Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the parish of Alverstoke, in the county of Southampton / by William Ranger, Superintending Inspector.

William Ranger

Date:: 1852

Credit: Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the parish of Alverstoke, in the county of Southampton / by William Ranger, Superintending Inspector. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$A portion of the refuse from the poorer class of liouses finds its way to the surface channels, but much of it remains behind to saturate the soil, or pollute the sur- rounding atmosphere. And even that part of it which does pass down the suiface channels becomes so offensive a:s to be ahiiost as prejudicial to health as that which stagnates on the surface of the courts and alleys. Tlie bad state of these channels is further aggravated by their want of a proper rate of inclination. . The Commissioners, as I have already said, do all in their power to mitigate the evil, by flushing the surface channels, ( at a considerable annual expense. On refemng to a state- i ment of their accounts, indeed, it will be found that about 10 per cent, of their total outlay is expended in wateiing i the streets and the surface channels. The evil is, no doubt, j modified by these means, but no amount of flushing can i ever cure the radical defects of channels imperfectly paved, i and badly laid out when originally constructed. In the future arrangements for the sewerage and house- i drainage, it will be necessary for the Local Board to bear in \ mind, that the outfalls for the sewage must be changed, that the sewers must be laid at such a depth as to carry off the waste water and refuse fi-om the lowest story of each ; house, and that such a rate of inclination must be pre- served as will ensure the rapid and complete removal of the sewage. In the use of the materials for the sewers and house- di'ains, also, care must be taken to employ none but those ' of an impermeable nature. One of the chief evils con- nected with the former mode of making sewers, was caused by the employment of materials in their construction which admitted of the escape of much of the liquid sewage, and which, therefore, produced, though in a minor degree, the same saturation of the subsoil, and the same deleterious | eflfects as I have already mentioned when speaking of the | cesspools in the town. ] If'attention be paid to the above-mentioned general prin- | ciples, there need no longer be a continuance of the amioy- ! ance now caused by the discharge of the sewage at the public landing place aUuded to by Mr. James Adams in his evidence (Appendix, page .58), nor need the water in the , moats be polluted in the manner it now is by receiving the j contents of many of the surface channels. By laying the sewers at a proper depth and inclination the house-drains connected Avith them will at once cai-ry ' off the refuse matter which now passes into the surface channels. '$