The Asheville citizen. [volume] (Asheville, N.C.) 1885-1889, 1888-03-14
The SEWERAGE QUESTION.

every increase OF populatlOn; ano
being connected directly with the
subject of health, having vital
connection with future growth,
Asheville derived it's original i'm
portance from it's character as q
health resort; and though it has
added business and manufacture
ing interests, it cannot afford to
abandon the original foundation
of its fame and popularity.
We have seen with what alac-
rity and delight rival health re-
sorts, and rival communities have
seized upon the occasions of sick
ness Here of any kind. or even OF
false and interested suggestions
of sickness, to exaggerate, and to
use such occasions to deter visi-
tors from coming here.
To silence these detractors and
exaggerators, it lis necessary to
remove all occasions for calumni-
nous rumor or statement. We
must present a town, not only
clean specifically, but with those
subterranean essentials of clean
illness, a thorough and compre-
hensive system of sewerage.
Such will cost some money.
That is anticipated; and is ex-
pected to be provided for by the
popular authority given to the
corporation to issue bonds to the
extent of 100000 to construct the
necessary works.
Is this a large sum for a popu-
lation, now of 5000, to reach 2O,-
600 when such security for health
is provided? It is one of the
best established facts in corpo-
rate history, that the wealth of
communities increase in proper
ton to the sums judiciously ex-
pended on local improvements, |
such as add to comfort, to con-
venience, to facilities of locomo-
ton, and to health. What would
have been madness to have sug-
gested ten years ago as the power
and wisdom of Asheville to do, is
now not only an obligation and a
but also of easy ac-
complishment.
Additional debt incurred as the
previousdebts ofthe city havebeen
created, can have no tSrrors to a
people whose numbers and whose
wealth are steadily increasing un-
der the influence of those works,
for whose construction the debt
was incurred. What has been
done is not of greater moment
than that which it is now pro-
posed to do. In one respect the
system is the inevitable
corollary of the water supply. |
Introduce and increase that, and
some way must be provided for
its escape. We would not do
without the first; we cannot do |
without the second. And for it |
the city and the people can well
afford to increase their debt.
When the National debt system
was introduced into England in |
1892, it began with the modest re-
quest of a loan of one million |
pounds sterling, to be advanced
by money lenders at ten per cent.
per annum. Fifty years after
wards the debt had increased to |
e14O, 100000, and alarmed politi-
cal economists who thought that
the burden was too heavy to be |
and that the govern
ment should pause, and pay what |
it owed before it borrowed more.
But in these fifty years the popu-
lation of England had nearly |
commerce had vastly |
more than doubled, wealth, luxu-
ry, and general competency and
prosperity had kept pace with
progress in everything else; and
the interest on one hundred and
forty millions, not however at the
high rate Of ten per cent,
was paid with the same ease and
punctuality as attended the loan
Of the first million.
In 1892, just one hundred years
after the creation of the National
debt, the French revolution and
the WarsIconsequent thereon, end
ing in, 1915, ran up the debt of
eight hundred million pounds, a
sum so enormous that its iquida-
ton is scarcely thought of. Yet
so satisfied are investors and so
sure of their interest being pune
tually paid that the sum would be
readily doubled through the read
mess of the people to lend and the
ability of the government to meet
it's interest obligations.
So it will be with any reasona-
BILE increase of debt in Asheville.
With such enlargement, new IA
cilities ofsustaining it are created;
and when the bonds become due
holders of the obligations will
shed tears when they hand them
in for liquidation, as the Dutch
man did who received back his
bonds when the time for the exist
ence of the first million pounds of
the British National debt had ex-
pired. He did not know where
else to invest his money so safely
IN co ,opnGAo h11v