Year: 1874

River Contamination and Its Cure.


distinguished English engineering jour-
nal has been recently sgitating the question OF
preventing the pollution of the rivers, and We
need similar agitation in this country The
immediate advocates Tor legislation against
river contamination in England are the gen.
tiemen engaged in stocking the streams with
salmon and other highly priced food fish. A
century ago, 1t Is said. the British streams
were plentifully supplied with salmon, and
apprentices are reputed to have stipulated in
their indentures that they were not to be fed
on salmon moro than three times week.
The poisoning of the running waters In the
manufacturing districts has so increased that
even artificial means fail to replenish the fish
supply. According to two of the most expe-
rienced pisciculturists the chloride oflime from
paper mills, parafane and naphtha, bleach
works refuse, sewage in its various forms
and much other fecal matter combines to SO
taint the rivers that the water is deadly to fish
and unfit for man or beast That this is Q
great and unnecessary evil has never been
sufficiently felt Mr.. Baldwin Latham, in
recent work on sanitary engineering, and
Dr.. Beale, in his work on disease germs.
statistically show that the proper application
of sewage engineering in Great Britain alone
would effect an annual saving Of nearly one
hundred thousand lives


But to lay aside the sanitary importance of
the prevention of river pollution, it has an
economic aspect which is rapidly attracting
the attention of manufacturers, who can be
touched by no appeal but that of the pocket
The age has abounded in new and successful
experiments for utilizing waste products and
effete matter. Not long since we had an
inventor who made currant jelly from old
leather. The Vienna Exhibition, to encour-
age the utilization of refuse materials, had
special division for this purpose. We know
that nearly every waste product is susceptible
Of o new utility, and the sooner the manufac-
turer is forced by law to find out what it is
the better for him and the community.


A well known statistician and late writer
tells us that the sale and profitable use of
shoddy, rag wool and mungo have attained very
large proportions over all the manufacturing
districts Of Europe and also that the sale of
rats and other rodents for their fur and flesh
has converted source of former ravage
and nuisance into one of vast revenue.
The utilization Of Stag and scorim for
architectural materials is another illustration
of how the proposed reform may be carried
out The sewage experiments have not yet
gone 80 far as to indicate clearly which OF the
present methods for utilizing is best, but
enough has been done to demonstrate the i'm
mense value Of sewage as a fertilizer. The
refuse Of tanyards and some other factories
is also highly valuable fertilizer, and, instead
Of being used, as now, to corrupt the water we
drink, might enrich our fields and low
grounds. The chemical solutions deposited
are the most difficult to manage; but even
they with little filtration can be rendered
innocuous.


The subject is one of class which is rap
idly forcing itself on the attention of our
law-making powers, especially in the thickly
settled and manufacturing States. As the
spring and summer seasons advance, and the
grave sanitary problems come back upon us,
year after year, for better solution, we
then turn our attention to such matters #
we should have next summer, or any summer,
q scarcity Of rainfall, of few inches only, the
rivers and streams of our Atlantic States
would, in some instances, be so foul that they
would be unfit for the manufacturers pur-
poses. This has often occurred in the Old
World, and we should be prepared against
such an emergency by adequate and timely
statutory provision, such as is now proposed
in England. The numerous old statutes have
been SO loose that they need here, as abroad,
thorough and immediate reform. If the
manufacturer was forced to reserve the refuse
Of his factory, and not permitted to poison
the community, he would soon find m ethod
Of converting it into o source of income or
else of rendering it harmless.


The PENALTY OF M1soovERsAdENT.-We hear
one manly and warning voice in England on
the Indian famine question. Mr.. Henry
Fawcett, one of the foremost men in the lib
eral party, and not only an orator but q
thinker, who, like Burke, has made the East
Indian Empire special study, recently made
o speech in which he charged the English
Parliament and nation with indifference and
reckless carelessness in their treatment Of
India. This famine was neither unwonted
nor unexpected, and for all that was doing
there might be four more famines during the
next fourteen years, as there had been four
during the past fourteen. The people were
in an extreme state OF poverty, and yet taxes
were raised for acts Of incredible extravaganza.
With the money thus squandered hundreds Of
thousands of acres might have been irrigated
and thousands Of miles Of road completed.
One result of this shameful misgovernment was
that the Indian nnastinn rninhf hocnrno er,o &c