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1897, the Board resolved to erect a "destructor" to destroy the
refuse of the district. To burn matter of any kind and thereby to
impoverish the land is doubtless wrong, if such waste material can be
properly returned to decompose (nitrify) in the soil; but when unfortunately
thtough congested states of districts—our present mode of
existing—no land is available in order to utilise such refuse as manure,
and it can only be disposed of by taking it to " shoots," where it is
allowed to putrify and pollute the air of other districts with germs
and noxious gases, burning (until some other wiser and practical
method is discovered), is certainly the better of the two evils for the
disposal of it. Had this method of getting rid of refuse been resorted
to in years gone by, instead of using it for making up roads and sites
of houses (the latter not being covered with concrete), diphtheria,
diarrhoea, and other diseases might not have been so prevalent. We
are now reaping the evils of what has been badly sown for us in past
years. Lately in digging a trench for laying down a new sewer in
Poplar, " made ground" was come upon about eight feet down,
which on contact with the air " fired." This certainly was not
a healthy subsoil upon which to build, even if covered with
concrete.
The destructor will also abolish the shocking and inhuman horrors
of the dust-yard, pitiful to think of—viz., the unnatural and revolting
spectacle of the gentler sex—mothers, daughters, and sisters—standing
and working, all day, knee deep, in filth and garbage.
A most important step and one in the right direction has been
advanced by your Surveyor, in obtaining the sanction of the Board
to try some experiments respecting sewer ventilation. At the present
time, whilst this report is going through the press, experiments are
being tried with a lamp invented by Mr. Gibbon, and named the
" Multitubular Sanitary Lamp," the object of which is to create an
up-draft from the sewer, to destroy the microbes, and at the same
time to give light. The lamp is fixed upon the top of a hollow post,
the base of which is attached to a pipe leading from the crown of the