The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-09-04
saui,ury Science IN City Sewerage.

A city with populati lon like ours requires
all the appliances of anjtary science which
the experience of other great capitals or the
skill of those who have made it a study can
afford u.s. That our ps culiar location between
two rivers, with gr ade from the centre or
backbone of the city to each of these water
highways, having a regular tidal flow, affords
opportunity for system of drainage is an
additional reason Thy the metropolis should be
purified If proP r method were adopted-why
pestilence should cease to be created in the
cutters and evf lived from the rivers at low
tide, or driven back through the sewers into
the residences of our citizens on the wings Of
deadly odors, according as the wind blows from
the west or he east. This is really the condi-
ton OF thr lgs under our present system Of
sewerage. The filth of the city is only conducted
into Their yer to accumulate around the mouths
OF the se' wers and return again in the new and
pot less dangerous form of poisonous miasma.
This KIN I'd of plague reduced the sanitary con-
dition" of London to 80 bad state some few
years ago that all the portions of the city in
the v lcinity of the Thames became almost I'M
tnha oitable. But the evil was remedied by
adoI ,ting plan, not very expensive nor diff
Gull of construction, which General Vele pro-
poi led in report published some time since in
on columns to carry out in this city. 1t is
~ )thing more than to build low lying sewers
a long the water front, which could be made
freceptacles for the deposits of the lateral sew
ers and the contents be conveyed from thence
at ebb tide on fat boats or barges away from
the city and put to useful purposes on neigh
boring farms, instead of flowing, as they
now do, into the rivers and creating pest
hole at every wharf Any one who has crossed
the ferries on the North and East rivers at
low water must have had very keen sense of
this abomination, induced by the very keen
Scent stirred up by the ferryboats. During
heavy rains or strong winds the residents of
the level portions of the city are similarly
favored in their dwellings.
when we consider that there are twelve
thousand acres Of ground embraced within the
area of this city, representing hundred and
fifty thousand building lots of which, accord
ing to careful survey and calculation, thirty
thousand lots are really not fit for human occu-
patton, by reason of the water underlying the
soil, filing the cellars and giving birth to
sickly miasma, the necessity of better sys-
tenn of drainage and sewerage as sanitary
measure becomes gravely apparent The
sewers as now constructed do not relieve
the city of this under surface water because
they are not laid low enough to receive it. 1t
Is evident, then, that if we are to have a per-
feet system of drainage which will rid us of
the causes of disease 30 prevalent in tene-
ment houses and overpopulated districts, as
the records Of the Board of Health SO pain
fully remind u.s. we must adopt some such
system as that which has been suggested, and
which has proved remarkably successful in
London and Paris and other cities of Europe.
When the facility with which the disgu sting
absurdity of emptying the refuse of great
city at its very water gates, to stagnate and
pollnte the atmosphere, can be remeded, as
shown by General Vele's plan, it is matter eff
wonder that the evil has been allowed to exist
80 long. 1t becomes matter of paramount
necessity that our whole system of sewerage
should be remodelled, in view of an increasing
population and heavy bills of mortality, and it
is pretty evident that the work of reconsfruc-
ton must begin by adopting some method
whereby the accumulated filth of the sewers
shall be disgorged into some other reservoir
than the rivers that surround our dwellings
and places of business.
The Irish Church.