MR. J. G.TALBOTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he will draw the attention of the local authorities of the Metropolis to the necessity of attending carefully to the sewer ventilators in the streets, with a view to prevent as far as possible the exhalations frequently issuing therefrom; and, whether his attention has been called to a plan which has been tried with apparent success in the town of Ryde, under high engineering sanction, for rendering the ventilation of the sewers inoffensive, and yet effective?
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKE,in reply, said, he should answer the Question; but there was really no jurisdiction at all.
§ MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, he put the Question to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTWell, then, I reply that I have no authority. Neither the Local Government Board nor the Home Office have any authority in this matter. It seems to be the idea that we have the government of London in our hands. We have not; and we cannot be held responsible for it, The sewers of the Metropolis are vested either in the Commissioners of Sewers, the Metropolitan Board of Works, or the Local Vestries or District Boards. In fact, they are in the hands of 40 or 50 different Bodies, and Government have no power in any way of compelling those Bodies to take any course whatever with reference to the sewers.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKE,in reply, said, with reference to the second part of the Question, that the Mayor of Ryde 1764 had a scheme of his own for ventilating sewers, which had been tried as an experiment in that town; but the Town Council had not approved of the scheme. The Chief Sanitary Inspector of the Local Government Board, the highest authority on the subject of sewers in the world, had said that no system of ventilating sewers was so effective as the existing open grate system.