BAD PLUMBING AND DIPHTHERIA.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 915, 7 September 1910, Page 4

BAD PLUMBING AND DIPHTHERIA.

PLAIN SPEAKING BY CITY " v ENGINEER. Lecturing at - the Y.M.C.A. last night on the water supply and drainage of Wellington, the city engineer (Mr, W.'Et\ Morton) sounded a note of warning in' regard to the risks incurred by defective plumbing and drainage. He said no matter how perfect a water supply and drainage system might be, all was futile unless the owners of property, 'in-; mating' their house connections, had the work done in the most approved' manner::. /It was there the healtnfulness of the dfrelling and its' inhabitants were to be conserved. The other day he had been called to . a . residence' where' a case of diphtheria had occurred, and two or three cases adjacent, to it. -Ha hadex-; arained j that house, and he had never 'seen such plumbing work as was there.. There was no connection to the fittings of:the 'waste pipes which were made of galvanised sheet-iron. The waste., water was running underneath the house inques-. tion, and was it any wonder, he asked, that the people living there got diphtheria? If a man sold bad meat ■: or .bad bread he was brought before the Court and punished, and .the man who. house with plumbing of the elate he had described, deserved the same penalties.. From what he had eeeri, such instances' were becoming rare in Wellington... He thought that the plumbing had considerably improved; but they might take it from him, that cheap plumbing was like cheap law— no' good.;. \ He. regretted to' say that there were a great many people who seemed to" think there was nothing to be gained ". except by doing" plumbing in, the cheapest possible - way, whereas properly carried out and durable work was the best and oheapest in. the long run. (Applause.) :