The Evening Star. MONDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2697, 9 October 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star. MONDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1871.

The drainage of the City has always been a subject of special interest with us. On proper drainage, more than on anything else perhaps, depends the health of the community. Where large quantities of decaying matter are lying about exposed to the action of the sun and wind it is perfectly futile to expect that there can be anything like a satisfactory state of the public health, or a moderately reasonable death rate. But it would be far bettei’, after all, that a town should be exposed to the chances of having frequent visits from epidemic diseases, and of having these diseases assume within its limits a more than ordinarily fatal form, through the exposure of the filth of the town to the action of the weather, than that all this filth should bo collected for a large number of successive years in an enormous cesspool in the very heart of the City. It is true that in the latter case the health of the City would probably be very good during the time that the cesspool was getting filled, or before the noxious fluids and vapours in it had had time to permeate the surrounding soil, or to form those horrible miasmata which appear to bo produced only by old and long stagnant decaying animal and vegetable matter. But afterwards, when the whole arrangement had been completed, when everything was in proper order for the production of fatal miasmata, the health of such a town would, we imagine, not be over good. Dunedin has been hitherto a very healthy place. The climate is probably on the whole one of the best in the world, if we may take the definition given by Charles the Second of a fine

climate as a tolerably correct one. “ The best climate,” he said, “is that “ which admits of one’s being outside “ during the most hours of the day of “ the most days in the year.” But we believe that in other respects the town is by no means well circumstanced for preserving its character as a healthy place. It lies very low. It is surrounded by hills. No swift rivei runs through it. It has a bay with shores of mud on which there is a considerable rise and fall of the tide. Those, however, are all negative circumstances, and as long as we are surrounded by these negative circumstances merely, no harm is likely to ensue. Unfortunately we ourselves are laboring with the greatest possible assiduity to introduce a positive cause of disease, and that too one of the most permanent character. Our City appears now to be pretty well drained, all things considered. A person walking through the town has seldom his nose assailed by any very unendurable smell, and in this .resnect there is a marked contrast between the present state of things and that which existed a few years ago, when it was almost impossible to walk through some of the principal streets, for instance, JMaclaggan street or George street, without receiving tm mistakcable evidence of the fact that the drainage of Dunedin was not altogether satisfactory. But what becomes of the sewage of the town? It go?s into the Bay, where it is gradually forming a deposit, which will in the course of years be in a condition to emit noxious gases of various descriptions, which will be ready to receive, retain, foster the germs of any disease which may be brought to our shores, and finally, which will be a constant source of low fever. Scarlet fever was brought here eight or nine months ago on board of the Robert Henderson. The places in the vicinity of Dunedin where it seemed to take the greatest hold were Port Chalmers and the inlets of the Bay near it. Now, if any one wishes to know the reason of this, he can easily find it out by taking a walk down the Port Chalmers railway. As he nears the Port he will observe that in certain inlets of the Bay there is a most horrible stench, and that the nearer he gets to the Port the worse is the smell. No one can fail to connect the two things—that certain localities were visited by the scarlet fever—and that at these localities there arc undoubtedly great accumulations of filth. In Dunedin the fever seems to have been unable to get any permanent footing, but let us only wait for a few years until the bottom of the Bay has been thoroughly covered over with this filth, and the whole thing is thoroughly matured—our vast cesspool, in short, completed, and then the scarlet fever will not be in such a hurry to leave us, when it pays us a visit. But perhaps it may be said that this is all very fine. It makes a pretty good leading article ; but what is to be done 1 ? Fluids will run down hill, and if we are to have any drainage at all, the sewage must go into the Bay, and there is an end of the matter. But in reality there is no need that it should run into the Bay ; it might be put to a very much better use than that, And it is this that makes us the more sorry to see the formation of this immense cesspool going on. It is in reality costing us an enormous sum. The soil on the hills about Dunedin is not naturally very rich. A great deal of manure is required, and will be required in still greater quantity, to make the land pay for cultivation. Accordingly, large sums of money will have to be expended in the purchase of guano, bonedust, &c., when, if the whole of our sewage were made to pass into large tanks and there consolidated (as is done with the sewage of London and with that of Paris), and then chopped into huge cakes and dried, a manure would be supplied to our farmers as good as any they can purchase, and at a very much cheaper rate. Health and economy might be made to go hand in hand.