322 REPORT— 1869. 



servoirs are frequently ventilated by means of shafts rising above the house- 

 tops. Fixed reservoirs are used in Carlsruhe, Ostend, Antwerp, Strasburg, 

 Berlin, Dresden. 



Portable reservoirs are used in Gratz, Dresden,L eipzig, Strasburg, Berlin, 

 Paris. Generally the contents of pits and of fixed or portable reservoirs are 

 used as manure. In some cases each householder pays for the removal of 

 excretal refuse, in others the contents of pits and reservoirs are sold. At 

 some places the town authorities pay for the removal of the refuse and 

 street-sweepings. Thus in Carlsruhe, a town with about 25,000 inhabitants 

 and 1400 houses, about ,£500 a year is paid to the contractor for this service, 

 and the contractor sells the manure. 



Sometimes a town derives some return from the excretal and other refuse 

 removed and used as manure. In the town of Groningen the yearly profit 

 amounts to about ^1600, in Antwerp it is ^2700, at Ostend =£700. In Stras- 

 burg the cost of removal is only just covered by the sale of the manure. The 

 sale of the refuse from the barracks at Carlsruhe, where 2800 men were 

 quartered, has realized a'profit of ,£300 a year, and the attendant expenses 

 amounted to about =£40 a year. 



According to experience in the neighbourhood of Berne, Basle, Munich, 

 Zurich, Ghent, and other towns where excretal refuse is removed and used 

 as manure, there is always a profit realized after payment of the cost of 

 removal and transport ; and it appears to be considered probable that the 

 expense attending this system would be reduced by the adoption of portable 

 reservoirs. In some other towns the cost of removal and transport exceeds 

 the return ; thus, in Stockholm, with a population of about 150,000, the 

 expenditure amounts to £35,000 a year, and the income derived from the sale 

 of the refuse as manure is £33,000 a year. 



In Hamburg there is an extensive system of sewerage, and in a large part 

 of the town the excreta are removed by water-carriage through sewers. In 

 Brussels, Paris, Lausanne, and Lugano the water-carriage system is also 

 more or less adopted in some form adapted to local conditions. However, 

 in the two latter towns water-closets are but rarely used, and in Basle likewise 

 the privies are situated so as to discharge into the Ehine, or into one of its 

 tributaries. In the case of Hamburg the water of the Elbe is stated to be 

 much polluted by the discharge of sewage, but without any apparent serious 

 influence on health. However, statistics furnished by the Secretary to the 

 Hamburg Board of Health show that the rate of mortality has kept pace with 

 the increase of population. In 1840, before the construction of the sewerage, 

 the population was 137,000, with a mortality of 28 per thousand. In 1848 

 the population was 148,000, with a mortality of 22 per thousand ; in 1859 

 the population was 174,000, with a mortality of 26 per thousand ; and in 

 1866 the population was 195,000, with a mortality of 28 per thousand. 



The general purport of the communications received from foreign countries 

 is to show that the question as to the means by which excretal refuse may be 

 disposed of and removed from dwellings, villages, and towns, so as to prevent 

 nuisance or evil consequences as regards the sanitary condition of the locality, 

 is, at least, quite as much an open and disputed question as it is in this 

 country. In these documents there is abundant evidence that, wherever the 

 subject has been considered, there is a strong, though vague sense of the 

 injury to health resulting from the accumulation of excretal materials in pits 

 &c. within populous districts, by the impregnation of the soil, by the pol- 

 lution of rivers and well-water with drainage from such accumulations, or 

 from the discharge of excretal materials into watercourses directly or indi- 



