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which cannot now be enforced in the present state of the
law, are necessary to make our present system of sewers not
only efficient, but safe. It should not be forgotten that the
lamentable outbreak on St. John's Hill, some two years ago,
affecting as it did some hundreds of persons in a single
night, and causing the loss of several valuable lives, would
not and could not have occurred if the above measures
had been adopted. The usual water seal in traps of house
drains is liable to get out of order in many ways, the most
frequent of which is back pressure of sewer gases when a
heavy fall of rain occurs; in which circumstances, and under
the present arrangements, a sudden flooding of the main
sewers takes place and their gaseous contents are forced
through the thin water seal of the ordinary water
closets with the greatest facility. It is obvious that if
the drain pipes were carried to the top of each house
any back pressure of gas would not be able to find its way
into that house. There is no doubt that legislation giving
the Board control over the manner in which house drains
are laid throughout their whole length would be of the
greatest possible value, as numerous cases have occurred
in this parish where the cause of death has been distinctly
traced to the influx of sewer gases by these channels. This
matter is one that should be brought to the front in any
future legislation on the subject.
Thanks in great measure to the members of the
Anti-Vaccination League, and other foolish persons
possessing a defective knowledge of the real effects of
vaccination, and an ever ready belief in absurd and
unreliable statements as to alleged subsequent outbreaks
of disease, following and occasioned by this, the most
beneficent discovery ever vouchsafed to the human race,
another outbreak of Small Pox throughout the metropolis
generally has to be reported. In this parish the deaths
to the end of the year were 10, none of which were of
unvaccinated children born in this parish; the two cases
under 10 years of age which succumbed to the disease
having been born elsewhere.