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house. They ought always to be covered with a sloping roof, so that the rain may run off; if rain water is allowed to get into them, they are much more likely to become a nuisance. Rain water pipes ought not to be carried through dust bins, for foul air from the latter will get into the pipe through a leaky joint, or a damaged place, and ascend it, causing a nuisance in one of the upper rooms, or elsewhere. I have known a serious nuisance caused in this way.

REMOVAL OF EXCRETAL MATTERS BY CONSERVANCY SYSTEMS.

Under the systems the excretal matters are either collected without any admixture, in receptacles known as cesspools, or they are mixed with ashes, and the other house refuse, forming what is called a "midden heap," and of these two old plans all the dry closets, pail and tup systems, etc., may be said to be modifications. Cesspools were formerly largely used. especially for houses built. on porous soils. A pit was dug into

which the excretal matters were discharged and allowed to percolate away into the soil-frequently into neighborOften there was not only no

ing wells.

pretence at making this pit impervious, but every facility was given to allow of the percolation of the foul water, etc., into the soil around. Thus the walls (when there were any) were made merely of rough blocks of stone placed one upon another. In some instances, these pits were not opened for many years together. Such cesspools were constructed long before water closets came into use, and were often retained after the introduction of these. In many instances they are placed underneath houses, and under the basements of large houses there are sometimes several of them. They form a serious nuisance, lasting for many years, as foul air from them finds its way into the house, even when there are no waste pipes directly connected with them, as there generally are, and thus they are very dangerous to health, even supposing that they are so placed as not to

contaminate the water supply. In some towns it was, positively, formerly a practice to dig them down until a spring, or water of some kind was reached, in order that they might not require to be emptied. In all old houses it is impera tive to search diligently even for unused cesspools, and to trace the course of every pipe from every part of the house. In many instances, openings from the basement floor lead into disused cesspools, even in houses that have been drained, and the cesspools presumably abolished. A basement drain is not unfrequently allowed to discharge into an old cesspool, after a properly constructed sewer has been made to receive the refuse matters from the water closets. This is a source of great danger to the inmates of the house.

In some instances, however, cesspools are made of brickwork set in cement and lined internally with a layer of cement, so as to be impervious to water. They then require to be emptied periodically, a process which often causes a consider

able nuisance, and they require, moreover, to be at a considerable distance from the house, and to be disconnected from the house drains and sewers in a manner that will be described in the next lecture. Not unfrequently, however, they are placed directly underneath the house. or under the court yard, as is commonly the practice in Paris and many other continental cities and towns. Pipes are laid straight into them from the various stories of the house, and sometimes these are the only ventilating pipes through which foul air can escape. Occasionally they are made to overflow into sewers or drains, and sometimes a kind of strainer is placed inside them, so that the solid refuse may be collected, and the liquids allowed to escape into a sewer or drain. They used formerly to be emptied by hand and bucket, thereby causing an abominable nuisance, and the workmen employed for this purpose were frequent ly suffocated by the foul air, and suffered from inflammation of the eyes caused by the ammoniacal vapors Of late years,

they have been emptied by hose into airtight carts, from which the air has been previously exhausted by a powerful pump. This process, of course, causes less nuisance, and is not dangerous to the men employed, but, even with these improvements, the system is a very disagreeable

one.

In some towns large midden heaps are still in vogue. The mixture of ashes and other house refuse with the excretal matters produces a drier mass, which, if not exposed to the rain, is considered to cause less nuisance than cesspools; but if dust bins are bad and are nuisances, as they most certainly are in a very large number of instances, midden heaps must be very much worse. Refuse matters become nuisances and injurious to health when they are allowed to remain in the vicinity of habitations. In all towns where refuse matters are not removed immediately there is a high death rate, and especially a high children's death rate, and in all towns (as Dr. Buchanan has shown in the ninth report of the

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