“Lascelles-court, Broad-street, St. Giles’s. This court was pointed
out to me as one of the worst in London. Before cleansing it smelt
_intolerable_,” [_sic_] “and looked disgusting. Besides an abundance
of ordinary filth arising from the exposure of refuse, the surface
of the court contained heaps of human excrement, there being only
one privy to the whole court, and that not in a state to be publicly
used.... The cleansing operations were commenced by sprinkling the
court with deodorising fluid, mixed with 20 times its volume of water;
a great change, from a very pungent odour to an imperceptible smell,
was immediately effected; after which the refuse of the court was
washed away, and the pavement thoroughly cleansed by the hose and jet;
and now this place, which before was in a state almost indescribable,
presented an appearance of comparative comfort and respectability.”
It is stated as the result of another experiment in “an ordinary wide
street with plenty of traffic,” that “water-carts and ordinary rains
only create the mud which the jet entirely removes, giving to the
pavement the appearance of having been as thoroughly cleansed as the
private stone steps in front of the houses.”
With respect to Mr. Lee’s experiments in Sheffield, I find that Messrs.
Guest, of Rotherham, are patentees of a tap for the discharge of water
at high pressures, and that they had adapted their invention to the
purpose of a fire-plug and stand pipe suitable for street-cleansing by
the hose and jet. Church-street, one of the principal thoroughfares,
was experimentally cleansed by this process: “The carriage-way is from
20 to 24 feet wide, and about 150 yards long. It was washed almost
as clean as a house-floor in five minutes.” Mr. Lee expresses his
conviction that, by the agency of the hose and jet, every street in
that populous borough might be cleansed at about 1_s._ per annum for
each house. “The principal thoroughfares,” he states, “could be thus
made perfectly clean, three times every week, before business hours,
and the minor streets and lanes twice, or once per week, at later hours
in the day, by the agency of an abundant supply of water, at _less than
half the sum necessary for the cartage alone_ of an equal quantity of
refuse in a solid or semi-fluid condition.”
The highways most frequented in Sheffield constitute about one-half of
the whole extent of the streets and roads in the borough, measuring 47
miles. This length, Mr. Lee computes, might be effectually cleansed
with the hose and jet, ten miles of it three times a week, 21 miles
twice a week, and 16 miles once a week, a total of 88 miles weekly, or
4576 miles yearly. The quantity of Water required would be 3000 gallons
a mile, or a yearly total of 13,728,000 gallons. This water might be
supplied, Mr. Lee opines, at 1_d._ per 1000 gallons (57_l._ 4_s._ per
annum), although the price obtained by the Water-works Company was
6-1/2_d._ per 1000 gallons (371_l._ 16_s._ per annum). “I now proceed,”
he says, “to the cost of labour: 4576 miles per annum is equal to
14-2/3 miles for each working day, or to six sets of two men cleansing
2-1/2 miles per day each set. To these must be added three horses and
carts, and three carters, for the removal of such _débris_ as cannot be
washed away and for such parts of the town as cannot be cleansed by
this system, making a total of fifteen men. Their wages I would fix at
50_l._ per annum each. The estimate is as follows:--
“Annual interest upon the first cost
of hose and pipes, three horses and £
carts 30
Fifteen men’s wages 750
Three horses’ provender 150
Wear, tear, and depreciation of hose, &c. 250
Management and incidentals, say 120
------
£1300.”
The estimate, it will be seen, is based on the supposition that _the
water supply should be at the public cost_, and not a specific charge
for the purposes of street-cleansing.
The 47 miles of highway of Sheffield is but three miles less than those
of the city of London, the cost of cleansing which is, according to the
estimate before given, no less than 18,000_l._
The Sheffield account is divested of all calculations as to house-dust
and ashes, and the charge for watering-carts; but, taking merely the
sum paid to scavaging contractors, and assigning 1000_l._ (out of the
2485_l._), as the proportion of salaries, &c., under the department of
scavagery in the management of the City Commissioners, we find that
while the expense of street-cleansing by the Sheffield hose and jet
was little more than 34_l._, in London, by the ordinary mode, it was
upwards of 140_l._ per mile, or more than four times as much. The hose
and jet system is said to have washed the streets of Sheffield as clean
as a house-floor, which could not be said of it in London. The streets
of the City, it should also be borne in mind, are now swept daily; Mr.
Lee proposes only a periodical cleaning for Sheffield, or once, twice,
and thrice a week. Of the cost of the experiments made in London with
the hose and jet, in Lascelles-court, &c., nothing is said.
Street-cleansing by the hose and jet is, then, as yet but an
experiment. It has not, like the street-orderly mode, been tested
continuously or systematically; but the experiments are so curious
and sometimes so startling in their results that it was necessary to
give a brief account of them here, in order to render this account of
the cleansing of the streets of the metropolis as comprehensive as
possible. For my own part, I must confess the street-orderly system
appears to excel all other modes of scavagery, producing at once the
greatest cleanliness with the greatest employment to the poor. Nor am
I so convinced as the theoretic and crotchety Board of Health as to
the healthfulness of dampness, or the daily evaporation of a sheet of
even clean water equal in extent to the entire surface of the London
streets. It is certainly _doubtful_, to say the least, whether so much
additional moisture might _improve_ the public health, which the Board
are instituted to protect; rain certainly contributes to cleanliness,
and yet no one would advocate continued wet weather as a source of
general convalescence.
I shall conclude this account of the scavaging of London, with the
following brief statement as to the mode in which these matters are
conducted abroad.
In Paris, where our system of parochial legislation and management
is unknown, the scavaging of the streets--so frequently matters of
private speculation with us--is under the immediate direction of the
municipality, and the Government publish the returns, as they do of the
revenue of their capital from the abattoirs, the interments, and other
sources.
In the _Moniteur_ for December 10, 1848, it is stated that the refuse
of the streets of Paris sells for 500,500 francs (20,020_l._),
when sold by auction in the mass; and 3,800,000 francs (equal to
152,000_l._) when, after having lain in the proper receptacles, until
fit for manure, it is sold by the cubic foot. In 1823, the streets
of Paris were leased for 75,000 francs (3000_l._) per annum; in 1831
the value was 166,000 francs (6640_l._); and since 1845 the price
has risen to the sum first named, viz., 500,500 francs (20,020_l._);
from which, however, is to be deducted the expense of cleansing, &c.
I may add, that the receptacles alluded to are large places provided
by Government, where the manure is deposited and left to ferment for
twelve or eighteen months.