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16
river so large an amount of water, as will be done
by the intercepting drains. The influence of sea water
has been traced to Wandsworth ; if we take more water
from the river it will be traced still higher. The question
of purification of the Thames is a difficult problem, and
can only be solved by intercepting in some way those pollutions
which are now permitted to enter it. Many think
we shall never succeed but, by putting an end to water
closets, and returning, of course, with improvements
and modifications, to the older contrivances. The introduction
of water-closets necessitated the cesspools, the
horrors of cesspools necessitated their destruction, and
the deviation of the water-closets from them into the
Thames, making it one immense cesspool, yet with all
its evils, less injurious to health than cesspools under
our dwellings. In addition to all this, we should consider
what health-giving sources we sacrifice by the
pollutions we daily cast into our River. We can no
longer bathe in it, nor use its surface for exercise or
recreation. So large an open space as the Thames forms
in the centre of London is most important for ventilation
; while the facilities for locomotion by steamboats
would form another source of health ; all lost to us
until we have adopted means for the purification of
the stream.
There have been several projects for preserving what
we now wastefully commit to our rivers, and restoring
to the land the organic principles we have used up as
food. I believe that one might be hit upon which would
relieve our river, and save that worse than wasteful
expense for intercepting sewers, which bids fair to be a
gigantic failure. We have only a choice of evils; the
great evil of the present state of the river, or a little
evil, comparatively, to each householder. For example,
why might there not be under our present waterclosets
an iron tank, to receive nothing but exuviae?