Punch,  47 (1864), 223.

The Great Sewage Question

Anon

Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Pollution, Sanitation, Commerce, Politics, Government, Public Health, Engineering, Controversy


    Discusses the 'movements at work in the City' which have 'rudely upset' the author's 'favourite notions'. These include the fact that the Metropolitan Board of Works has 'of late giv'n up words, / And really taken to working', and that the famous giants of London, Gog and Magog, who lie about in the 'Metropolitan Sewage', are 'getting all by the ears with Thwaites and his peers' for not calculating the value of the sewage. Recalls the time when 'Town Boards' rejected the idea of sewers, but observes how 'London's beginning to think gold of winning / From her drains'. Anticipates that 'With our iron and coal fields, we'll boast of our gold-fields, / Irrigated by streams (od) auriferous' and expects sewage to yield guano and that its spreading will 'make the world wiser'. Observes the number of recent battles, including those of 'styles, schools, and gauges', but adds that the 'quarrel that well fits this new age / Which defines Dirt as "matter left in the wrong place"—/ The battle of schemes for sewage'. The conclusion reveals that the battle is being fought between 'Thwaites, Napier & Co.', and Thomas Ellis, John Brady, and Robert Montague, and hopes that the best will win.



© Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Project, Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, 2005 - 2020

Printed from Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: An Electronic Index, v. 4.0, The Digital Humanities Institute <http://www.sciper.org> [accessed ]