The San Francisco call., 1898-05-06
WATER AT
 SACRAMENTO
 POLLUTED Rivers Filled With Disease-Breeding
 Filth. Refuse From the Folsom Prison Dumped Into
 the American. From This Floating Sewer the Water Supply of the Capital
 City Is Derived. MUCH TYPHOID FEVER. Already There Has Been Startling Mortality, but the Worst Has
 Yet to Come.
From This Floating Sewer the Water Supply of the Capital
 City Is Derived.
MUCH TYPHOID FEVER.
Already There Has Been a Startlino Mortality, but tho Worst Has
 Yet to Come.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

SACRAMENTO, May 5.-Frightful possibilities are ahead of the people of Sacramento. The horrors of war and the terrors of famine are no more to be dreaded than the rayages of a deadly epidemic and that is exactly what con- fronts the residents of the capital city to-day.
 Already has there been a startling mortality for the early spring; already are numerous cases of typhoid fever re- ported, and if steps are not immediately taken to the end of suspending the prison sewage at Folsom (which is done by dumping it into the river, the death rate for the coming summer and fall will be frightful.
 Typhoid fever" said a prominent physician to The Call correspondent, results from the introduction of a specific poison into the system and is due to the development of a specific bacillus. It is not contagious, and the poison appears to be communicated by infection.
 Continuing, the physician, who made a special request not to have his name mentioned, said: 'Ahe water in the eS the thought of people drinking it when the stream is sluggish and laden with the filthy offal from the prison and other points along the American River renders the situation a most -revolting one and causes one to shudder at the contemplation of the awful -consequen- ces which are sure to follow. Unless something is done l predict the great est death rate Sacramento has ever known. The low stage of the river will be the means, the deflement of the water the cauSe.'
 The waters of the American River pour into the Sacramento at a point just beyond the northern limits of the city, and just above the place where the city takes Its water for domestic pur- poses. That the exact situation might be ascertained The Call correspondent made a trip up the river from the TWelfth-street bridge to the great dam of the Folsom Electric Light and Power Company. There is not a single avail able space along the river banks, from its mouth to the dam, a distance of twenty miles, that is not used as a dumping place for sewage and offal. Pig pens, barn yards and closets by the score are drained into the American River. Dead animals in various stages of decomposition can be found floating toward the mouth Of the great supply pipe which furnishes the city of Sacra- mento with it's drinking water. In numerable ditches from Chinese settle ments pour their stenchful contents into it, and at the town of Folsom, not only does every drop of the village sew age reach it, but the sewer, already running full of offensive fluid, serves a thickly populated Chinatown as well.
 But the prison furnishes the principal source of the rivers defilement At this point does the stomach scken; at this place is found the principal foun- tain of filth. Thousands of gallons per minute of prison sewage finds it's way into the river at this point. The