SEWER VENTILATION
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Sir,-- I trust you will permit me to add a few remarks to the very sensible letter of your correspondent Mr. Nichols.
The evils resulting from the present system of ventilation the sewers have long since been foreseen, and many suggestions have been offered, both through the press as well as privately to the Commissioners of Sewers, of improved methods of accomplishing this object; and yet, with all the fearful consequences of admitting foul and noxious effluvia into inhabited dwellings, no systematic attempt whatever has been made of disposing of this plague providing atmosphere; everything has been left to individual care and foresight, the Commissioners seeming to rely for ventilation upon that amount of negligence or indifference which is sure to exist where matters depend upon the discretion of a vast number of persons. It is a disgrace to all parties concerned that after expending enormous sums in the construction of new sewers, they should be made to produce the very evil they ought to prevent. If it were not too serious a matter to laugh at, it would be simply ridiculous to conceive a plan by which the most offensive and dangerous matter in the sewers is brought into our streets and dwellings, while that which is comparatively innoxious is carefully swept away. The soil, and other matter submerged in the sewers, has of itself no other injurious tendency than to evolve noxious gases. If there were no poisonous effluvia we might just as well revert to our old cesspools. I repeat, therefore, it is a disgrace to all parties concerned that so obvious a conclusion should have been disregarded—viz., that it was equally important to get rid of the gases generated by the decomposed matter as of the solids or fluids which emit them.
As an inhabitant of Southwark, and a member of one of the paving boards of that afflicted district, I am hourly a witness of the effects of scattering the pestilential atmosphere of the sewers through our streets and dwellings. I concur in all that your correspondent has stated, and I unhesitatingly assert there is really no insuperable difficulty in disposing of the noxious products which the commissioners have so unskillfully allowed to escape wherever they can find a vent.
Since writing the foregoing, I observe another of your correspondents, in The Times of this day, under the initials "H.W.F." has to some extent anticipated my remarks on this subject, and suggests a remedy which has repeatedly been proposed before—viz., to erect furnaces with high shafts in every district to exhaust the polluted air in the sewers, while, at the same time, every gullyhole and other outlet is properly trapped. Now, this is an excellent, although an old suggestion, and might be tried at so small an expense that it is only surprising the experiment had never been made.
The relation between cause and effect, so far as the effluvium of sewers is concerned, might be tested at once. This district of Southwark presents every facility, and while the plague is among us is the time to ascertain what ameliorating effect might be produced. I suggest the following outline of a plan of proceeding. Let the Board of Health select a district in this locality where the cholera is virulent. The new sewer (constructed a few months since) is, I believe trapped at certain intervals, no great distances apart, and there would be no difficulty in operating upon the space between any two of these traps. Select an engine chimney in the immediate neighbourhood, and adapt it to the withdrawal of the air in the sewer. Let all the private drains, gullyholes, and other vents communicating with this portion of the sewer be properly trapped, but, at the same time, providing for ingress of air into the sewer, so as to replace that which is withdrawn by the air shaft. This may be done by a very simple contrivance. Let the medical officers of the district have special instructions to notice the effect of this experiment on the health of those residing within this district—of course taking care that other source of poisonous atmosphere are not allowed to neutralize the effect; and we shall then learn to what extent the present scourge is attributable to the existing system, and at all events, narrow the inquiry into the actual causes of the disease.
I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
Southwark, Sept. 13. AN ENGINEER.