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18
HOUSE-DRAINAGE.
or absence of water. To this matter, however, I
shall presently revert.
Another most important desideratum in connexion
with the sewerage of the City is that, if
possible, some more perfect system of trapping
should be devised, or that, in some way or other,
the sewers should be ventilated effectively and
inoffensively. At present there are frequent complaints
of offensive exhalation from gratings in the
open ways of the City, and it will be obvious to
your Honourable Court, that all which I have
urged on the subject of cesspool-exhalations must
apply equally to those which are emitted from
sewers. The impediments to effective trapping
are almost insuperable; but I believe that when
the water-supply of the City is very largely increased,
washing the drains amply and incessantly,
the evil complained of will undergo a sensible
diminution. So far as I can judge, the only complete
and total cure would consist in the adoption
of some system, including the following points as
its essentials—viz., that house-drainage shall be
separate from street-drainage, the former having to
itself a series of smaller conduits ; that these shall
be closed from their origin to their outfall, presenting
no gully-holes whatever; and that their
gaseous contents shall be withdrawn from them by
suction, or expelled by pressure, and be made to
undergo combustion, or other chemical change,