AN ORDINANCE TO REGULATE THE CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSE DRAINS.

Be it ordained by the Municipal Assembly of the City of St. Louis, as follows:

SECTION 1. It shall be unlawful hereafter to construct or extend any drain for the reception of sewage or waste water under or into any hotel, tenement house or dwelling, or to connect the same with any public or district sewer unless the said drain shall in its plan and construction conform to the following requirements First-There shall be in said drain a trap so constructed as to bar the passage of air from beyond the trap into the house by an obstacle equal to at least one inch in depth of water. Second-Between said trap and the foot of the soil pipe there shall be connected with the said drain an inlet pipe for the admission of fresh air, and the soil pipe within the house shall be continned above the roof and left open so that the whole drain may be thoroughly and constantly ventilated.

SEC. 2. Whenever any person desires to construct a house drain, intended to be connected with or discharge into any public or district sewer, he shall, before be ginning work upon the same, deposit with the Sewer Commissioner a plan thereof, which plan shall show the whole course of the drain from its connection with the sewer to its terminus within the house, with the location of all branches, traps and fixtures to be connected therewith, said plan or a copy thereof to be left on file in the office of the said commissioner. If upon inspection of said plan, the Sewer Commissioner shall find that the same does not conform to the requirements of the preceding section, he shall not issue any permit for its construction or connection with any public or district sewer, and it shall be unlaw. ful to construct said drain or to connect the same either directly or indirectly with any public or district sewer.

SEC. 3. The Sewer Commissioner or his duly authorized agents shall have the right to enter upon the premises drained by any house drain constructed hereafter and connected with any public or district sewer, at all reasonable hours, to ascertain whether the provisions of this or any ordinance in regard to house drains have been complied with, and if he shall find that said drain or its attachments do not conform to the provisions of law in regard thereto, he shall notify the owner of said premises or his agent of this fact. It shall thereupon be the duty of said owner or his agent to cause said drain or its attachments to be so altered, repaired or reconstructed as to make them conform to the requirements of law in regard thereto within fifteen days from the time of receiving such notice. SEC. 4. Any person who shall violate any of the provisions of this ordinance shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not less than ten nor more than one hundred dollars.

Approved January 15, 1880.

In this connection may be cited several cases recently reported. In a physician's house in Boston, the soil-pipes became disconnected. A peculiar odor was observed in each of them. It seemed impossible to detect its source. At last a leak was discovered in the drain directly communicating with the cold-air supply-pipe of the furnace, which latter of course acted as a distributor of the gas through the entire house. A similar leak into the air-duct of the Boston City Hospital, is reported, which produced the most unfortunate results, much sickness and probably increased mortality among the surgical patients, till it was remedied in course of various improvements introduced by Dr. Cowles.

Several of the main sewers constructed in Lawrence, were built without proper regard to the outlet. One in particular was so constructed that the outlet was the highest portion of the sewer. In another the outlet and inlet were much higher than the middle portion; so that a large amount of sewage was always present in the very conditions required for the evolution of sewer-gas.

The question now arises as to how best to dispose of these noxious gases and to prevent their entrance into our dwellings? We want a perfect system. Sewers should be constructed in such a manner as to conduct the sewage with the greatest dispatch possible outside of the city or town. In order to secure such a construction it is necessary that the work be properly engineered, and no sags or up-grades allowed where sewage can be deposited before it reaches the outlet. The soil-pipes should also be connected with the sinks, washbowls and so on a regular angle from the sink to the sewer. In this way there can be no obstruction to the free flow of the water until it reaches the sewer by up-grades or sags. It is also very important to have all the pipes and sewers perfectly tight; also to have good and sufficient traps; and it is very necessary to have a vent for the escape of the sewer-gases that may accumulate. If our dwellings are properly trapped and ventilated no sewer-gases can be admitted into them.

In Lawrence, of late, several persons have connected the soil-pipe of the sewer with the chimney in such a manner as to have any sewer-gas that may accumulate escape by that outlet. It has also been suggested recently by some of the city officials to connect the main sewers with some very large and high chimneys belonging to the corporations in different parts of the city, and thus give vent to the sewer-gases. I notice several buildings recently constructed in Boston, have a pipe introduced into the soil-pipe and carried several feet above the roof of the buildings to give vent to the gas. I think this would be a great improvement on the system sometime since discontinued, of carrying these gases directly into the interiors of our houses, by connecting the waste-water conductors directly with the soil-pipes,

This subject relating to traps seems to be among the most important. No traps should be inside of the houses. All should be outside, and the air should be allowed to pass freely through all the pipes in the interior of the houses and cellars. The best arrangements I have ever seen to protect the interiors of our dwellings from sewer-gas is the double-check sewer-gas trap, constructed by Henry Masters, of Bristol, England. It is made out of an ordinary pipe-drain of the kind in common use. The material for construction may be obtained from any dealer in sanitary ware. This trap is perfectly free from angles, and is so arranged as to be readily cleaned out. In the double-check trap, use two of these single traps. The length of the upright branch should be increased with straight pipes until they come to the surface, where the mouths may be protected, not closed. In one of these pipes there should be a side-junction for connection with the downspout. The best position for such a trap as this will be determined by circumstances; but it must be somewhere between the house and sewer, branch-sewer or cess-pool with which the house-drains communicate; and, as a general rule, the nearer the house the better.

It is to be insisted on, however, that all the drains in the house shall flow into this trap, that there shall be only one connection between the house and the sewer. At least if there are more they should each have a trap, and be certain of a constant supply of water sufficient to maintain a necessary level in it; for it is to be specially noticed that the essence of this improvement is to assure the action of one efficient trap, which can only be the case when the watersupply is unfailing. There should also be an air-pipe from the soil-pipe, between the inlet of the pipes and the inlet to the cellar-drain, which should be carried to the top of the house. There should also be a pipe running from the cellarinlet to the back of the house and carried also to the top of the house; thus giving a free circulation of air around the house and through all the pipes from the sinks and closets, and preventing entirely any possibility of the sewer-gas entering into the interior of the house.

DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE.

By JAMES E. BRIGGS, M. D, New York, N. Y.

The prohibition to pollute the water of streams was a part of the legislation of the Persians and other old nations. Such an injunction, if it should be enforced in our Western countries, would revolutionize our modern civilization. Yet we could not deprecate such an overturn. The purity of our flowing waters appears to us essential to the morality of our population, as it certainly is to the public health. Despite what is asserted, and perhaps demonstrated, in regard to the purifying of tainted water by motion, oxidation and sunlight, I cannot believe that the water of a river which has served as the cloaca of a populous town, becomes speedily fit to drink and use in culinary and other household service. I know that several of our cities and larger towns are thus supplied, but it is preposterous to affirm that it is "pure and wholesome water." It is the diluted abominations cast forth elsewhere to taint and befoul whatever it comes in contact with. Expert chemists, we are often told, have taken a different view; but too many of these opinions are like those of lawyers, given in behalf of the client that pays, and still coram non judice.

Household sanitation is the unsolved problem of modern time. We have yet to devise some artful method to drive bad air from our apartments and let pure air in, so that we may breathe properly at all times. A beneficial sewerage system has been a topic of anxious inquiry. Thus far, a general uncertainty characterizes all that is said or written on the subject. Every now and then a National Hotel disease or Princeton College epidemic will crop out, as if simply in order to show how little is known or done in relation to it. The sanitation of most houses is but some curious makeshift; and so far as towns and cities are concerned, the matter is not so much better as to justify boasting. Memphis has been repeatedly depopulated by yellow fever, the product of stercoraceous emanations evolved by active fermentation; and New

*The statement has been made that the sickness and mortality of the National Hotel, in 1857, were occasioned by partaking of quails; the birds having fed on poisoned berries.-A. W.

Orleans has also stated visitations, which the inhabitants represent as coming from some infected place by shipping, but which our more intellectual sanitarians are learning, is produced on the ground, where abundant material for future pestilence is daily evolved and stored up for the future.

The great need of sanitary reform is an unobjectionable means of collecting and removing waste and excrementitious substances. Our present methods are in remarkable analogy with those which have been tried in finance. A currency of precious metals is but a remove from barbarism and barter, cumbrous, costly and intolerably inconvenient. A higher state of culture and refinement would enable us to substitute for it a more useful method, that of a currency of credit. But thus far we have been unable to attain it except through the agency of capitalists and adventurers, who almost periodically overwhelm us in bankruptcy, peculations and a general disorganization of society. The morality which can evoke and maintain the faith necessary for a credit currency does not exist; and we are compelled accordingly to fall back on metals which general consent has accepted as precious, enabling us to barter them for valuable wares instead of depending on the more primitive method. Sanitary expedients to collect and remove the refuse of our households are almost equally unsatisfactory. The privy with its odious accompaniments has been superseded in a great degree in our cities and towns, by the water-closet inside the house, having a water-pipe communicating with the public sewer. In this way the night-soil and various other refuse materials are carried away to the rivers, lakes and ocean.

This is a waste which every person versed in political science must regard with apprehension. We remember the alarm created in England at the prospect of an exhaustion of the supply of coal. The manufacturing industry of the country, it was apprehended, would be compelled to cease; and with this, would come emigration and the decline of commercial greatness. If the British Dominion is liable to become a third-rate power by reason of the failure of the coal-supply, a more serious danger appears imminent in the United States