with Barking. This bright spot on the edge of the Essex marshes is, as most folk are aware, the scene of the great northern outfall sewer of London; Crossness, a little lower down on the other side, being the scene of the southern outfall. Sir Joseph Bazalgette was instructed to prepare designs for the requisite works at both stations. But before the works were completed the Metropolitan Board had died, being superseded by the London County Council, and Sir Joseph retired after occupying the position of Chief Engineer for forty years.

The County Council coming fresh into power found the expensive and extensive works at Barking nearly finished, and also found a good deal of opposition existing with regard to the scheme. The Council did what the Board had done before them, and called in experts for an opinion. These gentlemen were their own engineer, Mr. Alexander R. Binnie, and Sir Benjamin Baker, and again the report was favourable.

The scheme thereupon went forward, and in 1890 the sludge ships commenced to run from Barking; the works also were commenced at Crossness-with some improvements suggested by experience-more ships were ordered, until a fleet of five was reached, and in the summer of 1892 the scheme came into operation for the whole of London County, with the result that the steamers carry out some 40,000 tons of sludge weekly. That is, of course, over 160,000 tons monthly in round numbers, and the difference to the river in the absence of these enormous masses of filth must be obvious. Let us take a run through these Barking works, and glance at the whole process.

Barking is not a very delectable place—at least, near the riverand when the fierce nor'-easter blows it must be bitter cold here on the banks. One can reach the sewage domain through the Beckton Gas Works, near to which, again, are the Albert Docks. On the other side of the Sewage Works stretch the broad green levels of the Essex marshes; and attempts have been made to beautify the sewage spot by plantations of shrubs. But the whole place seems as far away from, and as little known by, the majority of Londoners as the wilds of Dartmoor; perhaps, indeed, the beauties of the moor are better known.

At the northern boundary of the domain there enters from the mighty city a broad green road. It is unusually straight for a road, and it is, in fact, the top of the famous twenty-seven feet wide northern outfall sewer. Below the road is a deep, black, rushing river of filth, proceeding by two or three culverts on its way to the Thames.

Then come two sets of three iron cages, which catch all kinds of

what may be called extraneous things-such as dead rats, sticks, perhaps sometimes slaughter-house offal, and curiously enough, eels from the black river. The sets of cages can be worked alternately, for the sewage is constantly flowing; a hundred million gallons every twenty-four hours, it is estimated, pour through these cages, and in round numbers a hundred tons weekly of stuff is caught in them. One set of cages can be cleaned while the other is at work, and the stuff is carried off to huge destructors which are constantly burning up some of the refuse of the great city.

How history repeats itself! Centuries ago the waste of the city of Jerusalem was burnt in a constant fire outside the walls; and now here is the greatest city of modern times treating a part of its refuse in the same way.

Freed from this débris, the black river flows on under its greentopped road to the liming station. It was found, early in the progress of the scheme, that it was cheaper to administer the lime dissolved in water rather than the lime alone. This is accordingly done. It is dissolved in huge tanks, about 34th to 3 grains to the gallon, some of the subsequent effluent being used for the purpose, and it is then run off into the black river.

Farther on the sewage rushes to the iron station. Here solution of sulphate of iron is added, and then, finished with its treatingwhich is not here a "corrupt practice "-the huge volume of sewage pours on to the Penstock Chamber. This building is fitted with a number of iron gates or penstocks, twenty-six in number, giving access to a series of immense underground apartments or channels, where at last the black river gives pause and rests. These are the precipitation chambers, a thousand feet long and over thirty feet wide. The top of them looks like a very flat grass field, except that here and there are mysterious iron plates or openings, through which we can look down to the simmering flood below.

The penstocks are worked alternately, and are moved by hydraulic power. At the end of the huge precipitation channels is a wall penning back the thick sludge-water and its sediment below, and over this wall rushes the clear water or effluent which has deposited its sediment in the precipitating channel. There is a narrow platform near this mighty rush of effluent to which one can descend and watch the flood. It pours on for ever, a Niagara of purified sewage, millions of gallons of it every twenty-four hours; the last rush before it is let off to join the river at its outgoing tides.

As for the stuff it has left behind, called "sludge," it is at certain intervals run off by means of weirs into other channels, where the

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process of precipitation still further proceeds. The effluent from these channels is very bad, and is returned to the liming station by pumping, while the thick sludge itself is pumped into the sludge ships waiting at the pier, or if that be not practicable at the moment, to tanks where it awaits its last voyage.

Four of the sludge ships are kept constantly at work, one being permitted a rest for a week when painting and repairs are undertaken, and when the crew enjoy an easier time; they also get a complete twenty-four hours off in every week. Otherwise they are constantly engaged on the ships, keeping regular watches as though they were fully at sea, and sleeping on board. The ships are at work night and day, and are of sufficient power to take a trip out to sea and return every twelve-and-a-half hours.

They are twin-screw boats, fitted with triple expansion engines of about 120 horse-power, and can steam with their strange cargo some ten knots an hour. The sludge is pumped into three huge tanks, the floors of which are level with the sea outside.. They can thus be easily emptied by the opening of valves in the ship's bottom, when, acting on the law that water finds its own level, the stuff runs out. Through the half-dozen valves, the ship can unload the whole thousand tons in seven minutes. More time, however, is usually taken. The tanks are all covered over, there is no offensive smell, and no one walking the broad and clean deck would imagine the black and filthy cargo within. There is a deck house or small saloon, and the men are comfortably berthed below. In short, the ships are prepared as for a short voyage at sea, and if they are detained off the Nore by fog or foul weather, they are ready to meet delay with perfect equanimity.

Their course is to a channel called the Barrow Deep, which is not used either by north- or south-bound ships. It curves to the northeast; but the smoke of the northern steamers floats far on your left, and away to your right lies the thin line of the southern vessels; so here the Council's steamers are quite alone. They have left the Nore Light and the Girdler far behind, and here on a summer's day the sea-green waves laugh and sparkle and tumble, and the broad. plain of water seems to stretch to infinity.

A quiet word from the observant captain on the bridge, and the men draw off the oil-skin capes from the valve wheels; another word, and the men slowly move them. The captain has seen the North Knob Buoy, some mile beyond the Nore, the point where he may commence discharging, and has ordered accordingly.

Look behind a dark stream is already mingling with the white wake of the steamer and the sea-green of the waves, and a few heavy

winged gulls begin to hover over it. Steaming for a few miles, and slowly discharging, the vessel rids herself of her queer load, and then doubles on her track. Ten to one but she will see one or more of her four sisters following her on the same errand, but of the discolouration caused by her own cargo nought will probably be visible. The sludge has vanished. There is a strong current in the Barrow Deep running out to sea, and at last the County Council has done with its sludge.

Pleasant enough though the work may be in the warm summer weather, the aspect is very different in the sleet and storm and biting cold of winter nights. But night and day all the year round the work has to go on.

Other communities must follow suit. The borough of West Ham is a great sinner in this respect, and the Lea, into which it pours its untreated sewage, is filthy. This, of course, comes into the Thames; and the best way and the cheapest method, surely, would be for the West Ham sewers to discharge into the London system, and be treated at Barking with the rest. Then, too, large sewers are being made to carry off the storm water from London, which at present flows into the Thames and of course carries sewage with it. When these reforms are achieved, even greater improvement may be looked for.

As to the cost of the present gigantic experiment in cleansing the black river, Mr. Dibdin is reported to have said to an interviewer in the Pall Mall Gazette that it is much less than the estimate. The scheme of precipitation and of carriage out to sea involved a charge of £800,000, and the "annual cost, including interest on capital, wear and tear, and all charges," is about £120,coo. As the Royal Commission stated it would be about £200,000 yearly, Mr. Dibdin claims that a saving of £80,000 yearly has been made on the lowest estimate.

Experiments in filtration have also been carried on in order to still further improve the effluent run into the Thames at Barking and Crossness. The question seems to be largely one of expense, for satisfactory as the results have been at present, the effluent could no doubt be rendered as clear as drinking water. Filtration through a bed of coke breeze, for instance, seems to yield highly satisfactory results; and, moreover, the breeze would be available as fuel. However this may be, there is no doubt but that the Main Drainage Committee, of which Mr. T. Howell Williams is chairman, and the officials of the Council have brought to a very successful issue an interesting and gigantic experiment, one, too, which is of immense mportance to the great river and to the health of the people of London,

F. M. HOLMES,

PURITANS AND PLAY-ACTORS.

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Sa nation we have been accused by our French neighbours of taking our pleasures sadly; had our French neighbours known our grandmothers' great-grandmothers they never would have made such a silly remark. As a provincial people we may accuse our Georgian ancestors of taking their pleasures surreptitiously. The difference enunciated by the lively Gaul-if it ever existed-may be morally in our favour; but it is not so certain that the enjoyment was in favour of the Georgians. If it be really true that stolen kisses are the sweetest, it only remains for us to abandon the claim. The young men and maidens of the era of the first George were very artful and determined felons in the matter of their social amusements, whatever they may have been in the matter of their kisses. They stole their pleasures with a deftness that at once elevated their methods into the domain of high art, and in their efforts showed a rapture which could consecrate even their wickedness.

As to public entertainments, provincial England in the early Georgian days was halting, not between two opinions, but between the expression or suppression of one opinion. That opinion was decidedly Thespian. The husk of Puritanism alone remained. The vitalising energy of persecution had, in its death, slain sermons and "holdings-forth." There was a craving among young people for the exhibition of scenes of gaiety, and such scenes were most expected in, as they could be best represented by, stage plays. The modes of thought then beginning to obtain, not having been formed on the severe doctrines of struggling Nonconformity, sought for excitement. The elders, cradled in the lap of Puritanism, could not countenance any such fatal levity. The abhorrence of long sermons was rightly suspected to mark a decay of public morality. In the way of mundane enjoyments, the patriarchs declared it to be enough for the young people, if they would not listen to the sweet tones of the preacher for more than twenty minutes at a time, to learn the spinnet and the harpsichord, if needs be that they must have music. Even this was possibly too great a concession, when the standard of