The record-union., 1893-01-03
WILL THE TRUSTEES ACTss

$1,000 AAs1 S4LI-S All
The positive conviction of all medical
authorities; the unmistakable statement
OF all sanitary officials, that the proba-
bility is that cholera will reach us this
year; the news from Russia and Ham
burg; the explicit statement of the con-
sulting physician that the epidemic at
Little Rock and Helena is of the nature
OF cholera, and that it is due directly to
foul drainage and polluted drinking
water-these, and other well-known facts,
ought to move our Trustees at their meet
ing this morning to exercise common
prudence and set on foot at once the nee
essary inquiry how best to put this city
into the highest sanitary condition of
which it is capable.
To that end an advisory commission or
committee upon sewage disposal ought to
be erected. 1t will be costless, and be-
tween this date and the LIST of March can
collect all the data from experience of
other cities necessary for us to determine
what is the best form of sewage disposal
for us to adopt and what the cost. The
same committee may be able to report to
the Trustees upon the possibility of aban-
doning filth pits and cesspools, and
whether this could be done and all dan
gerous 'matter treated properly in this
year. We have grave doubts about it. 1t
will probably take two full years to
change wholly our sewage and filth dis
posal system, and probably it will con-
sumo the best part of five years to put in
complete and proper sewer system. But
that is all the more reason why examina-
ton upon methodical lines should begin
at once.
At the same time the Board of Health
and all the people will by the data coll
lected by such a committee be greatly
aided in determining what is the best
preparation to make for filth disposal
pending the introduction of a permanent
system. We confess that consultation of
all obtainable written authority upon the
subject, examination into the efforts
made in European cities to cleanse them.
and the study of the experience of cities
Of our own country. do not inspire much
confidence i'll the sort of ''clean-upsn we
have had in the past. As matter of
tidiness the work of the health officials
last year was commendable; as means to
prevent epidemic seizure and ravage. it
amounted to very little. Sweeping an
alley, gathering up and carting off rub
bish heaps, filling under few low build
ings and the emptying of hundred or so
among some thousands of cesspools
amounts to little. The great necessity is
thorough and drastic treatment of the
cesspool and flth-pit nuisance.
Were cholera to assah US, the violation
of single well-known rule of caution by
a single family would render futile all
such labor as last year we put forth in
cleansing and disinfecting. What we
need to prepare for, then, is radical treat
ment in the sanitation of this city;
measures that may seem harsh, but which
are necessary, since acommunity is al ways
exposed TO disease most by neglect and
stupidity rather than by willfulness or
mistake.
The sewage and filth disposal question
really embraces all these matters of treat
ment, but consideration of a sewage dis
posaI system ought to be separated and
made distinct from the other, with which
the Board of Health ought to be able to
cope. But it has not the time, nor has it
been asked, to take up the other inquiry
with view to reporting upon its finan-
cisl and business phases and upon what
system has elsewhere proven most
efficient and economic, in cities situated
similarly to Sacramento.
viii the Trustees this morning set on
foot this inquiry, or will they ignore the
matter because it does not happen to
originate in the board? Here we have
six or seven cities ready and willing to
give us freely all data and engineering
results that have cost them years of trial
and hundreds of thousands of dollars
outlay, and all that is necessary for Us to
do to benefit by this friendliness, is to
ask. But, to that end, the Trustees must
name committee to prefer the requests,
secure the data and drawings, arrange
and compare them, study their adapta-