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everything was trapped, and they had no ventilating shafts of any
description, to the other extreme, where the greatest possible
amount of ventilation was obtained, both by means of open manholes,
untrapped roadside gullies, and ventilating shafts, with
various combinations of these methods to suit local circumstances
in other places, and yet there were causes for complaint in all
places.
The ideal would appear to be that the sewage in the sewers
should be kept moving at such a rate that no deposit should be
formed, or if matters are deposited they should be quickly removed
by a special apparatus, so that the emanations given off would
simply be of the character of fresh sewage, which is not of the
disgusting and offensive odour experienced with the present
practice. As this ideal does not appear to be easily attainable,
some method for drawing the air along the course of the sewers
to suitably placed outlets appears to be as good a method of overcoming
the difficulty as we could at present devise, somewhat in
the same way as mines are ventilated, whereby shafts and furnaces
might be erected at suitable spots to draw along the foul air, and
consume the same before it was dispersed into the atmosphere.
This again, however, seems not to be attainable at the present, and
the next best method in my opinion appears to be a sufficient pro-
vision of suitable ventilating shafts, of good size, and placed in
proper situations, having gas burning at their summit, so that the
offensive gases from the sewers could be disposed of in this way,
although even with this system it has been found that from certain
atmospheric conditions some of these shafts will be found acting
as inlets instead of outlets. I believe that such methods are
beginning to be adopted in this Borough, but, up to the present,
not in sufficient numbers.