menu_book Chapter 72

section seventy two 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 the kinds and characteristics of sewers the sewers of london may be arranged into two distinct groups according to the side of the thames on which they are situate now the essential difference between these two classes of sewers lies in the elevation of the several localities whence the sewers carry the refuse to the thames the chief difference in the circumstances of the people north and south of the river are shown in the annexed table from the registrar-general's returns Elevation of the ground in feet above Trinity High Water Mark. London, 39. North side of the river, 51. South side of the river, 5. Density or number of persons to an acre, 1849. London, 30. North side of the river, 52. South side of the river, 14.

Deaths from cholera to 10,000 persons living in 60 weeks, ending November 24th, 1849. London, 66. North side of the river, 44. South side of the river, 127. Deaths from all causes annually to 10,000 persons, 5,000 males, 5,000 females, living during the seven years 1838 to 1844. London 252 North side of the river 251

South side of the river 257 Here it will be seen that while the houses on the north side of the river stand on an average 51 feet above the high water mark of the Thames, those on the south side are only 5 feet above it. The effect of this is shown most particularly in the deaths from cholera in 1849, which were nearly three times as many on the south as on the north side of the Thames.

It is said officially that of the 15 square miles of the urban district on the south side of the river Thames, three miles are from six to seven feet below high water mark, so that the locality may be said to be drained only for four hours out of the twelve, and during these four hours very imperfectly. When the tide rises above the orifices of the sewers,

the whole drainage of the district is stopped until the tide recedes again, rendering the whole system of sewers in Kent and Surrey only an articulation of cesspools. That this is but a fact, the following table of the elevation and feet above the Trinity High Water mark, as regards the several districts on the Surrey side of the Thames, may be cited as evidence. From these returns made by Captain Dawson, R.E., the difficulty, to use no stronger word, attending the sewerage of the Surrey district is shown at once. There is no flow to be had, or, the word more generally used, no run for the sewage.

In parts of the north of England it used to be a general, and still is a partial saying, among country people who are figuratively describing what they account impossible, Aye, when? When water runs up bank. This is a homely expression of the difficulties attending the Surrey sewerage. There is, as regards these Surrey, more than the Kent, sewers, another evil which promotes the articulation of cesspools.

Some of these sewers have dead ends, like places which in the streets, a parallel case enough, are known as no thoroughfare. And in these sewers it is seldom, in any state of the tide, that flushing can be resorted to. Consequently, these cesspool-like sewers remain uncleansed, or have to be cleansed by manual labour. the matter being drawn up into the street or road. The refuse conduits of the metropolis are of two kinds,

one sewers, two drains. These two classes of refuse charts are often confounded, even in some official papers, the sewer being there designated the main drain. All sewerage is undoubtedly drainage,

but there is a manifest distinction between a sewer and a drain. The first-class sewers, which are generally termed main sewers, and run along the centres of the first-class streets, alike from the extent or populousness of such streets, may be looked upon as underground rivers of refuse, to which the drains are tributary regulates. No sewer exists unconnected with the drains from the streets and houses,

but many house drains are constructed apart from the sewers, communicating only with the cesspools. Even where houses are built in close contiguity to a public sewer, and built after the new mode without cesspools, there is always a drain to the sewer. No house so situated can get rid of its refuse except by means of a drain, unless indeed the house be not drained at all, and its filth be flung down a gullyhoe, or got rid of in some other way. These drains, all with a like determination, differ only in their forms. They are barrel-shaped, made of rounded bricks or earthenware pipage, and of an interior between a round and an oval, with a diameter of from 2 to 6 inches, although only a few private houses, comparatively, are so drained.

The barrel drain of larger dimensions is used in the newer public buildings and larger public mansions, when it represents a sort of house or interior sewer, as well as a house main drain, for smaller drains find their issue into the barrel drain. There is the barrel drain in the new Houses of Parliament and in large places which cover the site of, and are required for the purposes of, several houses or offices.

The tubular drain is simply piping, of which I have spoken fully in my account of the present compulsory mode of house drainage. The third drain, one more used to carry refuse to the cesspool than the sewer, but still carrying such refuse to the sewers, is the old-fashioned brick drain, generally 9 inches square. I shall first deal with the sewerage, and then with the house and street drainage. The sewer is a twofold receptacle of refuse. Into it are conveyed the wet refuse not only of many of the houses, but of all the streets.

The slop, or surface water of the streets, is conveyed to the sewer by means of smaller sewers, or street drains, running from the kennel, or channel, to the larger sewers. In the streets, at such uncertain distances as the traffic and circumstances of the locality may require, are gully holes. These are openings into the sewer, and were formerly called, as they were, simply gratings, a sort of iron trap-doors of grated bars, clumsily made, and placed almost at random. On each side of the street was, even into the present century, a very formidable channel,

or kennel, as it was formerly written, into which, in heavy rains, the badly scavenged street dirt was swept, often demanding a good leap from one who wished to cross in a hurry. These kennels emptied themselves into the gratings, which were not unfrequently choked up, and the kennel was then an utter nuisance. At the present time the channel is simply a series of stonework at the edge of the footpaths,

blocks of granite being sloped to meet more or less at right angles, and the flow from the inclination from the centre of the street to the channel is carried along without impediment or nuisance into the gullyhole. The gullyhole opens into a drain, running with a rapid slope into the sewer, and so the wet refuse of the streets finds its vent. In many courts, alleys, lanes and so on inhabited by the poor, where there is imperfect or no drainage to the houses,

all the slops from the houses are thrown down the gullyholes, and frequently enough blood and offal are poured from butchers' premises, which might choke the house drain. There have indeed been instances of worthless street dirt, slop, collected into a scavenger's vehicle, being shot down a gullyhole. The sewers, as distinct from the drains, are to be divided principally into three classes, all devoted to the same purpose, the conveyance of the underground filth of the capital to the Thames, and all connected by a

series of drains, afterwards to be described, with the dwelling houses. The first-class sewers are found in the main streets and flow at their outlets into the river. The second-class sewers run along the second-class streets, discharging their contents into a first-class sewer, and the third-class sewers are for the reception of the sewage from the smaller streets and always communicate for the voidance of their contents with a sewer of the second or first description.

As regards the destination of the sewers, there is no difference between the Middlesex and Surrey portions of the metropolis. The sewage is all floated into the river. The first-class sewers of the modern build rarely exceed 50 inches by 30 in internal dimensions. The second class 40 inches by 24, the third 30 inches by 18. Smaller class or branch sewers, from number 4 to number 8 inclusive,

also form part of the great subterranean filth channels of the metropolis. It is only, however, the three first mentioned classes which can be described as in any way principal sewers. The others are in the capacity of branch sewers, the ramifications being in many places very extensive, while pipes are often used. The dimensions of these smaller sewers, when pipes are not used, are

These branch sewers may, from their circumscribed dimensions, be looked upon as mere channels of connection, with the larger descriptions, but they present, as I have intimated, an important part of the general system. This may be shown by the fact that in the estimates for building sewers for the improvement of the drainage of the City of Westminster,

a plan however not carried out, the estimated, or indeed surveyed, run of the first class was to be 8,118 feet, of the second class 4,524 feet, of the third but 2,086 feet,

while of the number 5 and number 6 description, it was respectively 18,709 and 53,284 feet. The branch sewers may perhaps be represented in many instances as public drains connecting the sewer of the street with the issue from the houses, but I give the appellation I find in the reports. The dimensions I have cited are not to be taken as an average size of the existing sewers of the metropolis,

on either side of the Thames, for no average size and no uniformity of shape can be adduced, as there has been no uniformity observed. The sewers are of all sizes and shapes, and of all depths from the surface of the streets. I was informed by an engineering authority that he had often seen it asserted that the naval authorities of the kingdom could not build a war steamer, and it might very well be said that the sanitary authorities of the metropolis could

not build a sewer, as none of the present sewers could be cited as in all respects properly fulfilling all the functions required. But it must be remembered that the present engineers have to contend with great difficulties, the whole matter being so complicated by the blunderings and mismanagement of the past. The dimensions I have cited, because they appear officially, exceed the medium size of the newer sewerage, the average height of the first class being in such

sewers about 3 feet 9 inches. Of the width of the sewers, as of the height, no precise average can be drawn. Perhaps that of the new palace main, or first-class sewer, 3 feet 6 inches, may be nearest the average, while the smaller classes diminish in their width in the proportions I have shown. The sewers of the older constructions nearly all widen and deepen as they near the outlet, and this at no definite distance from the river but from a quarter of a mile or somewhat less to a mile and more some such sewers are then fourteen feet in width some twenty feet and no doubt of proportionate height but i do not find that the height has been ascertained

for flushing purposes there are recesses of greater or less width according to the capacity of the sewer where sluice gates and so on can be fixed and water accumulated Under the head of subterranean survey of the sewers will be found some account of the different dimensions of the sewers. The form of the interior of the sewers, as shown in the illustrations I have given, is irregularly elliptical. They are arched at the summits, and more or less hollowed or curved internally at the bottom. The bottom of the sewer is called the invert, from a general resemblance in the construction to an inverted arch.

The best form of invert is a matter which has attracted great engineering attention. It is indeed the important part of the sewer, as the part along which there is the flow of the sewage. And the superior or inferior formation of the invert, of course, facilitates or retards the transmission of the contents. A few years back, the building of egg-shaped or oviform sewers was strongly advocated. It was urged that the flow of the sewage and the sewer water was accelerated by the invert,

especially being oviform, as the matter was more condensed when such was the shape adopted, while the more the matter was diffused, as in some of the inverts of the more usual form of sewers, the less rapid was its flow, and consequently the greater its deposit. What extent of egg-shaped sewers are now, so to speak, at work, I could not ascertain. One informant thought it might be somewhere about 50 miles.

The following interesting account of the velocities of streams, with a relativeness to sewers, is extracted from the evidence of Mr Phillips. Quote The area of surface that a sewer will drain, and the quantity of water that it will discharge in a given time, will be greater or less in proportion as the channel is inclined from

a horizontal to a vertical position. The ordinary or common run of water in each sewer, due from house drainage alone and irrespective of rain, should have sufficient velocity to prevent the usual matter discharged into the sewer from depositing. For this purpose, it is necessary that there should be, in each sewer, a constant velocity of current equal to 2.5 feet per second, or 1.75 miles per hour. End quote.

Mr. Phillips then states that the inclinations of all rivulets and so on diminish as they progress to their outfalls. If the force of the waters of the river Rhone, he has said, were not absorbed by the operation of some constant retardation in its course, the stream would have shot into the Bay of Marseilles

with the tremendous velocity of 164 miles every hour. Even if the Thames met with no system of impediments in its course, the stream would have rushed into the sea with a velocity of 80 feet per second, or 54 and a half miles in an hour. The inclinations of the sewers of a natural district should be made to diminish from their heads to their outfalls in a corresponding ratio of

progression, so that as the body of water is increased at each confluence, one and the same velocity and force of current may be kept up throughout the whole of them. Mr. Phillips advocates a tubular system of sewerage and drainage. The main sewer, which has lately called forth the most public attention and professional controversy, is that connected with the new Houses of Parliament, or, as they are called in diverse reports and correspondence,

the new Palace at Westminster. The workmanship in the building of the sewers is of every quality. The material of which some of the older sewers are constructed is a porous sort of brick, which is often found crumbling and broken, and saturated with damp and rottenness from the exhalations and contact of their contents. The sewers erected, however, within the last 20 or more especially within the last 10 years, are sometimes of granite, but generally of the best brick,

with an interior coating of enduring cement, and generally with concrete on their exterior, to protect them from the dampness and decaying qualities of the superincumbent or lateral soil. The depth of the sewers, I mean from the top of the sewer to the surface of the street, seems to vary as everything else varies about them. Some are found 40 feet below the street, some 2 feet, some almost level.

These, however, are exceptions, and the average depth of the sewers on the Middlesex side is from 12 to 14 feet, on the Surrey side from 6 to 8 feet. The reason is that the north shores of the metropolis are above the tide level, The south shores are below it. An authority on the subject has said,

The Surrey sewers are bad owing principally to the land being below tide level. They were the most expensively constructed, because perhaps in that commission the surveyors were paid by percentage on the cost of works. When it was proposed in the Westminster Commission to effect a reduction of four-fifths in the cost, it was like a proposition to return the officers' salaries to that extent, if they had been paid in that way. The reader may have observed that the official intelligence I have given, all or nearly all,

refers to the Westminster and part of Middlesex Commission, and to that of the Surrey and Kent. This is easily accounted for. In the metropolitan districts up to 1847, the only commission which published its papers was the Westminster, of which Mr. L. C. Hertzlett had the charge as clerk. When the commissions were consolidated in 1847,

he printed the Westminster and Surrey only, the others being of minor importance. I may observe that one of the engineers, in showing the difficulty or impossibility of giving any description of a system of sewerage

as to points of agreement or difference, represents the whole mass as but a detached parcel of sewers. The course of the sewers is in no direct or uniform line, with the exception of one characteristic. All their bearings are towards the river, as regards the main sewers, first class, and all the bearings of the second class sewers are towards the main sewers, in the main streets.

The smaller classes of sewers fill up the great area of London sewerage with a perfect network of intersection and connection, and even this network is increased manifold by its connection with the house drains. There is no map of the general sewerage of the metropolis, merely sections and plans of improvements making or suggested in the reports of the surveyors and so on to the commissioners.

But did a map of subterranean London exist, with its lines of every class of sewerage and of the drainage which feeds the sewers, with its course moreover of gas pipes and water pipes, with their connection with the houses, the streets, the courts, and so on, it would be the most curious and skeleton-like map in the world.

Of the Subterranean Character of the Sewers In my inquiries among that curious body of men, the sewer hunters, I find them make light of any danger, their principal fear being from the attacks of rats, in case they become isolated from the gang with whom they searched in common,

while they represented the odour as a mere nothing in the way of unpleasantness. But these men pursued only known and, by them, beaten tracks at low water, avoiding any deviation, and so becoming but partially acquainted with the character and direction of the sewers, and had it been otherwise, they are not a class competent to describe what they saw, however keen-eyed, after silver spoons.

The following account is derived chiefly from official sources. I may premise that where the deposit is found the greatest, the sewer is in the worst state. This deposit, I find it repeatedly stated, is of a most miscellaneous character. Some of the sewers indeed are represented as the dustbins and dunghills of the immediate neighbourhood. The deposit has been found to comprise all the ingredients from the breweries, the gas works and the several chemical and mineral manufactories.

Dead dogs, cats, kittens and rats. Offal from slaughterhouses, sometimes even including the entrails of the animals. Street pavement dirt of every variety. Vegetable refuse. Stable dung.

The refuse of pigsties. Night soil. Ashes. Tin kettles and pans. panchards, broken stoneware as jars, pitchers, flowerpots, and so on, bricks, pieces of wood,

rotten mortar and rubbish of different kinds, and even rags. Our criminal annals of the previous century show that often enough the bodies of murdered men were thrown into the fleet and other ditches, then the open sewers of the metropolis, and if found washed into the Thames, they were so stained and disfigured by the foulness of the contents of these ditches that recognition was often impossible, so that there could be but one verdict returned,

found drowned. Clothes stripped from a murdered person have been, it was authenticated on several occasions in old Bailey evidence, thrown into the open sewer ditches, when torn and defaced, so that they might not supply evidence of identity. So close is the connection between physical filthiness in public matters and moral wickedness. The following particulars show the characteristics of the underground London of the sewers. The subterranean surveys were made after

the commissions were consolidated. Quote, An old sewer running between Great Smith Street and St. Anne Street, Westminster, is a curiosity among sewers. Although it is probably only one instance out of many similar constructions that will be discovered in the course of the subterranean survey. The bottom is formed of planks laid upon transverse timbers, 6 inches by 6 inches, about 3 feet apart. The size of the sewer varies in width from 2 to 6 feet, and from 4 to 5 feet in height.

The inclination of the bottom is very irregular. There are jumps up at two or three places, and it contains a deposit of filth averaging nine inches in depth, the sickening smelt from which escapes into the houses and yards that drain into it. In many places, the side walls have given way for lengths of ten and fifteen feet. Across this sewer, timbers have been laid, upon which the external wall of a workshop has been built.

The timbers are in a decaying state, and should they give way, the wall will fall into the sewer. End quote. From the further accounts of this survey, I find that a sewer from the Westminster workhouse, which was of all shapes and sizes, was in so wretched a condition that the leveller could scarcely work for the thick scum that covered the glasses of the spirit level in a few minutes

after being wiped. At the outfall into the Dean Street sewer, it is 3 feet 6 inches by 2 feet 8 inches for a short length. From the end of this, a wide sewer branches in each direction at right angles, 5 feet 8 inches by 5 feet 5 inches. Proceeding to the eastward about 30 feet, a chamber is reached about 30 feet in length, from the roof of which hangings of putrid matter like stalactites descend 3 feet in length.

At the end of this chamber, the sewer passes under the public privies, the ceilings of which can be seen from it. Beyond this, it is not possible to go. In the Lucas Street sewer, where a portion of new work begins and the old terminates, a space of about ten feet has been covered with boards,

which, having broken, a dangerous chasm has been caused immediately under the road. The West Street sewer had one foot of deposit. It was flushed while the levelling party was at work there, and the stream was so rapid that it nearly washed them away, instrument and all. There are further accounts of deposit, or of stagnant filth, in other sewers, varying from 6 to 14 inches, but that is insignificant compared to what follows. The foregoing, then, is the pith of the first authentic account which has appeared in print

of the actually surveyed condition of the subterranean ways, over which the superterranean tides of traffic are daily flowing. The account I have just given relates to the former Westminster and part of Middlesex district on the north bank of the Thames, as ascertained under the Metropolitan Commission.

I now give some extracts concerning a similar survey on the south bank, in different and distant directions in the district, once the Surrey and Kent. The Westminster and so on survey took place in 1848, the Kent and Surrey in 1849. In the one case, 72 miles of sewers were surveyed, in the other, 69 and a third miles. The surveyors in the Surrey and Kent sewers find great difficulty in levelling the sewers of this district.

I give the words of the report. for in the first place the deposit is usually about two feet in depth and in some cases it amounts to nearly five feet of putrid matter the smell is usually of the most horrible description the air being so foul that explosion and choke-damp are very frequent on the twelfth of january we were very nearly losing a whole party by choke damp the last man being dragged out on his back through two feet of black fetid deposits in a state of insensibility two men of one party had also a narrow escape from drowning in the alscot road sewer rotherouth the sewers on the surrey side are very irregular even where they are inverted they frequently have a number of steps and inclinations the reverse way

causing the deposit to accumulate in elongated cesspools it must be considered very fortunate that the subterranean parties did not first commence on the surrey side for if such had been the case we should most undoubtedly have broken down when compared with westminster the sewers are smaller and more full of deposit and bad as the smell is in the sewers in westminster it is infinitely worse on the surrey side several details are then given but they are only particulars of the general facts i have stated the following however are distinct facts concerning this branch of the subject in my inquiries among the working scavengers i often heard of their emptying street slop into sewers and the following extract shows that i was not misinformed The detritus from the macadamised roads frequently forms a kind of grouting in the sewers so hard that it cannot be removed without hand labour.

One of the sewers in Whitehall and another in Spring Gardens have from three to four feet of this sort of deposit, and another in Eaton Square was found filled up within a few inches of this soffit. But it is supposed that the scavengers emptied the road sweepings down the gully grate in this instance. And in other instances too, there is no doubt, especially at Charing Cross and the Regent Circus, Piccadilly. Concerning the sewerage of the most aristocratic parts of the city of Westminster,

and of the fashionable squares and so on to the north of Oxford Street, I glean the following particulars, reported in 1849. They show at any rate that the patrician quarters have not been unduly favoured, that there has been no partiality in the construction of the sewerage. In the Belgrave and Eton Square districts,

there are many faulty places in the sewers which abound with noxious matter, in many instances stopping up the house drains and smelling horribly. It is much the same in the Grosvenor, Hanover and Berkeley Square localities, the houses in the squares themselves included. also in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, Clare Market, Soho and Fitzroy Squares.

While north of Oxford Street, in and about Cavendish, Brinestone, Manchester and Portman Squares, there is so much rottenness and decay that there is no security for the sewers standing from day to day, and to flush them for the removal of their most loathsome deposit might be to bring some of them down altogether. One of the accounts of a subterranean survey concludes with the following rather curious statement.

is the seven dials, end quote. I may point out also that these very curious and authenticated accounts by no means bear out the zymotic doctrine of the Board of Health as to the cause of cholera, for where the zymotic influences from the sewers were the worst, in the patrician squares of what has been called Belgravia and Tibernia, the cholera was the least destructive. This, however, is no reason whatever why the stench should not be stifled. Of the house drainage of the metropolis

as connected with the sewers. Every house built or rebuilt since the passing of the Metropolitan Sewers Act in 1848 must be drained, with an exception which I shall specify, into a sewer. The law indeed divested of its technicalities is this. The owner of a newly erected house must drain it to a sewer, without the intervention of a cesspool, if there be a sewer within 100 feet of the site of the house, and if necessary, in places but partially built over, such owner must

continue the sewer along the premises, and make the necessary drain into it, all being done under the approval of the proper officer under the commissioners. If there be, however, an established sewer along the side, front or back of any house, a covered drain must be made into that, at the cost of the owner of the premises to be drained. Where a sewer, says the 46th section of the Act, shall already be made, and a drain only shall be required, the party is to have a contribution

towards the original expense of the sewer, if it shall have been made within 35 years before the 4th of September 1848, the contribution to be paid to the builder of the sewer. In cases where there shall be no sewer into which a drain could be made, the party must make a covered drain to lead into a cesspool or other place, not under a house, as the commissioners may direct. If the parties infringe this rule, the commissioners may do the work and throw the cost on them in the

nature of an improvement rate, or as charges for default, and levy the amount by distress. I mention these circumstances more particularly to show the extent and the far-continued ramification of the subterranean metropolis. I am assured by one of the largest builders in the western district of the capital that the new regulations as to the dispensing with cesspools are readily complied with as it is a recommendation which a house agent or anyone letting new premises is never slow to advance and when it's the truth he said they do it with a better grace

that there will be in the course of occupancy no annoyance and no expense incurred in the clearing away of cesspoolage. I shall at present describe only the house drainage, which is connected with the public sewerage. The old mode of draining a house separately into the cesspool of the premises will of course be described under the head of cesspoolage, and that old system is still very prevalent. At the times of passing both general and local acts concerning buildings, town improvements and extensions,

the erection of new streets and the removal of old, much has been said and written concerning better systems of ventilating, warming and draining dwelling houses. But until after the first outbreak of cholera in England in 1832, little public attention was given to the great drainage of all the sewers. however on the passing of the building and sanitary acts generally the authorities made many experiments not so much to improve the system of sewerage as of house drainage so as to make the dwelling-houses more wholesome and sweet

To effect this, the great object was the abolition of the cesspool system, under which filth must accumulate, and where, from scamped buildings or other causes, evaporation took place. The effects of the system were found to be vile and offensive, and have been pronounced miasmatic. Having just alluded to these matters, I proceed to describe the modernly adopted connection of house drainage and street sewerage. Experiments, as I have said, were set on foot under the auspices of public bodies,

and the opinions of eminent engineers, architects and surveyors were also taken. Their opinions seem really to be concentrated in the advocacy of one remedy, improved house drainage. And they appear to have agreed that the system which is at present adopted is, under the circumstances, the best that can be adopted. I was told also by an eminent practical builder, perfectly unconnected with any official or public body,

and indeed often at issue with surveyors and so on, that the new system was unquestionably a great improvement in every respect, and that some years before its adoption as at present, he had abetted such a system, and had carried it into effect when he could properly do so. I will first show the mode and then the cost of the new system.

I find it designated back, front, tubular and pipe house drainage, and all with the object of carrying off all faeces, soil water, cesspool matter and so on, before it has had time to accumulate. It is not by brick or other drains of masonry that the system is carried out or is recommended to be carried out,

but by means of tubular earthenware pipes, and for any efficient carrying out of the projected improvement, a system of constant, and not as at present intermittent, supply of water from the several companies would be best. These pipes communicate with the nearest sewer. The pipes in the tubular drainage are of red earthenware or stoneware pot. The use of earthenware, clay, or pot pipes for the conveyance of liquids is very ancient. Mr. Stewart, a bleacher in Paisley,

in a statement to the Board of Health mentioned that clay pipes were used in ancient times. King Hezekiah, second book of Kings chapter 20 and second book of Chronicles chapter 32, brought in water from Jerusalem. His pool and conduit, said Mr. Stewart, are still to be seen. The conduit is three feet square inside, built of free stone, strongly cemented. The stone, 15 inches thick, evidently intended to sustain a considerable pressure.

And I have seen pipes of clay, taken by a friend from a house in the ruins of the ancient city, of one inch bore, and about seven inches in diameter, proving evidently, to my mind, that ancient Jerusalem was supplied with water on the principle of gravitation. The pools or reservoirs are also at this day in tolerably good order, one of them still filled with water,

the other broken down in the centre, no doubt by some besieging enemy, to cut off the supply to the city. The new system to supply the place of the cesspools is a combined, while the old is principally a separate, system of house drainage.

But the new system is equally available for such separate drainage. As regards the success of this system, the reports say experiments have been tried in so large a number of houses under such varied, and in many cases disadvantageous, circumstances that no doubts whatsoever can remain in the minds of competent and disinterested persons as to the efficient self-cleansing action of well-adjusted tubular drains and sewers

even without any additional supplies of water. Mr. Loveck says, A great number of small 4-inch tubular drains have been laid down in the several districts, some for considerable periods. They have been found to keep themselves clear by the ordinary soil and drainage waters of the houses.

I have no doubt that pipes of this kind will keep themselves clear by the ordinary discharge of house drainage, assuming, of course, a supply of water, pipes of good form, and materials properly laid, and with fair usage. One of the earliest illustrations of the tubular system, it is stated in a report of the Board of Health, was given in the improved drainage of a block of houses in the cloisters of Westminster, which had been the seat of a severe epidemic fever.

The cesspools and the old drains were filled up, and an entire system of tubular drainage and sewerage substituted for the service of that block of houses. The Dean of Westminster, in a letter on the state of this drainage, says, I beg to report to the commissioners that the success of the entire new pipe drainage laid down in St. Peter's College during the last 12 months has been complete.

I consider this experiment on drainage and sewage of about 15 houses to afford a triumphant proof of the efficacy of draining by pipes and of the facility of dispensing entirely with cesspools and brick sewers. Up to this time they have acted and continue to act perfectly. Mr. Morris, a surveyor attached to the Metropolitan Sewers Commission,

gives the following account of the action of trial works of improved house drainage. Quote, I have introduced the new four-inch tubular house drains into some houses for the trustees of the parish of Poplar, with water closets, and have received no just cause of complaint.

In every instance where I have applied it, I found the system answer extremely well. if a sufficient quantity of water has been used. The answer of the householders as to the effect of the new drainage has invariably been that they and their families have been better in health, that they were formerly annoyed with smells and effluvia,

from which they are now quite free. Since the new drainage has been laid down, there has been only occasion to go on the ground to examine it once for the whole year, and that was from the inefficiency of the water service. It was found that rags had been thrown down and had got into the pipe, and further that very little water had been used,

so that the stoppage was the fault of the tenant, not of the system. Mr. Gotto, the engineer, having stated that in a plan for the improvement of Galston Street, Whitechapel, not only was the removal of all cesspools contemplated, but also the substitution of water-closet apparatus, gave the following estimate of the cost, provided the pipes were made and the work done

by contract under the commissioners of sewers. Water closet apparatus and so on. Emptying and so on cesspool, 12 shillings. Digging and so on for 8 feet pipe drain at fourpence, two shillings eightpence.

Making good to walls and floor of water closet over drain at threepence, two shillings. 8ft run of 4-inch pipes at 3pence, 2 shillings Laying ditto at tuppence, 1 shilling 4pence Extra for junction, 4pence

Fixing ditto, tuppence Water closet apparatus with stool cock, 10 shillings Fixing ditto, 2 shillings Contingencies, 10%, 3 shilling 6pence The yard sink and drain would cost 11 shillings tuppence. Kitchen sink and drain 15 shillings

7 pence halfpenny. So that the cost of back draining one house including water closet would be 3 pounds 2 shillings 9 pence halfpenny. The front tubular drainage of a similar house with 15 yards of carriageway to be paved would cost 6 pounds 2 shillings 7 pence halfpenny or the drainage would cost, according to the old system, £11.13.11. The engineering witnesses, who have given their special attention to the subject, state the Board of Health, in commenting on the

information I have just cited, affirm that upon the improved system of combined works, the expense of the apparatus in substitution of cesspools would not greatly exceed one-half the expense of cleaning the cesspools. The engineers have calculated, stating the difficulty of coming to a nice calculation, that the present system of cesspools entailed an average expenditure, for cleansing and repairs, of fourpence a week on each householder, and that by the new system

it would be but a penny and three farthings. The Board of Health's calculations, however, are, I regret to say, always dubious. The subjoined scale of the difference in cost was prepared at the instance of the board. Mr. Grant took four blocks of houses for examination, and the results are given as a guide to what would be the general expenditure if the change took place.

In one block of 44 houses, the length of drains by back drainage was 1,544 feet, Cost exclusive of pans, traps and water in both cases of back drainage £83.12 or £1.18 per house Cost of separate tubular drainage £467.09 or £10.12 per house

Cost of separate brick drains 910 pounds 19 shillings or 20 pounds 14 shillings and a penny per house. In another block of 23 houses, the length of back drains was 783 feet, of separate drains 1,437 feet. The cost of back tubular drains 45 pounds 12 shillings sixpence or 1 pound 19 In another block of 46 houses, the length of back drainage

1,143 ft. Ditto by separate ditto, 1,892 ft. The cost of back tubular drainage, £66.05 tuppence, or £1.08 9 pence 3 farthings per house. Ditto of separate ditto ditto, £178.09 8 pence, or £3.17 10 pence per house. Ditto of separate brick ditto, 390 pounds 4 shillings or 8 pounds 9 shillings 8 pence per house. In a fourth block of 46 houses, the length of back drains 985 feet.

Ditto of separate ditto 2,913 feet. Cost of back tubular drainage 66 pounds 8 shillings tuppence or 1 pound 8 shillings 10 pence ha'penny per house. Ditto of separate ditto ditto, 262 pounds 11 shillings 7 pence, or 5 pounds 14 shillings tuppence per house. Ditto of separate brick ditto, 614 pounds 16 shillings threepence, or 13 pounds 7 shillings threepence and 3 farthings per house.

I have mentioned the diversity of opinion as to the best form, and even material, for a sewer. and there is the same diversity as to the material, and so on, for house and gully or street drainage, more especially in the pipes of the larger volume. The pipe drainage of any description is far less in favour than it was. One reason is that it does not promote subsoil drainage.

Another is the difficulty of repairs if the joints or fittings of pipes require mending, and then the combination of the noxious gases is most offensive in its exhalations and difficult to overcome. I was informed by a nightman, used to the cleansing of drains and to night work generally, that when there was any escape from one of the tubular pipes, the stench was more intense than any he had ever before experienced from any drains on the old system.

End of section 72