438 -: KEPORT— 1873. 



An Ahstract of the Four MepoHs already presented to the Association hy the 

 Committee. Prepared for the Committee by Professor Coefield. 



In the following Abstract of the four Eeports already presented to the 

 Association by the Committee, I have thoiight it best to bring together the 

 results of the Committee's investigations under a few heads ; so that each 

 division of the subject may appear in the Abstract complete in itself, and not 

 split up into portions, as would have been the case had each Report been 

 abstracted separately. 



I. Conservancy Plans. 



A series of Eeports " from foreign countries respecting the practices pre- 

 vailing abroad for disposing of the refuse of towns, villages, public institutions, 

 factories, dwellings, &c., and having reference to the sanitary condition of the 

 dLstricts in which they are situated, the state of rivers, or the support and 

 increase of the produce of the soil," was obtained by. the Committee from Her 

 Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department ; and from these it 

 appeared " that in most cases (both in town and country places) the use of 

 privies is very general, water-closets being rare even in large towns, and 

 that the usual method of dealing with human excreta is to allow them to 

 collect in pits (Abtrittsgruben, fosses), which aro sometimes drained either 

 naturally ;by the permeable character of the soil, or artificially, so that most 

 or all of the licpid portion of the contents of the pits flows away or infiltrates 

 the surrounding soil." (lleport I. 1869, pp. 318-321.) 



Information was also obtained from 107 places in the United Kingdom, 

 Laving an aggregate population of more than four millions. It was found 

 that in 42 of these the privy and ash-pit system was general, and in 25 

 partial ; while in 71 places out of the 107 the liquid refuse of the town was 

 discharged into the adjoining stream or river, and in two instances into pools 

 of water. (Ecport I. p.. 32.5.) 



In the Second Ecport the returns from 200 towns, " recording the existing 

 arrangements of water-supply, sewerage, scaveiigering, and disposal of 

 refuse," are tabulated — the result being that there were 70 of these towns 

 where " privies very greatly exceed water-closets in number," and 75 in which 

 " privies are still raueh used," (Eeport II. 1870, p. 53.) 



Privies, both in England and abroad, were found to be frequently built 

 over rivers (Eeport I. pp. 318-321, and Eeport II. p. 59) ; and in some towns 

 many houses are without any provision whatever for the removal of the 

 excremental matters. 



It was found that in only two instances in England, and one in Scotland, 

 was any profit derived "from the sale of ashes and excretal and other 

 solid refuse," the losses of some towns being considerable (Eeport II. 

 p. 55). The Committee specially investigated the ash-pit system as carried 

 out at the town o£ Eury in Lancashire, for two reasons — " because it is a 

 town where it may be said there are no water-closets," and because " the 

 almost total absence of water-closets " would enable the Committee, by exa- 

 mining the liquid escape into, and discharge from, the sewers, to judge whether 

 any of the proposed methods of intercepting fsaeeal matter from the sewers 

 (such, for instance, as the earth-closet) would in themselves be either a solu- 

 tion of the great sewage question, or even one considerable step towards it. 



It was found that the privy accommodation of the lower classes of houses 

 was very insufficient— that the removal of the mixed night-soil was found to 

 be difficult and expensive, so that the quantity obtained from the whole 

 town only realized ^100 per annum— and that, in spite of the fact that bo 



