316 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[August, 



of a great nuniljer of tenements in that district not being drained, arise from 

 tlie nature of the rrgulations which have been laid down by the Commis- 

 sioners ? It arises from the want of sewers within reach. In many places, 

 the water lies above ground for the length of half a mile. — There is no under- 

 ground sewage, and yet those houses have to pay sewer rate .' Yes. — Ilow 

 long have the owners' of that property paid rates ? I am now GO years of 

 aqe, and 1 recollect that district ever since I was U. From that period they 

 have paid sewer rale.- — .\nd no sewage has been carried up to the houses .' 

 None whatever. — Have you any evidence as to the previous payment of sewer 

 rate on that same property before your ow u recollection ? It is understood 

 to have been paid for the last two centuries. 



Communication or Entry of Sewers. 



In consequence of the present ill-managed system, even where sewers 



cxi<'t, drains are not carried into them from private houses, a very serious 



evil. Mr. Eeeli, of the Tower Hamlets, says — Have the Commissioners the 



power lo enforce a communication with the sewer where there is one .' No. 



You may have a sewer opposite to any of those poorer dwellings, and yet 



people may not avail themselves of it ? Yes. — Is lliat the case in other parts 

 of the district ? Yes; in Kosemary-lane we have put in a sewer 1,500 feet 

 in length, and there have been but ten communications. We have put in a 

 sewer in Globe-lane, where many complaints were made, and I should say 

 there have not been 30 communications made in the 0,000 feet of that sewer. 

 Mr. Roc — The drains communicate with the sewer two feet from the 

 bottom. — AVlicn there is a new district to be built over, which of course will 

 require drainage, what are the rules and regulations with regard to carrying 

 up a sewer from the main sewer; have the Commissioners the power to com- 

 pel the builder to carry a sewer ? They have not ; the old law of sewers 

 only authorizes the maintaining of sewers. 



On the Canonbury estate, which was lately let for building, provision was 

 made for the sewage, without malting sewers in the lines of the public 

 streets, by recci)tacles for sewage, without any communication from them. 

 The Fonn'dling Hospital estate was leased for the builders to make sewers, 

 t .e Coiumissiuncrs having no control over them. When they were made, 

 these persons a|iplied to the Commissioners for leave to communicate with 

 the existing sewers ; the Commissioners then exercised their authority by 

 saying, " No ; these sewers are inadequately built ; therefore we will not 

 s iffer them to communicate." That is the only power the Commissioners 

 c in exercise, namely, not suffering the communication. The inhabitants, of 

 course, applied for relief, and ultimately the directors of the Foundling Hos- 

 pital came to the Commissioners. The answer was, " Gentlemen, you have 

 suffered these sewers to be made by builders in a very improper way ; there- 

 fore we cannot sutfer them to communicate, for we shall have them to re- 

 build in the course of two or three years." The question then was, w hat was 

 to he done.' It was at length agreed that the whole of the sewers on the 

 Foundling estate should be surveyed; thosethat were good should be allowed 

 to stand, and the Commissioners woidd take to them; those that were not, 

 shonUl he rebuilt. That was the condition of the communication taking 

 place. The Foundling estate adopted that method, and the whole of that 

 estate is now drained as well as any other part of the division. — When once 

 you admit a range of collateral sewers to communicate with yours, you un- 

 deitake the repairs? I am afraid that we are bound; we have no alterna- 

 tive. 



Mr. Hertskt, of the Westminster Commission— Are there many houses 

 which do not drain into your sewers ? A great many. The greater part of 

 Druiy-lane, where we lately made a large sewer, does not drain into it, 

 though we gave notice at the houses on each side of the formation of the 

 sewer. Directly they find they have so much per foot frontage to pay, they 

 will not apply ; the tenant says it is not his business, we may go to his land- 

 lord ; and the landlord says it is time enough to see about it when the lease 

 ii out. — That applies to the expense of making the sewer; but do not they 

 o'lject, when the sewer is made, to lock into it in some instances ? Yes, in 

 S)me instances they object to the trifling expense of carrying the drain from 

 the sewers to the liouse. — Are there cases in which they object to the ex- 

 pense of making any sewer, and others in which they object to making a 

 drain to the sewer, even when made ? Yes ; but there are comparatively 

 but few cases of the latter kind, when the mere expense of the drain is in 

 question. Are there parties who neglect locking into the sewers, though the 

 sewers are near them ? There are. 



Mr. Drew, of the Surrey and Kent— What have been the number of appli- 

 cations for permission to drain private houses during each of the the last ten 

 years? From March 1833 to 

 March 1834 ... 



1835 . . . 



1836 . . . 



1837 . . . 



1838 . . . 

 Many of these were for the drainage of more than a single house. 



Houses Using the s.^me Drain. 



Connected with the last subject is that of the propriety of more than one 

 house using the same drain. It has long been felt as an oppressive regula- 

 tion, that under all circumstances by most of the commissions it has been 

 enforced that each house shall have a distinct barrel-drain. Mr. Cresy, C. E. 

 states— At Rutland Gate, at Knightsbridge, where I had to construct two 



sewers in the same piece of ground, one was a two-feet-six sewer, and the 

 other a three-feet sewer. I had the laying out of a piece of ground at Rut- 

 land Gate, and I petitioned to have one sewer, thinking that would be suffi- 

 cient to drain the houses on both sides of it. The Commissioners refused to 

 give me leave to build one sewer, and obliged me to build two; and conse- 

 quently I was at the additional expense of 1000/. to construct it. After it 

 was done they refused to give me an outlet, and that occasioned considerable 

 difficulty to us and involved us in litigation, and expenses to the amount of 

 nearly 1000/. were incurred : afterwards the matter was referred to arbitra- 

 tion, and the arbitrator decided that we should have a communication with 

 the sewer, and we had a communication with the sewer under the arbitrator's 

 decision. — You state that those drains are two feet six, and three feet. Do 

 you tbird< that smaller drains than those may be often available, and equally 

 useful for the purpose of going between rows of houses of the humbler 

 class ? Certainly, and in the Borough district that has been permitted. In 

 draining Southv\ark-square, the drains are collected at the backs of the 

 houses, into a drain of that kind, and afterwards carried into the main sewer; 

 seven, eight, nine or ten of them draining by means of an 18-inch barrel- 

 drain. 



Mr. Drew confirms the practice of the Surrey and Kent Commission, who 

 allow three houses to join together, and so let their water come in through 

 one barrel-drain, from which no evil accrues. 



Fees for Entering. 

 These form another grievance. The charge will bs found in a table ap- 

 pended to this article. 



Tile and Pipe Drains. 



As a means of remedying the serious evil of the cost of drains, the utility 

 of tiles or pipes was seriously canvassed. Mr. W. D. Guthrie states, "To 

 suppose any system of flushing would be efficient or perfect, where attention 

 is iiaid to 'the common or main sewers alone, while the short connecting 

 drains from houses are left entirely uninfluenced by the body of water, which 

 mav be passed along the main, would be as absurd as to suppose that perfect 

 surface cleanliness of a large town had been eft'ected because dirt and mud had 

 been removed from the face of the principal streets and thoroughfares, whilst 

 narrow streets, courts, and alleys, were entirely neglected.— The mode of 

 flushing wh^ch he thinks superior to any system yet in operation may be thus 

 shortly described: presuming that the existing defects in private drains have 

 been remedied by the substitution of strong tubes of small calibre, and pre- 

 suming that there is an arrangement in each tenement for carrying oft' the 

 soil bv water, then all that is necessary to secure perfect cleanliness is to 

 erect a water tank or reservoir, of dimensions suited to each individual case, 

 in such a situation that its contents, when suddenly evacuated, may sweep 

 the whole length of the private sewer, filling completely its interior, and 

 thereby etfectuallv carrviug every impurity before it on to the street or com- 

 mon sewer. Houses having water laid on need not he subjected to additional 

 water-rates for a snppiv to its flushing tank, for if the rain water were con- 

 ducted to it in the maiinei represented in this diagram, the purposes of flush- 

 iuE would be perfectly attained. 



Let the water from the roof enter the cistern at A, as represented in the 

 woodcut. Should the fall of rain be greater than the cistern is calculated to 

 contain the surplus mav be carried oft" by the waste-pipe C, on which a valve 

 of simple construction should be placed to prevent the elHuvia rising from 

 the drain tube D D. The flushing operation is eft'ected by suddenly depress, 

 inc the lever B, thereby elevating the plug P at the apex of the conical reser- 

 voir the whole contents of which would immediately rush out with such 

 force as to sweep everything through the house drains on to the main. 



