I 



I 



INTRODUCTION 7 



were no catch-pits in the City of London except to gullies 

 connected to small pipe-sewers ; now, however, nearly all street 

 gullies are formed with catch-pits, which are emptied at intervals 

 by iron spoons and the contents transferred to mud-carts. The 

 chief points to be attended to in these street gullies are : 

 (i) Sufficiency in number and capacity to carry off all surface 

 water. (2) They must not be easily choked, and should be 

 readily cleared. (3) They should be of sufficient capacity to 

 retain sand and road detritus, and should offer the least possible 

 obstruction to traffic. (4) Effectual trapping to prevent the 

 escape of sewer gas. 



The wet mud from gullies occasions great difficulty in dealing 

 with town refuse. Economically, it would seem preferable to 

 rush all sewage down without deposition, except detritus, and 

 treat it collectively at the sewage works. In some towns faeces 

 and a certain amount of urine are removed by scavenging, after 

 being deposited in privies, cesspools, or dry closets. 



The methods in which refuse matters are kept for a time, as 

 opposed to those in which they are got rid of as soon as pos- 

 sible by water-carriage, are classed together as " conservancy 

 systems." In the country, privies, middens, and cesspools were 

 formerly almost universal, and official reports, even up to the 

 present, give striking details of the state of some of our villages 

 and townships in this particular. In some cases water-carriage 

 is crudely attempted by building the wooden closets over a 

 running stream, which is used by inhabitants for drinking and 

 washing lower down. 



By-laws, such as that the privy must be a certain distance 

 from dwellings, or from any well, spring, or stream, with certain 

 provisos as to construction and cleansing, have been found to 

 be frequently inoperative, as, in the words of a sanitar}' officer, 

 "it is difficult to persuade an owner to spend sufficient money 

 to build a proper privy. He tells you that the property does 

 not pay, and he would prefer to close the houses." Conse- 

 quently, in settlements built on alluvial ground or porous 

 gravel the soil is frequently saturated with sewage and the wells 

 heavily polluted, resulting at intervals in epidemics and in a 

 general unhealthy state, especially in the children. 



As an example of detail, the regulations enacted in 1899 ^Y 

 the Massachusetts Water Board prescribe a limit of " 50 feet 

 from high-water mark of any lake, pond, reservoir, stream, 

 ditch, watercourse, or other open waters used as a source, or 



