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 township of Broughton, in the county palatine of Lancaster / by Robert Rawlinson, Superintending Inspector.

Rawlinson, Robert, 1810-1898.

Date:: 1850

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 township of Broughton, in the county palatine of Lancaster / by Robert Rawlinson, Superintending Inspector. Source: Wellcome Collection.

35/42 (page 33)

$riie first point to tietermine, in making these'calculations, is the ;il cost per head of population of the working of the present cesspool in Paris. I'he daily quantity of matter at present withdrawn from the cesspools i Taris is, as before stated, between GOO and 700 cubic metres; which give, in round numbers, the annual quantity of 230,000 cubic res. At the average price of 9 francs per cubic metre, this would Ive an expense of 2,070,000 francs (82,800/. sterling), which sum, >uld appear, is paid every year by the house-proprietors of Paris for . xtraction of the matter from their cesspools, and for its transport to . ic \ 'oiine. l^ividing this annual quantity of 230,000 cubic metres by the number le population of Paris (945,721 individuals according to the last is), we have 243 litres only as the annual produce from each indi- il. The daily quantity of matter (including water) passing from i( li person into the cesspool has been before stated to be If litres (3*08 mts), or 638 litres annually. The discrepancy between these two uantities, wide as it is, must be accounted for by the fact of a large roportion of the lower orders in Paris rarely or ever using any privy at 1, and by allowing for the small quantity of water made use of in the nvies of the inferior class of houses. There can be no doubt that this tter quantity of 1| litres daily is very nearly correct, and not above le average in houses where a moderate degree of cleanliness is )served. _ This proportion was ascertained to hold in the case of some irracks in Paris, where the contents of the cesspools were accurately easured, the total quantity divided by the number of men occupying e barracks, and the quotient by the number of days since the cesspools Id been last emptied; the result showing a daily quantity of If litres om each mdividual. The correctness of this estimate too has been infirmed, as M. Helom assured me, by the experience of the Cam- igme Richer in the case of private houses. It has been already stated that many houses in Paris have two or ree cesspools each, placed to suit local convenience in different parts of e premises. Supposing the average number to each house not to ceed li and the cost of each cesspool to be 18/. sterling, we shall then ive a capital of 27/. sterling per house sunk in works of construction of sspools. Adopting, then, these calculations of the number of cesspools to each •use and their cost, and allowing only the small quantity of U litres ■■OSpmts) of matter to each individual, the annual cost of the cesspool stem m 1 aris per house containing 24 persons (the average number cording to the census of 1817) would be: for instalment of principal a interest, at five per cent, upon capital sunk in works of construction, read over thirty years 1/. 12*.; for extraction and removal of matter ur nl' V. .^ total annual charge of 71. 3s. per house of twenty- ur mhubitants; or 6s. (nearly) per inhabitant. ^ ^jupposinga similar system to be applied to London, and allowing to ch house eight inhabitants, and one cesspool of half the capacity of ose in Pans, and costing 9/., the matter daily passing into it beintr nited 0 the same quantity of 1* litres per head, the annual cost would .asfoUows:—I-or instalment of principal and interest at 5 percent. [167 ] ^ construction spread over 30 years, 10*. 8d.; for ex-$