The next step in our inquiry--and that which at present concerns us
more than any other--is the mode of removing the solid deposits from
the sewers, as well as the condition of the workmen connected with
that particular branch of labour. The sewers are the means by which
a larger proportion of the wet refuse of the metropolis is removed
from our houses, and we have now to consider the means by which the
more solid part of this refuse is removed from the sewers themselves.
The latter operation is quite as essential to health and cleanliness
as the former; for to allow the filth to collect in the channels
which are intended to remove it, and there to remain decomposing and
vitiating the atmosphere of the metropolis, is manifestly as bad as not
to remove it at all; and since the more solid portions of the sewage
_will_ collect and form hard deposits at the bottom of each duct, it
becomes necessary that some means should be devised for the periodical
purgation of the sewers themselves.
[Illustration: FLUSHING THE SEWERS.
(_Partly from a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD, _and partly from a Sketch
kindly lent by_ MR. WHITING.)]
There have been two modes of effecting this object. The one has
been the _carting_ away of the more solid refuse, and the other the
_washing_ of it away, or, as it is termed, _flushing_ in the case of
the _covered_ sewers, and _plonging_ in the case of the _open_ ones.
Under both systems, whether the refuse be carted or flushed away,
the hard deposit has to be first loosened by manual labourers--the
difference consisting principally in the means of after-removal.
The first of these systems--viz., the cartage method--was that which
prevailed in the metropolis till the year 1847. I shall therefore
give a brief description of this mode of cleansing the sewers before
proceeding to treat of the now more general mode of “flushing.”
Under the old system, the clearing away of the deposit was a
“nightman’s” work, differing little, except in being more toilsome,
offensive to the public, and difficult. A hole was made from the street
down into the sewer where the deposit was thickest, and the deposit was
raised by means of a tub, filled below, drawn up to the street, and
emptied into a cart, or spread in mounds in the road to be shovelled
into some vehicle. A nightman told me that this mode of work was
sometimes a great injury to his trade, because “when it was begun on a
night many of the householders sleeping in the neighbourhood used to
say to themselves, or to their missusses, as they turned in their beds,
‘It’s them ere cussed cesspools again! I wish they was done away with.’
An’ all the time, sir, the cesspools was as hinnocent and as sweet as a
hangel.”
This clumsy and filthy process is now but occasionally resorted to. A
man who had superintended a labour of this kind in a narrow, but busy
thoroughfare in Southwark, told me that these sewer labourers were the
worst abused men in London. No one had a good word for them.
But there have been other modes of removing the indurated sewage,
besides that of cartage; and which, though not exactly flushing,
certainly consisted in allowing the deposit to be washed away. Some of
these contrivances were curious enough.
I learn from a Report printed in 1849, that the King’s Scholars’ Pond
Sewer, in the city of Westminster, running near the Abbey, contained
a continuous bed of deposit, of soil, sand, and filth, from 10 to 30
inches in depth, and this for a mile and a half next the river--the
first mile yielding more than 6000 loads of matter. This sewer was to
be cleansed.
“We first used a machine,” says Mr. J. Lysander Hale, “in the form of a
plough and harrow combined; a horse dragged it through the deposit in
the sewer; one man attended the horse, and another guided the plough.
The work done by this machine, in cutting a channel through the soil
and causing the water to move through it quickly, was effectual to
remove the deposit; but as the sewer is a tidal sewer, and its sole
entrance for a horse being its outlet, the machine could only be used
for a small part of any day. Sometimes with a strong breeze up the
river, the tide would not recede sufficiently to permit the horse to
get in at all (and it did not appear advisable to incur the expense of
50_l._ to build a sideway entrance for the animal), so that under these
circumstances we were obliged to discontinue the use of the horse
and plough; which, under other circumstances, would have been very
effective.” From this time, I understand, the sewers of London have
remained unploughed by means of horse labour.
But the plough was not altogether abandoned, and as horse-power was
not found very easily applicable, water-power was resorted to. The
plough and harrow were attached to a barge, which was introduced into
the sewer. The sluice gates were kept shut until the ebb of the tide
made the difference of level between the contents of the sewer and the
surface of the Thames equal to some eight feet. “The gates were then
suddenly opened, and the rapid and deep current of water following, was
then sufficient to bring the barge and plough down the sewer with a
force equal to five or six horse-power.”
This last-mentioned method was also soon abandoned. We now come to the
more approved plan of “flushing.”
“The term ‘_flushing_ sewers’ implies,” says Mr. Haywood, in his
Report, “cleansing by the application of _bodies_ of water in the
sewers; this is periodically effected, varying in intervals according
to the necessities of the sewerage or other circumstances.”
The flushing system has a two-fold object, viz., to remove old deposits
and prevent the accumulation of new. When the deposit is not allowed to
accumulate and harden, “flushing consists,” says Mr. Haywood, “simply
in heading back and letting off _flush at once_” (hence the origin of
the term) “that which has been delivered into the sewers in a certain
number of hours by the various houses draining into them, diluted with
large quantities of water specially employed for the purpose.”
Though the operation of “flushing” is one of modern introduction,
as regards the metropolis--one, indeed, which may be said to have
originated in the modern demand for improved sanitary regulations--it
has been practised in some country parts since the days of Henry VIII.
Flushing was practised also by those able engineers, the ancient
Romans. One of the grand architectural remains of that people, the best
showing their system of flushing, is in the Amphitheatre at Nismes, in
France. The site of the ruined amphitheatre presents a large elliptical
area, 114,251 superficial feet comprising its extent. Around the arena
ran a large sewer 3 feet 6 inches in width, and 4 feet 9 inches in
height. With this sewer, elliptical in shape, 348 pipes communicated,
carrying into it the rain-fall and the refuse caused by the resort of
23,000 persons, for the seats alone contained that number. “The system
of flushing, practised here,” says Mr. Cresy, “with such advantage,
deserves to be noticed, there being means of driving through this
elliptical sewer a volume of water at pleasure, with such force that no
solid matter could by any possibility remain within any of the drains
or sewers. An aqueduct, 2 feet 8 inches in width, and 6 feet in height,
brought this water from the reservoirs of Nismes, not only to fill but
to purge the whole of these sewers; after traversing the arena, it
deviated a little to the south-west, where it was carried out at the
sixth arcade, east of the southern entrance. Man-holes and steps to
descend into this capacious vaulted aqueduct were introduced in several
places; and there can be no doubt that by directing for some hours such
a stream of water through it, the greatest cleanliness was preserved
throughout all the sewers of the building.”
The flushing of sewers appears to have been introduced into the
metropolis by Mr. John Roe in the year 1847, but did not come into
general use till some years later. There used to be a partial flushing
of the London sewers twelve years ago. The mode of flushing as at
present practised is as follows:--
In the first instance the inspector examines and reports the condition
of the sewer, and receives and issues his orders accordingly. When
the sewer is ordered to be flushed--and there is no periodical or
regular observance of time in the operation--the men enter the sewers
and rake up the deposit, loosening it everywhere, so as to render the
whole easy to be swept along by the power of the volume of water. The
sewers generally are, in their widest part, provided with grooves, or,
as the men style them, “framings.” Into these framings are fitted, or
permanently attached, what I heard described as “penstocks,” but which
are spoken of in some of the reports as “traps,” “gates,” or “sluice
gates.” They are made both of wood and iron. By a series of bolts and
adjustments, the penstocks can be fixed ready for use when the tide is
highest in the sewer, and the volume of water the greatest. They then,
of course, are in the nature of dams, the water having accumulated
in consequence of the stoppage. The deposit having been loosened,
the bolts are withdrawn, when the gates suddenly fly back, and the
accumulated water and stirred-up sewage sweeps along impetuously, while
the men retreat into some side recesses adapted for the purpose. The
same is done with each penstock until the matter is swept through the
outlet. The men always follow the course of this sewage-current when
the sewer is of sufficient capacity to enable them to do so, throwing
or pushing forward any more solid matter with their shovels.
“To flush we generally go and draw a slide up and let a flush of water
down,” said one man to me, “and then we have iron rakers to loosen the
stuff. We have got another way that we do it as well; one man stands
here, when the flush of water’s coming down, with a large board; then
he lets the water rise to the top of this board, and then there’s
two or three of us on ahead, with shovels, loosening the stuff--then
he ups with this board and lets a good heavy flush of water come
down. Precious hard work it is, I can assure you. I’ve had many a wet
shirt. We stand up to our fork in the water, right to the top of our
jack-boots, and sometimes over them.” “Ah, I should think you often
get over the top of yours, for you come home with your stockings
wet enough, goodness knows,” exclaimed his wife, who was present.
“When there’s a good flush of water coming down,” he resumed, “we’re
obligated to put our heads fast up against the crown of the sewer, and
bear upon our shovels, so that we may not be carried away, and taken
bang into the Thames. You see there’s nothing for us to lay hold on.
Why, there was one chap went and lifted a slide right up, when he ought
to have had it up only 9 or 10 inches at the furthest, and he nearly
swamped three of us. If we should be taken off our legs there’s a heavy
fall--about 3 feet--just before you comes to the mouth of the sewer,
and if we was to get there, the water is so rapid nothing could save
us. When we goes to work we nails our lanterns up to the crown of the
sewer. When the slide is lifted up the rush is very great, and takes
all before it. It roars away like a wild beast. We’re always obliged
to work according to tide, both above and below ground. When we have
got no water in the sewer we shovels the dirt up into a bank on both
sides, so that when the flush of water comes down the loosened dirt is
all carried away by it. After flushing, the bottom of the sewer is as
clean as this floor, but in a couple of months the soil is a foot to 15
inches deep, and middling hard.”
“Flushing-gates,” an engineer has reported, “are chiefly of use in
sewers badly constructed and without falls, but containing plenty of
water; and they are of very little use where the gate has to be shut
24 hours and longer, before a head of water has accumulated; but where
intermittent flushing is practised, strong smells are often caused
_solely_ by the stagnation of the water or sewage while accumulating
behind the gate.”
The most general mode of flushing at present adopted is not to keep in
the water, &c., which has flowed into the sewer from the streets and
houses, as well as the tide of the river, but to convey the flushing
water from the plugs of the water companies into the kennels, and so
into the sewers. I find in one of the Reports acknowledgments of the
liberal supplies granted for flushing by the several companies. The
water of the Surrey Canal has been placed, for the same object, at the
disposal of the Sewer Commissioners.
It is impossible to “flush” at all where a sewer has a “dead-end;” that
is, where there is a “block,” as in the case of the Kenilworth-street
sewer, Pimlico, in which five persons lost their lives in 1848.
There is no difference in the system of flushing in the Metropolitan
and City jurisdictions, except that for the greater facilities of
the process, the City provides water-tanks in Newgate-market, where
the heads of three sewers meet, and where the accumulation of animal
garbage, and the fierceness and numbers of the rats attracted thereby,
were at one time frightful; at Leadenhall-market, and elsewhere, such
tanks were also provided to the number of ten, the largest being
the Newgate-market tank, which is a brick cistern of 8000 gallons
capacity. Of these tanks, however, only four are now kept filled, for
this collection of water is found unnecessary, the regular system of
flushing answering the purpose without them; and I understand that in
a little time there will be no tanks at all. The tank is filled, when
required, by a water company, and the penstocks being opened, the water
rushes into the sewers with great force. There is also another point
peculiar to the City--in it all the sewers are flushed regularly twice
a week; in the metropolitan sewers, only when the inspector pronounces
flushing to be required. The City plan appears the best to prevent the
accumulation of deposit.
There still remains to be described the system of “_plonging_,” or mode
of cleansing the open sewers, as contradistinguished from “_flushing_,”
or the cleansing of the covered sewers.
“When we go plonging,” one man said, “we has long poles with a piece
of wood at the end of them, and we stirs up the mud at the bottom of
the ditches while the tide’s a going down. We has got slides at the end
of the ditches, and we pulls these up and lets out the water, mud, and
all, into the Thames.” “Yes, for the people to drink,” said a companion
drily. “We’re in the water a great deal,” continued the man. “We can’t
walk along the sides of all of ’em.”
The difference of cost between the old method of removal and the new,
that is to say, between carting and flushing, is very extraordinary.
This cartage work was done chiefly by contract and according to a
Report of the surveyors to the Commissioners (Aug. 31, 1848), the usual
cost for such work (almost always done during the night) was 7_s._ the
cubic yard; that is, 7_s._ for the removal of a cubic yard of sewage
by manual labour and horse and cart. In February, 1849 (the date of
another Report on the subject), the cost of removing a cubic yard by
the operation of flushing, was but 8_d._ This gives the following
result, but in what particular time, instance, or locality, is not
mentioned:--
79,483 cubic yards of deposit removed
by the contract flushing system, at 8_d._
per cubic yard £2,649
Same quantity by the old system of
casting and cartage, 7_s._ per cubic yard 27,819
-------
Difference £25,170
-------
“It appears, therefore,” says Mr. Lovick, “that by the adoption of
the contract flushing system, a saving has been effected within the
comparatively short period of its operation over the filthy and clumsy
system formerly practised, of 25,170_l._, showing the cost of this
system to be ten and a half times greater than the cost of flushing by
contract.”
An official Report states: “When the accumulations of years had to
be removed from the sewers, the rate of cost per lineal mile has
varied from about 40_l._ to 58_l._, or from 6_d._ to 8_d._ per lineal
yard. The works in these cases (excepting those in the City) have not
exceeded nine lineal miles.”
“On an average of weeks,” says Mr. Lovick, in his Report on flushing
operations, a few months after the introduction of the contract
system, in Sept., 1848, “under present arrangements, about 62 miles
of sewers are passed through each week, and deposit prevented from
accumulating in them by periodic (weekly) flushing. The average cost
per lineal mile per week is about 2_l._ 10_s._
“The nature of the agreements with the contractors or gangers are now
for the prevention of accumulations of deposit in a district. For this
purpose the large districts are subdivided, each subdivision being let
to one man. In the Westminster district there are four, in the Holborn
and Finsbury two, in the Surrey and Kent, seven subdivisions.
“The Tower Hamlets and Poplar districts are each let to one man.
“In the Tower Hamlets it will be perceived that a reduction of 8_l._
has been effected for the performance of precisely the same work as
that heretofore performed; the rates of charge standing thus:--
“Under the day-work system 23_l._ per week.
„ contract „ 15_l._ „
“In those portions specially contracted for, the work has been let by
the lineal measure of the sewer, in preference to the amount of deposit
removed.
“In the Surrey and Kent districts the open ditches have been cleansed
thrice as often as formerly.
“A large proportion of the deposit removed is from the open ditches;
in these the accumulations are rapid and continuous, caused chiefly by
their being the receptacles for the ashes and refuse of the houses, the
refuse of manufactories, and the sweepings of the roads.
“In the covered sewers one of the chief sources of accumulation is the
detritus and mud from the streets, swept into the sewers.
“The accumulations from these sources will not, I think, be
over-estimated at two-thirds of the whole amount of deposit removed.
“The contracts in operation, February, 1849, with the districts which
they embrace, are as follows:--
“TABLE NO. I.
------------------+--------------+-------------+-------------
| | Average Rate|
|Sewers let for| of Work | Contract
| Prevention of| performed in| Charge
Districts. | Accumulations|Sewers passed| per
| of Deposit. | through each| Week.
| | Week. |
------------------+--------------+-------------+-------------
| Lineal Feet. | Lineal Feet.| £ _s._ _d._
Westminster | 485,795 | 150,615 | 40 0 0
Holborn & Finsbury| 355,085 | 118,000 | 23 0 0
Tower Hamlets | 223,738 | 30,000 | 15 0 0
Surrey and Kent | 440,642 | 40,000 | 75 0 0
Poplar | 26,000 | 2,000 | 6 16 0
------------------+--------------+-------------+-------------
| 1,531,260 | 340,615 |159 16 0
------------------+--------------+-------------+
Westminster--Attendance on Flaps, &c. 4 0 0
--------------
£163 16 0
-------------------------------------------------------------
“The weekly cost prior to the contract system was in the several
districts as follows:--
“TABLE NO. II.
-------------------------------+-------------
| £ _s._ _d._
In the Westminster District | 78 10 0
„ Holborn and Finsbury do.| 24 17 0
„ Tower Hamlets do. | 23 0 0
„ Surrey and Kent do. | 56 8 0
„ Poplar do. | 6 13 0
+-------------
|189 8 0
-------------------------------+-------------
Hence there would appear to have been a saving of 25_l._ 12_s._
effected. But by what means was this brought about? It is the old
story, I regret to say--a reduction of the wages of the labouring men.
But this, indeed, is the invariable effect of the contract system. The
wages of the flushermen previous to Sept., 1848, were 24_s._ to 27_s._
a week; under the present system they are 21_s._ to 22_s._ Here is a
reduction of 4_s._ per week per man, at the least; and as there were
about 150 hands employed at this period, it follows that the gross
weekly saving must have been equal to 30_l._, so that, according to
the above account, there would have been about 5_l._ left for the
contractors or middlemen. It is unworthy of _gentlemen_ to make a
parade of economy obtained by such ignoble means.
The engineers, however, speak of flushing as what is popularly
understood as but “a make-shift”--as a system imperfect in itself,
but advantageously resorted to because obviating the evils of a worse
system still.
“With respect to these operations,” says Mr. Lovick, in a Report on
the subject, in February, 1849, “I may be permitted to state that,
although I do not approve of the flushing as an ultimate system, or as
a system to be adopted in the future permanent works of sewerage, or
that its use should be contemplated with regulated sizes of sewers,
regulated supplies of water, and proper falls, it appears to be the
most efficacious and economical for the purpose to which it is adapted
of any yet introduced.”
A gentleman who was at one time connected professionally with the
management of the public sewerage, said to me,--
“Mr. John Roe commenced the general system of flushing sewers in London
in 1847. It is, however, but a clumsy expedient, and quite incompatible
with a perfect system of sewerage. It has, nevertheless, been usefully
applied as an auxiliary to the existing system, though the cost is
frightful.”