City assumes responsibility for maintaining privately-owned underground drains.

Called sewers or common shores, because they were often owned in common and discharged at the nearest shoreline, the extensive network of pipes actually carried only ground and household wastewater. Liquids from privies are first permitted in the drains, making them sewers in fact as well as in name in 1833. House downspouts are first permitted to be connected to sewers in 1834.