THE THAMES.
THE question of the Thames is in a position more discredit- able to the governing class and the public of this country than ever, and it will land us in a slough worse than that of Despond, unless public opinion should be sufficiently roused and concentrated to interfere, and promptly. The late Government created the Board of Works as if for the specific purpose of devising impracticable measures which the Commissioner of Public Works was to reject. Having been sent out of office on other grounds, the late Ministers now abet the present Ministers in closing the question, by adopting the very measures which the late Commissioner of Public Works, so long as he was responsible, rejected, endorsing the proposals of that body which perpetual rejection proved to be incompetent ; and Lord Palmerston advises the House of Commons to adopt that course simply because people say " something must be done," and he thinks if we wait for a perfect plan we shall never get it done. While he was in office his colleague rejected the plan for its incomplete, costly, and unsuitable character • but now that they have got rid of the responsibility, Lord Palmerston says, Let us leave off considering the matter any further and take up the plan that happens to be ready. The proposal is made under the panic created by the corruption of summer • but the summer is now passing away. Immense sacrifice of labour, of money and of time could be saved by reconsidering the subject as it now stands—reconsidering it not in the official sense to gain the opportunity of procrastination, but in order to determine upon the course of action. The very first condition for such a reconsideration is one that condemns the Metropolitan Board of Works : the reconsideration should be effected by a body possessing sufficient power to command the deference of the public and the authority to execute the works, the inquiry and the execution being placed in the same hands. The reasons for this oonviction, which we must insist upon, are palpable, simple, and easily understood. The largest of the plans proposed is insufficient. As Mr. Lowe showed on Monday night, it is calculated to drain the metropolis with a population of 3,500,000 ; but if the population were to increase at the rate which it has exhibited since 1801, then the contrivance now pro- posed would soon be entirely exhausted. The scheme would not be in full operation for five or six years, and after six or seven years more a new scheme would be wanted. Is not this folly ? Would boys above the age of eleven plan great works on this principle? The cost is estimated at 3,000,000/.the Govern- ment referees commence with a charge of 6,000,000/. ; there are incidental expenses of deodorizing, and all that sort of thing. The annual charge for principal and interest alone is stated by Ministers at 140,0001., but Mr. Lowe calculates that the annual expenditure would represent a capital of 7,000,000/. ; and they axe me • ing it a condition of their bill that the permanent cor- poration, which they boast of establishing, shall be unable to do anything whatsoever so soon as it has passed the 3,000,0001. Therefore, that permanent corporation, shall by the edict which presides at its birth, be debarred alike from forming works suffi- cient for the metropolis thirteen years hence, and from raising sufficient funds to pay for the imperfect plan now adopted. Ministers say, that the annual cost will be 140,0001. although they reckon a capital of only 3,000,00W. Accept Mr. Lowe's capital estimate, and the cost would amount to 280,0001. or 326,0001. It is a question for the ratepayers, a question of pounds, shillings, and pence as well as of moral credit. The work will not be done ; it will cost more than twice as much as Ministers calculate ; and it will most likely end in an abandon- ment of the works begun, a waste of the money, with the in- terruption and incumbrance of our streets for the net profit.
Many men of great scientific ability assert, with strong grounds for the assertion, that the whole object could. be obtained by means infinitely smaller—less than a tenth of the outlay contemplated by this confessedly imperfect plan. These ingenious persons would treat the subject with entirely different methods. In the columns of a contemporary, Mr. Bridges Adams has insisted upon an entire separation of the sewage from the pure water ; in a pain Met letter to Lord John Manners, Mr. George Coode has ar- in the same way, with a statement of several interesting
ts, sufficiently strong at least to establish a prima' facie ease ; in a letter to the Daily News, "Common Sense" pursues the same argument. The principle of the idea which is common to these and other gentlemen is, an entire alteration of the present method of drainage : the sewage would be withheld from drains and applied directly to agricultural purposes. Some are for ap- plying it in the liquid form, though there are grave objections to that method, which wastes the vivifying qualities of the manure, by distributing in the atmosphere that which should be conveyed to the substratum and to the roots of plants. It has been shown, over and over again, that the space of land required for the ab- sorption of manure is far less than most persons imagine. Mr. Coode, for example, calculates that the manure of the whole metropolis could be absorbed on a space of land seven miles square —less than two-fifths of the Parliamentary area of the Metro- polis, one-sixth of Middlesex, or one thirty-third of Kent. The absorption of the manure in the market-gardens near London, especially those which are most successful, would be more than enough to prove this position ; and it has been calculated that a belt of land round London one mile seven furlongs in breadth would be amply sufficient to take up all the manure which this metropolis can produce. This is a plan which would carry out by a direct process what M. Pierre Leroux calls " the grand circle," conveying back to the earth that which is taken from it, in order that it may be reproduced in the vege- table form, become available for food and be again carried back to the earth in endless circulation. It has been shown that deo. derization is difficult for very large quantities of sewage, and only superficially useful for sanitary purposes, but it could be very beneficially applied in the brief process of removal. Meohanieal difficulties to execute this operation might be overcome without any vast amount of ingenuity or labour ; and it has been Woe. lated that the whole could be effected for the metropolis consider- ably under the annual cost of 100,0001. a year working expenses, without vast tunnels, immense systems of tubes, deodorizing re-' servoirs, or " outfall " anywhere. The purification of London on this, which may be called the desiccation principle, has but re- cently been mooted in a very positive and practical form, and it certainly challenges a very close and business-like inquiry before we commit ourselves to the ultra-Roman, hyper-Etrnrian labour of subterranean ways from London to Barking, or the German Ocean. In fact, the most reasonable plan is to carry the manure, not to the sea, but to the land, where it becomes reconverted to life in the.great laboratory of nature. Supposing a plan of this kind were proved to be practicable, and were carried out, London would be relieved of the incubus which now occasions so much uneasiness and discomfort; the Thames and its tributaries would be released from their noisome duties ; a tract of land round London would be rendered more fertile than ever it had been before, the fertilizing material being enabled to evade the adulteration which Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney pointed out from the iron of London locomotive traffic ; and the verdure called forth would assist in purifying the air, as growing vegetation does, with no small advantage to our scenery and table. And besides these positive gains, we should do it if at all, at a price under 100,0001. a year, in lieu of 140,0001., 280,0001., or 300,0001., imposed upon the rate-payers for creating works that must either be renewed and continued within fifteen years, or abandoned as insufficient and worthless. We prejudge the question on neither side ; but we do say that before the passing of Lord Derby's bill to perpetuate and enthrone Lord Palmer- ston's neglected Board of Metropolitan Works, we ought to have one searching and final inquiry.
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