CESSPOOLS

It may be well to point out that the local authorities of any district in which a ce pool is situated are required by the Public Health Act—1. To see that it is so constructed and kept as to prevent its becoming either a nuisance or detrimental to health. 2. That an examination of any ce pool can be made by the sanitary inspector, or by any officer appointed by the local authority, after notice of entry has been served upon those who are the occupiers of the premises on which it is situated. 3. The local authority may itself undertake the cleansing of a ce pool, or it may enact bye-laws imposing this duty on the occupiers of the premises. 4. If the local authority, after having undertaken the cleansing of a ce pool, fail to do its duty, it becomes liable, after notice from an occupier, for the payment to the said occupier of a penalty not exceeding five shillings a day during default. 5. Any person in an urban district who allows the contents of a ce pool to overflow, or to soak therefrom, incurs a penalty of forty shillings for each offence, and a further charge of five shillings a day for the continuance of the offence after notice. 6. Information of any nuisance under the said Act in the district of any local authority may be given to such local authority by any person aggrieved thereby, or by any two inhabitant householders of such district, or by any officer of such authority, or by the relieving officer, or by any constable or officer of the police force of such district. It does not come within our province to enter into details as to the best method of building a ce pool. We may, however, state, that owing to the defective and leaky construction of a ce pool, it very frequently becomes a serious source of dangerous contamination to the wells in the neighbourhood, as well as a ready means of contagion, when it contains the excreta of fever patients. The outbreak of typhoid fever at the west end of London in 1874, the origin of which was traced to the milk supply, was owing to the ve els in which the milk was collected in the country having been washed out with water taken from a well near a ce pool, into which ran the contents of a privy belonging to a house, some of the inmates of which were labouring under typhoid fever. For a ce pool not to be injurious to health it should be water-tight and ventilated by a shaft; it should never be allowed to overflow; and should be sunk at as great a distance from houses or dwellings as po ible.