TOWN IMPROVEMENTS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 47, 24 February 1874, Page 2

TOWN IMPROVEMENTS.

[Communicated]. In September last the Public Works Committee, together with the Surveyor, visited various parts of tbe city for the purpose of reporting to tbe Board wbat improvements were necessary to be effected, and the report was in due course forwarded to and accepted by the Board. Some of the improvements have already been made. First there was the sloping down of the bank on the west side of the Churoh Hill and the forming of a footpath, which was much needed. This work, besides improving the appearance of the town in approaching it from the Waimeas, has effeoted two other purposes. It has removed a danger to which pedestrians were subject on a dark night from not having a footpath to walk on, thereby avoiding tbe meeting with conveyances, while the earth taken from thence bas filled up the street at tbe east side of the Church Hill, and a portion of Collingwood Btreet near the Catholic Station, both of which were much needed, particularly in wet weather. We aleo notice that the end of Vanguard-street, near Hardy-street, is being formed. This work will complete the approaches to AU Saints' Churcb, and will be a beneficial work when finished. The whole of these works bave been done by the day labor men belonging to the Board, under the direction of the Surveyor, The principal work, however, is going on by contract. It is of considerable importance to the city, and is acknowledged by most of the residents in the town and country to be one essentially necessary. We refer to tbe drainage. Sanitary laws and regulations are framed to give power to communities which single individuals cannot possess, namely, the power to promote general measures calculated to improve the state of public health. In this country it so happens that the sanitary laws, to a certain extent, are permissive, co that we see some districts or provinces in which the law is rigidly enforced, while, on the other hand, community after community is still found living in the most unhealthy condition, and disease and death reign supreme. No effort is made to remedy the state of neglect, whioh may still be found in many undrained and filthy places Money considerations are often of greater importance than the question of life aud health, and it not unfrequently happens that political capital is made out of sanitary agitation. The advocates of filth and dirt appeal to the breeches pocket — t OO often with success— thus realising the truth of the lines— > " Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn." The Board of Works has now the power under the "Public Health Act" to compel communities that have neg-

lected their sanitary duties to introduce proper measures, or the works may be performed for them, aod we trust that in parts, of our city requiring attention this power will be exercised. : We are therefore glad to see the . extended system of drainage once more commenced. The system of drainage, if allowed to be carried out according to plans (of which the present works form . a part) a scheme ventilated by the present Surveyor to the Board, aud expressed by him at a public meeting held between six and seven years ago in tbe Provincial Hall, will be complete. How much is annually lost by preventable disease, ifc is impossible to estimate, as health is so intimately connected with all the branches of every doy life. Health is the capital of the laboring man. It is better to give health than alms, for a neglect of sanitary precautions brings sickness and disease, which are followed by pauperism, demoralization and crime. Dr Johnson says, •" To preserve health is a moral and religious duty, for health is the basis of all social virtues. We can be useful no longer than we are well." Mr Baldwin Latham, C.E., the last president of the Society of Engineers, &c, in his work published in April, 1863, says, "Of all the systems that have been proposed, the water carriage system is the best adapted to the varied requirements of a town population for effecting the speedy removal of the principal matter liable to decomposition. It will also be found equal to any other system in securing the manurial elements that bave to be utilised; but it should not be overlooked that other aystems are applicable, and may be adopted witb manifold advantages when the circumstances are such as to debar the entire use of water carriage." It will be a proper question for the Provincial Council at tbe next session to decide whether the elements of decomposition shall or shall not be allowed to go into the main drain.