offers
no tree that can compare in dignity and grace with the broad-spreading
American elm; though, for the sake of variety, and for the sake of an
earlier effect, many other trees may be added.

VILLAGE SANITARY WORK.

It is a recently recognized but an old and universal truth, that human
life involves the production of refuse matters, which, unless proper
safeguards are taken, are sure to become a source of disease and death.
The danger is not confined alone nor chiefly to that element of
household waste which is most manifestly offensive, but in almost equal
degree to all manner of organic refuse. It is true that faecal matters
are often accompanied by the inciting agent of the propagation of
infectious diseases. For convenience, and as indicating the more
probable means for disseminating infection, we may call this agent
"germs." It has not yet been demonstrated with scientific completeness
that a disease is spread by living germs whose growth in a new body
produces a corresponding disorder; but all that is known of the
circumstances of infection, and of the means for preventing it, may be
fully explained by this theory. Typhoid fever, cholera, epidemic
diarrh[oe]a, and some other prevalent diseases, are presumed by the germ
theory to be chiefly, if not entirely, propagated by germs thrown off by
a diseased body. So far as these ailments are concerned, there is
therefore a very serious element of danger added in the case of faeces to
the other evil effects which are produced by an improper disposal of any
refuse organic matter. That any one or all of these diseases can
originate from the decomposition, under certain circumstances of faecal
matters, is not clearly determined. There is, however, good reason for
believing that one common effect of the gases arising from improperly
treated matters of this kind is to debilitate the human system, and so
to create a disposition to receive contagion, or to succumb to minor
diseases which are not contagious.

The same debilitating effect and the same injurious influences often
result from the neglect of other organic wastes. The refuse of the
kitchen sink is free from faecal matter; but it contains, in a greater or
less degree, precisely the kind of organic material which has gone to
make up the more offensive substance. If its final disposition is such
as to contaminate the water that we drink or the air that we breathe
with the products of their decay, the dang