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APPENDIX.

ORAL EVIDENCE.

Mr. SHERRATT (Blacksmith, Trafalgar-street): I have observed nuisance at culvert end, but it seemed to have arisen from emptying a cart-load of soil at end of sewer. I have observed bad smell at other times, nothing much. I had two of my boys taken with fever beginning of last Summer. A worse nuisance than that was dead cats and dogs, and spoiled bacon thrown out on the flat just beyond his shop. I do not think the stuff from sewer comes on that part of the flat. People throw stuff there, or spring-tides bring it up and leave it aground. I have a well puddled and bricked; water was very bad, is better now. The first few feet of soil smelt very bad, "Nasty stench water, I call it."

Mr. J. SCOTT (Builder, Trafalgar-street): I have never observed nuisance about mouth of sewer. I sank a well near my mill, soil smelt very bad, but think it was only vegetable matter putrified. I have Mr. Sherratt's well much rubbish of all sorts had been thrown out for years past.

I could not use the water of my well for the engine on account of the deposit it left on the boiler, which I take to be vegetable matter. If the sewer carried more, would anticipate a bad smell in S.W. winds. If all town closets emptied into it, I think it would be depreciated my property.

I have soil in my acre is river-drift of sandy stuff for about one foot deep, beneath that several feet of stinking swamp soil. At the well, six feet of loose spongy blue and black slimy clay. Should think on the swamp acre next mine this sort of soil comes to the surface.

Very bad smell comes from the strip of raupo swamp near Mr. Harley's house, in Summer time.

Some cellars are too deep for the present sewer. Bank of New Zealand, Mr. Everett's, Mr. Jervis', Mr. Scaife's, and others. I think it would be desirable that an Act should compel people to have their basement floor raised fourteen inches, or two steps at least above the level of the street. The ground floor of new houses should not be less than three feet six inches over the crown of the sewer, in a sewer eighty feet broad.

Mr. STRONG (Haven-road): I have not found the beach offensive, sometimes at the further side of the Saltwater bridge, where people throw in rubbish, &c.

I have never observed any bad smell which I could attribute to the effect of the present Trafalgar-street sewer. I have noticed very bad smells from the old Baths, the fullmongers' establishment on the mud-flat.

If the whole of the sewage of the town were to be deposited on the mud-flat, I should not myself be afraid of bad consequences. I think everything would be carried away to the sea.

I should not be afraid if all the sewage of Nelson were delivered into the Maitai. I think it would be carried to sea.

W. H. BERRY (labourer employed by the Board of Works): I have been much employed cleaning different drains and ditches of the town. I have only noticed one particularly offensive, the Hardy-street ditch, between Trafalgar-street and Waimea-street, and down Waimea-street. I think it is owing to some nuisance which comes from the brewery, it is very low, and water lays dead—that makes the smell worse.

I am cleaning out the ditch into which Trafalgar-street sewer empties; it is not offensive up to the point to which we have cleaned, which is perhaps 150 feet from the mouth of the culvert. The ditch is filled up chiefly with gravel—a little sediment—only in a very few places any mud or slime. The tides flow up to the culvert, except the lowest neaps. When the tide turns there is an outward rush strong enough to take off anything inclined to be light. I have been into the culvert itself to take a measurement. I went from Bridge-street nearly two chains downwards. I found in the sewer a slight heaviness of air because the tide was rising, only two or three inches of mud in bottom. I was nearly up to my loins in water. I was in once before to replace a brick fallen out, only two or three inches of mud then. If ten or twenty times as much filth came down that culvert, I think the water coming through would sweep everything clean through the culvert; and if the drain I am working in were kept clean, it would carry off a great deal of filth at ebb tide. I don't know about the stuff of all the closets of Nelson. I believe the Maitai would carry off everything; if the culvert were brought down to the lower part of the river, it would be carried away with a rush at the turn of the tide.

The highest spring-tides come up the culvert as far as Bonnington's, in Trafalgar-street.

R. WARNER (mate of last witness); The worst drain I have cleaned is that in Hardy-street, passing near Harley's, owing, I think, to brewery drains, from pigsties, stables, &c. The silt of the drain below the Trafalgar-street culvert is not offensive. If all the Nelson water-closets emptied into the culvert, the drain might carry all away, but much more water must be supplied through the culvert. I think what the tide backs up, the fresh water carries away at ebb tide. Nothing seems to stop on the banks. From the end of the present drain, everything is washed away down by the Haven-road, by ebb tide.

Mr. PHILLIUS (Otago Dining Rooms): The only nuisance near me is the mud-flat at times; the tide brings up a nuisance now and then—sheep's heads