Village Sanitary Economy. 
241 
hardly a proper criterion : for as long as any portion of dele- 
terious or fertilising matter is retained in the effluent liquid 
discharged into our rivers we fail of complete success, short of 
which we ought not to stop. 
Abstaining from all comment upon the imperfect methods 
already before the public for filtration, precipitation, and other 
modes of separation, and confining our present view to the 
comparative value and suitability of earth and water as a 
vehicle for the removal of village refuse, it will be well to state 
briefly the advantages and disadvantages of each, and the con- 
ditions under which the one may be preferred to the other. To 
put the matter in a clear light, the proportion which the ex- 
cretal bears to the whole refuse of dwellings should be stated. 
^Vith the moderate daily supply of 10 gallons of water per head 
— assuming village communities to obtain such an advantage — 
tlie average quantity of refuse passing down the sewers, exclu- 
sive of surface and subsoil water, will amount to about 100 lbs. 
per head daily. In this assumption it has been considered that 
water-closets would, in such case, generally take the place of 
privies, and that the supply would be divided between the service 
of the dwellings, for drinking, washing, cooking, and house 
cleaning — all of which, in various degrees, defile the water used 
■ — and that due to the water-closets and sewers. Of the 10 gallons 
a-head, about one-half will probably satisfy the increasing de- 
mand for water for household purposes — though at present 
2 gallons a-head, or about 12 gallons a family, is as much as is 
used daily by the rural labouring class — -while the remaining 
half will be applied partly in the ordinary way to the water- 
closet and partly to the public flushing of sewers and water-closets. 
The weight of excretal refuse from each person,* solid and liquid 
together, averages 3 lbs. daily ; so that the proportion of human 
excreta to the whole sewage per head would be as 1 to 33. With 
rural communities, consisting of a large proportion of farm- 
labourers Avho are engaged out of doors during the day, it is more 
than probable that much less than the ordinary quantity of ex- 
cretal refuse would go into the closet. Moreover, a considerable 
part of the fluid excretions of families does not now, and never 
Avill, reach either the privy or the closet : they are mixed up 
with the other liquid refuse of the dwelling, and disposed of 
in the same way. But, assuming that it be practically possible 
to add the human secretions of the bedrooms to the excreta of 
the closet, and to dispose of thern by the earth system, there 
* See 'Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England,' vol. xv. p. 140, 
ci seq. Many iinpi ovements in the details of the earth-closet must be adopted 
before they become generally useful, which Avill doubtless be carried wheu the 
present patent lapses. 
VOL. VI. — S. S. R 
