On Drainage and Sewerage of Towns. 871 
magnitude, the benefit from which will be felt for centuries. 
The money required should therefore be raised by way of 
loan, the interest of which, together with a sinking fund, 
by which the whole debt would be paid off in, say fifty years, 
would be charged upon the three parties before alluded to. 
When, however, we come to consider the share of the 
burthen which each party is to bear, we find that the owner 
of property, though called upon in the first instance to exe- 
cute the work of draining his estate, manages very soon to 
relieve himself of any pressure on that account by charging 
it upon the occupier in the shape of rent. And thus, in 
practice, the cost of that portion of the work which is more 
particularly public will have to be defrayed by the inhabitants 
of the town, represented by the Corporation, and the general 
community, represented by the Legislative Council. 
The share of the expense which will fall on the inhabi- 
tants will take the shape of a rate levied by the Corporation, 
while the general revenue will be charged with a certain 
annual payment representing the interest of the colony at 
large in the undertaking. 
When it is considered that the inhabitants of the town 
contribute to the general revenue in full proportion to their 
numbers, perhaps the whole cost of a general system of 
drainage might be divided into two equal portions, one of 
which should be paid out of local funds, the other “out of the 
general revenue. 
This, however, would be one of the matters which must 
come before the Legislature whenever the details of an enact- 
ment for providing for the systematic drainage of either 
Hobart Town or Launceston are under consideration; and it 
is to be hoped that the importance of the subject to the 
physical and moral well-being of the community will, ere 
long ensure the introduction of a measure conferring upon 
