Excerpt from Main Drainage Works of the City of Boston: Massachusetts, U. S. A The conditions which necessitated a change in the system of sewage disposal at Boston, and the problems to be solved in making that change, can be better understood after a brief consideration of the early history of sewerage at that city and the manner in which the sewers were originally built. Boston was first settled in 1630. When the first sewer was built cannot now be determined, but it was earlier than the year 1700, for already, in 1701, the population being about 8,000, a nuisance had been created by frequent digging up of streets to lay new sewers and to repair those previously buiThe way in which sewers were built at this time was, apparently, this. When some energetic householder on any street decided that a sewer was needed there, he persuaded such of his neighbors as he could to join him in building a street drain. Having obtained permission to open the street, or perhaps neglected this preliminary, they built such a structure as they thought necessary, on the shortest line to tide-water. The expense was divided between them, and they owned the drain absolutely. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.