Sewerage a Source of Revenue

About This Item

Title: Sewerage a Source of Revenue
Date: 20 February 1857
Creator(s): Walt Whitman
Whitman Archive ID: per.01339
Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 20 February 1857: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Kevin McMullen Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Sewerage a Source of Revenue." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: per.01339.xml (TEI)

image 1

image 2

image 3

image 4

cropped image 1

Sewerage a Source of Revenue.

We notice that a new plan has been adopted in some European cities (Paris among the rest) for deodorising and utilising the sewerage. The contents of the sewers being discharged into reservoirs, the solid matters are precipitated by means of lime, the water flows off clear, and the mud, raised by an Archimedean screw, is dried in a centrifugal machine, and sold for manure in the form of bricks. A manufactory of poudrette has long existed at Paris, and it is believed that a handsome revenue may be derived from works on a larger scale, and a source of insalubrity at the same time neutralized.

The above contains a valuable hint to the engineers just appointed by the Common Council to report on a general plan of drainage for the city. Though the consideration of the profit capable of being derived from the sewerage does not come under the exact terms of the Common Council instructions, yet as the whole matter of drainage is referred to the Surveyors, and they will have occasion probably to deal with the question of expense, they cannot do better than include in their inquiries the possibility of making the sewerage available as manure, and disposing of it at a premium. Mr. Herapath, the celebrated English analytical chemist, who has given some attention to the subject, has expressed the opinion that the entire cost of the sanitary government of a city should and might be defrayed out of the proceeds of the sale of sewerage.

So it should be with the punishment of crime. The fees and fines levied from offenders ought to go a great deal further than they now do towards maintaining the police and inferior courts, while from the costs in civil actions the revenues of the Superior Courts ought to be wholly paid. From the Corporation papers—as will be seen in a speech elsewhere reported—the city derives a revenue far greater than the payment it makes.

Thus it should be with every department of city government. It is by no means Utopian to believe in the possibility of municipal affairs being so administered that crime, litigation, and filth, instead of industry and labor, shall be made to furnish the revenues of the body corporate. We commend these suggestions to bona fide reformers.