The public refuse of cities by the usual course of legislation in local Acts, and by custom, and on all principles which govern the application of the proceeds of such produce belongs to the public, and it may be submitted that, whatever may be the decision in the case of Edinburgh, means should be taken to prevent for the future the acquisition of new rights at the expense of the health and of the conveniences of such large classes of the population. And it may here be observed that it will probably be found, under the circumstances of the increasing population of the towns, and the increasing necessity of keeping open spaces within and around the towns, and of exercising a general control for the beneficial arrangement of new buildings for the public health and convenience, and of securing convenient public walks and places of temperate and healthful recreation for the population—that it is most desirable for all these objects that means should be taken to redeem to the crown the fee, or otherwise obtain as early as practicable, and on the terms of proper compensation, lands within and in the immediate vicinity of towns for public use. If then, in Edinburgh, the contents of the cesspools were carried by adequate supplies of water in drains from the houses into covered sewers, and thence in covered instead of open sewers to the lands at proper distances where it might be distributed as manure by irrigation, it would be a mode of irrigation considered by Mr. Smith of Deanston, and other authorities on drainage and irrigation, whom I consulted, the best that is now apparently practicable, _i. e._, the best means for removing quickly, and constantly, and the least injuriously, the matters which can only remain for removal by any other process at the expense of the public health; they concur in opinion that it would also be the most productive mode of distributing the manure.