The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-04-29

Many not unimportant details arrive each year
at greater degree OF excellence which makes it
somewhat difficult to fix upon standard, but the
advance made by requiring fundamental matters
to be passed upon by properly constituted board
is too great to be neglected on. the ground that
certain details have not been fully perfected
Experience is bringing to light so many defects
IN various sewerage systems, and the discussion
OF them is SO constantly placed before our eyes
at THIS date through the great medium of the press,
that IT occasions certain degree of skepticism
about sanitary reform In the minds of not few
people who neglect to apply the rule of progress
10 sanitation where they readily accord it to 9th
er sciences; and from such people little aid is to
be derived IN the prosecution of sanitary work.
In fact it is rare that pressingly needed public
work escapes their direct opposition The de-
monstration of certain facts is becoming so easy
by the accumulation of statistics bearing upon
the experiences of cities and towns in our own
midst that 1t seems incredible that opposition to
the economy and money value of certain rules in
sewerage can exist much longer.
A graphic Illustration of how closely the death
rate In our cities corresponds to the method of
drainage and sewerage peculiar to each street
and section may be represented as follows: A
plan of the city showing all its houses is used on
which the location is plotted where occurs each
death that results from what is known as a pre-
fevers, diphtheria, &C., &C., which are given let
US say, on the map, the colors of red, blue and
Iae sn eoGrs are dotted upon the build
quires but few years of these records to place
me danger signals on the places where they be-
long, Upon map so kept in New York city a
prominent line OF danger signals was noted fol-
lowing somewhat cratic c1rying course. cross
ing the streets mostly at right angles, and ex-
tending for some distance through the better part
OF the city. The reasons for 1t were not apparent
but little research upon ancient maps developed
the TACT mat through this vicinity now graded and
nlled TO uniform surface, a narrow ravine once
existed where a brook fed by numerous springs
had meandered. The underground water course
still existed more or less interrupted and damned
back by the streets, and more or less polluted by
the leaky sewers that crossed it,
:, Such polluted source of damp foundations to
lima tUno Ia
explanation of the case, and points
out the necessity of city's never neglectng in
cape of spring water in similar localities Such a
map in the city of Rochester was even more spec
INC: The danger signals or their absences there
used. 1t showed the excellence of the tightly
lonted pipe sewer, and the necessity on nearly
Level areas Of having them not only tight, but
velocity possible in the carriage of the sewage as
preventive to the formation of gases. 1t pointed
out the streets in which the open jonted stone or
brick sewers existed, the streets through which
old water courses ran, now walled up and turned
INTO mt sewers the house improperly connected with
the sewer, the SKIN plumbing, the leeehing privy
vault. All these things such map will do In
Maine it would point out the polluted wells and
the sink sponts WI whose coyt sOMhs ana nages
close to the foundation of the house. and indirect
ly, the poorly ventilated school houses and
should perceive the necessity of an inter
cepting sewer at Portland, Maine, and the venting
against Ine sewer gas on MunJoy Hill, in the same
city just as in the of the trunk sewer at To-
ronto, Canada and the venting of sewers on Croy-
den Hill England One might at first think that
IL would make picture of a land unfit to live up
on or raise the question of why do try to live at
al? But no, second look will show, as have
stated before, that there is direct ratio between
the death rate and the degree of excellence of a
system OF sewerage and enforcement of plumbing
ordinances.
Chicago's sanitary reforms and public works
1871 deaths per thousand to PA, and have be-
fore me at present writing, list of over dozen
towns where the inauguration Of systems of sew
erage reduced the former average of death over
81 per cent.
To change the picture from it's unsightliness re-
qures the skilled hand of MASTER but as in early
times the Jesuit Fathers held before the eyes Of
the Aborigines pictures of the tormentS of Hell
mested out to the unconverted, so would l have
every town keep graphic representation of its
filth, so that if it must learn the lesson by bitter
experience it may know where the first dollars in
remedy may best be expended.
The ounce OF prevention seems the yerieSt mite
when we compare it with the cost of the pound
that cures the epidemic.