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.

    26/105 (page 18)
    u cheap, easy and rapid communication extending fifteen miles into the interior, and so operating to cheapen commodities of daily and universal consumption, grain, firewood, straw, &c. A. second benefit will bo the command of good water at a very cheap rate for watering gardens and plantations, which are now dependent on the bad and costly water of wells. There will also be a large command ol water power for turning mills and for other purposes, which can be let out at a veiy cheap rate, because it in- volves very little loss of water; and lastly a very durable material, viz., granite will be supplied for the roads, at a cheaper rate than is paid for the perishable iron stone now used. The granite may be broken near the spot where it is quarried, by means of the water power, and be then conveyed on the Canal to the neighbourhood where it is wanted. 19. 3d.—As more remote benefits derivable from the works now con- templated, we may mention the cheapness with which granite for groins for defending and extending the Beach, will be brought down. And what is more important still, the command of this material in such abundance and at a cheap rate, at once renders the design of a Pier and a ship Breakwater a practicable thing. Of the urgency of such a work we need say nothing, when the whole public of Madras has so lately witnessed the total destruction of four European vessels, and thirteen Native craft, involving an aggregate loss of probably double the whole capital cost of a Breakwater, which would for ever put a stop to such disasters, and prevent the sad loss of life and property, by which, as in the present instance, as also on a similar occasion only a very few months ago they are almost always accompanied. 20. To these advantages which chiefly concern the public at large, we would add another which affects the Government only, and which we are per- suaded your Excellency will not think of small importance. Very much diffi- culty has been encountered, as the Government are well aware, in providing hutting ground for the two Native Begiments which are part of the garrison of Madras. For one of these we are even now in treaty on the part of Go- vernment for the purchase of a piece of ground in the heart of Vepery; and we do not anticipate that the land can be obtained, and the buildings and basements constructed, at a smaller outlay than a lack or a lack and a quarter of Kupees : and with all this outlay the situation is not satisfactory, though it is considered by Government to be the best procurable. The site occupied by the other Begiment at Perambore Is by no means good, and the basements formed at a large outlay, are not yet sufficiently con- solidated for building on. 21. If the project now under consideration were carried out, it would be