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20
HOUSE-DRAINAGE.
that the City of London is peculiarly interested
in the accomplishment of this great public work,
not only on general grounds relating to the conservancy
of the river, but likewise and especially
on sanitary grounds, by reason of the large
bankside population, subjects of the City, who
now, instead of deriving advantage from their nearness
to the stream, are constantly disgusted and
injured by its misuse.
While the consideration of this most important
measure is pending, I would invite attention to
some circumstances, by which even the present
evil is needlessly aggravated.
In the first place, the sewers are of defective
length, so that during the ebb of the tide their
contents, as they escape, are suffered to flow in a
stream of some length across the mud of the
retreating river. This stream, together with the
mud which it saturates, and the open mouth of
the sewer, evolve copious and offensive exhalations,
and I would recommend that measures be
taken for abatement of the nuisance. This purpose,
as concerns the sewer, would be fulfilled by
the addition, in each instance, of a sufficient
length of brick or cast-iron work, to prolong the
canal beyond low water mark; but the great
extent of mud which is left uncovered at each
tide, and which during the present pollution of the
river is a source of extreme nuisance and of disease,
constitutes an evil for which no remedy can