventilate that drain by letting off the gas 
generated within it right among a crowd of human beings, 
you commit an absurd aftion, and are likely to receive, as a 
recompense, your labour for your pains. And here it may 
be right to enquire, in the name of mechanical science, if it 
is a thing impossible so to trap the outside pipes that a 
method of driving out the gas maybe applied; and also 
whethei a little more design cannot be exercised as to the 
position of the outlet pipes and the elevation at which they 
operate ? We are accustomed to be told by engineers, con- 
cerning almost every variety of mechanical blundering in 
sanitary matters, that there is no want of power on the part 
of Science to apply a remedy ; it is only a financial question. 
There is doubtless much truth in this remark. And we mav 
a ! a 2 ta £e note how much the conditions of human life are 
affedted by the ideas of “ what ought to be done ” possessed 
by those in power ; in other words, by the charadter of their 
mora 1 and physical standards. This is a fadt which may be 
realised in its physical bearing with regard to what we term 
dirt, by an examination of the various aspects of sca- 
venging presented in our different towns. Clearly either 
the local regulations must vary vastly, or the ideals of purity 
possessed by local magnates must be almost as wide as the 
poles asunder. Thus we often hear that such a place is a 
c ean. i e own, another a “ filthy hole.” This diffei •en- 
tiation in the matter of dirt may be witnessed by comparing 
the better class of towns in the South of England with 
those, for instance, which lie on the Cumberland coast. 
