ferred to advise the reconstruction of defective house-drains as the first remedy and increased ventilation of mains as the second. Mr. LEIGH joins issue with us, and clamours for the increased ventilation of mains while he relegates the removal of the noxions house-drains and their substitution by properly built ones to a second place in the order of importance. To illustrate my point by a simile: Mr. LEIGH brings into the room a dead cat far gone in decomposition and then with his handkerchief to his nose begins to clamour about the defective ventilation of the room.
Our reply is a simple common-sense reply; we say: "As however wide we may open the door and window to improve the ventilation, the smell will not disappear, your best plan will be to remove the cause of smell first." With regard to defective house- drains however, it may be stated that the Public Health Ordinance, having now made sanitary reform compulsory a marked improvement may be expected within the next few years in the drainage of native tenements, and this together with the ample ventilating facilities shewn in Mr. COOPER's proposed pipe-sewers under the Separate System, will provide the true remedy for the evil odours complained of.
page
11. At 5 of his letter Mr. LEIGH proposes to reserve exclusively for the passage of through-streams from the Mountain side,--all the present drains of a larger size which traverse the Chinese districts. No sewage is to enter these larger main drains, but duplicate sewers are to be built alongside of them for the escape of the local rainfall in the particular district subserved, and for the district sewage combined.
This looks to me very much like the Separate System, and
if Mr. LEIGH acknowledges in respect of the larger main-drains the advantage of dissociating foul waters from storm floods, why not extend his support to the lesser drains which are only in one degree less subjected to the same conditions, and at once espouse Mr. COOPER'S propositions? But Mr. LEIGH's proposition of large sized double-barrelled main drains down the same valley lines besides being clumsy and complicated will involve if adopted, an outlay so large as to represent in this particular feature alone, about one quarter of Mr. COOPER's entire estimate of cost, and if to this outlay we add the expense of providing new combined sewers in all those streets which at present do not possess them we shall find that Mr. LEIGH's estimates of cost will exceed those of Mr. COOPER with the difference that under the carefully elaborated plans of the latter we shall acquire a thoroughly comprehen- sive and effective system of town-drainage while under the crude and imperfectly throughout schemes of the former we shall have attained only a disjointed one of inferior value.
12. As reference is made in more than one passage of Mr. LEIGH's letter to more recent drainage improvements effected under my supersion, it may remove misconceptions if I explain that these works have comprised the construction of new drains in streets where none existed before, the reconstruction of main drains on straight lines. Where in the earlier days of the Colony they had been built on tortuous lines (as for instance at Jervois Street and Bonham Strand which Mr. LEIGH describes as still existent though they were properly rebuilt as far back as five years ago) and the extension of the town drains higher up the hill where they terminate in open chimney shafts, and that all these works would not be by any means superseded or rendered useless for the purposes they were designed by the adoption now of the Separate System, inasmuch as sound drains are as great a necessity for the escape of storm waters as are sound sewers for the escape of foul-
waters.
13. Long before Mr. COOPER's Separate System Project was submitted by me to the Colonial Government I had carefully weighed over in my mind all the con- siderations now put forward by Mr. LEIGH, and it was only after a very careful deliberation of all the pros and cons both in respect of the Combined System and the Separate System that I resolved to support as strongly as I was able the care- fully prepared plan of Mr. CoorER. I am convinced that the Separate System for the Chinese districts of the City, with its proposed glazed stoneware pipe mains of limited diameter, laid in straight lines on moderately steep gradients and with all its accessories in the shape of ventilating grates, turning Chambers, Manholes etc, and its carefully determined volume of flow--is in the present circumstances of the Colony infinitely preferable to a continuation of the Combined System-under which we are tied to the conveyance of sewage through granite sewers of unduly large size, laid to unduly steep gradients and on lines that are full of bends and twists and which are constructed of a material less adapted to stimulate flow in the more level streets than the smooth glassy surface of stone-ware pipes. I came to my conclusions the more readily that I recognized how much there remained yet to be done in the reconstruction and repair of the actual net-work of granite
CHADWICK'S Report.
drains before we could hope to make the combined system attain even a moderate degree of efficiency, all of which meant an expenditure of public money that would go a very long way to establish the Separate System in its entirety if we elected to adopt this rival system in lieu. Also I particularly considered the question of the interception feature of Mr. COOPER's scheme-with its system of over-flows--and the positions proposed for the out-falls, and have been convinced by a careful investigation of the float experiments that the points selected were the most judi- cious, furthermore I have considered in respect of the proposed new sea wall to be now built along deep water that due regard for the safety of that structure during typhoons requires that the number of sewer outlets should be as limited as is consistent with the efficiency of the sewerage arrangements of the town and I am therefore in favour of the smallest number of openings possible.
14. In the foregoing remarks which relate purely to the native districts of Victoria, I have made no allusion to the higher or European levels because in respect of these I understand there is complete unanimity of opinion.
15. In conclusion I would submit that I am of opinion no advantage will be gained by the acceptance of Mr. LEIGH'S professional offer to furnish competing plans and specifications of his own for a Counter project of public drainage because his propositions while far more costly than he is aware of do not hold out to the Colony any promise of the same thorough and efficient results that are apparent under Mr. CoorEu's carefully prepared designs.
SIR,
Hongkong, 23rd March, 1889.
Enclosure 3.
J. M. PRICE,
Surveyor General.
PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT,
December 29th, 1888.
In answer to your invitation of the 22nd instant I have now the honor to forward you the following observatious on Mr. LEIGH's report on the Proposed Drainage of the City of Victoria.
On page 3 Mr. LEIGH states that the proposed scheme is diametrically op. posed to that of Mr. CHADWICK.
On reference to Mr. CHADWICK's report I find on page 25 in discussing the The principal argument advisability of admitting rainfall into the sewers he says
This is worthless
for its admission is that downpours of rain clean the sewers.
On page 49 of Mr. CHADWICK's report, paragraph 11 reads as follows:- "Plates I and 11 show methods of draining some common types of houses accord- Provision is inade for the removal of slop ing to the principles just enunciated. water only, but, as stated in the report, drains fit for that purpose are fit for the conveyance of excreta also, so that when the time comes they can easily receive the additions necessary to fit them for this additional duty. No provision is made for removal of rain water which should be dealt with separately for the reasons stated in the report. The dimensions are, however, ample to receive a considerable quantity of rain to carry off all would be clearly impossible."
At page 33, in paragraph 207 of the same report Mr. CHADWICK says:—“The upper portions of the existing sewers, those above Queen's Road, are, thanks to their great fall, rather than to their design and construction, almost wholly free from deposit. Nevertheless, it would be well to render their inverts watertight, and to accelerate the dry-weather flow through them, by concentrating it in a semi-circular tile, laid on the invert."
Mr. CHADWICK evidently did not entertain a very high opinion of the old
sewers.
Mr. LEIGH on page 7 of his report quotes a speech made by the Surveyor General on the 5th of November, 1886, in which he stated that 44 miles of new sewers had been constructed and many other improvements carried out during the last three and a half years.
579
June
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