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quantity of dust resulting from the very inferior
material with which the streets are mended. This
is a very preventible evil, as by the use of harder
material, and by watering the streets.

CHOICE OF MEANS TO IMPROVE THE HEALTH OF THE
TOWN, OR TO OBVIATE FUTURE UNHEALTHINESS.

First and foremost amongst the means of improving
the health of the town, stands an ample supply of
pure water, which all sanitary experience has shown
to be absolutely essential to the good health of cities.
As we are informed that the works now in course of
construction will supply this want, we do not dwell
on it farther in this place. Amongst the means of
improving the cleanliness, and thereby the health of
the city, we have considered a more extended system
of sewerage, scavenging, and the so-called earth-closet
system. We assume at once that the present system
of cesspools, tainting dangerously both air and water,
is no longer to be tolerated.

REMOVAL OF SOLID SEWAGE BY SEWERS, OR BY
SCAVENGING, OR NIGHT CARTS.

The principal part of the City of Nelson stands so
low with regard to the sea-level, that any attempt to
carry off solid sewage or excrement, by a system of
sewers would necessarily be enormously expensive,
and probably prove very unsatisfactory. The solid
sewage now preserved in cesspools, if discharged by
the present sewer, or even if delivered into the
Maitai, would, we believe, coat the edges of the
mudflat, and the piles of wharfs and piers, with an
offensive slime, deleterious to the public health; on
the other hand, to carry a brick sewer, or an iron
pipe down to the pilotage lights, or to the Arrow
Rock, would involve an expense not to be contem-
plated, say £9000 [See Appendix V.]

Again, the levels are such that in a sewer con-
structed with such a fall as to cause the requisite flow,
its contents on arriving at the Arrow Rock would be
below the level of the sea; it would, therefore, be
necessary to construct an intermediate reservoir, with
pumping apparatus, to lift the sewage to such a
height as to ensure the requisite fall, at an increased
cost. [See Memorandum by Provincial Engineer,
Appendix V.]

Being, then, of opinion that to discharge by the
present sewer the night-soil out of the city would be
most dangerous, and necessarily more and more dan-
gerous as the town grows, while yet the cost of
extending it in a thoroughly effective and sanitarily
safe manner would prove far beyond the means of
the city; and further, that such a sewer would waste
manure which may be made a valuable source of
revenue and of benefit to the country, we unhesita-
tingly condemn sewers as a means of removing the
solid sewage of Nelson. The construction of sewers
to carry off liquid sewage will be considered in a
subsequent part of this report.

The getting rid of solid sewage by simply empty-
ing cesspools, or portable closet-boxes into carts, and
removing their contents to depôts, has also been con-
sidered, and unhesitatingly condemned as offensive,
and dangerous to the public health, and as having
been found to be, wherever hitherto tried, a very
great and irritating nusiance, while the manure ob-
tained is far inferior to that produced by the earth-
closet system. Believing deodorization to be abso-
lutely necessary for the public health and conven-
ience, we confidently recommend the adaptation
of the earth-closet system, as the cheapest, most con-
venient, and most effective in increasing the value of
the manure produced.

EARTH CLOSETS RECOMMENDED.

The committee here invite inspection of Stanesby's
Deodorizing Portable Tank-closet, which has been re-
cently obtained from Melbourne by the Government,
for its remarkable simplicity, convenience, compact-
ness, and inexpensiveness. (They are informed that
such an apparatus could be supplied here for about
30s., and that existing privies might be adapted to the
system for £1 each.) It consists essentially of a chest,
on lifting the lid of which one end is found to form
an ordinary night-stool, the usual earthenware pan
being replaced by a large iron pail coated with coal-
tar or varnish; the other end, divided off by a par-
tition, holds pulverized earth and a tin scoop, one
scoopful of earth being the quantity necessary for
deodorization for each time of using the closet. It
is said that the deodorization is complete and in-
stantaneous, and that the compost produced can be
dried and used over and over again even unto seven
times. It has been said ashes may also be used, but
the deodorization is not so complete unless used in
much larger quantities and quite dry. While earth
absolutely destroys the bad smell, ashes appear only
to smother it, and we fear that, if large quantities
of ash-compost from earth-closets should come
to be piled up in one place in a depôt, such
a heap would be offensive and a nusiance. It
is obvious, that when the cost of even the above-
described simple apparatus cannot be borne, that a
ruder adaptation of the same principle would almost
equally well serve the purpose; as for instance, sim-
ply an iron pail under the privy seat, and a box full
of earth, or even of fine dry ashes by the side, with
a scoop or tin pot to bale it out with. While for
those who object to handling the scoop, a modifica-
tion of the scheme of the water-closet has been de-
vised, whereby on moving a handle, sifted earth, in-
stead of water, falls into the receptacle under the
seat. This plan, however, requires extremely care-
ful sifting of the earth. In any case, the expense of
an earth-closet is much less than that of a water-
closet communicating with a sewer.

We beg to call attention to the statements of a
printed pamphlet on the earth-closet, received from
Mr. Stanesby [See Appendix, IV.] This pamphlet
states that the Borough Councils of St. Kilda,
Prahran, Sandridge, and Emerald Hill, as well as
many gentlemen in Melbourne and the suburbs,
have adopted Stanesby's earth-closets.

The general adoption of this plan would necessi-
tate an organized system of scavenging; that is, a
scavenger under contract should be employed to go
round the city, at such intervals as should suffice, to
remove each full pail weekly, bringing at the same
time a supply of fresh earth to those who need it;
such scavenging to be combined with the ordinary
scavenging for the removal of ashes, bones, scraps,
rags, &c., &c., and to take place only before half-past
eight in the morning. We see no objection, how-
ever, to householders who have a certain amount
of ground attached to their dwellings, using this
manure in their own ground, provided it be so dug
in as to occasion no nuisance or unwholesome
smells. This would be a matter for the Inspector of
Nuisances to satisfy himself upon.

SUPPLY OF EARTH.

With regard to the supply of prepared earth for
these closets, we observed in the Wellington Inde-
pendent the following advertisement:—

\"For earth closets, buckets, &c., &c., use Messrs.
Oakes and Payton's charcoal dust, the best and
cheapest deodorizer, delivered in Wellington at
4s. per bag, by Oakes and Payton, Hutt.\"