Report to the Local Government Board on certain means of preventing excrement nuisances in towns and villages / by J. Netten Radcliffe.

  • John Netten Radcliffe
Date:
[1875]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to the Local Government Board on certain means of preventing excrement nuisances in towns and villages / by J. Netten Radcliffe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    28/186 page 22
    On Excrement tions of Edinburgh are studied on the spot, the more forcibly is the mind Mr!TNeUc'u impressed with the facility of dealing Avith common filtli by systematic Kadolifle^ scavenging. The conditions, however, which determine the peculiar jEdinb%iroh. fdthiness of parts of Edinburgh, and Avhich have given to tliis filthiness historical notoriety, are happily becoming tlungs of the past. The Corporation has entered upon and is rapidly pushing forward on the only course which will remove from Edinburgh the sanitary dis- advantages under which it has so long suffered. Broad new thorough- fares are being opened out through the oldest, densest, and worst quarters of the old town, and those older tenements which have pro- longed the filth and unwholesomeness of the middle ages into the 19th century, and had superadded to them the squalidness and misery of our own time, are being pulled down unsparingly. The changes which have already been effected by these clearances in the aspect of many historical wynds and closes of the old town is indescribable; and the new Old Town which is rapidly growing up in place of the old Old Town retains all the wonderful picturesqueuess of that town that deserves to be retained, and will eventually add to it, while keeping little or none of its unwholesomeness. In the new tenements which have been erected waterclosets have been introduced, and in subsequent buildings the watercloset system of excrement disposal will be adhered to. But for some time to come the old tenements of the city will have to be dealt with each upon its own merits as respects such disposal, and no uniform ^ system will be practicable. 2. Excrement Disposal by Midden Closets and Dry-Earth Closets. Suli HuLi..—Hull retains unchanged the peculiar system of excrement disposal described by Dr. Buchanan and myself in 1869. Ihis system, supplemented in the better classes of houses by waterclosets, is now m general use throughout the borough. It rests upon a certain frequency of scavenging, the common privy being so modified in size of receptacle that it will not admit of a greater collection of excrement and dry-house refuse than that which accumulates in the intervals of the scavengers call, and in structure that rain is excluded and soakage into the ground ^^For ti?e purpose of nightsoil collection the borough is divided into 48 districts, each containing from 300 to 700 houses, the total number of houses enumerated for the purposes of this collection in 1873 being 30 977 The collection is carried out by the sanitary authority tlirough the ao-ency of contractors. As a rule each district is let out to a separate contractor, and no contractor is allowed to undertake more than two districts. The smaller districts are so arranged that the collection may be carried out by anyone who has the command of ahorse and cart, and who can have the assistance of a boy or two. With a view of obviating undue combination among the contractors, and diminishing the evil elFects of strikes among the men, the contracts are so timed in the letting that only 8 or 9 can faU vacant together. The contractor, in addition to receiving the material he collects, and which he sells for siich pi ofit as he can obtain, is paid by the sanitary authority from 2s. to ^^- J^^^^J for each house in his district.* The sanitary authority, provides places of deposit (four in number) where the contractor can store the collected iSal until disposed of/and he is subject to 1--%^/.^-^^^^^^^^ deposit such material elsewhere without permission of the inspector ot nuisances in writing. * In 1869 this payment ytus from 1^. to 1«. 6rf.
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