ask whether Her Majesty's Government intend to take any steps to remedy the evil?" Manners pointed out "that Her Majesty's Government have nothing whatever to do with the state of the Thames". The satirical magazine Punch commented that "The one absorbing topic in both Houses of Parliament ... was the Conspiracy to Poison question. Of the guilt of that old offender, Father Thames, there was the most ample evidence". At the height of the stink, of lime were being used near the mouths of the sewers that discharged into the Thames, and men were employed spreading lime onto the Thames foreshore at low tide; the cost was £1,500 per week. On 15 June Disraeli tabled the Metropolis Local Management Amendment Bill, a proposed amendment to the 1855 Act; in the opening debate he called the Thames "a Stygian pool, reeking with ineffable and intolerable horrors". The Bill put the responsibility to clear up the Thames on the MBW, and stated that "as far as may be possible" the sewerage outlets should not be within the boundaries of London; it also allowed the Board to borrow £3 million, which was to be repaid from a three-penny levy on all London households for the next forty years. The terms favoured Bazalgette's original 1856 plan, and overcame Hall's objection to it. The leading article in The Times observed that "Parliament was all but compelled to legislate upon the great London nuisance by the force of sheer stench". The bill was debated in late July and was passed into law on 2 August. Construction Bazalgette's plans for the of additional street sewers (collecting both effluent and rainwater), which would feed into of main interconnecting sewers, were put out to tender between 1859 and 1865. Four hundred draftsmen worked on the detailed plans and sectional views for the first phase of the building process. There were several engineering challenges to be overcome, particularly the fact that parts of London—including the area around Lambeth and Pimlico—lie below the high-water mark. Bazalgette's plan for the low-level areas was to lift the sewage from low-lying sewers at key points into the mid- and high-level sewers, which would then drain with the aid of gravity, out towards the eastern outfalls at a gradient of . Bazalgette was a proponent of the use of Portland cement, a material stronger than standard cement, but with a weakness when over-heated. To overcome