Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1897-06-19
Continued next week J
OF PARIS.
They Are Broad aud Righ aud Give Nam
Business Facilities.

The main sewers are IL feet high and
10 feet broad. and are constructed Of
solid masonry covered with cement, SAYS
the Boston Record. Workmen are con-
stantly working on them. and the water
only rises to the sidewalks after a verr
heavy rainfall. The sewers contain two
water mains, as well a. telegraph and
telephone wires, and tubes for COM
pressed air. This ingenious system
sprang from another embodied in a
contract granted in 1881 by the mu-
nicipal council of Paris to the PGeuma-
tic Clock company, who were given
permission To place their tubes in the
sewers on condition that thew erected a
given number Of clocks in the public
places in the city, and undertook to keep
them TO the time furnished daily at noon
bv the observatory. The clocks axe
worked from a central office by the com.
pressed air, and constitute u great public
convenience.
After twenty-five years from the date
OF the contract they will become the
property of the city. As a set-o1 the
company receive a concession TO estaO-
lish and keep their pipes in the sewers
for fifty years for the purpose OF dis
tributing compressed air as n motive
power throughout the city. Avery wide
use is made of so advantageous a system,
for it obviates the purchase OF an engine.
saves space. time and trouble. All that
is needed Is "a meter and the proper con-
nections with the compressed air tube.
then a turn of the tap and the machinery
is in motion.
The sewers are also used 10 accom-
modate the pneumatic tubes by means
of which the carte kilograms are con-
veyed from one end of the city TO the
other The convenience of having the
telephone wires in the sewers is very
great. There are thousands of miles o!
these, connecting pa postotlices, as well
as hRn6reds OF private subscribers in
every part of the city. Any subscriber
in any part of Paris may be heard with
ease in the general postofiice in London
and q whisper can be heard over the
telephone in Paris. with the result that
the hard swearing that goes on over
the London telephones is almost un-
known. The sluice carriage is run
along the lodges of the sewers, while =
tongue scrapes the side and bottom clean.
The sewers are lighted with lamps, and
not only is eyery thoroughfare inscribed
on enamel plates, but every house
which is connected with the sewer is also
numbered.
As many as fifty tourists a day go
down the sewers in the tourist season 10
ride in the tourist car or sail in the
gondola. The Paris council has de-
cided upon adopting the system of
drainage which is in vogue in English
towns. They are to spend Sl3, 600, 900
in adapting the sewers to take all the
sewage which at the present time is
stored in cess-pools. They are also go
ing to spend 10, 600, 600 francs more in
improving the water supply and the
means of distributing it. One of the
sewers passes under the river by means
of a syphou 40 yards long and 8 feet
in diameter. This is kept clean by in
sorting a wooden ball on the left bank
of the Seine which almost exactly fills
The tube. The pressure OF the steam
carries the ball down, and then, being
of lighter specific gravity, it rushes to
the surface, carrying before it every
thing that may have settled in the
syphon.