Masters 521
Labourers 200,000
The number of cesspools emptied during the past year by these men may
be estimated at 50,692; and the quantity of soil removed, 253,460
loads, or tons, and this at the rate of 35·9 cubic ft. to the ton gives
a total of 6,099,214 cubic ft.
It might, perhaps, be expected, that from the quantity of fæcal refuse
proceeding from the inhabitants of the metropolis, a greater quantity
would be found in the existent cesspools; but there are many reasons
for the contrary.
One prime cause of the dispersion of cesspoolage is, that a
considerable quantity of the night-soil does not find its way into the
cesspools at all, but is, when the inhabitants have no privies to their
dwellings, thrown into streets, and courts, and waste places.
I cannot show this better than by a few extracts from Dr. Hector
Gavin’s work, published in 1848, entitled, “Sanitary Ramblings; being
Sketches and Illustrations of Bethnal Green, &c.”
“_Digby-walk, Globe-road._--Part of this place is private property,
and the landlord of the new houses has built a cesspool, into which to
drain his houses, but he will not permit the other houses to drain into
this cesspool, unless the parish pay to him 1_l._, a sum which it will
not pay.” Of course the inhabitants throw their garbage and filth into
the street or the by-places.
“_Whisker’s-gardens._--This is a very extensive piece of ground,
which is laid out in neat plots, as gardens. The choicest flowers are
frequently raised here, and great taste and considerable refinement
are evidently possessed by those who cultivate them. Now, among the
cultivators are the poor, even the very poor, of Bethnal-green....
Attached to all these little plots of ground are summer-houses. In the
generality of cases they are mere wooden sheds, cabins, or huts. It
is very greatly to be regretted that the proprietors of these gardens
should permit the slight and fragile sheds in them to be converted into
abodes for human beings.... Sometimes they are divided into rooms; they
are planted on the damp undrained ground. The privies are sheds erected
over holes in the ground; the _soil itself_ is removed from these holes
and is _dug into the ground_ to promote its fertility.
“_Three Colt-lane._--A deep ditch has been dug on either side of the
Eastern Counties Railway by the Company. These ditches were dug by the
Company to prevent the foundations of the arches being endangered,
and are in no way to be considered as having been dug to promote the
health of the neighbourhood. The double privies attached to the new
houses (22 in number) are immediately contiguous to this ditch, and
are constructed so that the night-soil shall drain into it. For this
purpose the cesspools are small, and the bottoms are above the level of
the ditch.”
It would be easy to multiply such proofs of night-soil not finding its
way into the cesspools, but the subject need not be further pursued,
important as in many respects it may be. I need but say, that in the
several reports of the Board of Health are similar accounts of other
localities. The same deficiency of cesspoolage is found in Paris, and
from the same cause.
What may be the quantity of night-soil which becomes part of the
contents of the street scavenger’s instead of the nightman’s cart,
no steps have been taken, or perhaps can be taken, by the public
sanitary bodies to ascertain. Many of the worst of the nuisances
(such as that in Digby-street) have been abolished, but they are still
too characteristic of the very poor districts. The fault, however,
appears to be with the owners of property, and it is seldom _they_ are
coerced into doing their duty. The doubt of its “paying” a capitalist
landlord to improve the unwholesome dwellings of the poor seems to be
regarded as a far more sacred right, than the right of the people to be
delivered from the foul air and vile stenches to which their poverty
may condemn them.
There is, moreover, the great but unascertained waste from cesspool
evaporation, and it must be recollected that of the 2-1/2 lbs. of
cesspool refuse, calculated as the daily produce of each individual,
2-1/4 lbs. are liquid.
The gross cesspoolage of Paris should amount to upwards of 600,000
cubic mètres, or more than 21,000,000 cubic feet, at the estimate of
three pints daily per head. The quantity actually collected, however,
amounts to only 230,000 cubic mètres, or rather more than 8,000,000
cubic feet, which is 13,000,000 cubic feet less than the amount
produced.
In London, the cesspoolage of 150,000 _undrained_ houses should, at
the rate of 2-1/2 lbs. to each individual and 15 inhabitants to every
two houses, amount to 16,500,000 cubic feet, or about 460,000 loads,
whereas the quantity collected amounts to but little more than 250,000
loads, or about 9,000,000 cubic feet. Hence, the deficiency is 210,000
loads, or 7,500,000 cubic feet, which is nearly half of the entire
quantity.
In Paris, then, it would appear that only 38 per cent of the refuse
which is not removed by sewers is collected in the cesspools, whereas
in London about 54-1/2 per cent is so collected. The remainder in both
cases is part deposited in by-places and removed by the scavenger’s
cart, part lost in evaporation, whereas a large proportion of the
deficiency arises from a less quantity of water than the amount stated
being used by the very poor.
We have now to see the means by which this 15,000,000 cubic feet of
cesspoolage is annually removed, as well as to ascertain the condition
and incomes of the labourers engaged in the removal of it.