It would appear, according to the previous calculations, that of
the 15,000,000 cubic feet of house-refuse annually deposited in the
cesspools of the metropolis, about 500,000 cubic feet are pumped by the
French process into the sewers; consequently there still remains about
14,500,000 cubic feet, or about 404,000 loads, to be disposed of by
other means. I shall now proceed to explain how the cesspoolage proper,
that is to say, that which is removed by cartage rather than by being
discharged into the sewers, is ultimately got rid of.
Until about twenty months ago, when the new sanitary regulations
concerning the disposal of night-soil came into operation, the cesspool
matter was “shot” in a night-yard, generally also a dust-yard.
These were the yards of the parish contractors, and were situate
in Maiden-lane, Paddington, &c., &c. Any sweeper-nightman, or any
nightman, was permitted by the proprietor of one of these places to
deposit his night-soil there. For this the depositor received no
payment, the privilege of having “a shoot” being accounted sufficient.
There were, till within these six or eight years, I was informed,
60 places where cesspool manure could be shot. These included the
nightmen’s yards and the wharves of manure dealers (some of the small
coasting vessels taking it as ballast); but as regards the cesspool
filth, there are now none of these places of deposit, though some
little, I was told, might be done by stealth.
Of one of these night-yard factories Dr. Gavin gave, in 1848, the
following account:--
“On the western side of Spitalfields workhouse, and entering from a
street called Queen-street, is a nightman’s yard. A heap of dung and
refuse of every description, about the size of a tolerably large house,
lies piled to the left of the yard; to the right is an artificial pond,
into which the contents of cesspools are thrown. The contents are
allowed to desiccate in the open air; and they are frequently stirred
for that purpose. The odour which was given off when the contents were
raked up, to give me an assurance that there was nothing so very bad in
the alleged nuisance, drove me from the place with the utmost speed.
“On two sides of this horrid collection of excremental matter was
a patent manure manufactory. To the right in this yard was a large
accumulation of dung, &c., but to the left there was an extensive layer
of a compost of blood, ashes, and nitric acid, which gave out the most
horrid, offensive, and disgusting concentration of putrescent odours it
has ever been my lot to be the victim of. The whole place presented a
most foul and filthy aspect, and an example of the enormous outrages
which are perpetrated in London against society.
“It is a curious fact, that the parties who had charge of these two
premises were each dead to the foulness of their own most pestilential
nuisances. The nightman’s servant accused the premises of the manure
manufacturer as the source of perpetual foul smells, but thought his
yard free from any particular cause of complaint; while the servant
of the patent manure manufacturer diligently and earnestly asserted
the perfect freedom of his master’s yard from foul exhalations; but
considered that the raking up of the drying night-soil on the other
side of the wall was ‘quite awful, and enough to kill anybody.’
“Immediately adjoining the patent manure manufactory is the
establishment of a bottle merchant. He complained to me in the
strongest terms of the expenses and annoyances he had been put to
through the emanations which floated in the atmosphere having caused
his bottles to spoil the wine which was placed in such as had not been
_very_ recently washed. He was compelled frequently to change his
straw, and frequently to wash his bottles, and considered that unless
the nuisance could be suppressed, he would be compelled to leave his
present premises.”
This and similar places were suppressed soon after the passing of the
sanitary measures of September, 1848.
The cesspool refuse, which was disposed of for manure, was at that time
first shot into recesses in the night-yard, where it was mixed with
exhausted hops procured from the brewhouses, which were said to absorb
the liquid portions, when stirred up with the matter, and to add not
only to the consistency of the mass, but to its readier portability for
land manure or for stowage in a barge. It was also mixed with littered
straw from the mews, and with stable manure generally. An old man who
had worked many years--he did not know how many--in one of these yards,
told me that when this night-soil was “fresh shot and first mixed”
(with the hops, &c.), the stench was often dreadful. “How we stood it,”
he said, “I don’t know; but we did stand it.”
In one of the night-and-dust-yards, I ascertained that as many as 50
loads, half of them waggon-loads, have been shot from the proprietor’s
own carts, and from the carts of the nightmen “using” the yard, in one
morning, but the average “shoot” was about ten loads (half a waggon)
a-day for six days in the week.
Of the mode of manufacture of this manure, a full account has been
given in the details of the cesspool system of Paris, for the process
was the same in London, although on a much smaller scale; and indeed
the manufacture here was chiefly in the hands of Frenchmen.
The manure was, after it had been deposited for periods varying from
one month to five or six, sold to farmers and gardeners at from 4_s._
to 5_s._ the cart-load, although 4_s._, I was informed, might have
been the general average. The cesspool matter, considered _per se_,
was not worth, of late years, I am told, above 2_s._ a ton (or a load,
which is sometimes rather more and sometimes less than a ton). It was
when mixed that the price was 4_s._ to 5_s._ a ton. This cesspool filth
was shot on the premises of the manufacturer gratuitously, as it was in
any of the night-yards. It was not until it had been kept some time,
and had been mixed (generally) with other manures, and sometimes with
road-sweepings, that this manure was used in gardens; for it was said
that if this had not been done, its ammoniacal vapours would have been
absorbed and retained by the leaves of the fruit-trees.
This night-soil manure was devoted to two purposes--to the manufacture
of deodorized and portable manure for exportation (chiefly to our
sugar-growing colonies), and to the fertilization of the land around
London.
When manufactured into manure it was shipped--in new casks generally,
the manure casks of the outward voyage being transformed into the brown
sugar casks of the homeward-bound vessels. I was told by a seaman who
some years ago sailed to the West Indies, that these manure casks in
damp weather gave out an unpleasant odour.
It was only to the home cultivators who resided at no great distance
from a night-yard, from five to six miles or a little more, that this
manure was sold to be carted away; their attendance at the markets
with carts, waggons, and horses, giving them facilities of conveying
the manure at a cheap rate. But upwards of three-fourths of the whole
was sent in barges into the more distant country parts, having a ready
water communication either by the Thames or by canal.
The purchaser nearer home conveyed it away in his own cart, and with
his own horses, which had perhaps come up to town laden with cabbages
to Covent Garden, or hay to Cumberland-market, the cart being made
water-tight for the purpose. The “legal hours” to be observed in the
cleansing of cesspools, and the transport of the contents upon such
cleansing, not being required to be observed in this second transport
of the cesspool manure, it was carted away at any hour, as stable dung
now is.
It is not possible at the present time, when night-yards are no longer
permitted to exist in London, and the manufacture of the night-soil
manure is consequently suppressed, to ascertain the precise quantities
disposed of commercially, in a former state of things.
The money returns to the master-nightman for the manure he now collects
need no figures. The law requires him to refrain from shooting this
soil in his own yard, or in _any_ inhabited part of the metropolis, and
it is shot on the nearest farm to which he has access, merely for the
privilege of shooting it, the farmer paying nothing for the deposit,
with which he does what he pleases. It is mixed with other refuse, I
was told, at present, and kept as compost, or used on the land, but the
change is too recent for the establishment of any systematic traffic in
the article.