Part 13

During what intervals are deposits allowed to remain on the old mode?—The average is in one set of sewers about five years, and in another about ten years.

During which time the public are subjected to all the escapes of gas from the decomposing accumulation?—Exactly so. It could not, however go on so long but for heavy falls of rain or snow, which occasion partial clearances.

What is the effect of these accumulations upon the private drainage?—That the drains to the private houses are stopped: the first intimation of the foul state of the main sewer arises from complaints of individuals whose drains are affected; the accumulations in the private drains also occasions an expense to the individuals and much annoyance. By flushing the sewers this expense might be, and in Holborn and Finsbury division it is, avoided.

Are there any other defects you have, as an engineer, noticed in the prevalent mode of constructing the sewers?—Yes, the prevalent practice is to join sewers at angles, frequently at right angles; this occasions eddies and deposits of sediment that would otherwise pass off with the water; it injures the capacity of the main sewers by obstructing the current of water along them: I ascertained by experiment that the time occupied in the passage of an equal quantity of water, along similar lengths of sewer with equal falls, was—

Seconds. Along a straight line 90 With a true curve 100 With a turn at right angles 140

The Commissioners of the Holborn and Finsbury divisions agreed to require that the curves in sewers, passing from one street to another, shall be formed with a radius of not less than 20 feet; it is also required that the inclination or fall shall be increased at the junction, in order to preserve an equal capacity for the passage of water, and of effect in sweeping away the deposit.

When by heavy falls of snow or otherwise the refuse of the streets is carried into such sewers, is there any difficulty in sweeping it away?—None whatsoever.

In what number of years would the saving in cleansing sewers by flushing repay the expense of applying the apparatus to the existing sewers in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions?—In seven years.

Have you any doubt of the practicability of carrying all the surface cleansing of the streets into the sewers, and removing it by conveyance in water, instead of by hand labour and cartage?—I entertain no doubt whatever that it might be done, where there is a good sewer and proper gully-holes and shoots; with a good supply of water these would carry away rapidly all the surface refuse; the experience of the sewerage in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions prove it.

How does it prove it?—At every opportunity the street-sweepers sweep all they can into the gully-holes, and it is swept away without inconvenience.

One practical witness states that the expense of the cartage alone of the refuse from a Macadamised street of half a mile, in the winter time in the metropolis, is 5_l._ weekly. What would be the comparative expense of carrying it away by the sewers?—It would save the whole expense of the cartage; it would be less than the present expense of sweeping and filling into the carts, and if there were a sufficient supply of water on the surface, the work might be conducted with great rapidity.

You are aware that one inconvenience of the existing mode of street cleansing, independently of the great expense, is the length of time during which the wet refuse remains to the public annoyance on the surface, until removed by the slow process of sweeping and cartage?—Yes; and the men would appear to delay for the purpose of the dirt being removed, by being washed by rain into the sewers.

Do you conceive that all the business of street cleansing and house draining might be consolidated advantageously to the public?—Yes, clearly so, and with great economy.

In the evidence of Mr. Oldfield, an experienced builder in the wealthy districts of the metropolis, will be found exemplifications of the mischiefs resulting from the defective modes of opening sub-drains or communications, even from houses of the first class, into the main drains.[7] The state of sewerage and drainage in the larger towns, as described in the medical reports, in its effects of frequent disease and death,—is much worse in the provincial towns. But every step in improvement is an advance in reduction of existing burdens; drainage, _per se_, will be found to be a reduction of an existing charge for the expenses of sickness and mortality; _science_, applied to the improvement of drainage, not only gives it efficiency, but reduces greatly the expense.

The streets in the larger towns commonly display, from the want of science in their construction, similar waste, and equally admit of an improved and scientific arrangement, which will conduce to economy and to improved public health.

The bad condition of the streets in many of the towns is very generally ascribable to pavement being commonly regarded as requisite solely for cart or carriage conveyance, and not as a means of cleanliness. The pavement has therefore been usually confined to the chief streets in which the carriage traffic is considerable. Some of the principal streets even in the metropolis almost justify the description of being “streams of mud and filth in winter,” and “seas of dust” in summer. But attention has of late been directed to the cleansing of the road as a means of removing damp and dirt or dust, which are each found to be injurious. So far as various experiments have yet proceeded in the metropolis, they are stated to be highly favourable to the use of wood as a substance for paving the streets, though perhaps in forms different from those at present in use, with improvements which further experience will suggest. Wood, when pinned together and laid on a firm substratum, appears to be less retentive of wet than most forms of stone pavement, and to possess very considerable advantages over the Macadamised roads for crowded thoroughfares. If it be brought into general use it will have an advantage in removing the granite dust, which medical authorities believe to be much more prejudicial to health, in exciting or aggravating lung diseases, than the public have been aware of. Where there is much dust in the working of close quarries, the effects of it are almost as destructive to the lungs of the operatives as the knife-grinding to the operatives of Sheffield who do not guard against the steel-dust. “It is scarcely conceivable,” Dr. Arnott states, “that the immense quantities of granite-dust pounded by one or two hundred thousand pairs of wheels working on Macadamised streets, should not greatly injure the public health. In houses bordering such streets or roads, it is found that, notwithstanding the practice of watering, the furniture is often covered with dust even more than once in the day, so that writing on it with the finger becomes legible, and the lungs and air-tubes of the inhabitants, with a moist lining to detain the dust, are constantly pumping the same atmosphere. The passengers by a stage-coach in dry weather, when the wind is moving with them so as to keep them enveloped in the cloud of dust raised by the horses’ feet and the wheels of the coach, have their clothes soon saturated to whiteness with the dust, and their lungs of course are charged in a corresponding degree. A gentleman who rode only 20 miles in this way, had afterwards to cough and expectorate for 10 days to clear his chest again.” The imperfection of road cleansing in paved streets at the same time deteriorates the salubrity of the towns, the value of the refuse for production, and the streets themselves. The farmers find that the refuse of the streets, of which horse-dung and other excrementitious substances form so important a part, is valuable in proportion as it is “fresh.” On a proposition to sweep the streets of a town district oftener, it was stated by some farmers that they would, in that case, give more for the refuse. It is with this description of refuse, as stated with respect to the night-soil, in proportion as it is allowed to remain in the streets to dry, it loses the gas which gives it value; and the gas which is lost frequently gives to streets the offensive smell perceptible to strangers who have not been familiarised to it, and makes a deleterious addition to the compounds by which the health of the town population is injured. The complete and rapid cleansing of the roads has also its effects on the draught. It is proved experimentally that, “calling the draught on a broken-stone road 5, that on the same road covered with dust is 8, and that on the same road wet and muddy is 10.”[8] A road should be cleansed “from time to time, so as never to have half an inch of mud upon it. This is particularly necessary to be attended to where the materials are weak, for if the surface is not kept clean, so as to admit of its becoming dry in the intervals between showers of rain, it will be rapidly worn away.” With the even surface obtainable from the use of wood as a pavement, it is stated that the streets which are now kept wet and dirty whilst the process of cleansing is slowly carried on by the hand, may be rapidly and cheaply swept by sweeping-machines drawn by horses. With the advantage of such a system of sewerage as that described by Mr. Roe, the surface refuse, which continues exposed during a whole week, may be removed every morning before the hours of traffic from all the principal thoroughfares. In the main streets of the towns of considerable traffic, a smooth and firm surface for the carriage-way would ensure the advantages of a railroad, in addition to those to the public health from cleanliness. The experience on several portions of smooth road shows that single horses with lighter and less expensive vehicles would suffice where two horses are now required on the common roads; where strong stone pavements are required to resist the shock of heavy vehicles, and heavy vehicles propelled with double power to resist the battering of strong pavements, and the grinding and wear and tear of heavy and dirty roads.

_Captain Vetch_, the engineer, who is extensively acquainted with the structural economy of towns, observes in a communication on the subject, that—

“The other mode of avoiding the formation of mud is the substitution of wooden pavements; of the success of these I have little doubt, though for the present many failures have occurred, either from the foundation not having been truly and firmly laid, or from the blocks of wood not being massive enough. The greatest objection to wood pavements at present is the slipping of the horses, but this I believe might be obviated. The question, however, at present is to get rid of the street dirt, such as it is; and for that purpose I concur in opinion it would only be necessary in wet weather during rains that the street-cleaner should sweep the dirt into the kennels, and aid the water by stirring the mud, to carry off the material in a state of diffusion; in dry weather, the opening of pipes with hose attached would serve the same purpose as the rains, and at the same time aid the sewerage at the time most required. After a short but heavy fall of rain, the cleansing effect of the water is fully perceived: and if any means could be devised of saving the rain-water that falls on the houses and in the streets, so as to apply it in considerable quantities at intervals, it is probable that the rain-water would be amply sufficient for all the purposes in question.”

Mr. Roe states, that arrangements were made with the water companies for supplies of water for the cleansing of the sewers in the Holborn and Finsbury district, but it was found that the ordinary supplies to the sewers sufficed, and those from the company were not used.

The cleansing of the streets and the removal of the impurities from the habitations appears to have been the subject of considerable attention at Paris of late years. An individual proposed to the administration of that city a mode of cleansing the streets and pavement, by sweeping all the refuse into the sewers which are discharged into the Seine, that had hitherto been daily gathered into heaps and carted away beyond the precincts. The minister of police thought it advisable to take the opinion of the Institute on the proposal. The superiority of the proposed mode of street cleansing was admitted, but the members of the Institute, to whom the subject was referred, having ascertained the quantity of rubbish which was daily collected in Paris, and also the quantity of water which flowed in the Seine during the summer-time, they found that this volume of water was 9600 times greater than the greatest quantity of filth and rubbish collected in the same length of time from the streets of Paris; and they reported as their conclusion, “that the quantity of dirt which would be thrown into the Seine, compared with the volume of water in the river, would be found to be so extremely small as to be absolutely inappreciable; that it was not from the consideration therefore of insalubrity that the project for cleaning the streets as proposed should be negatived, but solely because by that means there would be lost a quantity of most valuable manure, which was quite indispensable to the agriculture around Paris, and consequently to Paris itself.”[9]

Mr. Roe has furnished me with a calculation made from the flow of water in the Thames, at a neap tide: taking the ebb, and comparing it with the quantity of deposit in the water running from the sewers from the whole of the metropolis (assuming that the sewerage bears the same proportion as the Holborn and Finsbury division), that the proportion of impurities to the volume of water of the Thames is as 1 to 10,100. If the surface cleansing of the streets were added to the ordinary mass of impurity, he calculates that the proportion held in suspension would then be about 1 to 5069. To this must be added the impurities from land-floods, and those from vessels in the river. The amount of impurity discharged from the sewers was calculated from the amount of deposit known to have been formed in several of them. The amount of impurity in the Thames would therefore be, at the least, double the amount of that calculated for the Seine.[10]

If the evils of the pollution of such a stream were much greater, they would still be found inconsiderable as compared with the perpetual pollution of the air by the retention of ordures and refuse amidst large masses of the population. What has been stated as to the practicability of extending threefold the cleansing of towns, by dispensing with cartage, and using the sewers for the removal of the refuse of the streets, is stated as an advantage, even on the supposition that no use is made of the refuse, and that it is entirely thrown away. But it were a reproach to stop at the advance to this far lesser evil, and to add to the pollution of the streams of the towns, which throughout the country form the chief common sewers, by throwing into them everything that is vile in the towns, i. e. everything that is most valuable for increasing the surrounding fertility.

On a full examination of the evidence adduced and of the evidence indicated, it will, I trust, be found to be satisfactorily established; that the houses of towns may be constantly and rapidly cleansed of noxious refuse by adaptation of drains and public sewers; and that with such an adaptation, for one street or one district cleansed at the present expense three may be cleansed by the proposed mode; that the natural streams flowing near towns may be preserved from the pollution caused by the influx of the contents of the public sewers, by the conveyance of all refuse through covered pipes, and that the existing cost of conveyance, by which its use for production is restricted, may be reduced to less than one-fortieth or fiftieth of the present expense of removal by hand labour and cartage;[11] that these bounties on cleanliness and salubrity on the one hand, and beneficial production on the other, are dependent on skilful and appropriate administrative arrangements. But for the attainment of these objects, and the relief of the worst-conditioned districts, another provision appears to be requisite, namely, appropriate

_Supplies of Water._

Besides those reports from towns in which a large proportion of their salubrity is attributed to a natural drainage, from the porosity of the soil, or from the undulations of the surface being favourable to the discharge of moisture, as at Birmingham, other reports ascribe a large proportion of the comparative health of the population to advantageous circumstances, in respect to the supplies of water. From such information as that already cited, it will be manifest that for an efficient system of house cleansing and sewerage, it is indispensable that proper supplies of pure water should be provided, and be laid on in the houses in towns of every size, and, it might be added, in all considerable rural villages. No previous investigations had led me to conceive the great extent to which the labouring classes are subjected to privations, not only of water for the purpose of ablution, house cleansing, and sewerage, but of wholesome water for drinking, and culinary purposes.

_Mr. John Liddle_, one of the medical officers of the Whitechapel union, after describing the deplorable condition of the dwellings of the labouring population in that part of London, states, that—

“In connexion with this state of things is the deficiency of water which is not laid on in any of their houses.

“How do they get such water as they use?—They get it for the most part from a plug in the courts. I cannot say whether it is the actual scarcity of water, or their reluctance to fetch it, but the effect is a scarcity of water. When I have occasion to visit their rooms, I find they have only a very scanty supply of water in their tubs. When they are washing, the smell of the dirt mixed with the soap is the most offensive of all the smells I have to encounter. They merely pass dirty linen through very dirty water. The smell of the linen itself, when so washed, is very offensive, and must have an injurious effect on the health of the occupants. The filth of their dwellings is excessive, so is their personal filth. When they attend my surgery, I am always obliged to have the door open. When I am coming down stairs from the parlour, I know at the distance of a flight of stairs whether there are any poor patients in the surgery. Any one who attends on the relief days of the out-door relief may satisfy himself as to the personal condition of these parties.

“Are the courts in which the labouring classes reside, in your district, paved or cleansed?—They are not flagged, they have a sort of pebbles; they are always wet and dirty. The people, having no convenience in their houses for getting rid of waste water, throw it down at the doors. If I cast my eye over the whole district at this moment, I do not think that one house for the working classes will be found in which there is such a thing as a sink for getting rid of the water.

“Then there is not such a thing as a house with the water laid on?—Not one in the poorer places. There is also the want of cesspools; there is only one or two places for a whole court, and soil lies about the places which are in a most offensive condition.

“What is the number of cases which you visit for the administration of medical relief during the year?—During the last year the number of cases was 1560, all of them out-patients.

“Has not a large sewer been recently formed through your district?—Yes, through Rosemary-lane.

“What has been its effect?—Very little as respects the inhabitants of the courts; the landlords are not compelled, and do not go to the expense of making any communication from the courts to the sewer; the courts are in as wet and dirty and in as bad a condition as ever.

“What are the rents paid for these descriptions of tenements?—I am informed, very high rents. I am informed that this description of property pays a better per centage than any other description of property.—My impression is that it pays as much as 20 per cent. in many instances.”

This evidence exhibits the common condition of large masses of habitations, even in the metropolis, where there are so many competing companies.

_Mr. Mott_ states that, in Manchester,—

“There are numerous pumps and a plentiful supply of water within a few feet of the surface, to say nothing of the various tanks and cisterns in factories and private dwellings, which in this proverbially rainy district are always abundantly supplied; but, from the nature of the atmosphere, the rain-water is frequently like ink. The Irwell and Medlock rivers run through the town of Manchester; but being receptacles for all kinds of filth and refuse, the water is too impure for general use. In the suburbs of Manchester the water is generally procured through the medium of rain-water cisterns, or from very shallow wells by pumps. In the better class of houses it is generally filtered, but the poorer classes use it without any preparation. The custom is for owners of small cottage property to erect a pump for the use of a given number of houses; this pump is frequently rented by one of the tenants, who keeps it locked, and each of the other tenants are taxed a certain sum per month for the use of it. One poor woman told me she paid 1_s._ per month. The water company give a plentiful supply to small houses at 6_s._ per year, or about half what this woman paid for a precarious supply from the subscription pump. The Stockport Local Act empowers the commissioners of that town to _compel_ the cottage owners to provide a good supply of water to their tenants.”

_Mr. John Moyle_, medical officer of the Truro union, states—

“But few houses are properly supplied with water. In very dry seasons, they have to fetch water from a distance varying from a quarter to 1½ mile.”

This is at present the condition of a large proportion of the houses in Hampstead, Highgate, and Hendon, where water is purchased by the pailful.

_Mr. Daniel Antrobus_, medical officer of the Audley district, Newcastle union, Staffordshire, says—

“They have seldom a good supply of water, are without _pumps_, and the occupants are obliged to obtain it from stagnant reservoirs or impure springs, situate often at a considerable distance.”

_Mr. Henry Cribb_, the medical officer of the Dunmow union reports, as a circumstance which is highly injurious to the health,—

“The want of good and wholesome spring-water: there being scarcely any pumps for the use of the poor, they are compelled to use water collected from ditches; and I have known it frequently to be not only very impure, but almost in a putrid state.”

The medical officer of the Bishop’s Stortford union, states—

“I am of opinion that, in this and most of the rural parishes, complaints often arise from the want of good and wholesome spring-water, there being very few pumps, or even wells, and the poor being compelled to use water collected from ditches and other impure sources; this circumstance, connected with the very imperfect drainage, I think requires strict investigation.”

_Mr. Whilpels_, the medical officer of the Lexden and Winstree union, states—