cesspools and privies is injurious to the health and often extremely
dangerous. The process of emptying them by hand labour, and removing the
contents by cartage, is very offensive, and often the occasion of
serious accidents. But the expense of this mode operates, as the reports
from the large towns show, as a complete barrier to all cleanliness in
this respect in the dwellings or streets occupied by the labouring
classes. The usual cost of cleansing cesspools of a tenement in London
is about 1_l._ each time. With a population generally in debt at the end
of the week, and whose rents are collected weekly, such an outlay may be
considered as practically impossible, and the inferior landlords delay
incurring the expense until the nuisance becomes unbearable. In London
the expense and annoyance of the cleansing of such places is avoided for
years, until they are in the condition described by _Mr. Howell_, one of
the council of the Society of Civil Engineers, who has acted extensively
as a surveyor in the metropolis:—
“I would,” he states, “instance a recent case in my own parish, where
I was called to survey two houses about to undergo extensive repairs.
It was necessary that my survey should extend from the garrets to the
cellars: upon visiting the latter, I found the whole area of the
cellars of both houses were full of night-soil, to the depth of three
feet, which had been permitted for years to accumulate from the
overflow of the cesspools; upon being moved, the stench was
intolerable, and no doubt the neighbourhood must have been more or
less infected by it. I should mention, that these houses are letting
at from 30_l._ to 40_l._ a-year each, and are situated in a
considerable public thoroughfare.
“I would mention another case, amongst many more in St. Giles’s
parish: I was requested to survey the dilapidations to several houses
in the immediate neighbourhood of High-street, upon passing through
the passage of the first house, I found the yard covered with
night-soil, from the overflowing of the privy, to the depth of nearly
six inches, and bricks were placed to enable the inmates to get across
dry shod; in addition to this, there was an accumulation of filth
piled up against the walls, of the most objectionable nature; the
interior of the house partook something of the same character, and
discovering, upon examination, that the other houses were nearly
similar; I found a detailed survey impracticable, and was obliged to
content myself with making general observations. My duties, as one of
the surveyors to a fire-office, call me to all parts of the town, and
I am constantly shocked almost beyond endurance at the filth and
misery in which a large part of our population are permitted to drag
on a diseased and miserable existence. I consider a large portion, if
not the whole, of this accumulation of dirt and filth is caused by the
bad and inefficient sewerage of the metropolis. I am acquainted with
numberless houses in Westminster where the cellars are constantly
flooded, and having no drainage, the occupiers are obliged to pump out
the water, which, from being stagnant, is foul and offensive. If in
the performance of this necessary duty the matter becomes known, they
are summoned to the public office and fined 5_l._; however much,
therefore, the evil is felt in permitting the continuance of stagnant
water, the alternative of the fine for pumping out is worse; they
submit therefore to the lesser evil, and leave the water in the
cellars. * * *
“I am quite sure, from much observation, that the occupiers of houses
in all neighbourhoods are much influenced in their habits of
cleanliness by the facilities afforded for draining, and by the want
of carriage and foot-paving in the streets; and it is equally certain
that both health and life are frequently sacrificed by the constant
damps and unwholesome smell, occasioned entirely by the absence of all
means to carry off the impurities, which, in densely populated
neighbourhoods, increase with such fearful rapidity.”
It might have been expected, from the value of the refuse as manure (one
of the most powerful known), that the great demand for it would have
afforded a price which might have returned, in some degree, the expense
and charge of cleansing. But this appears not to be the case in the
metropolis. It is stated that at present, with the exception of
coal-ashes, which are indispensable for making bricks, some description
of lees, and a few other inconsiderable exceptions, no refuse in London
pays half the expense of removal by cartage. The cost of removal, or of
the labour and cartage, limits the general use or deposit of the refuse
within a radius which does not exceed three miles beyond the line of the
district-post of the metropolis, that is, about six miles. It is stated
that, partly from the nature of the holdings, and from other
circumstances within this limited district, agricultural improvements
are not so great as might be expected where the facilities are so easy
for obtaining any quantity of manure. Some idea may be formed of the
loss of value of this manure from the metropolis, occasioned by the
expense of its collection and removal, from the evidence of a
considerable contractor for scavengering, &c., who states, with respect
to the most productive manure,—“I have given away thousands of loads of
night-soil: we knew not what to do with it.”[4]
In the parts of some towns adjacent to the rural districts the cesspools
are emptied gratuitously for the sake of the manure; but they only do
this when there is a considerable accumulation, and any accumulation of
any decomposing material which offends the smell is injurious to the
health, especially in a town where all miasma is less diluted with fresh
air, and where the population is less robust. For the saving of cartage,
as well as the convenience of use, accumulations of refuse are
frequently allowed to remain and decompose and dry amidst the
habitations of the poorer classes. _Dr. Laurie_ in his report on the
sanitary condition of Greenock, furnishes an example. He says,—
“The first question I generally put when a new case of fever is
admitted, is as to their locality. I was struck with the number of
admissions from Market-street; most of the cases coming from that
locality became quickly typhoid, and made slow recoveries. This is a
narrow back street; it is almost overhung by a steep hill, rising
immediately behind it; it contains the lowest description of houses,
built closely together, the access to the dwellings being through
filthy closes. The front entrance is generally the only outlet.
Numerous food for the production of miasma lies concealed in this
street. I think I could point out one in each close.
“In one part of the street there is a dunghill,—yet it is too large to
be called a dunghill. I do not misstate its size when I say it
contains a hundred cubic yards of impure filth, collected from all
parts of the town. It is never removed; it is the stock-in-trade of a
person who deals in dung; he retails it by cartfuls. To please his
customers, he always keeps a nucleus, as the older the filth is the
higher is the price. The proprietor has an extensive privy attached to
the concern. This collection is fronting the public street; it is
enclosed in front by a wall; the height of the wall is about 12 feet,
and the dung overtops it; the malarious moisture oozes through the
wall, and runs over the pavement. The effluvia all round about this
place in summer is horrible. There is a land of houses adjoining, four
stories in height, and in the summer each house swarms with myriads of
flies; every article of food and drink must be covered, otherwise, if
left exposed for a minute, the flies immediately attack it, and it is
rendered unfit for use, from the strong taste of the dunghill left by
the flies. But there is a still more extensive dunghill in this
street; at least, if not so high, it covers double the extent of
surface. What the depth is I cannot say. It is attached to the
slaughter-house, and belongs, I believe, to the town authorities. It
is not only the receptacle for the dung and offal from the
slaughter-house, but the sweepings of the streets are also conveyed
and deposited there; it has likewise a public privy attached. In the
slaughter-house itself, which is adjoining the street, the blood and
offal is allowed to lie a long time, and the smell in summer is highly
offensive. In two of the narrow closes opposite the market, there is
in each a small space not built upon, and that space, being the only
spare ground in the close, is occupied by a dunghill; these two closes
are notorious as nurseries for fever. I believe it to be a rare
occurrence when fever is not to be found in them during any time of
the year. Market-street is certainly one of the most filthy and
unhealthy streets in Greenock; it is needless to say that many places
here and there throughout the town are as bad, indeed, I may state
that from the best to the worst locality in the town there is not a
street but requires to be subjected to some rigid system for removing
away regularly the rubbish and impurities which are constantly
exhaling forth so much, and which is indirectly the cause of the
yearly increase of so much destitution.”
_Mr. Baker_, in his report, gives another instance of the ignorance and
carelessness under which the health of the population suffers.
“The contractor for the street sweepings, who is the treator with the
Commissioners of Public Nuisances in Leeds, last year rented a plot of
vacant land in the centre of the North-east ward, the largest ward in
point of population in the township of Leeds, and containing the
greatest number of poor, and this year rents, in the East ward,
another plot of land, as a depôt for the sweepings from the streets
and markets, both vegetable and general, for the purpose of
exsiccating and accumulating till they could be sold as manure and
carried away. So noisome were these exhalations, that the inhabitants
complained of their utter inability to ventilate their sleeping-rooms
during the day time, and of the insufferable stench to which both by
night and day they were thus subjected.”
The comparatively recent mode of cleansing adopted in the wealthy and
newly-built districts by the use of water-closets, and the discharge of
all refuse at once from the house through the drain into the sewers,
saves the delay and the previous accumulation, and it also saves the
expense of the old means of removal. It is most applicable to the poorer
districts, because really the most economical, when they are properly
sewered and supplied with water. The cost of cheap and appropriate
apparatus, and of water for cleansing, it will be proved is a reduction
of the mere cost of cleansing in the old method, independently of the
cost incurred by the decay of woodwork and deterioration of the tenement
which commonly takes place on premises in the condition of those
described by Mr. Howell. The chief objection to the extension of this
system is the pollution of the water of the river into which the sewers
are discharged. Admitting the expediency of avoiding the pollution, it
is nevertheless proved to be an evil of almost inappreciable magnitude
in comparison with the ill health occasioned by the constant retention
of several hundred thousand accumulations of pollution in the most
densely-peopled districts.
There is much evidence, however, to prove that it is possible to remove
the refuse in such a mode as to avoid the pollution of the river, and at
the same time avoid the culpable waste of the most important manure.
A practical example of the money value which lies in the refuse of a
town, when removed in the cheapest manner, and applied in the form best
adapted to production, viz., by a system of cleansing by water, is
afforded in connexion with the city of Edinburgh. In the course of the
sanitary inquiry in that city the particular attention of Dr. Arnott and
myself was directed to the effects of some offensive irrigation of the
land which had taken place in the immediate vicinity of that city. It
appears that the contents of a large proportion of the sinks, drains,
and privies of that city are conveyed in covered sewers to the eastern
suburb of the town, where they are emptied into a stream called the Foul
Burn, which passes ultimately into the sea. The stream is thus made into
a large uncovered sewer or drain. Several years ago some of the
occupiers of the land in the immediate vicinity of this stream diverted
parts of it, and collected the soil which it contained in tanks for use
as manure. After this practice had been adopted for a long period, the
farmers in the vicinity gradually found that the most beneficial mode of
applying the manure was in the liquid form, and they conducted the
stream over their meadows by irrigation. Others, perceiving the
extraordinary fertility thus obtained, followed the example, and by
degrees about 300 acres of meadow, chiefly in the eastern parts of that
city, but all in its immediate vicinity, and the greater part of it in
the neighbourhood of the palace of Holyrood, have been systematically
irrigated with the contents of this common sewer. From some of this land
so irrigated, four or five crops a-year have been obtained; land once
worth from 40_s._ to 50_s._ per acre now lets for very high sums. It is
stated by a writer cited as an authority, on behalf of the parties
interested,—
“That the rent for which some of these meadows are let in small
portions to cow-feeders varies on an average from 20_l._ to 30_l._ per
acre. Some of the richest meadows were let in 1835 at 38_l._ per acre;
and in that season of scarce forage, 1826, 57_l._ per acre were
obtained for the same meadows. * * * The waste land called Figget
Whins, containing 30 acres, and 10 acres of poor sandy soil adjoining
them, were formed into water meadows in 1821, at an expense of
1000_l._ The pasture of the Figget Whins used to be let for 40_l._
a-year, and that of the 10 acres at 60_l._ Now the same ground as
meadows lets for 15_l._ or 20_l._ an acre a-year, and will probably
let for more, as the land becomes more and more enriched.”
This use of irrigation followed so gradually, that the time of its
commencement seems not accurately ascertained, but is known to have been
usual near the beginning of the present century. The tanks are still to
a certain extent used. The irrigation proceeds from the beginning of
April to the middle of September, and, it is supposed that the deposits
in the tanks are in the interval increased by the quantity of soil not
employed in irrigations.
The practice is strongly objected to by the inhabitants as an offensive
and injurious nuisance. To Dr. Arnott, who surveyed the district, the
process appeared to be, like most offensive processes, unfitted for the
vicinity of a town. The miasma from the preparation of the large
accumulations of manure in open receptacles near places of public resort
or crowded habitations would probably affect the public health
injuriously to a greater or less degree. In particular states of the
weather it could scarcely fail to engender disease. In the decomposition
of substances for manure, deleterious gasses will be evolved, which in
particular states of the atmosphere will act with powerful effects on
animal life within their reach. But it is at the same time stated, the
process of applying manure by irrigation, that is, separated and diluted
with water, is considered to be productive of less deleterious gas, of
less injurious effects, than by spreading it over fields in a solid
form, and allowing it to remain until it is decomposed and separated by
the atmosphere and conveyed into the soil by rain. Liebig, the greatest
living authority on agricultural chemistry, states that night-soil loses
in drying half its valuable products, that is, half its “nitrogen,” for
the “ammonia” escapes into the atmosphere. By irrigation, by the
diffusion and conveyance of the manure to the plant in the medium of
water the escape of the valuable substance as a noxious and injurious
gas is diminished.[5] Whatever extent of loss there is from manures by
decomposition when placed on the land in a solid form, and when exposed
to the action of the atmosphere, it is stated that there is
proportionate gain by holding the material in suspension in water. The
simple offensiveness, it may be assumed, is a sufficient ground of
exclusion of any process from amidst the habitations of a town
population. But at a reasonable distance the use of dung or any other
manure would not be forbidden; and the process which is the least
injurious, the irrigative, is entitled therefore to a preference.
Effective drainage must make way for the conveyance of diluted manures,
and consequently for effective irrigation.
The continuance of the practice in Edinburgh of the use of the common
sewer for irrigation is defended by the occupiers and owners, on the
ground that from the time of its commencement, when it was unopposed,
and, as it appears to us, escaped any notice, a legal right has been
acquired by them in the manure of the city contained in the Burn, and
the present claimants of the right contend that they are entitled to
compensation under the Scotch law for any diversion of the stream or of
the manure which it contains. The irrigation which has surrounded the
palace of Holyrood having, as it is considered, rendered it prejudicial
to health, Her Majesty’s government, for the protection of this palace
as a royal residence, have directed legal process for the trial of the
right claimed to the irrigation. The defendants vindicate the measure on
the ground of its utility as an agricultural operation, and treat the
proposal to divert the contents of the sewers as being in fact a
proposal to deprive the city of the milk and butter yielded by more than
3000 milch cows, and the markets of the meat from their carcases; that,
in fact, “the grass, which in virtue of irrigation these meadows
produce, supports in Edinburgh 3300 cows, and in Leith 600 cows, during
the season.”[6] We were informed that the parties interested in the
lands estimate the compensation that would induce them to discontinue
the practice at 150,000_l._; and a pamphlet written at their instance,
in 1840, states this as the sum which the proprietors of the meadows to
the west of the city would be legally entitled to (independently of the
claims of those in the east) were the practice abolished by legislative
authority. The proprietors have had, on several occasions, sufficient
influence to frustrate the efforts of the city authorities, to obtain
legislative sanction for the removal of the nuisance, and for a more
salubrious disposal of it for the advantage of the inhabitants
themselves.
The public refuse of cities by the usual course of legislation in local
Acts, and by custom, and on all principles which govern the application
of the proceeds of such produce belongs to the public, and it may be
submitted that, whatever may be the decision in the case of Edinburgh,
means should be taken to prevent for the future the acquisition of new
rights at the expense of the health and of the conveniences of such
large classes of the population. And it may here be observed that it
will probably be found, under the circumstances of the increasing
population of the towns, and the increasing necessity of keeping open
spaces within and around the towns, and of exercising a general control
for the beneficial arrangement of new buildings for the public health
and convenience, and of securing convenient public walks and places of
temperate and healthful recreation for the population—that it is most
desirable for all these objects that means should be taken to redeem to
the crown the fee, or otherwise obtain as early as practicable, and on
the terms of proper compensation, lands within and in the immediate
vicinity of towns for public use.
If then, in Edinburgh, the contents of the cesspools were carried by
adequate supplies of water in drains from the houses into covered
sewers, and thence in covered instead of open sewers to the lands at
proper distances where it might be distributed as manure by irrigation,
it would be a mode of irrigation considered by Mr. Smith of Deanston,
and other authorities on drainage and irrigation, whom I consulted, the
best that is now apparently practicable, _i. e._, the best means for
removing quickly, and constantly, and the least injuriously, the matters
which can only remain for removal by any other process at the expense of
the public health; they concur in opinion that it would also be the most
productive mode of distributing the manure.
On the scale of the value set upon that portion of the refuse of
Edinburgh that has been appropriated for irrigation by the occupiers of
the land in the vicinity of the city, the value of the whole of the soil
of the city (not one-third of which finds its way into the irrigated
meadows), if it were made completely available by an appropriate system
of town drainage, would be double or treble the amount, producing an
income of 15,000_l._ to 20,000_l._ per annum for public purposes. On the
same scale of value it would appear that, in the metropolis, refuse to
the value of nearly double what is now paid for the water of the
metropolis is thrown away, partly from the districts which are sewered
into the Thames, and partly from the poor districts which are unsewered,
where it accumulates and remains a nuisance until it is removed at a
great expense. It is allowed by Captain Vetch, an experienced engineer,
and by other authorities, to be the most eligible plan in respect to
economy as well as efficiency, wherever the levels were not convenient,
or it were desirable to send the refuse over heights for distribution,
that the contents of the sewers should be lifted by steam power, as
water is lifted in the drainage of the fens, and that it might be sent
for distribution, wherever it is required for use, in iron pipes, in the
same mode as that in which water is conveyed into towns by the water
companies. The estimated expense of this mode of cleansing and removal
is about the same as the conveyance of water into towns, _i. e._, not a
tithe of the expense of cartage, as will subsequently be shown.
The comparative economy of conveyance of fluid in pipes has been but
little observed, and has only recently perhaps been applied for the
purpose of cleansing. The following is an instance of the application of
the principle:—A contract was about to be entered into by the West
Middlesex Water Company for hauling out from their reservoir at
Kensington the deposit of eight or ten years’ silt, which had
accumulated to the depth of three or four feet. The contractor offered
to remove this quantity, which covered nearly an acre of surface, for
the sum of 400_l._, in three or four weeks. The reservoir was emptied in
order to be inspected by the engineer and directors before the contract
was accepted. It occurred to one of the officers that the cleansing
might be accomplished more readily by merely stirring up the silt, to
mix it with the water; and then if a cut or outlet were made in the
main-pipe used for conveying the water to London, that it might be
washed out. He accordingly got thirty or forty men to work in stirring
up the deposit, and accomplished the work at the cost of 40_l._ or
50_l._ and three or four days’ labour, instead of so many weeks; when
the directors went to see the basin, to decide upon the contract, the
reservoir was as free from any deposit as a house-floor. Since the
discovery thus made, the silt has been regularly cleansed out into the
common sewers. It is to be observed, in respect to the relative
cheapness of the two modes, that the contractor would only have removed
the silt to the nearest convenient place of deposit in the immediate
vicinity of the reservoir, whereas, in the fluid state, it might be
carried at the actual cost of conveying water, as far as it is at
present conveyed, and sold with a profit, 12 or 14 miles, and raised to
heights of 150 feet, at 2½_d._ per ton.