The Globe. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 835, 26 February 1877, Page 2

The Globe. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1877.

When a body of men put themselves forward to act as pilots or guides in an unsettled and only partly ventilated subject, the public have a right to expect that at the very least they shall have made themselves fully acquainted with the mistakes and failures, as well as the success, which have attended the endeavors of others, and that they should profit by those experiences. This the present Drainage Board and their engineer appear hardly to have done, if we are to judge by the four alternatives proposed for disposing of the sewage of Christchurch and its environs, from which, according to Mr Hobbs, the Drainage Board are to take the responsibility of choooing one. Experience has already demonstrated that at least three out of the proposed alternatives are failures. Thus the fouling of the estuary would so certainly be attended with disease of a malignant type to the inhabitants of Christchurch and its suburbs, that it seems incredible that any member of the Board of Health could have entertained it for one jn&t&Rt. Pyofesaor says

upon this subject:—“The great nuisance of all sewage when thrown into rivers and watercourses is the accumulation of the solid matter which takes place on the banks of such streams, and which in its decomposition is always giving out noxious exhalations; the air becomes loaded with particles, and although wo do not see them, wo are taking them into our lungs every moment of our lives.”

With regard to precipitation by the lime and ABC process, Mr David Forbes, F.R.S., who is unquestionably one of the highest authorities upon the subject (having been officially engaged in the sewage question since 1855) reports —“ In 1815, works were erected in Edinburgh in which the sewage was treated with lime. This had proved a complete failure, both in a sanatory and chemical point of view. . . . Then came the ABC process, which was effected by an extraordinary combination of substances, consisting of clay, alum, and blood, but this also the River Pollution Commissioners bad declared to have failed.” A report from another source says —“The socalled ABC process is now clearly seen to have been a delusion, and its projectors are more than suspected of having scarcely acted with fairness.” We come now to the irrigation of land with the sewage. This appears to us to be attended with very great expense and with very uncertain results,for with all the most perfect appliances, experience, and skill, obtainable in England, it would appear that a successful issue cannot be relied upon. From information received by the last mail from England wo see that the loss from this method of disposing of the sewage accruing to the town of Crewe, for twelve months, amounted to no less than £IOOO, which sum of money will have to come out of the pockets of the ratepayers. Under certain favourable conditions, both of locality and description of soil, sewage irrigation has occasionally and to a certain extent succeeded, bub the almost certainty of loss, appears to us to stand as an insurmountable obstacle to its introduction here. It is thus clearly evident that, of the four proposed alternatives for the disposal of the sewage now before the Board not one has been proved conclusively to ho elfcctive. It is therefore obvious that some other scheme, whereby the desired result may bo obtained, must he adopted, and if the Drainage Board, of their own knowledge, cannot do this, it must be sought for outside. An official report upon the sewage question is daily looked for in England, which is expected to contain a mass of information, collected from the actual experience of highly competent men, practically familiar with the subject. This report will, no doubt, be not only very interesting in itself, but of great assistance to those interested in obtaining the best method of disposing of our sewage at the least possible expense to the ratepayers.