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17
water only. In the case of wide new roads or
streets, with new houses, drains, and sewers,
the present requirements are more manageable,
but although most of the sewers in St. James's
are in fair condition, the alteration mentioned has
so far diverted their original intention that evils
undreamt of at the time of their construction
have to be constantly met and overcome in the
most effectual manner of which the circumstances
will permit. A. number of intercepting gully
pits have been constructed on an improved principle
which answer a variety of purposes, viz. to intercept
the transmission of deleterious matter into the
Sewers themselves, to allow of expeditious cleansing
and to prevent the return of noxious odours from
the Sewers themselves. As year by year these
improvements are effected so a more perfect
system is approached, but I am afraid in an
imperceptible degree. The great question of ventilation
is practically untouched, and to those who
know, or in any way realize the extraordinary and
almost incredible amount of miles and miles of
the London sewers, and the way in which they
join with each other, the solution of the difficulty
seems as far off as ever. Here and there a local
injury may be remedied, but Sewers like everything
else will have air, and discharge it in however
a disagreeable state, and the larger London grows
so much the more does the matter become complicated
and concentrated eventually in the intercepting
B