The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, MAY 3, 1867.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume II, Issue 102, 3 May 1867, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, MAY 3, 1867.

It is asserted by Sneer, in the Critic. that " wheu Englishmen do agree, their unanimity is wonderful." Still more wonderful is the unanimity of journalists, and even more potent in its consequences. Both the "big" papers, iu the articles which have appeared in their columns, anticipatory of this evening's Meeting, have spoken out in favor of the adoption of earth closets iu this city. Moma locuta est, and we can have no more to say upon this subject, though true it is, that a whisper has reached us from those who have had practical experience for some time past of these conveniences, that they involve a great deal of trouble, and, unless weli looked after, create a still more intolerable nuisance than they are supposed to remove. But there is still another point, which has not yet received its due share of public attention, though it may probably furnish a topic of discussion this evening. In the present disposal of the sewage of this city, we are actually throwing away a marketable commodity, the full value of which has been estimated — perhaps by an enthusiastic philosopher who has long studied in the Academy of Lagado — at fourteen millions per annum for the United Kingdom. If it is true, or anything near the truth, that 10s. lOd. is, as has been calculated, the animal value of the results of the ordinary animal economy of each person — we are driven to employ periphrastic language — and if it be true, as it is, that the drainage and sewage rates of this city, >'f distributed per capita, amount to 10s. 4d. per head, the result is that we might save these rates by a commodity which we now waste. Or, to put it in another form, as the whole sewage of the city is of a certain value, and the whole local rates, as at present levied, somewhat below that sum,we might save all local rates, except perhaps the Education Rate, by selling what we now fling into the sea. No doubt these rosecolored, but not rose-scented, calculations are based upon the assumption that sewage could be utilized without a grain of waste, and that it would always command customers at its present estimated value. Some enemy, however, at our elbow, urges that the experiment has already been tried at home, and that the necessary contrivances for this end would involve an immense expenditure. But without attempting to settle the j)ecu_iiary value of this uupleasant article of commerce, or, with the Laputan sage, or Baron Liebig, attempting to say how it may be reduced to its original form, and how the grand cycle of nature's loss and gain may be assisted, it is impossible to be content with the present application, or rather profligate waste, of what must have some value. Indeed, as far as practical results are concerned, we are at present worse off than we were before the sewers were formed. Nightsoil was always, in some shape or other, returned to the land when cesspools were generally in nse. Modern domestic improvements have deprived -agriculture of the first element of fertility ; and if i^ does nothing else, the completion, or the successive stages of the completion of our city drainage, might serve to realise to us ratepayers that we are all, potentially, Golden Dustmen, if we would, or could, bring our laystalls into the market.