the contrary that the waters in the neighborhood are good to 
drink and the vegetables there raised are of choicest quality. 
London was plagued with a dirty Thames up to within a 
very few years; and the problem seemed insurmountable; but by 
patiently studying the subject and eliminating politics, the sewage 
of London is now treated in a manner that permits it to be passed 
off at Barking without offensive odor or injury to the fish. In 
addition to this London and many other towns of England main¬ 
tain farms where some, if not all, of the sewage is turned back to 
the soil where it belongs. But London has by no means the nat¬ 
ural facilities enjoyed by New York, for hers is a relatively damp 
climate and there is but little sandy soil at convenient distance. 
The Thames is now clean below London Bridge, and as for the 
water up-stream it is maintained as a National Park, as should 
be the whole watershed of the Hudson. 
Paris has also latterly been compelled by considerations of 
public health to rigidly watch all streams leading into the upper 
Seine and other sources of drinking-water; and as for her sewage 
she also has farmlands which she irrigates in this economical 
manner, and the eminent Colonel George E. Waring, the first 
who ever cleaned New York streets, drank of the water in the 
Paris irrigating ditches and pronounced it good. 
In short, without wearying the reader with details, let us 
take to heart the broad and mortifying fact that New York stands 
alone of great civilized centers in the extent to which she per¬ 
mits her waters to be polluted. Our law to-day forbids New 
York from pouring raw sewage into the harbor, but that law is a 
dead letter. The law also forbids the so-called Great Trunk 
Sewer which to-day proposes to still further filthen our harbor by 
pouring out under Robin’s Reef Light the accumulations all the 
way from Paterson through Newark and the Oranges! It makes 
the nose ache to think of it! 
THE WAY OUT 
Let our engineers then condemn for public purposes the 
sandy soil that they need around New York and proceed to lay 
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