DRAINAGE.

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 74, 10 December 1892, Page 2

DRAINAGE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAB. Sir,— l was pleased to see H.T.B.'s letter and the two signed by " A Colonist," in recent issues of the Stab oh the above subject. It is well that public opinion should be directed to the consideration of a question so vital to the health and sanitary condition of the Borough, and which has as yet received little, or no attention at all. Feilding, situated as it is on a comparative level, and having a heavy clay sub-soil, offers at praient no facility for the surface water to drain away. The consequence is that after heavy rain such as we had during the winter, there being no means of carrying away the water, it lies where it fell until evaporated. Meantime, the whole place presents the appearance of a series of frog-ponds. Itmhßt be patent to anyone that living amidst so much wet and damp winter after winter, as we are doing, is excessively injurious to the health of all, both young and old..- The recent cholera scare in Europe, if nothing else will, should awaken public interest in this important matter. It is stated on good authority in England, that a more violent visitation of the cholera is expected during the coming summer, and that country towns, through their absolute want of drainage, are even more liable to attack tfyan the large cities. . The wells act as the principal medium for spreading the disease, they receive the germß from the surface water, and thus the poison becomes distributed. Many . people, no doubt, consider it absurd to talk about cholera coming to this colony, but owing to our direct steam service with the Mother Country, the advent of the plague would be quite a possibility. Let us here in Feilding not offer a favourable hatching place to that awful scourge— the cholera — nor to any lesser maladies, by continuing to neglect any longer the beginning of a proper drainage system. I propose to deal with the means of starting such a system in another letter. I am etc., Bpbgess.