SUMMER STENCH OF THE THAMES.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 324, 27 November 1860, Page 4

SUMMER STENCH OF THE THAMES.

Sir,—-An article in your journal of the 31st ultimo has recalled to memory my voluminous correspondence, last summer, with the chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works, on a proposition of mine for removing the fearful smell of the river during the dog days. The difficulty I had in obtaining from that honorable board a " crooked answer to a cross question " enabled them to enter the winter period, thinking, no doubt, to congeal my crochets. Not so. With the bull dog disposition of the Anglo-Saxon race, I wish to lay hold of the board again, not hifctiDg at them direct—that I found no use—but a " side dig " with a powerful Lancet may have effect.

Many, no doubt, who travel the slimy deep of the great sewer, for pleasure or business, will pause ere they do so this summer. Penny steamboat passengers will swear and hold their noses. Captains, engineers, stokers, and callboys will say a prayer for some, wishing those who are poisoning them were "chucked" into the river. Ask any of ,the amphibians whom they allude to : " Can't tell." But my bumble opinion is that if tbe Thames continues *in as bad odor as last season, the Metropolitan Board of Works, who, you will remark, have never been otherwise than under the same title, will come in for a large share of the pie.

Now, sir, I took the trouble, last year, of " driving " up and down the great cesspool in penny steam yachts for the ostensible pleasure of discovering when and where I could bring my olfactory nerves in contact with the most abominable emanations of sulpheretted hydrogen ; and if my experience can be borne out by others, I came to a very satisfactory conclusion —namely, that if in the body of the river there was a " stink," nowhere did I derive more perfume than at the call-barge stations of the steamers. Various were the questions I put to the commanders and crews of maDy boats. All were unanimous, that if I wanted "real poison " I should just, hang on to one or any of their stations about midday in hot weather, when their boats were backing and filling, going ahead and going astarn, stirring up tbe pudding in real earnest. " Well," says I to one of the commanders, after testing tbe proposition, "you are right. I guess I could rectify it rather." " How ?" was the interrogation. " Can you?" says a'greasy engineer, popping his head up the stokehole, and taking a siurvey of my corpus: "if you can, the Lord Mayor ought to give you the freedom of the City in a gold box." I explained my proposition in plain words. " Well," said they, "it seems easy, too." '« I understand," says the intelligent, but smoke begrimed engineer. " I heartily wish that 'ere Board of Works, or whatever they call themselves, would help us out with it. Now, sir, the idea is this : The large number of river steamers plying between Battersea aud London Bridge iv summer are constantly stirring up the filth that escapes deodorisatron in the sewers, more especially that lying along the banks and barge stations. The heat of the sun acting on the liquid sewage increases in an enormous degree the fearful stench. As the steamers cause this, make them consume it, as they do their own smoke. My plan is simply to fit a flat tank on the after part of the deck, near the steering-wheel, capable of folding about two hogsheads of deodorising fluid ; the pipe descending down tbe rudder-case would allow the fluid to pass away, regulated by a stop-cock. This would mix efficiency with the sewerage stirred up by the paddles, and where the odor was strongest there would the remedy be applied. Professor Miller acknowledged to me,, last

Bummer, that he had no doubt the process would be successful. It is simple, practical, and inexpensive. If half a gallon of Dale's muriate of iron will deodorise 7500 gallons, of sewage perfectly, think what may be done by the river steamers in connection with the deodorisation in the sewers. If, sir, the hint is worthy a place in your columns, give room to this " pleonastic epistle," and oblige your obedient servant, J. M'Geigor Croft, M.D., —Lancet.