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have been discovered in considerable numbers, but these disgusting makeshifts
for effective sewerage do literally "honeycombe" some of the poorer
localities—not alone in this parish, but throughout the entire district. No
one can feel surprised then, at the wells of such neighbourhoods becoming
contaminated by percolation; the wonder is that many of these wells have
so long escaped becoming cesspools themselves in every sense of the term.
When pumps are known to abut on the very walls of constantly overflowing
privies, and one cesspool after another to be dug around to receive
the contents of these places, for any one to contend that it is not expedient
to provide drainage and sewerage for such neighbourhoods is something
inconceivable. It has already been shown that this sub-district has
generally escaped in a remarkable manner the high rate of mortality
usually attendant upon the presence of cholera, fever, and other diseases
of the zymotic character. But maladies of this class do nevertheless occur
here, and that with a frequency and intensity which ought by no means to
furnish us with an excuse for shutting our eyes to the causes of their
invasion. It is not so much a question as to how frequently these maladies
make their appearance, as upon what localities and upon what description
of people they fall the heaviest when they do invade us. The subjoined
table may, perhaps, furnish some little information upon the point, worthy
the contemplation of those who may be sceptical in the matter of influences
arising from defective or absent drainage.

The figurative language applied by the eccentric Carlyle to another and
a very different social evil, might, I think, with some justice be literally
applied to the one we are now considering. "In all thoroughfares," says
this vigorous writer, "and in all arenas and physical departments of existence,
running water and Herculean scavenyerism have become indispensable,
unless the poor man is to choke in his own exuviae, and die the sorrowfulest
of deaths." And yet has it not been fully proved, upon most unquestionable
authority, that not only the poor man, but frequently the rich
one, swallows in his daily beverage literally the outscourings of the locality
in which he resides?—a fluid which, to use the words of Mr. Simon, is to
be found "swarming with infusorial life, and containing unmistakable
molecules of excrement ?"
There is, unfortunately, no disputing the fact, that most of the water
now supplied by the companies, though obtained from much purer
sources than formerly, is still contaminated with both organic and inorganic