Vacillating Rulers.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 858, 10 August 1888, Page 27

Vacillating Rulers .

Lamentable inconsistency and vacillation seem to attend every step taken bv the Wellington City Council in the direction of sanitary reform. The history of the Council’s proceedings with regard to a sewage-outfall scheme will always remain on record as a

inonument of singular incompetence Bud weak-mindedness on the part of our municipal rulers. How they turned and twisted, and wriggled an<J wobbled between Climie and Clark and Clark and Climie, until they ended in doing nothing at all except pay away several thousands of pounds of the ratepayers’ money as the cost of their wretched wavering are not these things written in the of the chronicles of the civic rulers of Wellington ? And now that they have, "wonderful to relate, adopted a valuable agent of sanitary improvement in the shape of the Destructor,' no sooner is the machinery just about ready for erection on the site which had been chosen from the first, than the unhappy Councillors are plunged anew into an agony of selfdistrust and hesitation, and of “ wiah--sng-th®y-hadn’t-done-it.” Some residents in the neighbourhood of the proposed site for the Destructor, bearing shrewdly in mind the compensation screwed ouc of the Council in connection with the Clark outfall scheme, considered it might not be at all a bad thing to raise an outcry against the proximity of the Destructor to their residences. The Council’s knees instantly knocked together, and the prompt impulse was to give up the whole thing on the spot, to sell the

Destructor for what it would fetch,

and to rest content with the old piggish and . filthy system of re-fuse-disposal • for another decade. It mattered little that the Destructor had been obtained on conclusive testimony as to the utter absence of resul taut nuisance, even when its site was in the most crowded city neighbourhood. All this was forgotten or ignored. Mr Higginson bad made a mild little joke to the effect that he perhaps would not care to hold his nose for a week over the top of the chimney. Who would? Who would wish to hold his nose immediately over the top of a lighted gas jet, or to look with his nostrils down the chimney of a burning kerosene lamp ? But why should anybody do this ? Nobody wants him to do so, nor is anyone Tinder an obligation to hang lovingly over the top of the Destructor chimney. But what might be uncomfortable at such very close quarters becomes perfectly harmless and imperceptible at a short distance. The man whose nose would he unpleasantly Singed if he held it right over a lighted gas jet will not feel the last sensation of warmth from the flame at the other side of the room, and so the residents in the vicinity of the Destructor may rest assured that they will live quite unscathed by any noxious emissions from its chimney. Probably what Mr Higginson intended fo convey was that its fumes would be

■wholly imperceptible, unless anybody

was so anxious to smell them that he would hold his nose over the chimney top. And even then most probably he would be conscious only or a sultry gaseous heat, almost if not quite inodorous. Not only does the large experience available of the use of the Destructor in England prove conclusively that no nuisance" is

caused by its fumes, but common sense, and a priori reasoning demonstrate the same. Why should there be any smell? The chemical elements which, when combined in certain proportions, go to make the vilest of stinks —as . sulphur and hydrogen, which jointly compose .the famous odour of rotten eggs — when subjected to intense heat, even in that form of combination wholly n> e tutor c-ejeteriouH enamel eristic*. Turn a mass of garbauo, reeking with Biilpiiuref,ed hydrogen,' ir;r.o the Destructor furnace, and vriias is the result? .Why, the fumes emitted con •

sin's of \he vapour of pure water and sulphurous acid, a powerful disinfec-

tant ! Our readers may rest assured that if the Destructor does its work as it is guaranteed to do, they need be -under no apprehension, ns to deleterious or malodorous fumes. The had smell which arises sometimes jfropc refuse burned in the ordinary way is duo to imperfect combustion. It is the particles not

burned that fly off with, the smoko and /•ause t he bad smell, juab as soot confV'is of uiuumaumed.particles of coal •or r-'Ood. Dot the combustion be per--tod there is no smoke and no snieilr- -wvr of steam, of carbonic acid (lito gt's which aerates soda-water, and “Bruit Kir.lt,” and.Seidlitz powders, and other refreshing or medicinal beverages), and sulphurous acid, which, as we have said, is a strong, disinfectant, and which is regarded aa one of the remedies for the throat affection in diphtheria. Amd even these can only "be perceiyed by a determined observer in Mr Higgimon’a theoretical attitude with his nose held over the to 1 -"- ~ in Dft chimney,

an altitude unlikely to be commonly selected. A few feet away the acutest nose would be unable to delect the faintest difference in the air of the Destructor’s neighbourhood. Both theory and practice prove, this to be the fact, And as to the conveyance .of Ihe refuse being a nuisance, it would be much less so than it is at present, because the rubbish will be so much more rapidly and efficiently disposed of that it need never be allowed to remain until tainted with decay. Be«ide>s, an improved type of covered cart could readily be provided iu ease the use of the Destructor should be extended to nightsoil or other foetid matter. If we accept the concurrent testimony of everybody who knows anything at all about the Destructor, all the fears which have been expressed as to its creating any unpleasantness are the veriest moonshine, due either to thoughtlessness, or to a desire to “ make something " out of the cry. Mr Higginson's official report is conclusive on that head, and it must bo remembered that he is an engineer of eminence with a reputation to maintain, who was specially commissioned by the Council to investigate this question and report upon it. To employ an expert and then to refuse to accept his report is as childish as it would be to call in a competent doctor, and then to refuse to submit to his treatment or to take his medicines. We do hope that the Council will, even at the eleventh hour, makeup their minds to carry out the beneficial measure upon which they decided so long ago, and that they will not be deterred from doing so by either ignorant or interested agitation.