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works, on summer evenings. The effluent is discharged
into the Hogg's Mill stream, which,
even in flood time in winter, is perceptibly impurer
below than it is above the works. The sludge is
buried in trenches, but recently on complaint made
by the Thames Conservancy of the pollution of
a small watercourse parallel to the Hogg's Mill
stream, I traced this ditch up to the boundary of
the New Maiden Sewage Works, and found it to
be full of stinking black mud, such as might be
expected to drain away from sludge taken out of
sewage filtration tanks. Since attention has been
drawn to this, floods have scoured the ditch clean.
There is really no need for these works, as the
sewage of New Maiden could easily, and cheaply,
be carried to the Kingston works for disposal, so
that this would seem to be a desirable arrangement
to make. At any rate, it is to be hoped
that the proposal to bring additional sewage from
1100 persons on Kingston Hill will not be permitted
by the Local Government Board, even should the
defects of the scheme escape the vigilance of the
Surrey County Council. It is also to be hoped that
the Thames Conservancy will have some regard for
the sufficiently polluted Hogg's Mill stream, which
is in summer time little more than a rivulet of
effluent from sewage works and overflowing cesspools.
Isolation Hospitals must next be considered in
connection with an extended area. One hospital of
fair size, capable of accommodating patients from an
area with a radius of about 3 miles, would be preferable
to the establishment of several small hospitals,
some of which must, in a suburban district, be near
dwellings. Though distance from houses is more
beneficial to the patients than harmful to the
surrounding population, except in the case of small
pox, which is very readily carried from point to