the better clippings, and No. 2 being "not as clear and a little soiled by handling." The colored cuttings come from mills that make colored shirts and the twines are picked up around stores. (Thompson, p 71.) The stock is sometimes soiled; and such soiled stock is sometimes accepted and overlooked. (Thompson, pp. 72, 73.)

The first process is to assort the stock over wire screens and rub each rag on the wire screens for the purpose of rubbing off dirt, which falls into drawers beneath the screen. (Thompson, pp. 73, 80.) It. is then put through a chopping process in the rag-cutter (pp. 9, 73). It is then ordinarily put into a rotary boiler, with chloride of lime,. alkali and soda, and subjected to a steam bath at an unknown temperature, there being no thermometer connected with the boiler (pp. 9, 74, 124).

Some of the stock does not go through the rotary boiler and is not subjected to any steam bath. (Thompson, pp. 74, 75.)

Disease germs are not killed with any certainty except when subjected to a heat of at least 240 degrees, in a closed vessel, with live steam. (Dr. Mitchell, p. 62.)

It is then taken to the washing machine or beating engine, with knives in it, where the rags are cut and "where the alkali is washed out of them and whatever dirt may have come from the rags, if any." (Thompson, p. 75.) This process continues for six or eight hours, fresh water being admitted at one end and escaping, with its impurities acquired while passing through the machine, at the other end.. After six or eight hours of this process, and before being dumped out of the washing machine, the bleaching liquor (chloride of lime) is poured in. It is then dumped out in large vats, where it lies to bleach.. (Thompson, pp. 75 to 77.)

The pulp, made in manner above indicated, is then mixed with water, carried in a thin sheet between rollers, the water squeezed out, the thin layers of pulp conveyed to hot driers, and so finally is turned out as paper (p. 10).

Mr. Van Gilder, the defendant's secretary, admits that in the cleansing process the defendant uses chloride of lime, alkali, soda-ash. and ordinary quicklime (p. 13), and that considerable of the pulpy material escapes into the stream (p. 12).

The paper made at the plant is manila tint, and paper that is "chemically pure white paper" (p. 11).

All the foul substances taken up by the water in the process of the manufacture, including not only those that are held in solution, but quantities of dirt and of the pulpy materials, pass with the effluent through the raceway, into the Rahway river (pp. 5 and 39).

The discharge into the river is above the point in the river from which Rahway city takes its supply of water for domestic use. (Dr. Hunt, p. 16.)

Shippen Wallace, State Chemist, has analyzed a sample of water obtained by Dr. Hunt from the feeder, twenty-five yards above the

factory, and another sample from the raceway, about fifty yards below the mill, and a third taken from a faucet in Rahway city. The analysis was intended to show merely the fact that organic and inorganic materials were added to the water by the defendant. The defendant's chemist, Axtell, went farther. He ascertained, in the samples analyzed by him, the quantity of free ammonia, albuminoid ammonia, nitrogen as nitrites and nitrates, and the quantity of oxygen required to oxidate the organic matter.

Mr. Wallace was not required to do all that Axtell did. It was not necessary. What was needed was proof of the discharge by the defendant into the river of factory refuse which corrupts or impairs the quality of the water. Nothing more. And both Mr. Wallace's and Mr. Axtell's analyses prove this conclusively. Here is a tabulated statement of the results of their analyses:

These analyses show a bad corruption of the water of the river. They fully verify what one knowing the process of manufacture by the defendant would expect. Every one of the seven analyses of water taken by Mr. Axtell from seven different points below the defendant's factory is worse, much worse, than any of his three samples of water taken from the steam above the factory. Mr. Wallace's analyses show the same condition.

The sources of this corruption are worthy of attention. It comes from soiled and colored rags, jute, twine, &c. Specimens were produced by Dr. Mitchell, the Secretary of the State Board of Health. There were rags evidently soiled with human excrement and with the discharges of women during their periods of menstruation. (Dr. Mitchell, pp. 56, 57, 58, 59.) The samples of water produced in court, taken from the tail-race just below the factory by Mr. Corley, the defendant's superintendent, show large quantities of foreign matter in it. (Dr. Mitchell, pp. 37, 38.) It is clear that the discharge corrupts and impairs, and tends to corrupt and impair, the quality of the water of the river. (Dr. Mitchell, p. 53.)

Mr. Axtell's scientific conclusions that the chemicals put into the stream by the defendant tend to purify the stream are of no value. He was employed to ascertain whether there was any positive proof that the discharges from the defendant's factory make the Rahway river water injurious to health. That is not the question. The question is, do the discharges corrupt or impair, or tend to corrupt or impair, the quality of the water? If the water of the river above the factory is impure (as Axtell alleges), the State Board of Health will reach the sources of that evil in due time. They are the State's agents to do that very thing. The defendant has no authority from the State to attempt to improve the quality of the water by putting chloride of lime, or any other chemicals, in it. In any event, it also put organic matter (decomposible stuff) into the water, and some of it filth of the worst kind, without subjecting it to any steam bath. Chloride of

lime, chloride of sodium (common salt), chloride of magnesia, the organic and inorganic materials discharged into the stream by the defendant, corrupt that stream. I do not say that they make the water injurious to health. They may do so. But that is not the

point. You may put common salt into your glass of water, and, while it will not make it injurious to health, it corrupts or impairs its quality for drinking purposes. All kinds of corruption or impairment of the quality of potable waters is intended to be prohibited by the act of 1899. The title of the act is, "An act to secure the purity of the public supplies of potable waters in this State."

We are not dealing with the question as to whether certain mineral waters, impregnated with salts, are not sometimes prescribed for use by man. So is arsenic and other poisons. Pure potable waters are waters as free as possible from all salts and from all foreign substances. The much-advertised waters of the Poland and Underwood Springs, in Maine, are valued because they are almost chemically pure. The object of the act of 1899 is to secure a degree of purity in our public water-supplies that will approach as nearly as practicable to water that is chemically pure. Of course, the best that can be done will be far from that. But the State has declared that no factory refuse that will corrupt or impair, or tend to corrupt or impair, the quality of the water of any river that is used for potable purposes shall be discharged into such river above the intake of any city. That is plain language. It is the duty of the Court to see that it is enforced.

It is unnecessary for me to give more than a passing reference to the arguments of Mr. Axtell (who signs his reports "F. C. Axtell, Ph.D."), to the effect that the defendant is actually engaged in a humanitarian work by treating the waters of the Rahway river with various chemicals and thereby improving its quality. The defendant is not the State's doctor, to put medicaments into its drinking water. Mr. Axtell's idea seems to be that chlorine is not in itself a thing that corrupts the quality of water for potable use. I say it does. He says when we find chlorine in water it suggests that there may be fecal matter there which "might contain pathogenic germs" (p. 88). I admit it. But, suppose there be fecal matter in water and that fecal matter be known to be free from pathogenic germs, is the water then to be deemed uncorrupted? Mr. Axtell's whole argument, to be found in all three of his reports, is founded on the assumption that water must have in it pathogenic germs, or be positively injurious to health, in order to justify the court in granting an injunction. He says "that calcium hypochlorite has been employed as a medicament in the treatment of typhoid fever and dysentery, in doses of from three to six grains," and that "should the water contain any free hypochlorite [which is extremely improbable] when it arrives at the city of Rahway, no fear need be felt as regards a possible deleterious result due to the presence of this substance in the water" (pp. 100, 101).

On page 100 he also says: "We must discriminate and distinguish

between the pollution and the contamination of a public water-supply. Pollution is always to be regarded as deleterious, while contamination may be inocuous, deleterious or beneficial. The results of the analyses, given above, prove that the effect of the discharge from the mill has been such as to exert a positively beneficial action on the quality of the water; and as long as the present conditions [such as the volume of the flow of water and the quantity and nature of the discharge from the mill] are maintained, it is difficult to see that any possible deleterious effect of such discharge on the quality of the water is to be anticipated."

It will thus be seen that he has wholly overlooked the fact that what the law prohibits is the doing of any act by which the quality of the water of any stream used by any city, town, &c., shall be corrupted or impaired for drinking purposes. I may have a glass of water chemically pure, but if I put into it common salt, or clay, or pure milk, I corrupt its quality as drinking water. And when it is remembered that there go into the Rahway river not only the salts formed by the chemical combination of chlorine with lime, soda, &c., but coloring materials and dirt contained in washings from the raw stock in the process of manufacture, we see how invaluable and useless for the purposes of this case are the scientific conclusions and speculations of Mr. Axtell.

Chemical analyses are valuable, for the facts which they prove, just as any other proof is. The analyses of Mr. Axtell and Mr. Wallace are so in this case. The rule to be applied in the consideration of these analyses, and the conclusion of Mr. Axtell, is that stated in Goldsmid v. Tunbridge Wells Improvement Commissioners, cited with approval in Newark Aqueduct Board v. Passaic, 18 Stew. Eq. 406, as follows: "Speaking with all possible respect to the scientific gentlemen who have given their evidence, and as to whom it is but just to say they have dealt with the case most ably and most impartially, I think that in cases of this nature much more weight is due to the facts which are proved than to conclusions drawn from scientific investigations. The conclusions to be drawn from scientific investigations are, no doubt, in such cases, of great value in aid of, or in explanation and qualification of, the facts which are proved, but in my judgment it is upon the facts which are proved, and not upon. conclusions, the court ought, in these cases, mainly rely. In my view of the case, therefore, the scientific evidence ought to be considered as secondary only to the evidence as to the facts."

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I submit that we are entitled to an injunction as prayed for in the bill of complaint.

Records of Vital Statistics.-Beginning with the new century, the statistical year in New Jersey will hereafter conform to the calendar year. Heretofore the tabulation of births, marriages and deaths has been based upon records covering the year ending June 30th, but for the purpose of more ready comparison with the records of other States and countries the figures will, in the future, be given for the year ending December 31st. To admit of the use of the data contained in the records of the last six months of the calendar year 1900, the tables of vital facts have been prepared for this volume as in previous years, and the records are presented for the year ending June 30th, 1901. But in the next annual report it will be necessary to recombine the figures for the first half of the calendar year 1901, in order that the totals for the entire year may be made up. The new system of registration consists in the transcription of certain facts contained in the certificates of births, marriages and deaths for use in preparing a monthly statement of mortality, and also in the preparation of an index of the names of those who are certified as having been born or married and of those who have died. The transcription of all of the facts contained in the certificates into books. has been discontinued, and the original records are now solely relied upon for reference. Protection is afforded against the fading of the ink in the original certificates by preparing and filing duplicates when the frequent searches disclose impairment of legibility. The certificates of death returned to the Bureau of Vital Statistics are, by law, required to be forwarded by the local registrars on or before the fifteenth day of each month, and the new system of monthly tabulation which has been established depends for its usefulness upon prompt and faithful compliance with this requirement. There has been much delay on the part of some registrars in making returns, and notices are being sent to those who are habitually dilatory, calling their attention to the important uses which vital records serve, and imforming them that tabulation cannot proceed unless the returns are furnished, as the law provides.

Very respectfully,

October 31st, 1901.

HENRY MITCHELL,

Secretary