Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1860-07-18

Our city is about to go into an extensive
and costly system Of Sewerage, andat a time
too whan tho people are lily prepared TO
meet the necessarily increased taxation--a
taxation already so oppressive as to amount
10 handsome rentage on much Of the real
estate. In portions of the city sewerage is
necessary and in all desirable, but Cleveland
has managed to get along very well in the
past without the great underground drain
age we are now to go mainly in debt for,
and enjoys the reputation at home and
abroad of being one Of TIE most cleanly,
comfortable, pleasant, beautiful, and healthy
cities on the continent. Few cities have
such natural advantages of drainage by way
Of site and soil, and have so little need OF
incurring heavy taxation and debt for grad
ing and underground sewers. Still, and
without much consideration Of the subject
we think, the people voted almost unani-
mously for sewerage when the question was
submitted to the popular vote some time ago,
and the City Fathers are now taking steps to
carry out the plan, ne matter at what cost or
how hard the increased burdens may fall on
the middle class and small real estate owners,
many Of whom find their employment and
means so circumscribed by the general de-
preston Of business, that even now they are
about crushed out of house and home by
municipal taxation. If the City Fathers
would but drive round Cleveland and note
the unusual number Of vacant tenements, we
think they would hesitate in the immediate
prosecution of not indispensably necessary
city improvement of the magnitude and cost
of general underground sewerage. Cleve-
land is a city Of magnificent distances" and
the proposed drainage would be sufficient fol
a compact town of two hundred thousand in
habitants. We can better afford to wait
than 20 deeper in debt under present pros.
poets for the future.
Cincinnati, with its two hundred thousand
people, prosperous manufactures and vas
commerce, is but just entering upon 8 system
of city drainage and sewerage. The subiee
there is regarded of so much Importance, tina
a voluntary commission recently visited tn
cities east, for the purpose OF obtaining sew
erage facts for the benefit of Cincinnati
Their report has been published. They fin'
the best system existing in Philadelphia an
in Brooklyn, in the former of which there ar
three hundred miles of underground drain
age, arranged to meet present wants and fu
ture exigencies. The system which the ez
perience Of Europe has demonstrated as tn
best, brick sewers for the mains, and glaze
stone ware pipes for the lateral drains, is Ii
one now gradually being introduced BY th
Chief Engineer of the city Of PHILADELPHIA
In New York there are four hundred an
ninety miles of sewerage laid, but not accOr'
ing to any well arranged system. Sewel
are built as petitioned for, and the authoritit
having charge of this branch of improYemeI
adapt them as best they can to the WORK
heretofore built. They are generally lai
throughout the city, however, but the sewei
age is not as complete as that OF Philadelphi
and Brooklyn. In Brooklyn the city autho
] tiles have adopted a complete system of III
derground drainage, calculated for all extel
sions which the growth of the city viii d
mand. This system is the result of the con
: bined experience of several of the most a
} complished engineers of the cities Of Ne
York and BrooklEp aided hX the eyperiepi
I Of the Philadelphia and Brooklyn systems
the best do not recommend, as yet, any sp
cial plan for Cincinnati f