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.

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    very practicable to have the Troops located at a distance from their duty, and bring in daily by the Canal the numbers required for the guards, by means of a flat and a small Steamer, of which the cost would be trifling. The sites at Vepery and Perambore might then be both abandoned, and the two Eegiments micrht cither be cantoned on some of the vacant Government land along the course of the Canal: or, what perhaps would be much better, the Cantonment of Palavcram (constructed 29 years ago at a great expense for the special ob- ject of locating the Native Eegiments of the garrison, and which, although recently abandoned as too distant a station, is one of the most healthy in the whole Presidency, and has never once been visited by the Cholera), might be again occupied, as the existence of water communication would then render the distance of no importance. 22.| |We must now briefly consider the financial aspect of the proposed undertaking. As regards the actual cost of the works, there seems very good reason to suppose that all the valuable objects above enumerated, are attain- able at an extremely moderate outlay. As yet, in the absence of the necessary detailed investigations, it is only practicable to make a rough and general cal- culation. But the simple and easy nature of the great bulk of the work, most of it consisting of earth-work and rough stone revetments or plain masonry, renders the computation easy ; and Col. Cotton whose long experience in work of the same character qualifies him to make such an estimate with a high de- gree of correctness, calculates the probable cost at three lacks of Rupees. Further and more accurate enquiry is necessary prior to speaking with confi- dence on this point; but we do not hesitate to state our decided opinion, that if the cost of the benefits in question should be six lacks instead of three, (which however we see no reason to anticipate,) they would be most cheaply purchased. We may here add that in computing the cost of the proposed works, it must be remembered that the saving of expenditure about to be incur- red on objects which would thus be rendered unnecessary, would go far to meet the outlay. Thus, of the 74,000 Eupees sanctioned for the works quoted at the commencement of this letter, a very small part (only a few thousand Eu- pees) would need to be laid out on those works, as reported to Government in our letter of the 24th February 1853, and the price of the land about to be purchased for locating a Eegiment in Vepery (probably not less than 80,000 Eupees exclusive of the buildings required,) would also be saved. These two sums make a lack and a half of Eupees, being a moiety of' the supposed cost of the new project. 23. Nor must wc omit to point out that the proposed outlay differs en- tirely from the expenditures just mentioned as sanctioned or about to be incur- red, and from all others hitherto incurred by Government for objects connect- ed with the drainage, in that it would not like all those expenditures, be a