The Sun.
London, England, 1828-01-25 00:00:00

ported to perform as a duty. " The drains and
sewers," says Sir Gilbert Blane, who is high autho-
rity in these matters, " are now kept in a state of
cleanness never before known. The Commissioners
of Sewers not only permit the inhabitants, but ex-
hort them, to let all the soil and filth drop into the
drains, instead of accumulating it in cess-pools, to be
removed by the nightmen as formerly, to the infinite
annoyance of the senses."
The exhortation has not been unattended to. The
race of men last mentioned by Sir Gilbert are nearly
extinct—their " occupation's gone." And, this be-
ing the case, is it in the nature of things if the
enormous mass of pollution which was formerly
taken away in waggons, and distributed over the
land as manure, is now permitted to find its way
into the Thames, through the common sewers, that
the water taken up-near the mouth of these common
sewers can be otherwise than what professional men
have declared it to be—namely, " a filthy fluid,
leaded with decayed vegetable matter, and other sub-
stances equally deleterious to health, arid untit for
domestic purposes ?"
. _ .

5. Sir Gilbert Blanc, in his (Mutation on Com-
mon Sewers, observes, that those stupendous
works, the aoacce"—(his friend D.r. Reece, calls
them the anacinte)--" of ancient Rome, were ac-
counted one of the wonders of the world ;" and
.that " the excavations were so enormous, that a
waggon loaded with hay, could pass through them,
:end vessels sailed in them : the Cloaca Maxima
being formed by Tarquinius Superbus." That the
metropolis of Old England was not outdone in the
number, and in the size, of its common sewers, by
the metropolis of ancient Rome, I trust I shall be
able to show. The number of common sewers, on
the north side of the river Thames, between Chelsea
and the Tower of London, will, I believe, be found
to be nearly as follows. As the Commissioners, I
rtrust, will put the matter beyond doubt, by direct-
ing an accurate snrvey of the river to be taken, I
can be corrected, if I have inadvertently fallen into
error :

From Chelsea to Vauxhall-bridge l7
Vauxhall-bridge to Westminster-bridge 11
Westminster-bridge to Waterloo-bridge 30
Waterloo-bridge to Blackfriars-bridge lO
Blackfriars-bridge to Southwark-bridge 6
!Southwark-bridge to London-bri lge 7

To which may he added, 81
From Londoo-bridge to the Tower 7
the Tower to the river Lea lO
Southwark side of the river 4l

Total number 139
to say nothing of the refuse of colour, lead, gas, and
soap-works, drug-mills, and manufactories of various
descriptions.
Thus are there nearly 140 common sewers, daily
and nightly disgorging their horrid contents into the
Thames, in that very direction in which certain water
companies draw up the supply for half the inhabi-
tants of the metropolis. Sir Gilbert Blane boasts
of the Cloaca Maxima of ancient Rome, through
which a waggon, loaded with hay, might pass.
Why ! disguise the fact as we may, the whole river
Thames, from Chelsea to the TJwer, ;gore
nor less than one enormous common-sewer—the
Cloaca Maxima of London—containing the impuri-
ties of a million of human beings, and forming a
mass of filth, pollution, and putridity, in a state of
constant agitation to and fro, such as never before
-was, or could be, collected together in so small a
space. This is the undisguised state of the case ;
and, in a matter which concerns the public health,
it would he worse than affectation not to speak out.