SANITARY REFORM. 
117 
LITERARY NOTICE. 
Sanitary Reform and Agricultural Improvement. 
London : Pierce and Hyde, Strand. 
The above is the titular heading of a pamphlet written by 
C. F, Ellerman, Esq., in the form of a letter addressed to Lord 
Morpeth as Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests, on the 
very important subject of sewage, as connected with the health 
of towns and the improvement of agriculture. The author has 
already acquired for himself a reputation in the scientific world, 
as the inventor and patentee of a deodorizing fluid, which has 
been the subject of many curious experiments, and proved to 
possess all the qualifications of a thorough disinfectant. 
In the work before us, which is the first of three intended 
letters on the matter, Mr. Ellerman’s chief object is to show 
the practicability of preserving to the use of the agriculturist 
the most powerful manure he can employ, and at the same 
time effect an immense, and much to be desired improve¬ 
ment in the drainage of towns. By the best means now at 
command (and though deplorably defective, they are better than 
we have had to endure) the sewers of the great metropolis itself— 
an acknowledged source of much physical suffering to the 
multitudes, who, from their avocations, are obliged to breathe the 
pestiferous exhalations constantly proceeding therefrom—are yet 
but partially cleansed ; flushing, though it may carry off the 
lighter and more fluid accumulations, still leaves a sediment, that 
all the filthy process of stirring and stinking by which it is 
accompanied but imperfectly removes; and then, too, there is 
the sickening inquiry of what is done with the contents of these 
much-vaunted sewers; it is carried into the river, to be pumped 
up and returned to the inhabitants, to be used in all their culinary 
and cleaning operations, and to be drunk ! 
And this is the best result of an enormous annual expenditure ; 
the people of London pay a heavy tax to have the first necessaries 
of life, air and water, rendered positively poisonous, while, by 
their present system of sewage, they are wasting an enormous 
mass of the most valuable fertilizer known, that should, and 
certainly would, under judicious management, not only relieve 
them of their existing heavy outlay, but return a handsome yearly 
revenue, besides the indirect benefit arising from the increased 
