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19
HOUSE-DRAINAGE. 19
rendering them innocuous. I would venture, even
now, to suggest that any scientific scheme, purporting
to accomplish the object last indicated,
would in a very high degree deserve the consideration
and encouragement of your Honourable
Court.
In further connexion with my present subject,
I would also solicit attention to the fact that the
sanitary purposes of drainage are but imperfectly
achieved, where the outfall of sewerage is into a
tidal river passing through the heart of a densely
peopled metropolis. I should be stepping beyond
my province, if I were to say much respecting the
schemes now before the public for dealing with
the difficulty to which I here refer, in so much as
those schemes involve questions of engineering and
machinery, on which I am incompetent to form an
opinion. But I can have no hesitation in stating
it as a matter greatly to be desired in the City of
London, that the noble river which ebbs and flows
beneath its dwellings should cease to be the drainpool
of our vast metropolis, and that the immeasurable
filth which now pollutes the stream
should be intercepted in its course, and be conveyed
to some distant destination, where, instead
of breeding sickness and mortality, it might
become a source of agricultural increase and
national wealth.
I would venture, likewise, to express an opinion
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