menu_book Chapter 37

section thirty seven of london labour and the london poor volume two by henry mayhew this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by gillian henry of street mac and other mud first of that kind of mud known by the name of mac the scavengers call mud all that is swept from the granite or wood pavements in contradistinction to mac which is both scraped and swept on the macadamised roads the mud is usually carted apart from the mack but some contractors cause their men to shovel every kind of dirt they meet with into the same cart the introduction of macadam's system of road-making into the streets of london called into existence a new element in what is accounted street refuse until of late years little attention was paid to mac for it was considered in no way distinct from other kinds of street dirt nor as being likely to possess properties which might adapt it for any other use than that of a component part of agricultural manure mac is found principally on the roads from which it derives its name and is indeed the grinding and pounding of the embedded pieces of granite which are the staple of those roads it is perhaps the most adhesive street dirt known

as respects the london specimen of it for the exceeding traffic works and kneads it into a paste which it is difficult to remove from the texture of any garment splashed or soiled with it Mac is carted away by the scavengers in great quantities, being shoveled in a state of more or less fluidity or solidity, according to the weather, from the roadside into their carts. Quantities are also swept with the rain into the drains of the streets, and not unfrequently quantities are found deposited in the sewers. The following passage from Sanitary Progress, a work before alluded to, cites the opinion of Lord Congleton as to the necessity of continually removing the mud from roads.

I may add that Lord Congleton's work on road-making is of high authority and has frequently been appealed to in parliamentary discussions, inquiries and reports on the subject. Quote, The late Lord Congleton, Sir Henry Parnell, stated before a committee of the House of Commons, in June 1838, a road should be cleansed from time to time, so as never to have half an inch of mud upon it,

and this is particularly necessary to be attended to where the materials are weak, for if the surface be not kept clean, so as to admit of its becoming dry in the intervals between showers of rain, it will be rapidly worn away. How truly, adds the report, is his lordship's opinion verified every day on the macadamised roads in and around London.

The horse manure and other filth are there allowed to accumulate and to be carried about by the horses and carriage wheels. The road is formed into cavities and mud hollows, which, being wetted by the rain and the constantly plying watering carts, retain the same.

Thus not only are vast quantities of offensive mud formed, but puddles and pools of water also, which water, not being allowed to run off to the side gutter by declivity, owing to the mud embankments which surround it, naturally percolates through the surface of the road, dissolving and loosening the soft earthy matrix by which the broken granite is surrounded and fixed. The quantity of Mac produced is the next consideration,

and in endeavouring to ascertain this, there are no specific data, though there are what, under other circumstances, might be called circumstantial or inferential evidence. I have shown both the length of the streets and roads, and the proportion which might be pronounced macadamised ways,

in the metropolis proper. But, as in the macadamised proportion, many thoroughfares cannot be strictly considered as yielding mack, I will assume that the roads and streets producing this kind of dirt, more or less fully, are 1,200 miles in length. On the busier macadamised roads in the vicinity of what may be called the interior of London,

it is common, I was told by experienced men, in average weather, to collect daily two cartloads of what is called mac, from every mile of road. The mass of such road produce, however, is mixed, though the mac unquestionably predominates. It was described to me as mac, general dirt, and droppings, more than the half being mac. In wet weather, there is at least 20 times more mac than dung scavenged, but in dry weather,

the dung and other street refuse constitute perhaps somewhat less than three-fourths of each cartload. The mack in dry weather is derived chiefly from the fluid from the watering carts, mixing with the dust, and so forming a paste, capable of being removed by the scraper of the scavenger. It may be fair to assume that every mile of the roads in question,

some of them being of considerable width, yields at least one cartload of mack as a daily average, Sunday of course accepted. An intelligent man who had the management of the mack and other street collections in a contractor's wharf, told me that in a load of mack carted from

the road to any place of deposit, there was, I now use his own words, a good deal of water. For there's great difference, he added, in the stiffness of the mack on different roads, that seem very much the same to look at. But that don't signify a halfpenny piece, he said. For if the mack is wanted for any purpose, and let be for a little time, you see, sir, the water will dry up and leave the proper stuff.

I haven't any doubt whatever that two loads a mile are collected in the way you've been told, and that a load and a quarter of the two is Mack. Though after the water is dried up out of it, there mightn't be much more than a load. So if you want to calculate what the quantity of Mack is by itself, I think you had best say one load a mile.

But it is only in the more frequented approaches to the city or the West End, such as the Knightsbridge Road, the New Road, the Old Kent Road, and thoroughfares of similar character as regards the extent of traffic, that two loads of refuse are daily collected. On the more distant roads, beyond the bounds traversed by the omnibuses, for instance,

or beyond the roads resorted to by the market gardeners on their way to the metropolitan green markets, the supply of street refuse is hardly a quarter as great. One man thought it was a third, and another only a sixth. of a load a day, in quiet places.

Calculating then, in order to be within the mark, that the macadamised roads afford daily two loads of dirt per mile, and reckoning the great macadamised streets at 100 miles in length, we have the following results. Quantity of street refuse collected from the more frequented macadamised thoroughfares.

100 miles, two loads per day, 200 loads. Weekly amount, 1,200 loads. Yearly amount 62,400 loads. Proportion of MAC in the above 100 miles 1 load per day 100 loads. Weekly 600 loads.

Yearly 31,200 loads. To this amount must be added the quantity supplied by the more distant and less frequented roads situate within the precincts of the metropolis proper. These I will estimate at 1 8th less than that of the roads of greater traffic. Some of the more quiet thoroughfares, I should add, are not scavenged more than once a week, and some less frequently, but on some there is considerable traffic.

Quantity of street refuse collected from the less frequented machazimised thoroughfares. 1,100 miles, a quarter load per day, 275 loads. weekly 1,650 loads, yearly 85,800 loads. The proportion of MAC to the gross dirt collected is greater in the more distant roads than what I have already described, but to be safe I will adopt the same ratio.

Proportion of MAC 1,100 miles of road, an eighth load per day, 137 loads, weekly 825 loads, yearly 42,900 loads, yearly total of the gross quantity of street refuse with the proportionate quantity of MAC collected from the macadamised thoroughfares of the metropolis, 100 miles of macadamised roads, 62,400 cart loads of street refuse, 31,200

1,100 miles 85,800 cartloads of street refuse 42,900 cartloads of MAC 148,200 loads of street refuse 74,100 loads of MAC Thus, upwards of 74,000 cartloads of MAC are, at a low computation, annually scraped and swept from the Metropolitan Thorough Fairs.

So far as to the quantity of Mac collected, and now as to its uses. Mac or Macadam, says one of Mr. Cochrane's reports, is a grand prize to the scavenging contractor who finds ready vend and a high price for it among the builders and brickmakers. Those who paid for the road, and their surveyors possibly,

know nothing of its value or of their own loss by its removal from the road. road they consider it in the light of dirt offensive dirt and are glad to pay the scavenger for carrying it away when the broom comes the scavenger's men take care to go deep enough and many of them are moreover instructed to keep the mac as free from admixture with foreign substances as possible for though cattle-dung be valuable enough in itself the mac loses its value to the builder and brickmaker by being mixed with it indeed both are valuable for their respective uses if kept separate not otherwise on my first making inquiries as to the uses and value of mac i was frequently told that it was utterly valueless and that great trouble and expense were incurred in merely getting rid of it that this is the case with many contractors is doubtlessly the fact for now unless the mac or rather the general road dirt be ordered or a market for it be assured it must be got rid of without a remuneration

even when the contractor can shoot the mac in his own yard and keep it there for a customer there is the cost of reloading and re-karting a cost which a customer requiring to use it at any distance may not choose to incur great quantities of mac therefore are wasted and more would be wasted were there places to waste it in let me therefore before speaking of the uses and sale of it point out some of the reasons for this wasting of the mac with other street dirt in the first place the weight of a cartload of street refuse of any kind is usually estimated at a ton but i am assured that the weight of a cartload of stiff mac is a ton and a quarter at the least and this weight becomes so trying to a scavenger's horse as the day's work advances that the contractor to spare the animal is often glad to get rid of the mac in any manner and without any remuneration thousands of loads of mac or rather of mixed street dirt have for this and other reasons been thrown away and no small quantity has been thrown down the gully holes to find its way into that main metropolitan sewer the thames of this matter however i shall have to speak hereafter

There is no doubt that it is common for contractors to represent the mac they collect as being utterly valueless, and indeed an encumbrance. The mixed mac, as I have said, may be so. Some contractors urge, especially in their bargains with the parish board, that all kinds of street dirt are not only worthless, but expensive to be got rid of. Five or six years ago, this was urged very strenuously,

for then there was what was accounted a combination among the contractors. The South West District of St Pancras, until within the last six years, received from the contractor for the public scavengery £100 for the year's aggregation of street and house dirt. Since then, however, they have had to pay him £500 for removing it. Notwithstanding the reluctance of some of the contractors to give information on this,

or indeed any subject connected with their trade, I have ascertained from indubitable authority that mac is disposed of in the following manner. Some, but this is mostly the mixed kind, is got rid of in any manner.

It has even been diluted with water, so as to be driven down the drains. Some is mixed with the general street orger, about a quarter of mac, I was told, to three quarters of dung and street mud,

and shipped off in barges as manure. some is given to builders when they require it for the foundations of any edifices that are handy or rather it is carted thither for a nominal price such as a trifle as beer-money for the men some however is sold for the same purpose the contractors alleging that the charge is merely for cartage some again is given away or sold with the like allegation for purposes of levelling of filling up cavities or repairing unevenness in any ground where improvements are being carried on and finally some is sold to masons plasterers and brickmakers for the purposes of their trade even for such purposes as filling up there must be in the mixed max supplied at least a considerable preponderance of the pure material, or there would not be, as I heard it expressed, a sufficient setting for what was required.

As a set-off to what is sold, however, I may here state that 30 shillings has been paid for the privilege of depositing a barge load of mixed street dirt in Battersea Fields, merely to get rid of it. The principal use of the unmixed Mac is as a component part of the mortar, or lime, of the mason in the exterior, and of the plasterer in the interior, construction of buildings, and as an ingredient of the mill in brick grounds. The accounts I received of the properties of Mac from the vendors of it were very contradictory. One man, until lately connected with its sale, informed me that as far as his own experience extended, Mac was most in demand among scamping builders and slop brickmakers, who looked only to

what was cheap. To a notorious scamper, he one morning sent three cartloads of Mac at one shilling a load, all to be used in the erection of the skeleton of one not very large house, and he believed that when it was used instead of sand, with lime, it was for inferior work only, and was mixed, either for masons or plasterers' work, with bad low-priced mortar. Another man with equal knowledge of the trade, however, represented Mack as a most valuable article for the builder's

purposes, it was so binding, and this he repeated emphatically. A working builder told me that mack was as good as the best sand. It made the mortar hang, and without either that or sand, the line would brittle away. Mack may be said to be composed of pulverized granite and rainwater. Granite is composed of quartz, felspar, and mica, each in granular crystals. Hence, alumina being clay and silex a substance which has a strong tendency to enter into combination with the

lime of the mortar, the pulverising of granite tends to produce a substance which has necessarily great binding and indurating properties. From this reduction of mach to its elements, it is manifest that it possesses qualities highly valuable in promoting the cohesive property of mortar, so that, where greater attention paid to its collection by the scavenger, there would in all probability be an improved demand for the article,

for I find that it is already used in the prosecution of some of the best masons' work. On this head I can cite the authority of a gentleman, at once a scientific and practical architect, who said to me, quote,

Mac is used by many respectable builders for making mortar. The objection to it is that it usually contains much extraneous decaying matter. End quote. Increased care in the collection of the material would perhaps remove this cause of complaint. I heard of one West End builder, employing many hands, however, who had totally or partially

discontinued the use of mack, as he had met with some which he considered showed itself brittle in the plastering of walls. Mac is pounded, and sometimes sifted, when required for use, and is then mixed and worked up with the lime for mortar, in the same way as sand. By the brickmakers it is mixed with the clay, ground, and formed into bricks in a similar manner. Of the proportion sold to builders, plasterers, and brickmakers severally, I could learn no precise particulars.

The general opinion appears to be that Mac is sold most to brickmakers, and that it would find even a greater sale with them were not brickfields becoming more and more remote. I, moreover, found it universally admitted that Mac was in less demand. some said by one half, than it was five or six years back. Such are the uses of Mac, and now we come to the question of its value.

The price of the purer Mac seems, from the best information I can procure, to have varied considerably. It is now generally cheap. I did not hear any very sufficing reason advanced to account for the depreciation, but one of the contractors expressed an opinion that this was owing to the disturbed state of the trade. Since the passing of the sanitary bill, the contractors for the public scavengery have been prevented shooting any valueless street dirt or dirt not worth carriage in convenient waste places, as they were once in the habit of doing.

Their yards and wharfs are generally full, so that, to avoid committing a nuisance, the contractor will not unfrequently sell his Mac at reduced rates, and be glad thus to get rid of it. To this cause especially, Mr. Blank attributed the deterioration in the price of Mac. But if he had convenience, he told me, and any change was made in the present arrangements, he would not scruple to store 1,000 loads for the demands of next summer, as a speculation. I am of opinion, moreover, notwithstanding what seemed something very like unanimity of opinion

on the part of the sellers of Mac, that what is given or thrown away is usually, if not always, mixed or inferior Mac, and that what is sold, at the lowest rate, is only a degree or two better, unless indeed it be under the immediate pressure of some of the circumstances I have pointed out, as want of room and so on. On inquiring the price of Mac, I believe the answer of a vendor will almost invariably be found to be a shilling a load.

A little further inquiry, however, shows that an extra sum may have to be paid. A builder who gave me the information asked a parish contractor the price of Mac. The contractor at once offered to supply him

with 500 loads at a shilling a load, if the Mac were ordered beforehand, and could be shot at once. But it would be sixpence a mile extra if delivered a mile out of the Mac seller's parish circuit,

or more than a mile from his yard. While, if extra care were to be taken in the collection of the Mac, it would be tuppence, threppence, fourpence or sixpence a load higher. This, it must be understood, was the price of wet Mac. Good dry Mac, that is to say, Mac ready for use,

is sold to the builder or the brickmaker at from two shillings to three shillings the load, two shilling sixpence or something very near it, being now about an average price. It is dried in the contractor's yard by being exposed to the sun, or it is sometimes protected from the weather by a shed while being dried. More wet mack would be shot for the trade and kept until dry,

but for want of room in the contractor's yards and wharfs, for mack must give way to the more valuable dung, and the dust and ashes from the bins. The best mack is sometimes described as country mack, that is to say, it is collected from those suburban roads

where it is likely to be little mixed with dung and so on. A contractor told me that during the last 12 months he had sold 300 loads of Mac. He had no account of what he had given away, to be rid of it, or of what he had sold at nominal prices. Another contractor, I was told by his managing man, sold last year about 400 loads. but both these parties are in a large way and do not supply the data upon which to found a calculation as to an average yearly sale.

For though in the metropolis there are, according to the list I have given in page 167 of the present volume, 63 contracts for cleansing the metropolis, without including the more remote suburbs such as Greenwich, Lewisham, Tooting, Streatham, Ealing, Brentford and others, Still, some of the districts contracted for yield no Mac at all. From what I consider good authority, I may venture upon the following moderate computation as to the quantity of Mac sold last year.

Estimating the number of contracts for cleansing the more central parishes at 35 and adding 20 for all the outlying parishes of the metropolis, in some of which the supply of road Mac is very fine and by no means scarce. It may be accurate enough to state that, out of the 55 individual contracts, 300 loads of Mac were sold by each in the course of last year.

This gives 16,500 loads of Mac disposed of per annum. It may, moreover, be a reasonable estimate to consider this Mac wet and dry together as fetching 1 shilling sixpence a load, so that we have for the sum realised the following result. 16,500 loads of MAC at 1 shilling sixpence per load,

1,237 pounds 10 shillings. It may probably be considered by the contractors that 1 shilling sixpence is too high an average of price per load. If the price be minimised, the result will be 16,500 loads of MAC at 1 shilling per load, 825 pounds.

Then, if we divide the first estimate among the 55 contractors, we find that they receive upwards of £22 each. The second estimate gives nearly £15 each. I repeat that in this inquiry I can but approximate. One gentleman told me he thought the quantity of Mac thus sold in the year was twice 1,600 loads.

Another asserted that it was not 1,000. I am assured, however, that my calculation does not exceed the truth. I have given the full quantity of Mac as nearly, I believe, as it can be computed, to be yielded by the Metropolitan Thoroughfairs. The surplusage, after deducting the 1,600 loads sold,

must be regarded as consisting of mixed and therefore useless Mac. That is to say, Mac rendered so thin by continuous wet weather that it is little worth. mac wasted because it is not storable in the contractor's yard, and mac used as a component part of a barge load of manure. In the course of my inquiries, I heard it very generally stated

that until five or six years ago, two shillings sixpence might be considered a regular price for a load of mac, while four shillings, five shillings, or even six shillings have been paid to one contractor, according to his own account, for the better kind of this commodity.

Of the mud of the streets. The dirt yielded by a macadamised road, no matter what the composition, is always termed by the scavengers Mac. What is yielded by a granite-paved way is always mud. Mixed mud and Mac are generally looked upon as useless. I inquired of one man connected with a contractor's wharf if he could readily distinguish the difference between Mac and other street or mixed dirts, and he told me that he could do so, more especially when the stuff was

sufficiently dried, or set, at a glance. If Mac was darker, he said, it always looked brighter than other street dirts, as if all the colour was not ground out of the stone. He pointed out the different kinds, and his definition seemed to me not a bad one, although it may require a practised Aye, to make the distinction readily. Street mud is only partially mud, for mud is earthy particles saturated with water,

and in the composition of the scavengers street mud are dung, general refuse, such as straw and vegetable remains, and the many things which in poor neighbourhoods are still thrown upon the pavement. In the busier thoroughfares of the metropolis, apart from the city, where there is no macadamisation requiring notice,

It is almost impossible to keep street mack and mud distinct, even if the scavengers cared more to do so than is the case at present. For a wagon or any other vehicle, entering a street paved with blocks of wrought granite from a macadamised road must convey mack amongst mud.

Both mack and mud, however, as I have stated, are the most valuable separately. In a report on the supply of water, appendix number 3, Mr. Holland, Upper Stanford Street, Waterloo Road, is stated to have said, in reply to a question on the subject, Quote,

cleanliness more difficult and expensive. The inhabitants of London have an interest in the condition of other streets besides those of their own parish. Besides the inhabitants of Regent Street, for instance, all the riders in the 5,000 vehicles that daily pass through that great thoroughfare are affected by its condition, and the inhabitants of Regent Street, who have to bear the cost of keeping that street in good repair and well cleansed for others' benefit as well as for

their own, may fairly feel aggrieved if they do not experience the benefits of good and clean streets when they go into other districts. End quote. In the admixture of street dirt, there is this material difference. The dung, which spoils good mack, makes good mud more valuable. After having treated so fully of the road produce of mack, there seems no necessity to say more about mud than to consider its quantity, its value and its uses.

In the hay market, which is about an eighth of a mile in length and 18 yards in width, a load and a half of street mud is collected daily, Sundays accepted. Take the year through. As a farmer or market gardener will give three shillings a load for common street mud and cart it away at his own cost,

we find that where all this mud sold separately, at the ordinary rate, the yearly receipt of one street alone would be £70.04. This public way, however, furnishes no criterion of the general mud produce of the metropolis. We must therefore adopt some other basis for a calculation, and I have mentioned the haymarket merely to show the great extent of street dirt accruing in a largely frequented locality.

But to obtain other data is a matter of no small difficulty, where returns are not published nor even kept. I have, however, been fortunate enough to obtain the assistance of gentlemen whose public employment has given them the best means of forming an accurate opinion. The street mud from the Haymarket, it has been positively ascertained,

is one and a quarter load each wet day, the year through. Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill, Cheapside, Newgate Street, the off parts of St. Paul's Churchyard, Cornhill, Leadenhall Street, Bishopsgate Street, the Free Bridges, with many other places where locomotion never ceases, are, in proportion to their width, as productive of street mud as the Haymarket.

Were the Haymarket a mile in length, it would supply, at its present rate of traffic, to the scavenger, six loads of street mud daily, or 36 loads for the scavenger's working week. In this yield, however, I am assured by practical men, the Haymarket is six times in excess of the average streets, and when compared with even great business thoroughfares of a narrow character,

such as Watling Street, Bow Lane, Old Change, and other thoroughfares of Cheapside and Corn Hill, the produce of the Haymarket is from 10 to 40% in excess. I am assured, however, and especially by a gentleman who had looked closely into the matter, as he at one time had been engaged in preparing estimates

for a projected company proposing to deal with street manures, that the 50 miles of the city may be safely calculated as yielding daily one and a half load of street mud per mile. Narrow streets, Thames Street for instance, which is about three quarters of a mile long, yield from two and a half to three and a half loads daily, according to the season. But a number of off-streets and open places, such as Long Alley, Alderman's Walk, America Square, Monument Yard, Bridgewater Square, Austin Friars and the like, are either streets without horse thoroughfares or are seldom traversed by vehicles.

If then we calculate that there are 100 miles of paved streets adjoining the city and yielding the same quantity of street mud daily as the above estimate, and 200 more miles in the less central parts of the metropolis, yielding only half that quantity, we find the following daily sum during the wet season.

150 miles of paved streets yielding one and a half load of street mud per mile. 225 loads. 200 miles of paved streets yielding three-quarter load of street mud per mile, 150 loads. Total 375 loads. Weekly amount of street mud during the wet season, 2,250 loads.

Total ditto for six months in the year, 58,500 loads. 63,000 loads of street mud at 3 shillings per load, 8,775 pounds. The great sale for this mud, perhaps 19 20ths, is from the barges. A barge of street manure, about one-fourth more or less, mac or rather mac mixed with its street proportion of dung and so on, and three-fourths mud, dung and so on, contains from 30 to 40 tons, or as many loads.

These manure barges are often to be seen on the Thames, but nearly three-fourths of them are found on the canals, especially the Paddington, the Regents and the Surrey, these being the most immediately connected with the interior part of the metropolis. A barge load of this manure is usually sold at from £5 to £6.

Calculating its average weight at 35 tonnes and its average sale at £5.10, shillings, the price is rather more than three shillings a load. Common street mud, I have been informed on good authority, fetches three shillings per load from the farmer when he himself carts it away. The price of the barge load of manure is tolerably uniform, for the quality is generally the same. Some of the best, because the cleanest street mud, as it is mixed only with horse dung,

is obtained from the wood streets, but this mode of pavement is so circumscribed that the contractors pay no regard to its manure produce, as a general rule, and mix it carelessly with the rest. Such, at least, is the account they themselves give, and they generally represent that the street manure is, owing to the outlay for cartage and boatage, little remunerative to them at the prices they obtain. Notwithstanding, they are paid to remove it from the streets.

Indeed, I heard of one contractor who was said to be so dissatisfied with the demand for, and the prices fetched by, his street manure, that he has rented a few acres not far from the Regent's Canal, to test the efficacy of street dirt as a fertiliser, and to ascertain if to cultivate might not be more profitable than to sell. End of section 37