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New Zealand Mail, Issue 771, 10 December 1886, Page 22

Cordially as we may agree with the Mayor that the time has arrived when something definite should be done toward initiating a proper drainage system, we feel bound to point out that this conclusion has been reached more than once during the, past fourteen years without any tangible result accruing. So long ago as 1873 the City Council, offered a premium of £SO for the best “ wrinkle” (that was the term used) in the direction of city drainage. All the “wrinkles” received were flatly condemned by the experts who acted as judges of their value, but the Council generously awarded the £SO of the ratepayers’ money to the “ leastworst” attempt, and then pitched it into the waste-paper basket. Next came the Climie, Napier-Bell, and Clark schemes, of which the only drainage which resulted was that of the ratepayers’ pockets, which flowed most copiously iuto those of certain engineers and lawyers during the litigation which ensued on a series of almost incredible blunders. And the outcome has been that up to the present time we have been merely laying down odd drains here and there in a perfectly irregular and unsystematic manner, but have also expended the best part of the £70,000 which was borrowed for drainage purposes. That it is urgently necessary we should enter upon a new course, and establish some sore of practical and comprehensive system-of sewerage, is manifest enough. There can be no question at all that the public health has suffered, does suffer from the absence of proper drainage, and that it will suffer yet more in-the future. But there is no use in going over the old ground again. Nobody would care to have the Clark-Climie controversy, and the consequent litigation and lawyers’ bills, de novo. It is useless to touch the matter at all unless it be approached in a broad and intelligent spirit, and with a clear perception of all the issues involved. The Mayor-elect is a shrewd, practical man and an expert. He has an excellent chance of distinguishing his Mayoralty if he can take up this matter and carry it to a successful issue. But in any case that would take time, and we desire to point out very emphatically that another season of danger to the public health, unless something be done to improve the sanitary condition of the city, is rapidly approaching. The typhoid epidemic of last summer and autumn ought not to be forgotten. A recurrence may be confidently looked for unless suitably preventive measures be adopted. We have urged over and over again the imperative necessity of some less barbarous and disgusting, as well as dangerous, method of removing refuse. Yet the unsavoury “ pilgrims of the night ” still'pursue their malodorous wander-

ings, and appear likely to do so for an indefinite period. Surely the Council might adopt one of the many available modes of abating this nightly nuisance. Again, we have several times pointed out that an undue burden is cast upon an able and energetic Inspector of Nuisances through the multiplicity of offices laid upon his shoulders. No one man can adequately perform so many different functions. Pending the maturity of some complete and comprehensive sanitary scheme for the whole city, the City Council might advantageously devote some attention to these two points.