Daily weight of manure deposited in the streets by 24,214 horses × 30
lbs. = 726,420 lbs., or 324 tons, 5 cwt., 100 lbs.
Weekly weight, 2270 tons, 1 cwt., 28 lbs.
Annual weight, 118,043 tons, 5 cwt.
Tons or cart-loads deposited annually, valued at 6_s._ × 118,043 =
35,412_l._ 19_s._ 6_d._
It has, then, been here shown that, assuming the number of horses
worked daily in the streets of London to be 20,000, and each to be
out six hours _per diem_, which, it appears to me, is all that can be
fairly reckoned, the quantity of horse-dung dropped weekly is about 700
tons, so that, including the horses of the cavalry regiments in London,
which of course are not comprised in the Stamp-Office returns, as well
as the animals taken to Smithfield, we may, perhaps, assert that the
annual ordure let fall in the London streets amounts, at the outside,
to somewhere about 1000 tons weekly, or 52,000 tons per annum.
The next question becomes--what is done with this vast amount of filth?
The Board of Health is a much better guide upon this point than
upon the matter of quantity: “Much of the horse-dung dropped in the
London streets, under ordinary circumstances,” we are told, “dries
and is pulverized, and with the common soil is carried into houses as
dust, and dirties clothes and furniture. The odour arising from the
surface evaporation of the streets when they are wet is chiefly from
horse-dung. Susceptible persons often feel this evaporation, after
partial wetting, to be highly oppressive. The surface-water discharged
into sewers from the streets and roofs of houses is found to contain as
much filth as the soil-water from the house-drains.”
Here, then, we perceive that the whole of the animal manure let fall
in the streets is worse than wasted, and yet we are assured that it is
an article, which, if properly collected, is of considerable value.
“It is,” says the Report of the National Philanthropic Association,
“an article of Agricultural and Horticultural commerce which has
ever maintained a high value with the farmers and market-gardeners,
wherever conveniently obtainable. When these cattle-droppings can be
collected _unmixed_, in dry weather, they bear an acknowledged value
by the grazier and root-grower;--there being no other kind of manure
which fertilizes the land so bounteously. Mr. Marnock, Curator of the
Royal Botanical Society, has valued them at from 5_s._ to 10_s._ per
load; according to the season of the year. The United Paving Board
of St. Giles and St. George, since the introduction of the Street
Orderly System into their parishes, has wisely had it collected in a
state separate from all admixture, and sold it at highly remunerative
prices, rendering it the means of considerably lessening the expense of
cleansing the streets.”
Now, assuming the value of the street-dropped manure to be 6_s._ per
ton when collected free from dirt, we have the following statement as
to the value of the horse and cattle-voidances let fall in the streets
of London:--
52,000 tons of cattle-droppings,
at 6_s._ per ton £15,600 0 0
Mr. Cochrane, who considers the quantity of animal-droppings to be much
greater, attaches of course a greater value to the aggregate quantity.
His computation is as follows:--
118,043 tons of cattle-droppings,
at 6_s._ per ton £35,412 19 6
It seems to me that the calculations of the quantity of horse and
cattle-dung in the streets, are based on such well-authenticated and
scientific foundations, that their accuracy can hardly be disputed,
unless it be that a higher average might fairly be shown.
Whatever estimate be adopted, the worth of street-dropped animal
manure, if properly secured and made properly disposable, is great and
indisputable; most assuredly between 10,000_l._ and 20,000_l._ in value.