Semi-weekly herald., 1910-02-07
SEWERS OF PARIS FA-
NOUS FOR CENTURIES

For centuries the sewers OF Paris
through the flooding of which most
OF the inundation of the city has been
brought about, have been famous.
They constituted, prior to the nine
teenth century, wonderful labyrinth,
an unexplored wilderness, in which
the sewer rat and the criminal flour
ished, and from which came exhala
tons that caused, in great part al
least, the epidemics of disease by
which the city was visited.
The most graphic account of the old
sewer system ever written probably
that by Victor Hugo, in his great
novel. LES Miserables," published in
1862. The thrilling escape of Jean
Vatican through these underground
passages vii recur to all who have
read the novel.
Built upon q plain that Is surround
by by low hills, Paris has been many
times overflowed in its long history.
Press dispatches about the present
flood find companion for 1t only in
the flood of 1902, which indeed seems
t. have been surpassed by the pres
ent calamity. Says Huga about the
1902 flood in LES Miserables.":
The inundation of 1902 is one of
The age of so. The mud spread in
cross form over the Place des Vic
toirea, where stands the statute CT
Louis XIV. it entered the Rue Saint
Honore by the two mouths 10 the
sewer in the Champs Elysees, the Rue
Saint Florentin through the sewer de
la Sonnerie. the Rue Popincoort,
through the sewer of the Chemin-
Vert the Rue de la Roquette, through
the sewer of the Rue de Lappe; it
covered the drain of the Rue des
Champs Elysees to the height of thir-
ty-iive centimeters. and, to the south,
through the vent of the Seine. per-
forming its functions in inverse sense,
it penetrated the Rue Nazarine, the
Marais, where it stopped at dis
tance of 100 meters from the house
in which Racine had lived, respecting
in the seventeenth century, the poet
more than the king. 1t attained its
maximum height in the Rue Saint
Pierre, where il rose to the height of
three feet above the flagstones of
the wafer spout, and its maximum
length III the Rue Saint-Sabin, where
II spread out over a stretch 23S me-
ters in length"
But today the sewer of Paris is
clean. cold, straight. correct" in HUI
go's phrase. 1T almost realizes the
ideal of what is understood in Eng
land by the word respectable wrote
the novelist in satiric vein.
There are fifteen classes of Paris
sewers, the largest being Is feet and
| 2 inches in height by IL feet and 4
inches wide, and the smallest mere
house drains few inches in diameter
There connect with the Seine by
| means of tunnel far down the river
from the city proper. but evidently
| have been filled to overfl.wing and
in some cases to bursting by the
backed-up waters. The river through
out the greater part of the city is kept
| from overflowing its banks even in
| flooding by high parapet walls and
enbankments. Visitors to Paris fire.
puently make excursions through the
large sewers in electric boats or tram
cars. These sewers serve not only
for drainage, but as conduits for wa
ter and ga0 pipes. for the peumatic
tubes used to transmit mail matter
and for telephone and telegraph wires,
and are well ventilated and, except
in flood seasons, are constantly pa
| trolled.