Part 116
----------------------------------------------+--------------------------- | PARISHES. +----------+-------+-------- CONDITION OF THE HOUSES. | St George| | | the | St. | St. | Martyr, |Anne’s,|James’s. |Southwark.| Soho. | ----------------------------------------------+----------+-------+-------- From which replies have been | | | received (Number) | 5,713 | 1,339 | 2,960 | | | _With supply of Water_-- | | | To the house or premises (Per cent)| 80·97 | 95·56 | 96·48 Near the privy „ | 48·87 | 38·99 | 43·42 Butts or cisterns, covered (Number) | 1,879 | 776 | 1,621 „ „ uncovered „ | 2,074 | 294 | 393 With a sink (Per cent)| 48·31 | 89·29 | 86·70 | | | _With a Well_-- | | | On or near premises „ | 5·32 | 13·97 | 13·85 Well tainted or foul „ | 46·92 | 3·71 | 7·36 Houses damp in lower parts „ | 52·13 | 30·90 | 26·67 Houses with stagnant water on | | | premises „ | 18·54 | 7·95 | 2·95 Houses flooded in times of storm „ | 18·15 | 5·04 | 4·05 | | | _Houses with Drain_-- | | | To premises „ | 87·56 | 97·12 | 96·42 Houses with drains emitting | | | offensive smells „ | 45·11 | 37·62 | 21·41 Houses with drains stopped at times „ | 22·37 | 28·50 | 13·97 Houses with dust-bin „ | 42·69 | 92·34 | 89·80 Houses receiving offensive smells from | | | adjoining premises „ | 27·82 | 22·54 | 16·74 Houses with privy „ | 97·03 | 70·63 | 62·53 _Houses with cesspool_ „ | 82·12 | 47·27 | 36·62 Houses with water-closet „ | 10·06 | 45·99 | 65·86 ----------------------------------------------+----------+-------+--------
In this minute and searching investigation there is not only an official guide to an estimation of the number of cesspools in London, but a curious indication of the character of the houses in the respective parishes. In the poorer parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark, the cesspools were to every 100 houses as 82·12; in the aristocratic parish of St. James, Westminster, as only 36·62; while in what may be represented, perhaps, as the middle-class parish of St. Anne, Soho, the cesspools were 47·27 per cent. The number of wells on or near the premises, and the proportion of those tainted; the ratio of the dampness of the lower parts of the houses, of the stagnant water on the premises, and of the flooding of the houses on occasions of storms, are all significant indications of the difference in the circumstances of the inhabitants of these parishes--of the difference between the abodes of the rich and the poor, the capitalists and the labouring classes. But more significant still, perhaps, of the domestic wants or comforts of these dwellings, is the proportion of water-closets to the houses in the poor parish and the rich; in the one they were but 10·06 per cent; in the other 65·86 per cent.
These returns are sufficient to show the extravagance of the Board’s previous statement, that there is “scarcely a house in London without a cesspool under it,” while “a large number have two, three, four, and more,” for we find that even in the poorer parishes there are only 82 cesspools to 100 houses. Moreover, the engineers, after an official examination and inquiry, reported that in the “fever-nest, known as Jacob’s-island, Bermondsey,” there were 1317 dwelling-houses and 648 cesspools, or not quite 50 cesspools to 100 houses.
In rich, middle-class, and poor parishes, the proportion of cesspools, then, it appears from the _inquiries_ of the Board of Health (their _guesses_ are of no earthly value), gives us an average of something between 50 or 60 cesspools to every 100 houses. A subordinate officer whom I saw, and who was engaged in the cleansing and the filling-up of cesspools when condemned, or when the houses are to be drained anew into the sewers and the cesspools abolished, thought from his own experience, the number of cesspools to be less than one-half, but others thought it more.
On the other hand, a nightman told me he was confident that every two houses in three throughout London had cesspools; in the City, however, we perceive that there is, at the utmost, only one house in every three undrained. It will, therefore, be safest to adopt a middle course, and assume 50 per cent of the houses of the metropolis to be still without drainage into the sewers.
Now the number of houses being 300,000, it follows that the number of cesspools within the area of the metropolis are about 150,000; consequently the next step in the investigation is to ascertain the average capacity of each, and so arrive at the gross quantity of wet house-refuse annually deposited in cesspools throughout London.
The average size of the cesspools throughout the metropolis is said, by the Board of Health, to be 9 feet by 6-1/2, which gives a capacity of 58-1/2 cubic feet, and this for 150,000 houses = 8,775,000 cubic feet. But according to all accounts these cesspools require on an average two years to fill, so that the gross quantity of wet refuse annually deposited in such places can be taken at only half the above quantity, viz. in round numbers, 4,500,000 cubic feet. This by weight, at the rate of 35·9 cubic feet to the ton, gives 125,345 tons. This, however, would appear to be of a piece with the generality of the statistics of the Board of Health, and as wide of the truth as was the statement that there was scarcely a house in London without a cesspool, while many had _three, four, and even more_. But I am credibly informed that the average size of a cesspool is rather more than 5 feet square and 6-1/2 deep, so that the ordinary capacity would be 5-3/4 × 5-1/4 × 6-1/2 = 197 cubic feet, and this multiplied by 150,000 gives an aggregate capacity of 29,550,000 cubit feet. But as the cesspools, according to all accounts, become full only once in two years, it follows that the gross quantity of cesspoolage annually deposited throughout the metropolis must be only one-half that quantity, or about 14,775,000 cubic feet.
The calculation may be made another way, viz. by the experience of the nightmen and the sewer-cesspoolmen as to the average quantity of refuse removed from the London cesspools whenever emptied, as well as the average number emptied yearly.
The contents of a cesspool are never estimated for any purpose of sale or labour by the weight, but always, as regards the nightmen’s work, by the load. Each night-cart load of soil is considered, on an average, a ton in weight, so that the nightmen readily estimate the number of tons by the number of cart-loads obtained. The men employed in the cleansing of the cesspools by the new system of pumping agree with the nightmen as to the average contents of a cesspool.
As a general rule, a cesspool is filled every two years, and holds, when full, about five tons. One man, who had been upwards of 30 years in the nightman’s business, who had worked at it more or less all that time himself, and who is now foreman to a parish contractor and master-nightman in a large way, spoke positively on the subject. The cesspools, he declared, were emptied, as an average, by nightmen, once in two years, and their average contents were five loads of night-soil, it having been always understood in the trade that a night-cartload was about a ton.[72] The total of the cesspool matter is not affected by the frequency or paucity of the cleansing away of the filth, for if one cesspool be emptied yearly, another is emptied every second, third, fourth, or fifth year, and, according to the size, the fair average is five tons of cesspoolage emptied from each every other year. One master-nightman had emptied as much as fourteen tons of night-soil from a cesspool or soil-tank, and a contractor’s man had once emptied as many as eighteen tons, but both agreed as to the average of five tons every two years from all. Neither knew the period of the accumulation of the fourteen or the eighteen tons, but supposed to be about five or six years.
According to this mode of estimate, the quantity of wet house-refuse deposited in cesspools would be equal to 150,000 × 5, or 750,000 tons every two years. This, by admeasurement, at the rate of 35·9 cubic feet to the ton, gives 26,925,000 cubic feet; and as this is the accumulation of two years, it follows that 13,462,500 cubic feet is the quantity of cesspoolage deposited yearly.
There is still another mode of checking this estimate.
I have already given (see p. 385, _ante_) the average production of each individual to the wet refuse of the metropolis. According to the experiments of Boussingault, confirmed by Liebig, this, as I have stated, amounted to 1/4 lb. of solid and 1-1/4 lb. of liquid excrement from each individual per diem (= 150 lbs. for every 100 persons), while, including the wet refuse from culinary operations, the average yield, according to the surveyor of the Commissioners of Sewers, was equal to about 250 lbs. for every 100 individuals daily. I may add that this calculation was made officially, with engineering minuteness, with a view to ascertain what quantity of water, and what inclination in its flow, would be required for the effective working of a system of drainage to supersede the cesspools.[73] Now the census of 1841 shows us that the average number of inhabitants to each house throughout the metropolis was 7·6, and this for 150,000 houses would give 1,140,000 people; consequently the gross quantity of wet refuse proceeding from this number of persons, at the rate of 250 lbs. to every 100 people daily, would be 464,400 tons per annum; or, by admeasurement, at the rate of 35·9 cubic feet to the ton, it would be equal to 16,670,950 cubic feet.
A small proportion of this amount of cesspoolage ultimately makes its appearance in the sewers, being pumped into them directly from the cesspools when full by means of a special apparatus, and thus tends not only to swell the bulk of sewage, but to decrease in a like proportion the aggregate quantity of wet house-refuse, which is removed by cartage; but though the proportion of cesspoolage which finally appears as sewage is daily increasing, still it is but trifling compared with the quantity removed by cartage.
Here, then, we have three different estimates as to the gross quantity of the London cesspoolage, each slightly varying from the other two.
The first, drawn from the Cubic Feet. average capacity of the London cesspools, makes the gross annual amount of cesspoolage 14,775,000
The second, deduced from the average quantity removed from each cesspool 13,462,500
And the third, calculated from the individual production of wet refuse 16,670,950
The mean of these three results is, in round numbers, 15,000,000 cubic feet, so that the statement would stand thus:--
The quantity of wet house-refuse annually carried off by sewers (chiefly covered) from the urban moiety of the metropolis is (in cubic feet) 3,650,000,000
The quantity annually carried off by sewers (principally open) from the suburban moiety of the metropolis 150,000,000 ------------- The total amount of wet house-refuse annually carried off by the sewers of the metropolis 3,800,000,000
The gross amount of wet house-refuse annually deposited in cesspools throughout the metropolis 15,000,000 ------------- The total amount of sewage and cesspoolage of the metropolis 3,815,000,000
Thus we perceive that the total quantity of wet house-refuse annually _removed_, corresponds so closely with the gross quantity of wet house-refuse annually _produced_, that we may briefly conclude the gross sewage of London to be equal to 3,800,000,000 cubic feet, and the gross cesspoolage to be equal to 15,000,000 cubic feet.
The accuracy of the above conclusion may be tested by another process; for, unless the Board of Health’s conjectural mode of getting at _facts_ be adopted, it is absolutely necessary that statistics not only upon this, but indeed any subject, be checked by all the different modes there may be of arriving at the same conclusion. False facts are worse than no facts at all.
The number of nightmen may be summed up as follows:--
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.
OF THE CESSPOOL SYSTEM OF LONDON.
A cesspool, or some equivalent contrivance, has long existed in connexion with the structure of the better class of houses in the metropolis, and there seems every reason to believe--though I am assured, on good authority, that there is no public or official record of the matter known to exist--that their use became more and more general, as in the case of the sewers, after the rebuilding of the City, consequent upon the great fire of 1666.
The older cesspools were of two kinds--“soil-tanks” and “bog-holes.”
“Soil-tanks” were the filth receptacles of the larger houses, and sometimes works of solid masonry; they were almost every size and depth, but always perhaps much deeper than the modern cesspools, which present an average depth of 6 feet to 6-1/2 feet.
The “bog-hole” was, and is, a cavity dug into the earth, having less masonry than the soil-tank, and sometimes no masonry at all, being in like manner the receptacle for the wet refuse from the house.
The difference between these old contrivances and the present mode is principally in the following respect: the soil-tank or bog-hole formed a receptacle immediately under the privy (the floor of which has usually to be removed for purposes of cleansing), whereas the refuse is now more frequently carried into the modern cesspool by a system of drainage. Sometimes the soil-tank was, when the nature of the situation of the premises permitted, in some outer place, such as an obscure part of the garden or court-yard; and perhaps two or more bog-holes were drained into it, while often enough, by means of a grate or a trap-door, any kind of refuse to be got rid of was thrown into it.
I am informed that the average contents of a bog-hole (such as now exist) are a cubic yard of matter; some are round, some oblong, for there is, or was, great variation.
Of the few remaining soil-tanks the varying sizes prevent any average being computable.
What the old system of cesspoolage _was_ may be judged from the fact, that until somewhere about 1830 no cesspool matter could, without an indictable offence being committed, be drained into a sewer! _Now_, no new house can be erected, but it is an indictable offence if the cesspool (or rather water-closet) matter be drained anywhere else than into the sewer! The law, at the period specified, required most strangely, so that “the drains and sewers might not be choked,” that cesspools should “be not only periodically emptied, but _made_ by nightmen.”
The principal means of effecting the change from cesspoolage to sewerage was the introduction of Bramah’s water-closets, patented in 1808, but not brought into general use for some twenty years or more after that date. The houses of the rich, owing to the refuse being drained away from the premises, improved both in wholesomeness and agreeableness, and so the law was relaxed.
There are two kinds of cesspools, viz. _public_ and _private_.
The _public cesspools_ are those situated in courts, alleys, and places, which, though often packed thickly with inhabitants, are not horse-thoroughfares, or thoroughfares at all; and in such places one, two, or more cesspools receive the refuse from all the houses. I do not know that any official account of public cesspools has been published as to their number, character, &c., but their number is insignificant when compared with those connected with private houses. The public cesspools are cleansed, and, where possible, filled up by order of the Commissioners of Sewers, the cost being then defrayed out of the rate.
The _private cesspools_ are cleansed at the expense of the occupiers of the houses.
OF THE CESSPOOL AND SEWER SYSTEM OF PARIS.
As the Court of Sewers have recently adopted some of the French regulations concerning cesspoolage, I will now give an account of the cesspool system of France.
When after the ravages of the epidemic cholera of 1848-9, sanitary commissioners under the authority of the legislature pursued their inquiries, it was deemed essential to report upon the cesspool system of Paris, as that capital had also been ravaged by the epidemic. The task was entrusted to Mr. T. W. Rammell, C.E.