The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1878-03-05
Miscellaneous,

SlO,7s6 e6
sum assesseu on AUDITORS, 4,783 9S
Total expenditures, sl55sO GA
General appropriation, $4,000
Appropriation for health, $500
Appropriation damages for storm, 5000
sl5,5OO
Sewers have been repaired in Emery, Paris,
Clark, State, Maple, West Commercial.
Myrtle, Hampshire, Washington and Frank
lin streets. Several of these were burst by
the storms of the 9th and 10th of August.
Seven new culverts have been built and pro-
vided with catch. basins and stench-traps; 20
old ones rebuilt; 10 old ones repaired; II
new eaten basins with manholes built; and q
number OF pools cleaned. There are 526
culverts IN the city of which 29S have cess
pools, and traps, and 228 are untrapped.
These are faithfully cleaned frequently.
Under the head of "Sewer Outlets and
Sanitary Conditions" Mr.. Goodwin furnishes
an exhaustive paper on the Mill Pond
nuisance. He says small open drains have
been employed with success, and a man was
engaged on patrol duty, shovel in hand. from
Anderson to Paris streets, to remove causes
of otfense. The first day he buried four dead
dogs, three cats, and two hens, and not day
has passed since, without like work to per.
form, up to November 11th. These drains
should be cleared, after every storm until
June LIST, and then daily until October. Dur
ing the last clearing, two dead hogs, three
dogs, two cats, and load of slaughter offal
were buried. The shore is made place of
deposit for offensive garbage, the city
ordinances notwithstanding. 1t may also be
safe to say that the liberation of vile
efhuvlum from private vaults, carted across
the city IN leaky carts, and depositing the
same IN close proximity to, if not within the
city limits, has done more harm the past sea-
son than Back Cove. One of our most
notable stenches of last season, which was
as potent on Danforth as on Lincoln street,
and made historical by the city papers of
that date, and ascribed to Back Cove
was met on Portland Bridge, on its
way to Cape Elizabeth. in leaky cart. Be-
tween Sept. Ist and 18th, the time of the
greatest complaint, q such cases of vault
cleaning occurred, and from Jan. l, 1877 to
Jan. !, 1873, $50 vaults were cleaned in Port
land. No such cleaning should be allowed
between March and December. The expensive
appliances designed for sewers are unneces-
sary, and do not always work, and more will
be accomplished on private premises, the
sewer service pipe is connected with venti-
lating Hue. The mill-pond west of Green
street, is the most Objectionable locality. AS
permanent system of sewage between Brat
tie and Anderson streets, on the shore of the
Cove understanding that capacious sewer
will be eventually built in the Marginal Way,
from the mill pond outlet, to an outlet in
deep water below Tukey's Bridge-a
sewer may be laid from Kennebec
to Wilmot streets, interrupting the
sewers through those streets to an
outlet at point outside Goulds wharf,
channel, $50 feet long by % wide, to be dug
northeasterly to point in the channel, which
leads to the dock, having feet of water at
low tide. Another section should run from
Anderson, through Lincoln and Franklin
streets, and passage way, to the Wilmot
street outlet. The sewer should increase in
size at each intersecting street, attaining an
area of 40 square feet at the outlet. 1t is
doubtful whether SO large an expenditure is
advisable, when the last seasons plan worked
SO well. The sewage filth can be better re-
moved from the front harbor wharves and
docks by frequent dredging, and at less ex-
pense, than by building an intercepting sewer
on Commercial street.
REPORT OF THE CITY PHYSICIAN.
DR.. E. W. Brooks, the efficient City Pbysi-
clan, has submitted his annual report, from
which we take the following ABSTRACT AT the
beginning of the year there were "a patients
in the Greedy Hospital and since then 100
have been admitted, making the total number
under treatment during the year 1874. Of this
number SO have been discharged well or i'm
proved, and Is have died. There are now %
persons in the hospital. Seven children have
been born aud the physician has visited the
hospital 407 times, and has prescribed for $40
patients outside of the hospital walls Miss
Kate Stewart has charge of the women's ward
and Robert Pennell the mems.
A very large number of the poor in the city
have been visited by the physician under in
structions from the Ogerseers Of the Poor; 1887
professonalvisits have been made to such. City
patients who have been prescribed for at the
office of the physician are not included in the
list There have been no patients in the past
house the past year.
DR.. Brooks renews his recommend atoms of
last year that physicians be required to report
the causes of deaths aud cases of Infections or
contagious diseases occurring ia the city; and
that the City Physician and Superintendent of
Sewers be made members of the health board.