The Portland daily press., 1862-11-29

WASTE OF CTTIEs.-Pars throws five mill
ions year into the sea. And this without
metaphor. How, and in what manner day and
night? With what thought? without thinking
of it. For what return? for nothing. BY
means of its intestine its sewer.
Five millions is the most moderate of the
approximate figures which the estimates of
special science give.
Science, after long experiment, now knows
that the most fertilizing and the most effective
of manures is that of man. The Chinese, we
must.say to our shame, knew it before us. No
Chinese peasant, Eckerberg tells us, goes to
the city without carrying back, at the two ends
of his bamboo, two buckets full of what we
call filth. Thanks to human fertilization, the
earth in China is still as young as i'm the days
of Abraham. Chinese wheat yields hundred
and twenty fold. There is no guano compare
ble in fertility to the detritus of a capital. A
great city is the most powerful of stercoraries.
To employ the city to enrich the plain would
be sure success. If our gold is filth, on the
other hand, our filth is gold.
What is done with this filth, gold? 1t is
swept into the abyss.
We fit out conveys of ships, at great ex-
pense, to gather up at the south pole the drop
pings of petrels and penguins, and the incal-
culable element of wealth which we have un-
der our own hand, we send to the sea- All the
human and animal manure which the world
loses, restored TO the land instead of being
thrown into the water, would suffice TO nour-
ish the world.
These heaps of garbage at the corners of the
stone blocks, these tumbrils of mire jolting
through the streets at night, these horrible
scavingers' carts, these fetid streams of SUBJ
terranean slime which the pavement hides from
you, do you know what all this is? 1t is the
Towering meadow, it is the green grass, it is
the majoram and thyme and sage, it is game,
1t is cattle, it is the satisfied low of huge oxen
at evening, it is perfumed hay, it is golden
corn, it is bread on your table, it is warm blood
in your veins it is health, it is joy, it is life.
Thus wills that mysterious creation which
is transformation upon earth and transfgura-
ton in heaven.
Put that into the great crucible; your abun-
dance shall spring from it. The nutrition of
the plains makes the nourishment of men.
You have the power to throw away this
wealth, and to think me ridiculous into the
bargain. That will cap the climax of your ig
norance.
Statistics show that France alone makes
liquidation of hundred millions every year
into the Atlantic from the mouths of her riv-
ers. Mark this; with that hundred millions
you might pay quarter of the expense of
the government. The cleverness of man is
such that he prefers TO throw this hundred
millions into the gutter. 1t is the very sub
stance of the people which is carried away,
here drop by drop, there in floods, by the
wrctched vomiting of our sewers into the riv-
ers, and the gigantic collection Of our rivers
into the ocean. Each hiccough of our cloaca
costs us a thousand francs. From these two
results: the land impoverished and the water
infected Hunger rising from the furrow and
disease rising from the river.
1t Is notorious for instance. that at this hour,
the Thames is poisoning London.- Victor
Hugo.