of pipe drainage to a town or district. The
results were striking, and so far as they went
decisive. One illustration will suffice. There
was a certain line of brick sewer three feet
wide, with an average fall of one in a hundred
and eighteen. In it, the deposit from twelve
hundred houses accumulated in a putrefying
mess at the rate of six thousand cubic feet
per month. Inside this gallery of brickwork
there was placed a pipe of only fifteen inches
in diameter, with a somewhat slighter
inclination, one in a hundred and fifty-three. It
did the work that the brick drains had failed
to do,—carried off all the sewage matter at a
steady pace, without leaving an atom of
matter to stagnate and rot. While these
inquiries were on foot, interests threatened
by the new principles of drainage cried out
against the commissioners for doing nothing,
and a new commission, composed chiefly of
engineers, promising to be more active, was
appointed.

The second commission included the military
engineers of the previous board, with
Mr. Stephenson, and Sir William Cubitt,
Mr. Peto, Mr. Philip Hardwick, and some
others. Instead of continuing the investigations
of its predecessors at the point where
they had left off, this commission pulled down
the stages constructed for trial works, then
about half completed, and pulled up the pipes
that had been laid in certain sewers, though
they were performing most efficiently the
duty that tlie sewers had been found unable
to perform,—and to pull up the pipes was to
cause the deposit to accumulate again
precisely as before. The engineer of this
commission, Mr. Frank Forster, devised with
great skill a plan of town-drainage on the
ancient system. The Thames was to be kept
pure by an intercepting tunnel on each bank,
which would receive the filth now poured
into the stream, and there was to be a second
tunnel for the Middlesex side about sixty
feet above the level of the river, following the
line of Holborn and Oxford Street, to catch
the sewage from the higher parts of London.
The estimated cost of these works was
considerable; but before the plan could be
brought to maturity, the commission by
which it was to be promoted, perished of
internal dissensions.

A third commission was then issued, in the
year eighteen hundred and fifty-two: some of
the engineers belonging to the previous board
being retained upon it. That is the commission
which exists at present upon sufferance.
A successor to it has been promised in the
shape of a commission which is to consist of
seven nominees of government and a delegate
from each metropolitan borough. But the
public, we imagine, would be glad now to
have some better security for the carrying
out of whatever may be proved a right
system of drainage than the appointment of
a fourth commission, which most probably will
go the way of those which have already
perished. The third commission has
conceived, of course, its scheme of London
drainage, and it is one that seems to have
been especially designed as a full benison on
bricklayers. The first design on the old
system for town drainage separate from the
Thames put forward by Mr. Morewood,
required only one tunnel to catch the fall of
sewage from the north side of the river. The
second commission adopted that design, and
added a second tunnel along the line of
Holborn and Oxford Street. The third
commission adopts the first tunnel and the
second tunnel, and adds a third tunnel
through Hackney, Stoke Newington, and
Kentish Town. Demanding three millions
from parliament for outlay upon these works,
it gets only a tenth part of that sum, and
with the wisdom peculiar to itself spends that
on Battersea and Hackney; for, it is bent
upon executing first of all a tunnel to catch
drainage from that part of town which lies
a hundred feet above high water, and it is
also anxious to get to work on the middle
tunnel for the benefit of people living more
than sixty feet above the Thames. No heed
seems to be paid by it to those low lying parts
of London which are in the most urgent need
of help. On the Surrey side, the existing
drains are to be removed for one or two miles
from the river, so that they may flow to the
first of two intercepting sewers placed at that
distance beyond the bridges. This scheme for
the protection of Thames water from foul
pollution—an object earnestly and rightly
sought by a large section of the public—is
devised, we should add, in the present year,
by the same commissioners and engineers
who last year before a drainage committee
denied the pollution of the Thames, and
contended for the postponement of outfall drains.
Want of a true earnestness of purpose has in
fact characterised all the proceedings of this
third commission.

GIVE

SEE the rivers flowing
    Downward to the sea,
Pouring all their treasures
    Bountiful and free—
Yet to help their giving
Hidden springs arise;
     Or, if need be. showers
Feed them from the skies!

Watch the princely flowers
    Their rich fragrance spread,
Load the air with perfumes,
    From their beauty shed—
Yet their lavish spending,
    Leaves them not in dearth,
With fresh life replenished
    By their mother earth!

Give thy heart's best treasures!
    From fair Nature learn;
Give thy love,—and ask not,
    Wait not a return!