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The plan suggested to the Committee, I am sorry to say,
hardly commends itself to me as being the best method of
providing ventilating shafts, because these suggested shafts, placed
at the front of new house property, and taken a reasonable distance
above the roof of such houses, would in many instances discharge
the offensive emanations below the level of the windows of
adjoining property ; and, again, under certain atmospheric conditions
the emanations passing out of these ventilating shafts,
instead of being blown away, would simply descend, and enter the
windows of the house alongside which the ventilating shaft was
erected. The inside of the house being generally somewhat
warmer than the external atmosphere, would assist this by sucking
in the outer air.
It also hardly seems to me fair that owners of new property
should in this way be called upon to, at their own expense,
ventilate the sewers under the control of the Council. I certainly
think that such Council, as they do not keep their sewers
sufficiently self-cleansing to do without this means of ventilation,
should provide the same at their own cost. There is the further
disadvantage, from an aesthetic point of view, that whilst the
individual owners always endeavour to get their ventilating shafts
as much out of sight as possible at the rear of houses, they would
be compelled to have this shaft erected up the front of the property,
which, to my mind, would hardly be an architectural improvement.
The matter of sewer ventilation certainly appears to be
one which this Council ought seriously to consider at the present
time, seeing that so much building is going on, and that several
new estates are being opened up for building purposes in the