The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1878-11-14
VOL. VIII.
HOW THE OLD MOSSEsNCKS
AND OTHERS ARE IN TERESrAD
IN IT.

AND OTHERS ARE IN rERESrAD
INIT.
An Old cistern digger-evcrybody
drnks cistcrn or rain water IN this
town-has been telling the people mauy
homely, practical facts through his
local newspaper. He writes in one OF
his simple letters that lie has often
''cleaned out cisterns. the water hay
ing an unaccountable strange taste"
lie has even seen the water in cIsterns,
constantly used, strangely discolored.
After much trouble, he has discovered
that the discoloratlon and peculiar
oSo. and Taste OF the water came from
foul vault more than 100 yards away.
Water IN the smallest currents perco-
lates through the soil and dilIuses its
poisons everywhere. We advert to
these facts that the good peop:e of
Austin may beware of what they
drink. at least while the foulest sinks
of impuiiiy crown Capitol hill.
But this sort of information begins
TO have practical value never known
before. A learned writer for the
1mericdR Re0iei0 states that ''the
healthfulness of a city or village is at
last deemed a perfect assurance of
prosperity" Wealth, fashion, taste, il
telligcnce and good morals will always
be collected in town or city where
perfect sewage, as in the richest and
fashionable districts of New York and
London, always gives perfect salubrity.
In truth, the heaithfulness of cities OF
modern times, in "civihzed countries"
so wisely are laws Of hygiene executed,
so perfect are systems of sewage and
modes of preventing the circulation
of gases through drainage pipes con-
Meeting with sewers, that the air breath
cd by denizens of Fifth Avenue is per
fectly pure, and the health of that
densely populated thoroughfarc Is bet
ter than that of Austin. We have a
city honey-cOmLed with sinks. We
have an ordinance compelling people |
to deposit all filth and foul water in
great sinks or vaults. VIC have a law |
which makes citizen fill one sink or
vault, cover it with earth and dig an
other beside it till the whole city's sur
face, like that of Memphis, is paved
with foulest excrotions and full of
poison, absorbed and left by water that
evaporates. Each year our condition
grows rapidly worse, and there
are narrow districts of Austin along
Pecan street and the Avenue that
would delight the spores supposed by
many TO constitute yellow fever. With
all these vaults and succession of vaults
the health officer of Memphis, within
the month before the plague defied
impotent quarantine, declared in an
official paper chat the hygiene condi-
ton of the city was perfect, and that
there was no danger.
Health is becoming fine art. Doc
tors most skilled IN curing disease of
ten know little or nothing of "sani-
tary engineering" which becomes a
distinct profession. But doctors gen.
orally deem 1t their duty to speak orac-
ularly and confidently of this ''ine
art" They know no more of it, in
many instances, than of painting,
sculpture, architecture or law. Many
books have been written on the
subject, and the first scholars and
engineers of Paris and London
devote their lives to its study, and
yet the life.l long experience of the mod
ern cistern digger, who says in his let
ter, quoted, that not another pit
or vault should be dug, and that those
that exist should be drained and that
an earthen pipe should cross each lot,
removing all feculent matter, has solved
the question of municipal health. The
process costs less than patent pumps to
befoul the air, and wagons hauling
rottenness at night about the streets.
Once perfected, the simple machinery
endures forever, and people from every
diseased district of the Union would
seek homes in this beautiful and
salubrious capitol. But the fight
has ended. The fever's fright
full pulse-beats are stilled in
death, and we are content to
await the coming of the plague
next summer when the winged death
in its Northern flight may come from
Mexico into Texas and follow the
coast instead of the course of the Mis-
sissippi. Then dispicable terror and
local selfshness will crawl in behind
impotent quarantine and while, after
each summers rain, foul food for
deadly spores rises in hot exhalations
from each old vault used or unused,
guardians of public health will de-
clare, when open cutters are clean and
back yards and cisterns are reeking
with filth, that the sanitary condition
of each town is perfect. God help us.