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have arranged for the construction of a suitable vessel. It is also
proposed, as an experiment, to offer the pressed and unpressed
sludge to persons who may desire it, free of cost, so as to ascertain
to what extent it may be disposed of by this means. Sludge
not so disposed of will be sent in lighters out to sea, both in the
liquid and in the cake condition, in order to ascertain the cost and
effect of this mode of getting rid of it.
The question of the disposal of sewage, it need hardly be
said, is one of great magnitude, it being estimated that on an
average 150,000,000 gallons are daily carried down to the outfalls,
giving rise to the production of 3,000 tons of sludge, which, when
pressed, would leave 850 tons of cake.
The Board adopted the report of the Committee, and referred
it back with a view to preparation of the necessary plans and
estimates for carrying it into effect. This decision, which amounts
practically to a refusal to adopt the recommendations of the Report
of the Royal Commission, has been severely criticised by outside
authorities on the question, and has met with condemnation, the
justice of which time only can determine, and will determine,seeing
that the Board have taken steps for carrying the scheme into effect.
THE ROUND POND.
There was a considerable outcry during the summer
months against the authorities responsible for the management
of the parks, on account of their proceedings in draining the
Round Pond in Kensington Gardens, preparatory to removing the
accumulated mud of a century—the object being to fill up the;
bottom to such an extent as to make the pond a safe place for
skating—a process which necessarily gave rise to a good deal of
stink. It being not unnaturally supposed, by many persons, that
Kensington Gardens is in Kensington Parish, your Vestry were
deemed in some degree responsible for the nuisance created, granting
it to have continued longer than necessary, or upon the supposition
that it might have been prevented. The Round Pond, however,
like the Palace itself, is in the Hamlet of Knightsbridge, an outlying
part of the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster. Few
complaints reached me directly. One gentleman, indeed, living in