The Press.
London, England, 1858-07-24 00:00:00

STATE MP THE FINANCES.

At the morning sitting, on the order for going into
committee upon the Consolidated Fund (Appropria-
tio 8.11,
Sir G. LEWIS called attention to details of figures,
with the view of showing, first, that the Chanoellor
of the Exchequer had erred in the calculations as
to the finances of the current year given in his
budget; and, secondly, that. the charge of lavish ex -
ptnditure brought against the late Government was
uniounded. Mr. Disraeli had estimated the revenue,
he said, at 03,900,0001., and the charges at 03,610,0001.,
leaving an apparent surplus of revenue amounting
to about 300,0001. It, appeared from the Appiopria•
tion Bill, however, that, instead of a surplus, as the
matter now stood there was an excess of estimated
charge over the estimated revenue, or a deficiency of
8415,0001., the total charge to be defrayed being, not
63,610,0001., but 64,145,000/. A further charge
might also be expected on account of the militia.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER observed that
estimates were at all times difficult end liable to
error, and no doubt there had been an excess of ex•
penditure beyond his estimate ; at the same time the
estimated revenue had considerably exceeded the
amount at which be had assumed it. From the
returns for the first quarter of the financial year—the
prospects of which were the most gloomy—it appeared
that there was a surplus of Income or 223,9441., ex-
tending to all the chief items, and in the eighteen
days of the present quarter, from the Ist to the 19th
of July, there was a surplus of revenue from the four
sources of Customs, Excise, Stamps, and Post-office
of no less than 304,0001. Although the house had
given to the Government a power to raise two millions,
they had availed themselves of that power to the
extent of 1,000,0001. only, and there was every hope
that they would not find it necessary to exceed this
amount.. There was no reason to anticipate the
necessity of any additional expenditure for the militia.
He thought he might congratulate the country upon
the state of our finances, and their highly favourable
prospects. T 1 ere were hopes of a good harvest, and
our foreign relations were in a far more satisfactory
state than a year or six months ago. Even the con.
dition of affairs in India, he hoped and believed, was
far more favourable than might have been expected.
The condition of the country altogether was therefore
one upon which he thought be might very fairly con-
gratulate the country, and so tar as its finances were
concerned they never were in a more healthy con-
dition than at. present.
After some observations by Mr. Wilson, Mr.
Hamilton, and Sir H. Willoughby, the house went
into committee upon the bill, and subsequentl), after
some discussion, upon the Metropolis Local Manage-
ment Act Amendment Bill, in which little progress
was made.

In the evening, in reply to a question by Mr.
ACME,

Lord J. MANNERS stated that there wa no ground
for the rumours that serious decay had taken place
in the foundation-stone of the house, and that nothing

had occurred in the least degree to affect the stability
of the structure.

c ''l 1 c I
..'.

In answer to questickts pat by Sir J. ELPHINSTONE,
Mr. S. FITZGERALD gave a detailed explanation of
the instructions given, and the measures taken, by the
British and the Turkish Governments in consequence
of the recent outrages at Jeddah.
Mr. WAI.POLE read the telegram, just received, of
intelligence from India and China.
The house went again into comirittee upon the
Metropolis Local Management Act Amendment Bill,
the clauses of which, with certain amendments and
the addition of new clauses, were agreed to after long
discussion.

The house then went into committee upon the
Judgments (Ireland) Act Amendment Bill, the clauses
of which were agreed to
.

The Militia Act Continuance Bill, the Militia (Ser.
vice Abroad) Act Continuance Bill, the Militia Pay
Bill, the Encumbered Estates (West Indies) Act
Amendment Bill, and the Draughts on Bankers
Law Arneildeilettl3lll likewise passed through coin.
mittee,

Other bills were forwarded a stage, and the house
adjourned at a quarter to two o'clock. •
711 rtt. 11

THE PURIFICATION OF THE THAMES.
THE following is the Report of the Select Com-
mittee on the River Thames :

Yonr committee, in accordance with their order of re-
ference, have proceeded to inquire into the merits of Mr.
Goldsworthy Gurney's plan for purifying the Thames, and
they have also considered some other suggestions having
the same object in view. They have examined, with
regard to these matters, many persons of great skill and
eminent in their professions as engineers and chemists ;
but the near approach of the termination of the session and
other reasons, which will be stated iu this revet. have pre-
•ented them from examining several other persons who
had suggestions to make upon the general subject, and in-
formation to give, which might doubtless be deserving of
attention.
The main object of Mr. Gurney's plan is to discharge all
the sewage of the metropolis into the water of the Thames
within the metropolis itself, and his plan is founded on the
assumption that the bad smells which are so much com-
plained of proceed from the decomposition of sewage
matter deposited on those parts of the bed of the rivelr
which are left uncovered by water during the ebb and eat y
flow of the tide. He is of opinion that this matter ferments
while in contact with atmospheric air and exposed to solar
beat, and that the fermentation thus begun continues after-
wards, when this matter is washed up by the rising water ;
but he thinks that if this matter could be discharged at
once into the stream it would not so fermeat, and would
be almost inoffensive.
In order to work nut this theory, Mr. Gurney proposes
that the bed of the river, commencing from an average or
mean line of the present wharfs and extending fur tidy yards
towards the low-water line, should be formed with a slope
of about 1 in 12, and covered with gravel. He reckons the{
on such a slope, so covered, no mud or sewage matter would
permanently lodge, and that whatever was deposited upon
such a sloping bank at hilt water would be swept down
into the permanent bed of the river by the receding title.
But in imme parts of the river the distmice between high
and law water marks is so greet that a slope of 1 inch in
12, beginning at the mean of the present wharf walls,
would, by the time it reached low-water mark, end at
point a good deal lower than the bed of the river there, and
to get rid of this difficulty, as well as to insure a stronger
current and a larger body of water at low-water mark to
carry sway the matter swept down from the slopes, he pro.
poses to form by dredging two channels, one on each side
of the river, and each of them following the line of the
present edge of the slopes. These channels he proposes
to make ninety feet wide and nine feet deep ; and his
notion is, that the sewage matter from each side, washed
into these channels, would be carried inoffensively down
the ri per, and that the force of the correct would keep these
channels clear.

Having thus, as he conceives, secured the bed of the
river between high and low water mark from any permit-
wont deposit from the water of the river, he proposes to
lengthen all the sewers that discharge into the river, and to
carry them on, so that their mouths should all be below
the low•water mark, so that everything coming down the
sewers should always be discharged into the watpr of the
titer. .
But by this arrangement the sewers would always be
water•locked, and the gases generated in the sewers, having
no escape at the mouths, would be more driven than at pre-
sent to find their way into the streets and houses. In order
to counteract this tendency, Mr. Gurney proposes that
furnaces should be erected in various parts of London over
some of the main sewers, and at suitable• places, and that
these furnaces should draw the bad gases out of the
goners, and by the process of combustion to alter their
chemical condition, so as to render them hitt-micas and in-
offensive.

Your committee cannot recommend the adoption of any
part of Mr. Gurney's plan.
Your committee consider it a mistake to suppose that
sewage matter does not disengage offensive and notions
gases when it is mixed with water. The contrary is proved
by the offensive smell of those sewers through which large
streams of water are constantly flowing, and by the offensive
smells which, during the present summer, have proceeded
from the water of the Thames at high title, at every part
from Putney downwards. Any plan, therefore, which has
for its object that all the sewage of London should, in the
state in which it comes down the sewers, be discharged
into the stream of the Thames, would tend to perpetuate
and not to remedy the evils which are so widely felt, and
so loudly complained of.

Some advantages might possibly be derived from slopir.
the bed of the river in the manner proposed by Ms (),,
ney, in places where the distance between high and low
water mark would admit of it, but such an operation taken
singly would not get rid of the great evil which we are now
considering.
With regard to the side channels which Mr. Gunter
proposes to make, it seems very doubtful whether UPI
would be kept open without frequent dredging, and whether
if kept open they would produce any beneficial effect cern.
meusurate with the expense of forming them and keeping
them open.
Your committee are therefore of opinion that those parts
of Mr. Gurney's plan which relate to the river are not cal.
enlisted to effect the purification of the Thames.
Your committee, however, thought it was desirable that
they should investigate that part of Mr. Gurney's plan
which relates to the burning of the gases in the sewers,
and the more so because that process has been practised
by Mr. Gurney with success in regard to sewers in the int.
mediate vicinity of the Rouses of Parliament.
But the inquiries made by your committee have eatisfied
them that this process, though it may be successful as to
sewers within a short distance of the furnace by which the
gases are to be burnt, could not be successfully applied t.)
the wide range of the metropolis. There are stint a vast
number of unavoidable openings in the immense ramifi-
cations of the sewers of the metropolis, and in the Mouse•
drains which communicate with those sewers, that the air
which would be drawn out from any part of a Brest sewer
over which a furnace might be erected, would be replaced,
not by the offensive gases in the whole network of sewers
and drains communicating with the sewer over which the
furnace was placed, but in a great degree by atmospheric
air rushing down through openings near to the furnace,
and thus the gases in the further parts of the sewers 41)41
house drains would remain unaffected by the action of the
furnace.

This furnace system, therefore, even with the improve-
ments made by Mr. Gurney, though possibly very efficacious
for a particular and limited area, could not be relied mama
for the general ventilation and purification of the sewers
of the metropolis at large.
Your committee have taken much valuable and in.
teresting evidence upon the deodorization of sewage. It
appears to be easy to aeoarate the more solid from the
liquid parts of the sewage, and to deprive both of all
offensive stuelL By an infusion of lime into sewage the
solid matter is rapid:y precipitated, and the water thtt is
left above the precipitate is cleared of all the matter which
is held in suspension, retaining only some salts, which it
holds in solution.

If the sewage of London could be so treated, and the
solid precipitate could be got rid of in a satisfactory man-
ner, the liquid might be discharged into the Thames with-
out injury or inconvenience, provided that no nuisance
arose during the process of deodoriz.ition.
This system is now adopted at Liecester, and, in u far
as it is a sanitary arrangement, with complete success. The
town is freed from all offensive matter, and the liquid
which is discharged intd the river does not pollute the water
of the streams. "" I

Experience has not Yet determined in what degree the
precipitate can be made useful as manure fur agricultural
purposes.
Several persons capable of giving valuable information
on this subject have offered to be examined by your com-
mittee, but your committee have not deemed it expedient
to prolong their inquiries on this branch of the subject.
In the first place, they have felt it their duty, consider-
ing how near the session is to its close, not to delay longer
their report upon the main subject. referred to them by the
house—namely, Mr. Gurney's plan ; and in the next place,
they conceive that the decision as to the expediency of ap-
plying a system of deodorization advantageously to the
sewage of the metropolis belongs rather to the functions of
the Metropolitan Board of %Yorks than to those of a com-
mittee of the House of Commons, and the Metropolitan
Board of %Yorks have ample means of making all necessary
inquiries on that subject without the assistance of a corn-
miitee of the 1-louse of Commons.
Your committee have to observe that some of the
eminent engineers who have been examined express an
opinion in favour of embanking the •Thames for the pur-
pose of increasing the scour of the stream and preventing
the accumulation of mad.

in ounclueion, your committee beg leave to state their
decided opinion that no plan ought to be adopted in regard
to the sewage or the metropolis that does not provide for
one of two thinga—either that the sewage shall be carried
down to some point in the river sufficiently far from the
metropolis to prevent the sewage from being brought back
in an offensive state by the flowing tide, or else that the
sewage shall be deodorized, and that only the puritizd liquid
part of it shall be discharged into the river.
The whole subject is one of great and of growing public
importance. The metropolis is extending in all directions,
and in every part of its circumference. Esery year fresh
masses of buildings are springing up, whose drains are dis-
charging into the Thames, and streets that had only cess-
pools are furnished with house-drains, leading into the
general network of sewers; thus every year the quantity
of sewage-discharge into the Thames goes on increasing.
On the other hand, year by year the quantity of water in
the bed of the river, by which this increasing quantity of
sewage is to be diluted, progressively diminishes . A large
portion of the water which is supplied to the metropolis is
taken from the Thames above Teddington-lock, and with
the yearly increase of the metropolis, and the improving
habits of its population, the consumption of this water in-
creases, and a larger portion of the diluting current Is
withdrawn from the down stream of the ricer.

An extensive and abundant supply of pure water, and
the general substitution of huuse•draina for cesspools, are
immense improvements in the arrangements of the metro•
polls, and contribute most essentially to the comfort aud
health of its inhabitants. ltut these salutary arrangements