SANITARY SCIENCE IN RURAL DISTRICTS. 
251 
exposed surfaces by heat, currents are set up, governed by the 
peculiar laws of molecular attractions. 
Cesspools being wrong in principle, however much their con- 
struction may be improved or supervised, can never be a proper 
solution of this difficult question. 
Dr. Guy, at a deputation from the Social Science Congress, 
which waited on Mr. Sclater Booth, said that the most im- 
portant step to take would be to render it a positive misdemeanour 
for any person to construct cesspools of the ordinary kind anywhere 
in rural districts. What ought to be affirmed is, that a district 
dependent on wells (percolation) for its water supply ought on no 
account to use cesspools as a means of disposing of its sewage, and, 
vice versa, that where cesspools exist, an imported water supply 
is a necessity. 
The man who would sink a cesspit ten yards from a well, takes 
a very great liberty with the lives of those about him. This is 
eminently one of those questions on which the public require a 
security against rash and unprincipled, or most likely thoughtless, 
persons establishing a permanent source of disease. On the other 
hand, I think it is possible to go too far in the prohibitive 
direction. To make it a positive misdemeanour, with Dr. Guy, 
for any person to construct cesspools of the ordinary kind any- 
iohere in rural districts would be not only unjust but absurd, and 
if enforced would lead to more offensive, and it is to be hoped more 
ingenious, devices than cesspools of the ordinary kind, safely 
beyond the scope of such a law. 
This question of cesspools is continually cropping up, especially 
in suburban districts, where the houses as a rule have a large pro- 
portion of ground. Such districts generally are in communication 
with a " water supply" but not with a system of sewers. Water- 
mains ramify quicker than sewers, for the simple reason that 
sewage first presses itself on our attention through the water we 
use, and after a water supply is obtained it is generally several 
years before it presents itself again in any observable form. 
To sum up. In rural districts supervision ought to be exercised 
over even isolated houses as to the disposal of sewage, especially as 
to whether cesspools are admissible or not. As a village developes 
a supply of water ought to come before a system of sewers, and in 
not a few cases — depending of course on the nature of the soil — ■ 
the introduction of a water supply will solve the difficulty in all 
