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52
IRON DRAINS.
A large and increasing proportion of the new drains in the City are now
constructed in iron with caulked lead joints.
Iron has many advantages over earthenware, viz., the length of the pipes
(9 ft. against 2 ft.), enabling a true alignment to be kept, the small number of
joints, the fact that a defective joint can be caulked at once, saving delay, the
greater resistance to subsidences and vibration, and the expedition with which
the works can be carried out, this being an important item in large business
premises, and indeed in any case.
The disadvantages are, the slightly increased cost of the material and the
suggestion that the pipes are liable to corrosion, but if they are properly
coated with Dr. Angus Smith's solution, this does not appear to be a real
objection. On the whole, therefore, iron pipes are preferable to earthenware
ones, especially when the drain has to be laid beneath a building, also when a
drain has to be driven through a mass of brickwork the iron pipe offers
greater facilities for laying the drain, as the joints are so far apart, and less
cutting away is required in piercing the obstruction.
When these advantages are more generally recognised it may be possible to
require all drains to be laid in iron.
HOUSES INFESTED WITH VERMIN.
Two cases occurred where rooms in tenement houses were found to be
infested with vermin. Upon the owners' attention being directed to the powers
conferred upon the Corporation by 4 Ed. 7, cap. 244, sec. 20, they at once
carried out the necessary disinfection and cleansing. The section referred to
enacts that upon receipt of a certificate from the Medical Officer of Health,
a Sanitary Authority is empowered to give notice in writing to the owner
or occupier of verminous premises requiring him within a certain time, to be
specified on the Notice, to cleanse the house, and if so required to remove the
paper from the walls, and take such other steps for the destruction and
removal of vermin as the case may require. Failing compliance with such
Notice, the Sanitary Authority may do the work required themselves, and
recover the expense as a civil debt from the person making the default.