Does the existing form or system of sewerage answer fully and at the least expense the chief objects of sewerage in house and street cleansing, and the removal of noxious substances?—No, it does not, except where the outlets have been lowered, and the sewers continued at a proper level; great accumulations of deposit are occasioned in the sewers, and from their containing the refuse that was at one time deposited in the cesspools, the deposit is more noxious than formerly; the gas is more considerable, it escapes more extensively into streets and into the houses, where the drains are not well trapped. My opinion is that the general health of the men who work and have been accustomed to the sewers, has become still worse; they are more pale and thin, and lower in general health than formerly. The effect of the noxious gases upon men working in these places is to lower the general health. Since I have had the superintendence of the sewers, the men have encountered about half a dozen accidents by explosions of gas. But is the health of these men who work in the sewers to be taken as a criterion of the health of persons who are not accustomed to such places?—I have had no means of forming a comparison, though I am of opinion that gases which they encounter without any immediate injury would be very injurious to the health of susceptible persons, or of any persons not habituated to it. The first prejudicial effect of the defective system, then, is to occasion these noxious accumulations; how are they removed?—Formerly, in the Holborn and Finsbury sewers, and at present, I believe, in all other sewers, the streets were opened at a great expense and obstruction (they are so now, I believe, elsewhere); men descend, scoop up the deposit into pails, which are raised by a windlass to the surface, and laid there until the carts come; it is laid there until it is carted away, sometimes for several hours, to the public annoyance and prejudice. The contract price for removal from the old sewers without man-holes was 11_s._ per cubic yard of slop removed; where they have man-holes it was 6_s._ 10_d._ per cubic yard. This practice also involves injury and expense as respects the pavement; a street may be well paved when it is broken up for the cleansing of the sewers, but the portions of pavements so disturbed are never so well put down again; neither can accidents be effectually guarded against.