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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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THE POOR CLERGY . The poor clergy of the Established Church are about to petition the . Queen and the "two Houses of Parliament for a more equal distribution of ecclesiastical revenues . The facts on ' which the petitioners ground their case are , that while bishops and great dignitaries receive enormous incomes , the yearly income of 10 , 000 parochial clergymen does not exceed 200 / ., the yearly incomes of 7800 are under 150 / ., and of 600 under 50 / . The men who receive these pitiful salaries are the " working clergy . "
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ELECTIONS . Norwich . —The contest for this city , vacated by the resignation of Mr . Peto , who is now a Government contractor , has been terminated in favour of Sir Samuel Bignold , the Conservative candidate , who obtained a majority of 270 over Mr . Hamond , whose principles are Liberal . Ayr . —The electors have chosen another gallant soldier , Sir James Fergusson , who is in the Crimea . His principles are Conservative , and he gained a slight majority over the Liberal candidate , Mr . Oswald . Limerick . —Mr . Stephen de Vere has been returned without opposition .
Antrim . —Captain Thomas Pakenham , brother of the late Colonel Pakenham , of the Guards , was elected without opposition one of the members for the county of Antrim . SuNDBKi-AND . —Mr . Digby Seymour , having become Eecorder of Newcastle , his seat for Sunderland lias become vacant . However , he is eligible for reelection , but it is said his last public act , being a vote for the Foreigners Enlistment Bill , has somewhat damped the ardour of his Radical friends . He will make endeavours . Sir Charles Napier is also to be nominated , but the matter is doubtful .
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JUNG BAHADUR . The following extract from the Calcutta correspondent of the Times seems to point at fuTther aggressive measures on the part of Russia . The Nepaulese Prince may once more be a public man : — " The Nepaiilese Cabinet is increasing its military establishment to such an extent as to enforce the necessity of demanding explanations . The Minister professes the most cordial friendship for the British Government , and replies that the armies are intended for an expedition against Lassa ; but there is some reason to suspect that these armaments have some connexion with the progress of Russian intrigues . This view of the case is strengthened by the recollection that similar augmentations of the military force of Nepaul were made in 1837 and 1838 , when the rumour was widely disseminated through India by the emissaries of Persia that a vast Itussian army was marching down to the Indus . "
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THE NEW METROPOLITAN COMMISSION OF SEWERS . —MR . F . O . WARD'S STATEMENT . We reported last weelc that portion of Mr . F . O , Ward ' s address which bore on the question of Private honse drainage , and set forth his main conclusions on this branch of the subject , viz ., that the powers contained in the Metropolitan Sewers Act , for improving private houses , and distributing tho cost over thirty years , should no longer "be suffered to lie dormant as heretofore , but should be actively exercised
on abovo 100 , 000 cesspool houses lying within reach of existing sewers ; precedence being given to houses marked out as worst by cholera and typhus ; deathhouses , of which from 10 , 000 to 20 , 000 might readily be drained and purified before tho next hot season—a simple and practical measure calculated to effect not only a large diminution in . next year ' s mortality , but also an immediate abatement of individual cleansing Costs , and other pecuniary burdens thrown on tho ratepayers , and on society at lurgo , by tho cost of preventiblo sickness and dcatli .
From private house drainage Mr . Ward proocodod to Street , or District drainage , respecting which , ho Baid , it had been the policy of former Comniiaaious to run sewers through extensive districts of tho town , without , at the eaino time , carrying branches right and left to drain tho houses on each sidoj so that tho sowers were like rivers without tributaries , deprived of the streams necessary to keep thoh current flowing , and consequently liable , us natural rivers would
be under like clmunstancoa , to silt up . If the AYoy , the Wnndle , the Brent , and other tributary tstrouina , in tho proportion of niito-tcutlis of tho whole number , were cut off from tho Thames , whnt would become of the acour of that river , or what human power could hinder its channel from rapidly choking up ? And so if a street sewor , n sort of artificial rivor , calculated to receive tho How of say 1000 houses or nnoro , received branches from only ono-tonlli , or , aa often happened , from only ono-twentieth of . tho number
how could it be otherwise than that the feeble stream , trickling in a thin , wide-spread sheet over a relatively enormous invert , should be insufficient to carry away the matters held in suspension , and should leave them to accumulate as a fermenting and pestiferous deposit ? In illustration of this point , Mr . "Ward cited a recent report by Mr . Cooper , one of their own officers , on the drainage of the Golden-square district—that district which was so fearfully ravaged by cholera a few months since . Speaking of Great Pulteny-street , in which a new sewer was built at the beginning of this year , and where many deaths have nevertheless occurred , Mr . Cooper states that of the forty-one houses in the street two only were found to have made applications to drain into the sewer ; and so with respect to other parts of the district , the old cesspools and defective brick overflow drains had been suffered to
remain beneath the houses , " so that , says the reporter , " with very few exceptions the house drainage of the locality remains in the same imperfect state as previous to the new sewers being built . " It had been urged , Mi * . Ward said , in defence of this policy , that it was the duty of each householder to see to the drainage of his own premises ; but this , he thought , was an unreasonable requirement , and a system which the experience just cited showed to be practically insufficient to secure the great end in view , viz ., the rapid elimination of cesspools . Householders were for the most part . persons engaged in the active cares and anxieties of business , totally
unacquainted with the principles of house drainage , uninformed as to its importance , and often therefore both unable and unwilling to take the initiative in these subterranean improvements , and to carry on of their own accord , the campaign against cesspools . If the private house drainage were to be thus abandoned to the V piecemeal operations of individual householders , acting each at his own time , and employing each his own bricklayer , another century might be expected to elapse before the work would be done ; and * when-done it would in most , ' cases prove defective , and "would be found to have cost three or four times as much as similar works executed in
combination , for groups of houses , by contractors responsible to a public body , and subject to the supervision of professional inspectors . It was therefore , in his judgment , an administrativefallacy to separate the private from the public portion of works , which were as much parts of a connected whole as the main arteries and terminal capillaries of the human body . Practical experience contradicted the theory that individuals could be relied on to do the work , however advantageous to themselves when done . It was contrary to sound political economy , and to the principle of the division of labour , to impose on each member of thu community a sort of apprenticeship to the drainage trade ; nor could an entire
population be expected to acquire that-special knowledge concerning sanitary evils and their remedies , which it appertained to themselves ( the commissioners ) to obtain and apply on behalf of their fellow-citizens . lie had consulted contractors of large experience in works of this kind , anil their opinion was , that if the Commissioners provided the capital for private house drainage , and distributed the charge so as to bring that capital back with interest in thirty years , the } ' would meet with no resistance , but on the contrary be welcomed by the householders , who were willing enough to j > ay for comfort , cleanliness , and improvement rate , generally kss than their present cesspool- cleansing costs , which the improved
arrangements would do away with , bo that , in every point of view , looking to the soparate interest of each householder in tho cheap and effectual drainage of Ms own house , ns well as to tho collective interest of tho whole body of householders in the perfect , flow and scour of the common sower , it was important that street drainage should not be carried on as heretofore as a detached and independent work ; and that they should adopt , on the contrary , as a main rule of their new policy , tho combined extension of public and private drainage works as inseparable p : \ rts of ono connected "whole , each indispensablo to tlio olllcieney of tho other , and iotft admitting of chonpor and hotter execution when executed in conjunction .
' Mr . Yv aim next adverted to the size of tho eowera , which lio Haiti was usually excessive * , regard being had to the flow of water having in each ca . su to bo conveyed away . The old policy , ho said , had boon bused ou the assumption that sewers must necessarily accumulate deposit , and that it was therefore indlsponsaiblu to make them large enough for tho entry of workmen to rake out and remove tho filth . Tho now policy , based on an extensive and inert-using experience , with perfectly successful results , assigned
aa tho proper measure for a sowor , not tho stature of man , but tlio quantity of water to bo conveyed uwny . At Manchester , for example , whoro tho new policy prevailed , they had sixty acres of houso-covcrcd surfaico draining with success through an oval pipe only 25 Inches by 18 ; while hero wo had often a man-size sower to drain a email street . On this point Mr . Ward < lwolt at some length , reading portions of a letter ho had received from tho Manchester Sanitary Engineer , to show tho success and economy of
pipedrainage in that town , where oval tubes had been employed as sewers for ten years past , with a saving of about 10 , 000 ? . in first cost to the inhabitants , and with the further advantage of complete relief , in the streets sewered with these pipes , from the noisome accumulations which abound in the districts drained by large brick sewers . Mr . Ward also instanced the pipe-drainage of Croydon in proof of the triumphant success of the new system . The Cholera-morbus , that unbiassed inspector-general , had visited Croydon this year , but which of the houses had ho ravaged?—only those not yet connected with the tubular drainage . He had that day seen a letter from a surgeon at Croydon , stating that not a single
cholera death had occurred in any one of the tubedrained houses , and tliat these pipe-sewers had effected a striking improvement in the health of the population . At the same time Mr . Ward explained that he was no unreasoning partisan of pipes , but quite recognised the necessity of briclc-sewers , and large ones too , to convey away tho storm-waters of a vast surface like that of London . Pipe-sewers and brici sewers , he said , should be employed in their proper places ; and he held it absurd to spend many times the needful sum on drainage , by sewering each little street of a town with a culvert large enough to drain the whole ; or even with a pipe such as the experience of Manchester show ed to be
sufficient for the effectual relief of sixty acres . The consequence of former errors in this respect , coupled with errors in levelling the sewers , was , that subter ^ ranean London was in a state of anarchy and hideous filth , of which few persons had anything like an adequate conception . These horrors had been brought to light by the subterranean survey executed in 1849 by officers of this Commission ; ajid since that time many of the sewers had been getting worse instead of " better . In illustration , he would read a short passage from the report of the subterranean surveyors , setting forth that many miles of sewers " are in a rotten state ; " that even . in . such localities as Belgrave and Eaton squares " they abound with noxious matter , in aiany cases stopping up the ] iousc
drains , and smelling horribly ; ' that" in the districts of Grosvenor , Hanover , and Berkeley squares , as a rule , considerable deposit is found in the sewers , emitting'much effluvium ; " that" much of the work about Cavendish , Bryanston , Manchester , and Portman squares is in such a state of rottenness and decay that there is no security for its standing- from day to day ; " that " there is a large amount of the most loathsome deposit in these sewers , but the act of flushing might . bring some of them down altogether ; " and that " even in the new neighbourhood of Hyde Park Gardens , and tho costly squares and streets adjacent , the sewers abound , vith the foulest deposit , from which the most disgusting effluvium arises . "
Now the policy at present pursued , so far froir putting an end to this state of things , tended rathei to its perpetuation . The evil , no doubt , was the growth of centuries ; aritl inheriting , as \ ro did , the accumulated consequences of the errors of many generations , wo could not expect to remedy them all at once . Still , we should look the evil in the face ; we should recognise it , and grapple fairly with it , instead of hopelessly accepting it' as a normal or at any rate , an incurable state of things , only to bo mitigated by palliative half-measures , such as , for example , measures of partial cleansing of the sewers , for which wo paid 20 , 000 / . a year , or about 20 / . per mile of scwor per unuuin , with no
better result than tho keeping down of tho deposit , us the cleansing contracts run , " to a depth not exceeding six inches in the sewers . " Away with such hall ' -mul-hulf measures , he said . Let it bo recognised , and plainly stated to tlio public :, that whatever it may cost to convey filth rapidly » inl completely out of tlio town , it coats far more to keep it fermenting among us Let them luko *' . Sewers without sediment" a 8 their motto , and keep this principle in viow to guide them in aiU their plans , ami hold it up as a flag to fight under ngainst Jill dillicultioa . Six inched of sediment could no more bo tolerated than six foot , It amounted Id umny thousands of tons in the aggregate , uiul it spread beneath London an urtilluiul marsh of tlio deadliest kin < l , hundreds ol acres in . extent . To set this stugimnt filth in motion wus the task before thum . Tina i ' onn of Slnuxumcy
like every other , must give wuy to tho now principle of Continuou . 1 Circulation : by which liu mount that every kind of refiiso produced in u city nhould , at the very instant of its production , bun hi to move , mid never oeaso moving , at liiu sivurnuo nito of tJiroo miles an hour , till it waa Jar away in tlio country , thcro to > bo nuulo uvuilul > lo fur agriculture . He did nut say that they cunlil in nil oarsiis accomplish this ixl once , but they iiihfhl niukii a beginning . Kaioh milo of sewor should bo carefully Btudied , with a view to tho adoption of nieanr ) for tho prevention of < lupoHit . In ninny ca » c » tho meru concentration of the How now spretul over a wide invert would accomplish tho Uusiml result . Tliiw appearc-d from » u « xl > oriiiiont nmilo under the Trial Works'Committed , by Mr . lfalo ; who laid Olio feet of 12-inch pipe ulong thu buttDiu of a largo sower , o loot < i
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December 30 91854 . ] TBE LEADER . 1233 ^
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 30, 1854, page 1233, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2071/page/9/
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