REPORT 
The attention of the Board of Health has been frequently 
and seriously directed to the disastrous consequences that 
must necessarily follow to the sanitary condition of the city, 
from the indiscriminate and constantly increasing applica- 
tion of the provisions of an ordinance of Councils, approved 
May 3d, 1855, entitled "An ordinance providing for the 
granting of permits to make openings into the common 
sewers." 
The abuse of the privilege thus granted to communicate 
with sewers, by drains from privy wells liable to overflow 
of water, has been a subject of very general complaint, 
causing, as the practice necessarily does, nuisances of the 
most offensive character, more especially when the contents 
of full privies also are emptied in this manner. 
In the first report made to the Mayor January 3d, 1860, 
under the present organization of the Board of Health, the 
attention of Councils was specially directed to the "filthy 
condition of the public docks, sewers, and inlets," arising 
from a great variety of sources, together with the improper 
use and application of the above-named ordinance. Again, 
in the annual report, made January 8th, 1861, Councils 
were reminded of the dangerous and increasing nuisance 
in question;-the Board, viewing it as a growing evil, which, 
if not arrested in due time, may lead to the formation of 
a sanitary grievance both difficult and expensive to remedy. 
They also alluded to the great aggravation of the same 
grievance, arising from the indiscriminate use of the sewers 2 
for conveying away the deposits from water closets. They, 
in addition, suggested the importance of an ordinance with 
a view to the protection of the health of, the city, that no 
opening into the sewers for either of the above purposes 
should be allowed without the permission of the Board of 
Health, and that no manufactories of afiy description should 
be suffered|^^onnect with the sewers without first obtain- 
ing a like penSmon. 
In subsec^bet annual reports, similar allusions have 
been made to th^^Mtionable features of the ordinance 
in question, but the reiterations and expostulations of the 
Board have failed to arrest the attention of Councils, to a 
full realization of the gigantic sanitary evils that must 
inevitably result to the health of the city, should the system 
of connecting privy wells or water closets, or water privies 
with the sewers, continue to prevail. 
In the early part of last year, 1864, the subject of abolish- 
ing privy wells altogether, and in lieu thereof adopting a 
system of connecting water closets and water privies with 
the sewers, claimed the attention of the Department of 
Surveys, and a report with a bill was prepared and sub- 
mitted to Councils, a copy of which will be found in 
(Appendix A.) 
This bill, with the accompanying letter from Strickland 
Kneas, Esq., City Surveyor, were sent to the Board of 
Health in order to secure their influence to its passage 
through Councils. 
The bill was referred to the Sanitary Committee, by 
whom it was returned to the Board with the following 
report: 
" The Sanitary Committee, to whom was referred the 
accompanying communication of Strickland Kneas, Esq., 
Chief Engineer and Surveyor of the city, and the report of 
the Committee on Surveys to Councils, with a copy of the 
' Ordinance to promote public cleanliness and health,' beg 
leave to report that they have given the same their careful 
attention, and that while there are some things contained 3 
therein which meet their approval, there are others they 
cannot endorse. Section 10th of the proposed amended 
ordinance, abolishing the practice of making connexion by 
drains into the sewers with cess-pools and privies, meets 
the entire approval of your committee, believing as they 
do with the surveyor that it is calculated 'to prevent, to a 
great extent, the increase of evils that now multiply rapidly? 
Nor can they do better in expressing their views of the evils 
accruing from this system than to use the surveyor's own 
language, as contained in his report the Mayor, December 
31st 1860, (p. 71.) This system, he says, renders 'the air 
in our sewers most foetid, making it absolutely dangerous 
in everyway, as the gases penetrate every where, extending 
even into the material embedding the sewer, and on account 
of this it is impossible, in many instances, that any exam- 
ination can be made with safety of their interior.' 
"Had he concluded his report with this 10th section, 
without recommending and encouraging a general and 
indiscriminate drainage into sewers from water closets, 
yards, kitchens, and factories, when on the line of sewers, 
and prospectively as the city and its improvements extend, 
the entire abolition of cesspools and privies, your com- 
mittee would have been prepared to approve the report. 
"They regret, however, that while it admits the theory, 
(based no doubt upon the well-earned scientific and practical 
experience of its author, and the experience of those who 
have had opportunities for becoming familiarized with the 
results of sewer systems in operation in England, especially 
in London and elsewhere), that in order that the plan pro- 
posed should be effective to cleanliness and health, two 
elements are requisite, viz.: a full supply of water, and 
such arrangements as will prevent ordure or offal of any 
kind remaining in or near the premises-it does not insist 
upon the necessity of a far more abundant supply of water 
than the present works can possibly furnish, without a 
serious encroachment upon the demands of citizens for 
ordinary purposes. This omission is the more to be 4 
regretted as it is known, and has been alluded to in several 
successive annual reports of the Chief Engineer, that the 
amount of water at present obtained is inadequate at 
certain seasons, while the constantly increasing demands 
require the most rigid economy to insure the necessary 
supply at all times. 
" What, therefore, will be the consequence when the plan 
referred to goes ^ito operation, with the numerous privies 
already emptying their foetid contents into the sewers, in 
addition to the water-closets now in operation, and those 
that shall be constructed hereafter, to say nothing of the 
thousands of drains from other sources, without such an 
abundant water supply as would be adequate to the flushing 
of the sewers, from time to time as may be required, it is 
impossible to conjecture. 
"It must be patent to al] who have given attention to the 
subject of sewerage, that no system can be successful in the 
absence of flushing, either natural or artificial, and that such 
a process to be effectual requires a liberal supply of water. 
Your committee are surprised that the report does not refer 
more particularly to this fact if the proposed plan is to be 
inaugurated. Without proper and frequent flushing, solid 
material will, under the best regulated system, accumulate, 
prove an obstruction to the flow of the fluid and semi-fluid 
contents, and in the end fill up the branch or the main 
trunks of the sewers. 
" It is not clear, however, to the minds of your committee, 
that the proposed bill will prove adequate to effect such a 
revolution in public cleanliness and health, as is claimed 
for it, even should the plan recommended, have connected 
with it the full water supply deemed necessary by its author. 
" The flushing of sewers not only necessitates a large flow 
of water, but is a costly operation, if thoroughly and prop- 
erly performed. It is less expensive, however, than the 
occasional visit of a direful epidemic with its attendant 
evils-the suppression of commercial trade, the wide diffu- 
sion of sickness and an extensive loss of life. 5 
" It is the experience of your committee, which will be 
borne out by the board, that water closets, even when con- 
structed on proper principles, are frequently liable to ob- 
struction, and, when thus obstructed, create a nuisance 
equally if not more serious than a full privy, and far more 
difficult to remedy. Complaints are frequently made to 
this department respecting the accumulation of human 
ordure obstructing the drains, from water closets, and the 
nauseous odor arising therefrom affecting whole neighbor- 
hoods. 
" What will be the result of this proposed modification of 
sewerage, as we have already intimated, when fully in ope- 
ration, it is impossible even to imagine-when cesspools 
shall be abandoned, when the one million nine hundred and 
ninety six thousand tons of night-soil, or human excreta, 
annually discharged into the sewers, together with the semi- 
fluid refuse from kitchens and yards, house roofs and facto- 
ries of every description, are mingled together, accumulated 
in the sewers and finally deposited in the docks along the 
city front in the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It truly 
involves a question essential in a sanitary aspect, and of 
great moment to the health of the city. 
" In England it has been found that water closets, except 
in well regulated families, are liable to become greater nui- 
sances than ordinary privies. In Glasgow, where the sew- 
ers empty their foul contents into the Clyde, a river differ- 
ing but little, in regard to size and general character, from 
the Delaware-the tide rising about seven feet and the cur- 
rent of the stream being not more rapid than that of our 
river-the system gave rise to so great a nuisance that the 
surveyor recommended that the lower class of houses should 
return to the old privy system. 
"We agree with the report, that the system of connecting 
cesspools and privies with sewers, is one of the most repre- 
hensible allowed by law-that it throws into our sewers a 
flow of undiluted liquid of the most foetid character, render- 
ing them, in fact, nothing less than immense cesspools, and 6 
polluting them so that no exploration or examination can 
be made without risk of asphyxia or death. At this point 
we raise the question, however, whether the change pro- 
posed will, materially, in its effects, differ, when, to the matter 
already received into the sewers is added, the immense mass 
of human and other ordure of the entire city, in a half dis- 
solved state or suspended in water, especially under the ex- 
isting system of sewerage. In short, your committee have 
no hesitation in expressing the opinion that, with the most 
perfect system and under the most favorable circumstances, 
as to elevation of ground-plan, and descent to river, with a 
deep stream and rapid current, it would be almost impos- 
sible to overcome the liability to a deposit, either at the 
bottom of the sewers or in the vicinity of the out-falls, of 
solid material, thus offering the same objectionable features, 
as described in the report, to which the present system of 
connecting with cesspools is liable. 
" Nor are your committee prepared to endorse that part of 
the report which advocates the theory, by inference, if not 
directly, that the contents of water closets entering the sew- 
ers in a partially dissolved state (but which, by the way, is 
perhaps only suspended in water), are free from the dan- 
gerous results attendant on the deposit of more solid excreta. 
Fermentation, decomposition and tjie evolution of gases will 
continue to be produced, and, if they are not in error, far 
more rapidly, if the materials undergoing those changes are 
in a moist and partially dissolved state, than when solid, 
sending forth and loading the atmosphere with noxious and 
irrespirable vapors. 
"Besides, the same nuisance which now prevails in our 
docks, contaminating the air of our eastern river side front, 
will of necessity be increased a hundred fold, under the 
influence of this proposed plan, inasmuch as no provision 
has been or can be made for carrying far away into the 
outer current or channel of the river the immense debris 
consequent upon the new system ; even allowing that every 7 
theory advanced in the report can be successfully carried 
out. 
" It is the decided opinion of your Committee, therefore, 
that the bill proposed to councils will be a grand failure 
so far as regards the object contemplated, viz.: the promo- 
tion of public cleanliness and health ; and that while it pur- 
ports to prevent the increase of evils, rapidly multiplying as 
sewers extend, by destroying those centres of disease-cess- 
pools or privies now existing, it will, in time, create a far 
greater evil, by promoting the deposit of privy filth in sew- 
ers and along the river fronts,-making them in reality, 
immense public cesspools. 
"The connection of water closets with sewers, is an inno- 
vation upon the use for which they were originally con- 
structed, inasmuch as they were intended for conveying off 
water alone-and your Committee think they are justified 
in averring that, they see no reason for giving their sanc- 
tion to that innovation. The experience of engineers in 
Great Britain for the last ten years, has led many to doubt 
the propriety of adopting such a system to the abandon- 
ment of privy wells. "The character and habits of the 
population, the facilities for flushing the sewers, and the 
nature of the outfall, in regard to becoming offensive, should 
be carefully considered. On the continent of Europe, water 
closets according to the English fashion, appear to be com- 
paratively little used, except at Hamburgh, the objection 
to them being the loss of so much valuable manure, and 
the fear of creating nuisances at the outfalls of the sewers." 
(Chicago Sewerage, p. 58.) 
"Your Committee have already intimated that a proper 
system of flushing is required for the cleansing of our 
sewers; without this, the entire plan should be rejected. 
But at the same time they affirm that even with it, it is 
too hazardous an experiment to be trusted on a large scale. 
Parent Duchatelet, twenty years ago came to the conclusion 
from his experience with the Paris sewers, that flushing 
alone would not cleanse them, and to this day notwith- 8 
standing their immense size, as the largest class are thirteen 
feet five inches high, constructed with rails or galleries 
adapted to cars and sufficiently lighted for the conven- 
ience of workmen, force has to be employed to remove 
by hand, solid substances formed in their depressed bot- 
toms. The same result takes place in the London sewers. 
"Two thousand years ago the Romans understood the 
necessity for flushing their sewers, both for cleansing and 
for purifying the air in them, having learned by sad ex- 
perience that the neglect of this means, was followed by 
outbreaks of malignant fevers. They too, though they used 
water freely, found it necessary to remove substances from 
them by hand. (Chicago Sewerage?) 
"Your Committee are disappointed at finding that in the 
proposed ordinance no provision has been introduced admit- 
ting the necessity of sanitary oversight, as to the character 
of the connection that shall be made with sewers, and as to 
what kind of factory, whether salubrious or insalubrious, 
or what classification of substances shall be admitted with- 
out regard to their solubility or otherwise. 
"Entertaining these views your Committee esteem the 
bill an imperfect one, and offer the following: 
"Resolved, That the above report be adopted and sub- 
mitted to Councils." 
Receiving the unanimous approval of the Board, copies 
of the above report were forwarded to Councils and by them 
referred to the Committee on Surveys. 
For a time the whole subject remained in the hands of 
that committee. Within a few weeks, however, a modified 
bill (Appendix "B") has been offered in Councils, in which 
it was understood the objectionable features of the original 
one had been stricken out. 
This bill, like its predecessor, was referred to the Board 
of Health, and again found its way into the hands of the 
Sanitary Committee. The result of this action was the 
annexed report. 
"The Sanitary Committee to whom was referred an 9 
amended bill submitted to Councils, entitled 'An Ordinance 
to promote public cleanliness/ beg to report, that they have 
examined it with the same degree of attention they had 
bestowed on the former and give their hearty approval to 
so much of the plan for the sanitary improvement of the 
city, as proposes to abandon the system of connecting privy 
wells with sewers, and to cut off* all existing connections 
therewith; and as provides underground drainage for the 
contents of all gutters and horse railroad tracks now pass- 
ing over footways and street crossings, believing it likely 
to institute a reform, essentially demanded, more especially 
for the removal of surface drainage, which in most instances 
is a common receptacle for stagnant water, semi-fluid mud 
and other putrid rubbish matter, the combination of which 
constitutes a fertile source of humidity and disease, and is 
at all times antagonistic to the laws of health. 
"Your Committee however regret that they find them- 
selves under the necessity of objecting altogether to con- 
tinuing to citizens 'the privilege, of connecting properly 
constructed water closets or water privies with sewers.' 
"The entire plan will, if continued, become a monstrous 
nuisance. Even under the best regulated system of sew- 
erage, such a plan could not fail to be fraught with nu- 
merous sanitary evils, too serious in their results to be 
countenanced, without having received that critical and 
plenary examination which the ' grave import of the ques- 
tion' so richly merits. 
"With the fullest confidence in the integrity and prac- 
tical skill of our distinguished City Surveyor, we may 
be allowed to differ with him' in reference to the efficiency 
of our city sewerage and drainage. We regard the whole 
of what has been done in these matters as imperfect. lie, 
himself, as quoted by Mr. Cheeseborough, of Chicago, ac- 
knowledges that nothing like a system has been followed 
in the construction of our sewers. 'Large sewers some- 
times discharge their contents into smaller ones, and occa- 
sionally others have either slopes or steps up when they 10 
should be down.' This want of uniformity in regard to 
the surveys of grades and in the construction of sewers, 
is one of the sad disadvantages resulting from the old 
district divisions of the city, prior to consolidation, when 
there were as many different surveyors as municipalities, 
and when no two departments worked harmoniously ; hence 
there has been a condition of things which has entailed 
upon us an imperfect-nay, a faulty system of drainage. 
Besides, the abuse complained of by the Surveyor himself, 
of the privilege now exercised by individuals of making 
indiscriminate connections with sewers, is another evidence 
of the imperfection in question, and if this license con- 
tinues, without interruption, he says he would not be 
' surprised if we are at length called upon to cleanse our 
sewers by manual labor of the deposits thus created.' 
{First annual report to Mayor, p. 91.) Then, again, the 
plan of surface drainage is an evil in our system, which we 
are happy to know is about to receive attention from the 
authorities, by such an entire revolution as will effectually 
remedy a most flagrant nuisance and materially improve 
our system of drainage. 
11 Beyond all we have named, the practice of draining 
privy wells into, and connecting water closets and water 
privies with sewers, together with the horrid condition of 
the docks along the river front, that receive the filth 
belched forth daily out of the mouths of the sewers, afford 
still stronger evidence of our imperfect system of drainage. 
"If the system, as at present adopted in Chicago, which, 
in our opinion, is only an experiment on a large scale, of 
connecting water closets and water privies with sewers, and 
emptying their contents into the river, should prove a 
success-and this time only can safely determine-it will 
be the happy result of a threefold combination in the 
arrangement of a new city, of which no other metropolis 
has ever enjoyed the advantage, viz., the superior skill and 
studied experience of its engineer, based upon a careful 
scientific and personal examination of the sewered cities in 11 
Europe and in this country ; the improved uniformity and 
correctness of the surveys, the lines, sizes and constructions 
of the sewers; together with a river flowing through the 
centre of the city, without tide, of an average depth of 
thirteen feet, seldom varying more than two feet and ordi- 
narily not one, and a slight but constant change kept up in 
its feeble current by the natural flow from the area drained 
by the river and w'aste water from the adjoining canal. 
" ' During the last two years there has been very little or 
no complaint from this cause.' But, notwithstanding this 
favorable presentation of the success of the Chicago experi- 
ence, Mr. Cheeseborough takes the wise precaution of 
qualifying its success, and remarks, that while 'no one of 
these great cities (in Europe) furnishes an exact criterion 
by which to judge of the effect of discharging the sewage 
of Chicago into our river and branches, yet their experi- 
ence leads me to fear we may yet, like them, conclude that 
it will be necessary to keep it out.' (Chicago Sewerage, 
p. 92.) 
" If our present system of cesspools is, in the language 
of the City Surveyor, 'an abomination and a nuisance.' 
your Committee are not without authority for the opinion 
that the continuance of the ordinance, granting permits to 
connect water closets with sewers, however perfect may be 
their construction, will constitute, and more certainly in 
the future, even with an increased supply of water-power 
for flushing the sewers, an abomination and a nuisance, 
ten-fold more dangerous to the health and comfort of the 
citizens than the present cesspool system. The danger we 
apprehend does not depend so much on imperfectly con- 
structed drains from water closets and water privies, as on 
the accumulation of the solid and liquid ejecta of the popu- 
lation, in the sewers themselves, and the exposure it is sub- 
ject to at every ebb tide, both in the Delaware and Schuyl- 
kill, as it escapes from the sewer outfalls. 
"On this subject, Mr.Cheeseborough, in his report, writes: 
' The greatest actual innovation upon the original use of 12 
sewers is the immediate connection of water closets with 
them, and the consequent abandonment of privy vaults. 
This, however, has not become universal in any large city 
yet, though very general throughout Great Britain for the 
upper and middling classes of houses; but the experience 
of the last ten years has led many to doubt the propriety 
of its adoption in all cases. The character and habits of 
the population, the facilities for flushing the sewers, and 
the nature of the outfall, in regard to becoming offensive, 
should be carefully considered. On the Continent, water 
closets, according to the English fashion, appeared to be 
comparatively little used, except at Hamburgh, the objec- 
tion to them beihg the loss of so much valuable manure, 
and the fear of creating nuisances at the outfalls of the 
sewers.' 
" The plan of communicating water-closets with sewers is 
without doubt an improper and even unlawful innovation. 
The system, as already mentioned, was originally designed 
for the conveyance of water alone from open ditches. In 
course of time, however, the practice of employing them 
for the washings of streets, and house refuse prevailed. Now 
every kind of factory with privies and water-closets are al- 
lowed to communicate with them. This is highly improper 
on account of the serious nuisance engendered thereby; and 
it is certainly an unlawful privilege unless granted by the 
Board of Health, as by an Act of the Legislature, no deposit 
shall be made of privy filth anywhere within the jurisdic- 
tion of the Board of Health, or any thing else liable to 
become a nuisance, without violating a wise health law. 
{General Health Law of 1818, sect, xvii., and Act, March 16, 
1855, sect, v.) 
" One of the most serious evils connected with our present 
plan of sewerage is the ever accumulating amount of its 
offensive solid contents. This collection, derived from the 
fluid and semi-fluid refuse of almost every department of 
industry that can be enumerated, located within the range 
of the sewers, both public and private, together with the 13 
washings of the streets and alleys, undergoes putrefactive 
decomposition, and, hence, becomes the source of the viru- 
lent and toxicological emanations escaping into the atmo- 
sphere, whether at the terminations of the sewers or in their 
passage through the streets, from the numerous man holes, 
inlets, or less commodious apertures. 
"The danger from these poisonous gases in this city has 
been, on more than one remarkable occasion, fearfully ex- 
perienced during the advent of the various epidemics of 
yellow fever which have usually made their first appearance 
in the immediate vicinity of the terminus of the sewers on 
the river front, and from these nuclei scattering desolation 
and death in every direction. 
" To avoid the grievances connected with any system of 
drainage, and to get rid of the offal of a city in the least 
objectionable manner has been, and ever should be, a de- 
sideratum with civil engineers and the custodians of public 
health. The natural result, however, of adhering to the 
above-named ordinance will be, in the judgment of your 
Committee, the augmentation rather than the diminution of 
the debris of our sewage; and should the plan of water- 
closet and water privy connection with sewers become 
general (and your Committee can discover no reason to 
hinder it), their sedimentary deposits would be alarmingly 
increased in amount. We base this assumption on the 
investigations made by Dr. Letheby for the Commissioners 
of Sewers of London, in which it is shown that the ex- 
crement of the population entering into the sewers of that 
great metropolis constitutes one-third of their solid contents, 
amounting, in a single day, to upwards of 152 tons!! 
" It must be remembered, therefore, that, proportionately 
to the population of this City, this addition, to an already 
putrefactive mass, would consist of decaying organic com- 
pounds of a most offensive character, evolving foul and 
suffocating gases, even before it enters iuto the composition 
of the sewage. 
" Setting aside the plausible objections already alluded to, 14 
your Committee do not hesitate to offer it as their opinion 
that our City is not advantageously located topographi- 
cally, to be improved in a sanitary aspect by encouraging 
and perfecting a system of connecting water-closets and 
water privy drains with our sewers. The great difficulty 
lies in the fact, that two sluggish rivers creep along the 
eastern and western boundaries of the present densely 
populous and business portions of it; and the tidal currents 
unable to bear away the sedimentary matters beyond the 
power of the returning waters, this half-dissolved putresent 
material, with the foul additions gathered in their laggard 
course from the rivers themselves and the adjacent shores, 
is brought back and conveyed by eddies into the docks and 
on the neighboring banks only to rankle and ferment at 
the reflux of every tide, when it is exposed, contaminating 
the surrounding atmosphere with its offensive and pes- 
tiferous effluvia, which has ever been a well recognized 
cause for the nourishment and spread of epidemic diseases. 
" Besides this natural disadvantage, which is without rem- 
edy, we may safely refer also to the defective construction 
of our old sewers, already noticed, as regards their inclina- 
tion, size, shape, and uniformity of level, together with the 
present limited supply of water power for flushing the sew- 
ers, in the event, we would add, of satisfactory evidence 
being afforded that the flushing system would be fully 
adequate to the task of cleansing them. 
" These artificial hindrances to a perfect sewerage are 
however susceptible of correction, not, however, without an 
immense outlay of the finances of the City, viz.: by the en- 
tire reconstruction of the sewers and a more abundant 
supply of water power, not only to render it equal to the 
present demand, as we believe it inadequate, but to meet 
the exigencies required by the rapid growth of the City. 
" The natural drawback-the relations of the two river 
beds to the City, which are inevitably fixed, and are inca- 
pable of any satisfactory improvement-suggests a more 
vigorous work of cleanliness, and the adoption of more 15 
stringent regulations providing against the accumulation 
of every thing of an offensive nature liable to deposit being 
conveyed either into and through our sewers, or otherwise, 
into the adjacent streams, already sufficiently polluted. 
"Your committee are not insensible to the impracticability 
of the efficient working of an ordinance that would cut off 
all water closets now connected with our sewers, but they 
cannot do otherwise than approve of an ordinance prohibit- 
ing the further use of the sewers for such purposes. 
"Great as is the nuisance arising from the present offen- 
sive character and amount of deposit in our sewers, and 
from thence distributed in our docks along the river front, 
they would feel themselves guilty of maintaining a nuisance 
should they not thus formally protest against a continu- 
ance of the practice. Better is it to "bear the ills we have 
than fly to others we know not of." 
" The proper disposal of sewage, and the excreta of the 
population of a large city, are questions as yet unsettled. 
" While sewerage has met with universal approval, no 
efficient system has as yet been adopted any where. All 
existing plans abound with defects, and public sentiment in 
favor of sanitary reform has been so thoroughly aroused, 
that a problem so important as this will not be suffered to 
rest, till a satisfactory solution is obtained. 
"The feeling is becoming very general, that wherever 
practicable, sewage should not be allowed to pollute water- 
courses of any kind, and the efforts to avoid it have re- 
sulted in presenting to the public three classes of projects, 
viz.: the intercepting, the irrigating, and the deodorising. 
(Chicago sewerage.) 
"Impressed with the paramount necessity for judicious 
municipal legislation in all instances where public hygiene 
is involved, your committee are constrained from a sense 
of duty, thus to offer their objections to a continuance of 
the system of making connection with sewers as relates to 
water closets and water privies. They are sensible, how- 
ever, that the whole subject is far too comprehensive in its 16 
bearings on public health to be embraced in this report, 
and far too grave for hasty legislation. 
" They therefore hope that Councils, in their wisdom, will 
still continue to hold the entire subject in abeyance, until 
further and more definite information can be secured. 
" In reference to the granting of permits for making con- 
nections with sewers, your committee would again call the 
attention of Councils to the importance of requiring a 
permit from the Board of Health before any opening shall 
be made to connect with sewers, except in cases of water 
drains from private residences. 
" In conclusion, your committee would offer the following 
resolution: 
"Resolved, That the above report with the recommenda- 
tions, be adopted. 
"All of which is respectfully submitted. 
(Signed,) WILSON JEWELL, M.D., 
BENE LA ROCHE, M.D., 
JACOB COATES, 
ELIAB WARD, M. D., 
PETER ARMBRUSTER, 
Sanitary Committee. 
This report, was approved April 4th, 1865, and referred 
back to the Sanitary Committee for preparation in a suit- 
able form for publication, together with the report of the 
committee on the bill as originally presented. It was also 
ordered that it should form a part of the annual report of 
the Board to the Mayor for the use of Councils. 
Health Office, ) 
Philadelphia, April 17th, 1865. j 17 
APPENDIX A. 
Department of Surveys, 
Office of the Chief Engineer and Survey^, 
Philadelphia, April 18, 1864. 
Jas. A. McCrea, M. D., 
President of the Board of Health, 
Sir :-I beg leave to submit for your examination a 
report and bill, which have been laid before Councils, with 
reference to sewer connections and the prospective abolition 
of all cess-pools. If in conformity with the views of your 
Board, and you would be pleased to make such statement 
to Councils, by resolution or otherwise, it would have great 
weight in obtaining a favorable consideration of the bill. 
May I ask your consideration of the matter. 
Very respectfully, &c., 
' STRICKLAND KNEASS, 
Chief Engineer and Surveyor. 
Extract from " An Ordinance to promote Public Cleanli- 
ness and Health," submitted to Councils April 6th, 1864: 
"Sect. 2. That from and after January 1st, 1865, any 
person (who shall be the owner or lessee of premises,) de- 
siring to connect with any of the sewers in the streets, shall 
make application at the Department of Surveys, and shall 
pay for said privilege the sum of ten dollars, except they 
shall have paid proportionally, for the construction of said 
sewer, in which case the sum of three dollars shall be paid. 
" Sect. 3. That it shall be the duty of the Chief Engineer 
and Surveyor, on or before the first day of November, 1864, 
to appoint a competent person in each Survey Distrct to 
make so much of the connections with the Sewers as may 
be within the street lines, the same to be done under the 
supervision of the Survey Department, and the expense 
thereof (excepting the repaving) to be defrayed by the 
person to whom the privilege is granted. The charges to 18 
be made by the respective persons so appointed, for their 
services, shall be uniform, and shall be established by the 
Chief Engineer and Surveyor, under the supervision of the 
Cg^^ttee on Surveys. 
^HTCT. 8. It shall not be lawful to erect any house or 
other building, or to rebuild any house or building to or 
below the floor commonly called the ground floor, or to 
occupy any house or building so newly built or rebuilt, if 
upon the line of a Sewer unless a drain and such branches 
thereto and other works and apparatus with water supply, 
be constructed and connected with water closets or privies, 
which drain shall lead from such house or building, or the 
intended site of such house or building, to the Sewer. And 
hereafter, no cesspool or privy-well shall be constructed or 
used as connected with any house or building so newly 
built or rebuilt. 
"Sect. 10. That no Sewer license shall be hereafter 
granted to connect with any cesspool, and no substance 
shall be conducted into a Sewer which will not be carried 
off by suspension in water." 
APPENDIX B. 
Extract from "An Ordinance to promote Public Cleanli- 
ness and Health,'' submitted to Councils March, I860: 
"Section 5. That no new dwelling-house, store, or other 
building, shall be erected on any street or alley in which 
there is a sewer, without providing an under-ground con- 
nection by drain pipes with the sewer for carryivg off' all 
drainage that would otherwise flow over the footway; and 
in all cases where there are gutters now over the footway 
which, in the opinion of the Chief Engineer and Surveyor, 
are objectionable, and are situated upon a street where 
there is a sewer, or where, in the erection of new buildings 
after the passage of this ordinance, the directions herein 
specified have been disregarded, it shall be the duty of the 19 
Chief Engineer and Surveyor to give written notice to the 
owner, or occupants of the premises, to connect with the 
sewer by under-ground drainage; and in case of non-com- 
pliance with said notice for the space of thirty da^^^^* 
the service thereof upon the owner or occupant, the™ 
be incurred by said owner the penalty of thirty doll^^nor 
each month of failure. 
"Sect. 6. No license shall be hereafter granted to make 
connection with a sewer for the purpose of preventing the 
overflow of a privy well, and no substance shall be con- 
ducted into a sewer which will not be carried off by sus- 
pension in water; and all such sewer connections now 
existing shall be cut off by the Chief Commissioner of 
Highways within thirty days after written notice so to do 
has been served (by order of the Chief Engineer and Sur- 
veyor) upon the owner or occupant of the premises drained. 
" Sect. 7. That, in all cases where the connection is for 
the purpose of conveying to the sewer such drainage as 
would otherwise be permitted to flow across the footway, 
the license must be taken out in manner herein specified; 
but no charge shall be made therefor, other than the sum 
of three dollars for re-paving the carriage way. 
'' Sect. 8. It shall be the duty of each Passenger Railroad 
Company occupying the streets of the City of Philadelphia, 
whenever the same may be over a sewer, to make at their 
own expense a connection between the horse-path of their 
track and the underlaying sewer at such points and in such 
manner as shall be approved by the Chief Engineer and 
Surveyor; and upon the failure so to do within thirty days 
after written notice has been given them by said Chief En- 
gineer and Surveyor, it shall be the duty of the Chief Com- 
missioner of Highways to have the same done, and the cost 
thereof to be collected from the Railroad Company as di- 
rected in Section 10 of this ordinance. 
"Sect. 9. That if any one shall make a connection with 
any sewer in violation of the provisions of this ordinance, 
or shall use it for purposes not specified in license, there 20 
shall be incurred the penalty of fifty dollars, and connection 
shall be severed. 
"Sect. 10. It shall be the duty of the City Solicitor to 
•ite for all penalties incurred under this ordinance, 
le direction of the Chief Engineer and Surveyor."