Report of a committee on a plan for cleansing the drains of Black Town.

Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of a committee on a plan for cleansing the drains of Black Town. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    83/105 (page 75)
    APPENDIX T, MEMORANDUM 13Y LIEUT.-COLONEL A. T. COTTON, CHIEFJENGINEER AND .MEMBER, MILITARY BOARD, IN CONTINUATION OF NO. 278, DATED 31st AUGUST 1852. (See Appendix A.) 1 have in a former paper stated my views in favour of this project, but I think it may be well here to endeavour to answer such objections, as I have heard of stated against it; and which may perhaps be thus summed up— 1st—That there is no necessity for any works on sanitary grounds, on account of the healthiness of Madras. 2nd, That the money could be expended with greater results up the country. 3rc| That Madras has already had a great deal of money spent upon it. 4th. That it wants a Pier, more than water and water carriage. 2. In answer to the first, I remark that the proposal to spend money on Madras did not originate with me; the Honorable Court had actually sanction- ed an expenditure of 73,000 Rupees on a mere patch-work attempt to im- prove the sanitary state of Madras, and the Justices as I believe, had fully made up their minds to spend a further sum of 50,000 Rupees in throwing salt water into Black Town; that point therefore was settled. Questions connected with the expenditure already ordered by the Court were placed before me upon which I was obliged to come to some decision ; and nothing could be clearer to my mind, upon investigating the matter, than that before another Lack was spent in addition to those already laid out on various petty works, the funda- mental point, the bringing fresh water into Madras, should be considered. That very large sums have been spent in detached improvements, that large sums were sanctioned for others, and that further very large sums were sure to be spent, seems to me to confine the question to what should be done, and I therefore did not enter upon that of the expediency of doing something. And the examination of the subject at once made it evident to me that what was most obviously the fundamental measure as respects the sanitary improvement of Madras, was equally a fundamental one for the other wants of the city. 3. If however I am called upon to answer the question whether it is ad- visable to spend large sums of money on Madras or not, there seems to me no possible room for doubt on the point. In using the term sanitary, I did not mean to exclude the points of comfort and convenience, and to consider only the sickness and mortality : it is impossible in fact to prevent the latter, without attending to the former. That Madras is not a particularly unhealthy