There is great excitement in Dantzic, for the noble clock, which has been for ten years the marvel of Germany,-the clock which was made by cunningest artificers who followed Dumiger's model, has stopped. No one can arrange it; the model was broken up as a jealous precaution. There is but one who understands it-who can regulate the wondrous movement; that is he who constructed it.

Yes, the council will go to Dumiger. They seek his house; they repent of the fearful crime they committed.

Dumiger, come forth!' they exclaim. Forgive us our offence. Greatest of citizens, all honours and rewards shall be heaped upon you. Regulate this great work, prized above all others in this city, for which we contended for five years with Hamburgh. Stand forth in glory and honour!'

And a man, young in years, but decrepit and suffering, appears, supported by two friends. The partner of his hopes and fears is long since dead. The streets ring with applause as he appears, and many kneel to kiss his hand-ay, some his feet.

But all he asks is to be led first to Marguerite's grave. There, in the presence of thousands, he prays for strength; and then he desires them to conduct him to the clock-tower.

When he appears outside, the air is rent with shouts. Dumiger, Dumiger, the first of the citizens!' Oh, popular feeling, at once base and baseless!

He seems to see the works again; he climbs up and touches every part of the wonderful construction— his hand has found the secret of the movement, again it is in order, and the pride of Dantzic is saved.

He stands still for some minutes. A god could not have been more worshipped, or a prophet looked grander. Again his hand is on the movement-crash, crash,-the slight spring on which the whole machinery depended is rent asunder by his own hand; the clock falls to pieces, never to be repaired. At the same moment there is a fall, a fearful groan, and Dumiger lies on the pavement a bleeding corpse. The clock and its

maker have ceased to exist.

Such is the legend, and from that day there has been no clock in the Dom of Dantzic.

TWO things, at least, the inhabitmetropolis have made

up their minds that they will have,a good supply of water, and an efficient drainage. As to the source from which the first is to be obtained, if the general tone of conversation may be taken as a test, the public mind seems to have taken its line. There is no confidence in artesian wells, and all eyes are turned to that liberal purveyor, Father Thames. But everybody is sick and tired of drinking diluted sewage, whether provided by themselves or by some urban contributor higher up the stream. There is a thirsty outcry for Nature's Entire, and a positive loathing of Cloacina's villanous Compound. We no longer put any faith in settling ponds, and are growing somewhat sceptical as to filters, seeing that

some of the worst contents of our sewers are soluble in water. The Thames beyond the reach of the tide, and above the site of any considerable town, that is the true source of water-supply for our large and growing population. The right mode of distribution is also pretty well settled in the public mind. Cisterns and ball-cocks have had their day, and the era of water at high pressure, pure, cool, constant and abundant, for drinking, cooking, washing, street and garden-watering, and fire-extinction, is at hand. We cannot suffer ourselves to be any longer taunted by Nottingham and half-a-dozen other provincial towns, or laughed to scorn by our cousins in New York and Philadelphia, or put to shame by the recollection of the unrivalled water-supply of ancient

Rome. A spirit of wise imitation and generous rivalry is stirring within us. We, too, must have our aqueducts. Nor shall our poorer fellowcitizens be forgotten. We will no longer suffer them to be cheated of their time by water-butts in areas and basements, or half-inch pipes dealing out a dribbling stream for two or three hours on alternate days, or dilapidated pumps sucking foul water from a soil impregnated with filth. The water companies, too, shall not lull us into a false security by consenting to supply the poor creatures every day. This stint of one of the first necessaries of life, with its contingent waste of time, and perennial irritation of temper, is unworthy of us and of our times. Water must no longer be begged, stolen, or fought for. We have pilferings and quarrels enough without setting up unnecessary rallying-points in the shape of pumps and standpipes. We must have water at high pressure in every street and on every floor of every house. Nothing less will or ought to content us.

One use of water we have not yet specified. We want it as a means to the important end of abolishing cesspools, and promoting the prompt and complete removal of all offensive refuse from our houses and streets. For this purpose it must be dealt out liberally and even lavishly. Ten gallons a-head will be required for household uses; other ten gallons, in all probability, for manufacturing purposes; and, perchance, a third ten gallons for the watering of streets and the flushing of sewers. In what we are about to state on the subject of drainage, we shall assume such a supply of water to have been provided.

In order to estimate fully the importance of efficient drainage to a large city situate on a river, we should bear in mind that the upland waters which find their way to the principal water-course, in the shape of tributary streams, are not only reinforced by the daily addition of refuse-water from houses and manufactories, but apt to be suddenly swollen into torrents by the rapid flow of rain-water from the roofs of houses and the pavements of streets. Hence the necessity not merely of wide natural water-courses, but also

of large subsidiary main-drains; in a word, of a system of arterial drainage much more extensive than would be required for the effectual relief of the same extent of surface for agricultural purposes.

In the case of cities built on ground sloping upwards from the banks of rivers, this is the one great requirement; and the only error which an engineer of ordinary competency is in danger of committing is that of making his main-drains too small to carry off the water during heavy falls of rain. But the engineer has a much more difficult task to perform where the city which he is called upon to drain stands on a dead flat scarcely raised above the level of the banks of the river, so that the streams which he would pour into it are driven back at high water, and can only escape at low tide. A great part of the northern division of the metropolis presents the easy conditions first pointed out; almost the entire southern division, with the districts on the north side lying to the west and extreme east, offer the peculiar difficulties just contemplated.

The problem of an efficient drainage of the metropolis would, therefore, be by no means easy of solution, even if the water for which an exit is to be found were the pure rain of heaven untainted by the manifold impurities of a town-population. But in the instance of the metropolis, above all other cities, two peculiar difficulties present themselves on the one hand, the water of the Thames must be no longer polluted by the contents of the sewers; on the other hand, two millions' worth of the finest manure in existence must not be wasted. Such, at least, is the sentence pronounced by public opinion. We are determined, if possible, to be neither poisoned nor starved. There are some, at least, who do not regard the fear of either mode of death as altogether visionary. At any rate the question of the efficient drainage of London cannot be disentangled from these two considerations. We are bound to give to both of them due weight in discussing the best method of procedure.

Is the pollution of the Thames by the sewage of London so detrimental to health, or otherwise so objectionable, as to require to be guarded

against in our plans for the drainage of the metropolis? Is the sewage of London so valuable as manure, that its preservation for agricultural purposes ought to form a leading consideration in those plans? These are the two questions to which an answer must be given before we can pretend to decide on the merits of rival schemes.

1. The great objection to the blending of the contents of the sewers with the water of the Thames arises out of the distribution of this water, for culinary and domestic purposes, by certain of the water-companies. The force of this objection is about to be diminished by the gradual removal of the sources of supply higher up the river and the objection itself will be entirely obviated by the adoption of any of the several plans now before the public for drawing a supply of water from some point still nearer to its source. A second objection to the existing state of things arises out of the discharge of the contents of the sewers over the muddy banks of the river at low water, to the great offence of the nostrils and to the certain injury of health. The extension of the sewers to low-water mark, or (still better) the embankment of the river, would obviate this objection; and as the one plan is very easy of execution, and the other highly expedient on sanitary and æsthetic grounds, we may be allowed to assume that ere long one or other, or both, will be carried into effect. There would then only remain, as an objection of little moment, the addition to the water of the Thames of about one grain in the gallon of offensive matter, -a homoeopathic, dose which even the most strenuous advocate of sanitary reforms and improvements might be easily prevailed on to permit. As an improved supply of water, on the one hand, and an extension of the outlets of the sewers, with or without an embankment of the river, on the other, may be looked upon as proximate reforms, we are of opinion that the pollution of the Thames does not require to be

guarded against in our plans for the drainage of the metropolis. In other words, we hold it to be perfectly immaterial whether the sewage of London be discharged into the river as it flows past the city, or at some point nearer to the sea, provided we be not obliged to drink the water so tainted,* or to inhale the foul gases which are given off in consequence of the present rude and careless mode of discharging the contents of the sewers over the banks of the river.

2. The question, Whether the sewage of London is so valuable as manure that its preservation for agricultural purposes ought to form a leading consideration in our plans for the drainage of the metropolis? is not so easy of solution. Of the inherent value of sewage-manure for agricultural purposes there cannot be a shadow of doubt; nor is there any reason to distrust the sober estimate of scientific men, who set the annual money value of the entire drainage of the metropolis at two millions and a quarter of money, being at the rate of 1. a-head for each inhabitant. But the inherent value and the practical value of this, as of other manures, are two very different things. A load of the best solid manure which London can afford may be worth from five to ten shillings on the land of a market-gardener or farmer at Fulham or Isleworth, and not fetch a shilling in London. So great is the depreciation occasioned by the heavy cost of transport. In like manner a tun of unmixed house - drainage may be worth eightpence when spread upon the land, and yet not pay for cartage a distance of a couple of miles. Even if we suppose this difficulty overcome by the substitution of the steamengine and iron-pipe for the more costly conveyance by cart, and the expense of distribution reduced from pounds to shillings, we have still to destroy venerable prejudices and supersede old habits before we can prevail on our agriculturists to adopt such a perfect revolution in their modes of culture. The transition from

the exclusive use of solid manure with the occasional aid of water in times of drought, to the mixed employment of solid and liquid manure which is the true perfection of culture, is a change which only time can bring about; though experience (as in the case of the market-gardeners of Fulham) has demonstrated its expediency. If we would hasten the advent of this change among the cultivators of the soil, we must give them in as many places as possible the means of obtaining the sewage.

It may be within the recollection of many of our readers that doubts have been recently thrown upon the value of sewage manure by certain eminent agriculturists, who allege that liquid manure has failed in their hands. The error into which these parties have fallen is the very common one of confounding two things essentially different. They are in the habit of calling the water of sewers indifferently sewage and liquid manure, and, with characteristic obtuseness of mind, have assumed that what might be affirmed of liquid manure generally might equally be predicated of this form of it. Accordingly, having applied to their land with little or no effect the weak washings of the farm-yard, to which the decaying straw imparts a deceptive toastwater colouring, they at once jump to the conclusion that all liquid manure is useless, and that sewage manure, being a variety of liquid manure, is useless too. It is of the very first importance, not merely in reference to the drainage of London, but with a view to the economy of the agricultural resources of every town, village, and country mansion, that this serious error should be corrected. So far from allowing sewage manure to be depreciated by comparison with the drainage of uncovered farm-yards, exposed to the action of every shower that falls, we can assure our farming friends that we speak from experience and actual comparison of the one with the other when we proclaim the marked superiority of house and town drainage over that of the farmstead. Nay, we have the same practical authority for stating, that to whatever soil, or for whatever purpose, they may apply this manure, they will find it

fully support the character we have given of it. The details by which we could justify this assertion are better suited to an agricultural journal than to these pages.

But the value of the sewage of our towns for agricultural purposes is by no means to be measured by its power of reproduction, considered merely as a manure. It is a manure, and something more. It is the best and most convenient water-supply for horticultural and farming purposes, and as such will hereafter be held in the greatest consideration. We will explain ourselves. In the neighbourhood of large cities, and especially in the neighbourhood of London, manure is a mere drug. The supply is so large in proportion to the demand, that it can always be had for an almost nominal price, and often for the mere cost of conveyance. But this is not all. The market-gardeners and farmers in the neighbourhood of London are unanimous in proclaiming the necessity of common farmyard or stable manure. They say that it not only enriches, but that it also moistens, lightens, and warms the land. If they could dispense with its fertilizing properties they could not forego its mechanical ones. It follows, therefore, that neither sewage manure in the form of liquid, nor solid manures precipitated from it by chemical agents, will be accepted as substitutes for the old-fashioned stable dung; and that if the sewerwater is to come into use at all, it will not be as a substitute for ordinary solid manure, but as a supplement to it. From this general rule, however, it is necessary to except grass lands, for which liquid manure (and sewage as its best form) is as appropriate as solid manure is unsuitable. Bearing this important exception in mind, we have still to inquire whether, for garden and arable culture, sewage manure possesses properties which must sooner or later force its acceptance upon the horticulturist and farmer. We believe that it does; and we do not doubt that it will hereafter play a most important part in the history of agriculture; not, be it remembered, merely as a manure, but as a fertilizing water. And here we would call the attention of the cultivators of the

soil to a very remarkable oversight which they are in the habit of committing. They have either not observed, or they habitually forget (or, what is more probable still, they look upon the circumstance as natural and inevitable), the heavy losses which they sustain even in wet years by drought. They are not yet conscious how much they are in want of an improved water-supply. If the soil could speak for itself, it would cry out as loudly for water as the inhabitants of London are now doing; and every draining-tile that is put into the ground will make the necessity more felt. Drought in England' will sound to the ears of ninety-nine in a hundred of our farmers like 'Ice in Africa.' And

yet we affirm, that in the very years in which most rain falls there are fatal periods of drought. The year 1847, for instance, was the very wettest year within the memory of man, and nevertheless we can affirm it of our own knowledge, that within ten miles of London several acres of peas were lost for want of rain at a critical period of their growth. We will even hazard the opinion that not a year passes that we do not lose many millions of pounds' worth of produce by short droughts occurring at critical periods. If this be so (and we are convinced that it is), the sewage of our towns cannot be considered otherwise than as a most important aid to agriculture. In the diluted form which it will assume under an ample water-supply, it will constitute an invaluable fertilizing liquid, capable of yielding a remunerative price to those who distribute and to those who apply it. The Metropolitan Sewage Manure Company have established its value, beyond the reach of doubt or cavil. If they prove equally successful in overcoming the stubborn resistance of parties who, admitting their premises, still withhold a practical assent to their conclusions, they will establish a lasting claim to the gratitude of the British farmer.

For our present purposes it is sufficient to show that the sewage of London, in the dilute form which it must assume under an ample supply of water to its inhabitants, is a valuable subsidiary to the solid manure of which the farmer is now in the

habit of making an exclusive use. When applied to land already highly manured, it has been proved to be capable of hastening growth by three or four weeks, and doubling, trebling, or even quadrupling, the amount of produce. We have, therefore, no hesitation in answering in the affirmative the second question already propounded. We believe that the sewage of London is so valuable as manure (or as fertilizing water), that its preservation for agricultural purposes ought to form a leading consideration in our plans for the drainage of the metropolis. When, however, we affirm that it ought to form a leading consideration, we do not mean to place it quite on the same level with the prime objects of the Metropolitan Sewers Commission, as set forth by Sir John Burgoyne; namely, To rid the metropolis of the noxious sewage matter, and of the drainage waters, efficiently as regards health and convenience,' and 'to effect this object with the least possible delay.' Nor are we disposed to withhold our assent to the proposition that 'the Commissioners have nothing to do with the application of the matter to manure, except so far as it may be combined with saving of expense to them in carrying out their primary object.' We further believe, with Sir John Burgoyne, that the application of the sewage as manure is an 'extraneous object' to be taken up by others,' to whom it would be the duty of the Commissioners to give every facility. This is the language of an honourable and disinterested public servant, determined to help those who are striving to help themseives, and to benefit the public; contrasting, we feel bound to say, most favourably with the spirit and temper which actuated the now defunct Commission, and under the inspiration of which, 700l. of public money was spent in conveying the contents of the Northumberland sewer in barges a score or so of miles, to repeat the very experiment already successfully made some hundreds of times at Manchester, while at the same time the only company armed by act of parliament with the necessary powers to carry forward the good work, without charge to the public, was submitted to all the tortures of hope deferred, and thwarted