Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-12-12
Save Us from Our Friends.

drawing near for the assembling of the
legislature of Tennessee, in extra
ordinary session, for the especial bene-
fit of Memphis, a city that has already
been legislated to death, having had
very nearly as many laws enacted in
her behalf, during the past thirty
years as have been passed Tor all of
the other cities of the state combined.
| desire to say a few words through
your columns, touching the objects for
which legislation is asked, and the
results sure to follow fit is granted.
| see from the Governors proclama-
ton, that one ofthe first things desired
is authority for the Taxing District
to levy tax Of two per cent. on the
one hundred dollars for paving and
sewerage purposes. Now, sir, what I
wish to impress upon the minds of
the people Of Memphis is this: That
what they need most Of all for the
promotion of health now, and in the
future, is good, stone paved streets,
with wide cutters, and to have all of
the rotten Nicholson pavement taken
up and burned, or thrown into the
river. Sanitarians may preach from
now until doomsday about privy vaults
and impure cistern water being the
cause Of yellow fever in Memphis, but
until we get rid of nearly fourteen
miles Of rotten wood in our streets,
there is no help for US. Over two
hundred years ago the city of London
tried the experiment Of wooden
pavemonts, aud in that portion so
paved there sprang up one Of the most
deadly plaques that the worlds his
tory records. [ understand that the
present authorities say that it will not
do to remove the wood out of the
streets until they are ready to put
down stone It so, many thousands of
lives have yet to be sacrificed in Mem
phis before this is done. The streets,
most assuredly, cannot be made any
worse than they are. Give me mud
all the time, no matter how deep, in
preference to rotten wood and yellow
fever. / appeal to all the old citizens
Of Memphis to bear me out in the as
sertion that when all of the cotton,
wood, and everything else sold or con-
sumed here was brought over dirt or
mud roads Il mean before rail
road times,) we never had a
single case Of yellow fever.
except such as were brought here by
boats and taken othe hospital. When
| first settled in Memphis, to the best
of my recollection, there were but two
cisterns, and but few privy vaults.
The well water was horrid, and dis
eases Of the stomach and bowels were
fearful. The venerable and much
loved DIR. Wyatt Christian, the then
principal physician of Memphis, urged
the building of cisterns, and the city
papers also urged the sinking of privy
vaults down to the sand. But alas
alas here, forty years after, comes
along such men as DR.. Bell and other
great sanitarians, and say that the
trouble is all in our cisterns and deep
privy vaults, and that the latter must
be filed up; and can tell you more in
an hour about Memphis than
lifelong citizens like L. II. Porter,
w. II. Biekford, and others. And
our authorities jump at the wisdom
and counsel Of these great men, and
try to undo in a few days the work of
forty years-the most impracticable
and unheard of thing ever started by
man; and will cause endless litigation,
if the people have not entirely lost
their manhood. Our greatest States
men always took the ground that all
governments should be so administered
as to make the people love to obey
them; but they were old fogies. But
| do not wish to. be understood as
opposed to sewers, if they are properly
constructed. If they were built and
given to us, while in our impoverished
condition, there is not one man in fifty
able to make the connection with
the main sewer. You will
find building the sewers a
small item compared to the cost ol
making the connections. And then
tell me, sir, with all of our other
taxes and old debts, where we will
land? Oh save US from our friends
Neither am l opposed to cleanliness
No doubt there are many privy vaults
that are very filthy, as there are in
every city in the land; and they should
be abated as other nuisances; but
there are hundreds of others that arc
as clean and harmless as can be-
much more so than any box or earth,
closet system. But in Memphis We
never use moderation; we always &C
the whole hog or nothing; and oul
prayer should ever be Save us from
our friends. OLD FoGY.