The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-10-07
The House Drainage Question.


At the last session of the city council, a
resolution offered by Alderman Duncan,
! looking toward a better system of house
drainage in this city, was unanimously
/ adopted. The adoption of this resolution
/ iustifies the hope that at last an improve
ment is about to be begun in this city which
ought TO have been made long ago, and
which cannot now be made too soon.
1t is a notorious fact that
our house drainage system is both a costly
and an imperfect one. The drainage from
dwellings in most Instances has to pass long
distances before it reaches the sewers,
through pipes put down at private expense.
There is reason for saving that many of
these pipes are so unskillfully laid that only
a portion of their contents passes into the
great drains. The consequence is that dis
ease-breedng gases and Odors not only find
their way into dwellings, but are permitted
to escape through the porous soil and vitiate
the surrounding atmosphere.
There are hundreds of dwellings which
have no sewer connections whatever. Their
drainage is confined in closets which, in
some cases, are not emptied of their con-
tents for years. In hot, damp weather they
give forth odors which render existence in
the vicinity of them almost unbearable.
No one will deny that such closets are
sources of sickness 1t is not unusual to
find cases of typhoid fever near them, and
when the atmospheric conditions are favor
able plenty of facts crop out to justify the
assertion that they are extremely danger
our to the public hea tn.
There are many houses IN which the
plumbing is about as bad as it can be. 1t
belongs to time when not as much was
known about sanitary science as at present,
and besides, it has not been repaired for
years. Who can say that many of the drain
age pipes were not broken by the earthquake?
Has any examination been made to find out
their condition? May there not be hundreds
of instances in which the drainage is being
deposited in the soil, close to the
surface, instead Of the sewers!
This is an inquiry that has
been made more than once, but no effort
has been made to discover the truth. The
people have not demanded an investigation
because, perhaps, of the cost involved, and
because no immediate danger has been APP
pretended. The Jacksonville epidemic,
however, has created great deal of uneasi-
ness, and citizens are inquiring whether or
not the city is really in as good sanitary
condition as it is possible to put
it, There isn't one of the
inquirers, however, who doesn't know that
it isn't. The city looks clean, but it isn't
clean. While the swamps around it have
been drained and its low places have been
filled, nothing has been done to give dwell
ings better drainage. Closets have been
undisturbed and their contents allowed to
accumulate year after year. OF course the
closets are in better condition now than
they have been for long time, because
when the fever scare came they were at
tackled vigorously. but if the fever had
secured a foothold here. the work with
respect to them would have been done too
late.
The closets must he removed, every one
of them, and the city must be given sys-
tenn of house drainage as perfect as is
known to science. The plumbing of every
house should be inspected and all defects in
it remedied These improvements have got
to be made, whatever the c@t may be, and
the people might as well make up their
minds to that fact at once They can be
made for comparatively small sum-small
in comparison to the cost of even a very
mild epidemic of fever. Let the council be
given every encouragement, therefore, to
60 ahead with the work proposed in Alder
man Duncan's resolution. The time for
talk has ceased The time for action has
come.