156 DR. R. .iNGUS SMITH ON 



savage up to the refined inhabitant of Paris, all classes of 

 people have made use of it. Simple as it is to begin with, 

 the structure of cities no sooner becomes complex than this 

 system becomes (complex too. Space becomes of great value, 

 and the places for deposit in towns cannot be spared. Time 

 becomes of great value, and workmen to remove the refuse 

 are expensive; distance from the fields increases, and the 

 difficulties as well as the nuisance of the removal increase 

 with it. 



The simplicity of the plan then ceases. Either a large 

 space must be occupied with the refuse in the town, as with 

 us ; or a small space frequently emptied, as at Paris. In the 

 first case, we have a city with a row of ashpits and recep- 

 tacles of soil equal in length with the rows of our houses, 

 covering a large per centage of the ground of our towns, and 

 accumulating enormous amounts of impure matter. In the 

 second,' we have a house subject to unwholesome inconve- 

 niences, far exceeding, certainly, all that we suffer here, the 

 want of space confining it to the house, and the removals 

 being uncomfortably frequent. The simplicity is .lost from 

 another cause also, the labour has become one which re- 

 quires great skill to prevent discomfort and disease, whilst 

 the whole plan itself, if we judge from results in Paris, is 

 obliged to give way at last and seek the assistance of the 

 second method alluded to — the use of conveyance in tubes by 

 means of water. 



Under the most refined management of this system in 

 Paris the refuse is conveyed into dry closets, as they may be 

 called, having no water to wash down the soil, which is con- 

 veyed either into a moveable cylinder of zinc or into a cesspool 

 in the cellar. If a moveable cylinder is used, it is at once 

 conveyed away by carts, the more liquid part flowing away 

 by an overflow pipe, the solid remaining. If the cesspool is 

 used, it is emptied once or twice a year by means of a pump. 

 The deposit, which is of the thickness of very wet mud, is 



