The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-01-22
From the Pickeas Sentinel.
Dr0inape Apain.

From the P;ckens Sentinel.
Drainage Again.
MEssRs EDITORS: As you profess to be en-
tirely favorable to the objects of the fir ends OF
general Drainage Law, permit me to correct
serious misapprehension which yol have
fallen into, in reference to the plan p opposed
by the Drainage meeting held at Picke Is. II
you will re-peruse the proceedings of tia
meeting you will find that it is expressly stated
that the drainage of the lands of the petition
tioners is to be done at their expense but in
certain contingencies, the aid of the County is
solicited, not by way of increased taxation, but
by issuing County bonds, redeemable in five or
eight years. by a tax on the lands to be re-
claimed. The first great contingency, and the
greatest difficulty to be overcome in the drain
age of bottom lands, is the numerous mill dams
thrown across our streams as artificial obstruc-
tions. And here is the first great defect in the
old law, and the existence of which has rem
dered it practically dead letter on the statute
book. The fact that said law has stood on our
statute book for the last eighteen years, and
that the evils it proposed to remedy are greater
now than at any previous time in our history,
is orima facia evidence that the old law is rad
ically defective. To meet this contingency, the
meeting at Pickens proposed that Board of
Health, consisting of two physicians with the
county commissioners, should be organized in
each county, who should be specially charged
with the great public duty of drainage, as
necessary sanitary and agricultural reform, and
they should abate said Instructions, either by
requiring food-gate in each dam, or, if upon
scientific survey, the entire removal of said
dam should be deemed necessary, then rea-
sonable compensation should be assessed the
owner of said property, which assessment
should be provided for by the issuing of county
bonds as aforesaid. Where is the injustice of
such a proceeding? Is not the county deeply
interested in this great subject of drainage,
both as to health and agricultural development?
And is not the public partly responsible for the
present disastrous condition of things, by rea-
son of tie arbitrary construction Of the COM
mon law, giving one man, practically, the right
to confscate the lands of all his neighbors to
his own private uses, and in so doing to scatter
the seeds of disease and death throughout
whole communities? And is it not right and
just, in such contingency, to afford the aid
required by the county, which can be so easily
done without adding materially to the burdens
of taxation? Another contingency is this, and
ure of all the attempts hitherto at drainage
under the old law. The cupidity and obstina-
cy of persons, some of whom may be- found in
every community, who absolutely refuse to pay
a dime of the expense, though they may re-
ceive corresponding benefit with their ne igh-
bors, in any general system of drainage We
need the aid of the county authorities in all
such cases, to force just compliance with the
requirements Of a sound public policy, through
the power of taxation. In this way only, it
seems to US, can this difficulty be overcome. If
the subject of drainage is OF sufficient impor-
lance, as means of sanitary and agricultural
improvement, to justify public endorsement,
then the necessary powers to carry it out fol-
lows as natural consequence. lake an illus
tration: A ship sails from Havana or New
Orleans, laden with a valuable cargo, for the
port of Charleston. The telegraph wires flash
the intelligence that the yellow fever has
broken out in those cities, and as the vessel ar
rives off the bar at Charleston, she is halted
and subjected to quarantine, at heavy expense
to the owners of vessel and cargo. And if the
faint of disease is found among her passengers
or in her cargo, she will be absolutely forbidden
to land at all. Very arbitrary, you would say,
and yet very necessary for the public good. A
man erects business house in your town, and
it soon becomes obnoxious and offensive to the
public he will be arbitrarily required to abate
said nuisance at his own expense. In regard
to drainage the same rule will hold good, though
in modified form. These unJrained bottom
lands have become, in numerous cases, noxious
sources of malaria, causing serious injury to
the pubic health, and especially is this no.
ticeable fact in the neighborhood of mill dams.
Becoming detrimental to the public health,
these dams should be abated-and we know of
no better plartSthan the one proposed. In
many cases the food-gates may answer every
ofh &c
sluggish, and vast bodies of bottom lands are
thus in jured by said Instructions, it may be
necessary to remove them entirely.
One other remark, and shall conclude.
The argument that because said bottom lands
would be increased in value by drainage, that
therefore, as a matter of justice, the owners of
said lands should bear the whole expense, is
shorn of all its force when it is remembered
that this increased value is merely the rightful
restoration to the land owner of an original
valuation, which has been wrested from him
by the operation of an effete public custom.
Even as late as fifteen years ago, many of these
lands were yielding fine crops of corn, but are
now utterly worthless for the purposes of cul-
tivation, for want of drainage caused by mill
DAMS The special obligations which the land
owner is under in such cases are very near akin
to that of the unfortunate traveller who is ar
rested on the highway by the robber, who de-
mands his life or his money. Of course, his
money is given for his life. But here the simile
fails. After the land owners had given up their
valuable lands to the Unsuitable demands of this
Moloch, then the insuferable demand is super
added, "Give me your life' This is the feath-
er that breaks the camePs back.
Respectfully,
THOS. II. RUSSELL