204 Manchester : its Sanitary and Social State. [April, 



earth, nor is carried off by evaporation ? It enters the sewers, and 

 is by them conveyed to the rivers or smaller streams, the main 

 drains of Manchester. Of these the smaller, such as the Tib, 

 Shooter's-Brook, and the Corn-Brook, are, during the greater part 

 of their course, arched over, and as, in common with the artificial 

 sewers, these natural ones are never* flushed except by the rain, and 

 as none of either class is ventilated, the gases generated in them 

 frequently enter the houses, unless there be most careful trapping. 

 The consequence of this was recently very forcibly shown. A 

 portion of the Corn-Brook, about a quarter of a mile in length, 

 had, until last summer, remained open. It was covered in, and in 

 the course of a few weeks several cases of typhoid fever, and some 

 of obstinate diarrhoea, appeared in the neighbouring houses. 



The rivers, beside the fluid drained from the ashpits, receive 

 the sewage from the comparatively few water-closets, and from the 

 public urinals, as well as from the slaughterhouses, pigsties, and 

 manufactories of all kinds, including the gasworks. Of the com- 

 pound thus formed no description will convey an accurate concep- 

 tion. It must be seen and smelt. And were it rapidly carried off 

 the evil might be less. But it is not ; the movement of the water, 

 always necessarily slow, from the winding course of the streams, 

 is still further impeded by weirs, which cause the more bulky solid 

 portions of the sewage to be deposited. 



And now what becomes of the solid contents of the middens ? 

 In the middle of every night gangs of men, each provided with a 

 cart and a wheelbarrow, turn out, and before morning empty a 

 certain number of the pits. This work is done at irregular times, 

 and apparently with very little system. Much depends on the 

 rate at which the pits become full, much on the urgency and fre- 

 quency of the messages to the nightsoil department, something 

 also on the social position of the individual householders, and their 

 ability to make their complaints of inattention heard, or, it is even 

 said, their willingness to " tip " the nightsoil men. 



As this work is done in the night-time, the people, unless they 

 chance to be awake, are not conscious of it. But they are reminded 

 of it in the morning. The soil is conveyed by wheelbarrows, along 

 the passages which run between the rows of houses, into the nearest 

 street, is there laid upon the pavement, where it undergoes a process 

 of sorting, by which what is likely to be useful as manure is sepa- 

 rated from the broken pots, coarser cinders, and other rubbish. 

 The " manure " is carefully removed in carts ; the " rubbish " is 

 sometimes to be seen lying in the street in the middle of the fore- 

 noon, with, of course, much of the manure adhering to it. But 



* Until within the last few years the sewers were ventilated by grated openings 

 in the streets ; stench-traps have, however, been substituted, with, of course, the 

 effect of driving the gases generated into the houses. 



