Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-08-08

What Shall BE Done?
EDITOR LEDGER-I have an article
in the Appeal of the 9TH upon the sub
ject, What Shall Be Done for Mem
phisY' and, by your permission, will
present through your columns some
other thoughts, in order to keep the
subject before our people.
If those who are always absent dur
ing these fearful plaques could only
bring themselves to realization, how
changed their feelings would be.
Were they here to grapple personally
with the fell monster" they would
manifest infinitely more interest in
ascertaining what must be done to save
our city from disgrace and impending
destruction.
Our owners Of real estate and our
merchants would not be so callous
upon this subject if they possessed any
purposes of any value thereupon.
They seem to go on from year to year
hoping against hope" not looking
the real facts in the face, and not ma
turing anything for our deliverance.
Do they estimate what effect these
successive plaques have upon real
estate values? How much will the
merchants of this city sacrifice by
these two consecutive epidemics The
sum is so large that none will venture
to affirm it, from very dread to con-
template it. 1t is indeed sad that a
city so finely located for commerce,
naturally so we'll drained, having such
a pleasant climate, situated upon all
the highways of the world, should by
those the most interested in her be so
grossly neglected. By proper atten-
tion to the laws of health and COM
merce, Memphis might be made one
of the most prosperous and healthful,
and may add beautiful, cities of the
United States.
| am persuaded that it is not neces-
sary in order to all this that a large
amount of money should be expended.
Let every family and owner of
dwelling, store, office, hut, be re-
quired by law, having a sufficient PEN
atty, to be summarily executed, to
clean out their water closets thor
oughly, and to fill them with fresh
earth, and that in the place of these
earth closets shall be obtained. Then
let there be provided, by the public
purse, wagons, or carts, which shall
every day remove the deposits and
cast them into the channel of the Mis-
sissippi river below the city. Let the
law refer to every privy on the bayou
and wherever found, and let one or
more faithful and true officers be en-
ployed by the city to see the law rig
idly enforced, and | venture the
opinion that we shall have uninter-
rupted health in the now afflicted city
of Memphis.
Without the canal suggested, to
give us running water through the
bayou, and manufacturing facilities
that might be secured by it, I can but
believe that the fearful epidemics we
have and are suffering would cease.
But, really, we must have for all
our population pure drinking and
cooking water. 1t is incidentally
better to have good pnblic water than
to trust to cisterns and such as we
now have.
Let our waters be analyzed by com
petent chemists, known to be such,
and men of good moral character, and
let us select the finest we can com
mand, whether we bring it twelve
miles or get it from the Mississippi
river
Now, my respected editors, most of
this, if not all of it, with the least pos
sible delay, must be done; and it
strikes me that all our city editors
should insist upon it, almost daily, un-
til our estate possessors and our mer-
chants awake--shall l say-from their
criminal lethargy.
1t is lamentable to witness the gem
eral stupidity upon this subject, which
appertains to those the most inter
ested. t3t
If we would do for Memphis what
we should, our prosperity would annu-
Ially advance, as it did before the war.