Ja\. 9, 18S3.) 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



20 



Words to civilised people are the signs of thoughts or ideas, 

 but to the savage they are the sigus of things, as it were, 

 the coins that can be easily carried about from place to 

 place and exchanged, instead of bearing the burden of the 

 things themselves. The civilised application has been 

 gradually evolved from the savage usage. Language is, at 

 the same time, the outcome and the condition of civilisa- 

 tion, and its development is at every stage suited to the 

 meutiU status of the people who use it. Hence, conversely, 

 the mental power of an individual or of a nation can be 

 gauged by the capabilities of the language employed. 



CHAPTERS OX MODERN DOMESTIC 

 ECOXO:\IY. 



X.— THE FUAMEWORK OF THE DWELLING-HOUSE. 

 GEKERA.L PRINCIPLES OF CONSTRUCTION — {continued). 



IN continuation of our notices of the typical examples 

 which attest to the utility of the earth and ash systems 

 for dealing with house-refuse, we may allude, in the third 

 place, to local large gatherings of protracted duration, such 

 as milirary camps, A-c. ; and here we are able once more to 

 quote from the decision of high authority. Dr. Buchanan's 

 remarks upon the question, with respect to the sanitary 

 management of Wimbledon Cauip, are worth wliile 

 transcribing in this place, as illustrative of the case in 

 point. He says :* — " In forming an opinion on this point, 

 I have followed, as being the most trustworthy guide, 

 the judgment of Surgeon-ilajor Wyatt. This gentleman, 

 the principal medical officer of the camp since 1865, 

 has had large experience, iiiider varied conditions of the 

 circumstances affecting the health of camps, and knows well 

 how to estimate the value of the latrine arrangements used 

 therein. He writes, in reference to the first use of e:irth- 

 closets at Wimbledon in l6G8 : 'With the exception of 

 two days, nothing could have been more satisfactory than 

 the working of the earth closets, although, on account of 

 the unprecedented amount of diarrhrea (of which more 

 immediately), they were in unusual demand.' And with 

 regard to their use in 1869, he says : 'During this meet- 

 ing a better surveillance of the closets has been insisted 

 on, and they have been used to an enormous extent by the 

 vast concourse of people assembled ; but I have henrd no 



complaint of any want of deodorisation I can 



safely venture to affirm that this campis, of all places, perhaps 

 the most suitable for thoroughly testing the value of this 

 important sanitary invention, which has well borne the 

 ordeal.' Further, Captain Marvin Drake, commanding 

 Royal Engineers at Wimbledon, states : ' I consider the 

 dry-earth closet the best system known for military 

 latrines, when a supply of suitable earth is obtainable. 

 .... In 1868, at Wimbledon, a sour smell was per- 

 ceived, which was found to proceed from the peat earth, 

 the fibrous portions of which had fermented with the great 



heat The vaults of the closets should be lined with 



brick, in cement, asphalte, or other water-tight lining.' 

 The testimony of those who had experience of the 

 earth-closets at Wimbledon is, indeed, almost unani- 

 mously in their favour, and the strongest expressions of 

 satisfaction come from those who best know from actual 

 service how great are the difficulties in safely disposing of 

 the excrement of camps." 



Our next type concerns the applicability of the system 

 to villages; and here, again, the medical offieer of the Privy 

 Council brings the process to most favourable notice with 



* Appendix to the 12th Beport of the Medical Officer of the 

 Privy Coancil, September, 1870. 



regard to Hal'.on and Aston Clinton, wlu re the jilan ha 1 

 been for three and a half years in operation. lie found 

 that the system fully substantiated all its claims to bo re- 

 garded as of the first sanitary importance, and instances 

 the good value (.£;! per ton), received for the excellent 

 agricultural coinniodity it allbrdod. 



All this time we have sjioken in terms conoerning the 

 eartii and ash systems as though they were synonymous. 

 Strictly speaking, however, they are not so, although they 

 may be regarded as of equivalent value, and in the fol- 

 lowing way : — Dry earth, of a loamy nature, and finely 

 sifted, may, durinsr the present state of allairs, be procured 

 in abundance in every village or country town, witliout any 

 very great expenditure or inconvenience ; and tlu; product 

 of its admixture with excrement is, if anything, but slightly 

 superior to the analogous use of pure aslies. On the other 

 hatid, whilst ashes are but slightly inferior to Sjiccially dried 

 and sifted loamy earth, which cannot at present lie procured 

 in largo towns readily and to any cxteJit within reasonable 

 cost, they (the ashes) constitute a waste product which must 

 be got rid of somehow or another, and especiidly daring the 

 wintry months, when their production is at a maximum, 

 and when they are alone adequate to the demands of each 

 ca.se. Thus the two ))roccsses, which ai'c of slightly unequal 

 value when thtir individual attributes of supply, demand, 

 and utility are taken into account, become almost exactly 

 equivalent in the sum total of their benefits to man. Enf 

 iitodus in rebus is an old motto, which finds forcible ex- 

 pression here. A combination of the earth with the ash 

 meets every want of the sanitary inspector and domestic 

 econoiniser, and we are glad to find that firms of such high 

 standing as Moule it Co., The Sanitary Applianca Com- 

 pany, and tbe Corporation of Manchester, fully recognise 

 the value of the combination. 



This leads us to our ultimate type, viz , the application of 

 the system to towns and large cities ; and here the question 

 becomes one of almost national importance and of great 

 interest to the philosophical economist, inasmuch as all the 

 pros and conn admit of a kind of history of evolution in the 

 rise and progress of a system of rational reform which is 

 destined to become one of the most remarkable triumphs of 

 the coming age. It is now some years since the initial step 

 was taken in the Midlands of England to improve upon the 

 old-fashioned form of cesspools. We have already adverted 

 to the divergent hydraulic method, which proceeded from 

 the same source, and has culminated in the vast network of 

 expensive and inadequate sewers of Lot don. The neigh- 

 bouring and clo-ely allied outgrowth is still manifest in 

 Birmingham, and is of even more recent development than 

 the last-mentioned sy.stem ; there wo find the " pail .system," 

 or tlie removal of etl'ete matters, pure and simple, without 

 any previous treatment whatsoever. It is very much in 

 advance of cesspools of long duration, but is open to serious 

 objection on the score of even partial inattention on the 

 part of the public servants, whose neglect of duty is mostly 

 occasioneil by refractory and ignorant tenants of the anti- 

 vaccination class, which causes it to relapse into the olden 

 obnoxious form. In the suburbs of Birmingham, the 

 houses are provided with vaults for the reception of excre- 

 ment, itc, which only too often are allowed to run to riot. 

 In the town itself, instances are not wanting to show that 

 the " pail-.system " is not rigorously compulsory, as it ought 

 to be, and that tlie open-pail, frequented by numerous 

 inhabitants, is often a source of foul exhalations and a con- 

 sequent insalubrious condition of things. Then, too, 

 although this has largely supplanted the water system, the 

 latter, nevertheless, holds a fiartial sway, and, strange to 

 say, in the more modern establisliiaents and better class of 

 buildings in the city, only to find a corrective in expensive 



