COLUMBIA LIBRARIES OFFSITE HEALTH SCIENCES STANDARD HX64167216 RA436 .P79 Essays on rural hygi ^ ^ -V^c^ '^ ^^ THE LIBRARY OF THE ASSOCIATION OF THE ALUMNI i OF THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK SCHOOL OF MEDICINE OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY EUEAL HYGIENE Dr.T.M.PRUDBEIT, No. 437 WEST 69th ST. NEW YORK:. ESSAYS ON RUEAL HYGIENE BY GEOEGE VIVIAN POOKE, M.D., F.E.C.P. ' Ces tas dordures du coin des bornes, ces tonibereaux de boue cahotts la nuit dans les rues, ces affreux tonneaux de la voirie, ces fetides licoulements de fange souterraine que le pave vous cache, savez-vous ce que c'est? C'est de la prairie en fleur, c'est de I'herbe verte, c'est du serpolet et du thym et de la sauge. c'est du gibier, c'est du betail, c'est le mugissement satisfait des grands bcBufs le soir, c'est du foin parfume, c'est du ble dore. c est du pain sur votre table, c'est du sang chaud dans vos veines, c'est de la sante, c'est de la joie, c'est de la vie. Ainsi le veut cette creation mysterieuse qui est la trans- formation sur la terre et la transflg'uration dans le ciel. 'Eendez cela au grand creuset ; votre abondance en sortira. La nutrition des plaines fait la nourriture des hommes. ' Vous etes niaitres de perdre cette richesse, et de me trouver ridicule pardessus le marche. Ce sera la le chef-d'oeuvre de votre ignorance.' ViCTOK Hugo (Les Miserallesf LONDON LONGMANS, GKEEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK : 15 EAST 16'^ STREET 1893 All rigJits reseried PEE FACE Eight of the thirteen chapters of this work have, in whole or in part, been previously published. Chap- ter II. formed the subject of a ' free lecture ' delivered at University College, London, in 1892, and was subse- quently published in the Lancet. Chapter III., ' On the Shortcomings of Some Modern Sanitary Methods,' was delivered as an address to the Sanitary Institute at its annual meeting in 1887. This chapter has been trans- lated into German, and has been published by Wagner of Graz with the title, Die Nachtheile einiger neueren sanitciren Methoden. Chapter IV., * The Living Earth,' was written for an address delivered at Brighton in 1891, when the author held the office of President of the sec- tion of Preventive Medicine at the Health Congress held in that town. Chapters Y., YL, YIL, and XII. formed part of a handbook written in 1881 at the request of the Council of the Health Exhibition, which was held in London in that year, and they are incorporated in this work by arrangement with Messrs. W. Clowes & Sons, who own the copjTight of the Health Exhibition Handbooks. vi ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE That part of Chapter YII. which deals with the subject of ' Hygienic Units ' was contributed to the ' Medical Magazine ' in 1892. Chapter XIIL, ' The Story of Bremontier,' formed the subject of an address delivered in York in 188(5 during a Health Congress held in that city under the auspices of the Sanitary Institute. Chapters I., YIH., IX., X., and XI. have not been previously published. Although the work has been written in a somewhat desultory manner during the past nine years, the author has always had in view the publication, as a whole, of the parts of which it is composed. The reader will find that in each chapter a different set of facts is marshalled in illustration of the central idea, and that the amount of overlapping of the chapters is not more than in any case would have been inevitable. The repetition of an important fact is often advisable, and doubly advisable when such repetition is for the purpose of bringing it into new relations. The thanks of the author are due to his friend Dr. Butler Harris, who has kindly revised the proof-sheets and prepared the index. 30 WiMPOLE Street, W. : March 1893. CONTENTS I lIArTKU PACK I. Introductory ........ 1 II. The Coxcentration of Population in Cities . . 10 III. On the Shortcomings of Some Modern Sanitary Methods . 49 IV. • The Living Earth ' 85 Y. The House 119 VI. Air 142 VII. AVater 157 VIII. Practical Details 192 IX. Personal Experiences in a Country Town . . 219 X. Personal Experiences {contimied) : — Water-Supply 235 XL Person.al Experiences in a London Suburb . . 255 XII. Burial 284 XIII. The Story of Bremontier 297 Appendix ........... 315 Index 319 ILLUSTRATIOXS 1. Conical Metal Vessel 112 2. Glass Funnels 115 ii. Gooseberries and Kaspbeukies 4. Gooseberries . . .1 Between nnaes 280 \ 5. Black and White Currants \ ,,nd 2H1 (). Peas 'ESSAYS ON EUEAL HYGIENE CHAPTEE I INTBODVCTORY In the ensuing chapters the author will attempt to show that many of the hygienic arrangements which have been in vogue for some years are largely based upon erroneous scientific principles ; and are, therefore, bad from other points of view, political, moral, economic, and hygienic. The title of ' Eural Hygiene ' has been chosen because it is only in places having a rural or semi-rural character that it is possible to be guided by scientific principles in our measures for the preservation of health and the pre- vention of disease. In cities the hygienic arrangements are the products of expediency rather than principle, and are not unfrequently carried out in defiance of the teach- ings of pure science. Overcrowding is encouraged, and rivers or other sources of water are recklessly fouled, because such conditions are, or are supposed to be, ' good for trade.' Our municipal governors, who are mainly selected from the trading classes, and the majority of B 2 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE whom have had no scientific training of any kind, are rarely capable of looking beyond the question of imme- diate profit, which to them seems all-important. If a so-called sanitary measure seems likely to increase the rateable value of a district for the time being, that is generally regarded as sufficient ground for action, and money is recklessly borrowed to "carry out expensive and half-considered measures, in which the work of sanitation is merely begun and rarely completed. The hygienic measures of cities have, for the most part, been hastily adopted in order to escajie the dangers which are inseparable from an undue concentration of population. They may be compared to the herculean method which was practised upon the stables of King Augeas, and although we may admire the prowess of Hercules, we can feel nothing but contempt for Augeas, who would have been happier and richer had he kept his oxen in a rational way. The * good for trade ' doctrine is fatal to sound sani- tary measures, because Mr. ' Good for Trade ' (as Bunyan might have called him) will not for a moment listen to any proposition for limiting, however slightl}-, the con- centration of population. * Good for trade ' is fond of big schemes, the money for which is borrowed, and so long as the money l)e spent he does not much care upon what. There can be no doubt that the almost unlimited powers of borrowing which our municipalities possess have been harmful in so far as they have encouraged sanitary autho- rities to act precipitately when otherwise they would have been obliged to move slowly and cautiously, and in doing so have gained their experience. Mr. * Good for Trade ' is often not deficient in cun- ning, and is quite capable of seeing how advantageous are big sanitary schemes for landowners, building specu- INTRODUCTORY 3 lators, water shareholders, contractors, and the crowd of tradesmen who follow m their train. He thoroughly un- derstands tlie various methods by which what is known as * bringing down the Local Government Board ' is brought about, and then, when the groaning ratepayer complains, he protests that the local authority is helpless because of the action of the Government. The title of ' Piural Hygiene ' has been chosen not only because it is in the country alone that Hygiene can be based upon princijyles rather than expediency, but also from a feeling that if the rural element be entirely banished from our towns, and if the fearful concentration of population which is seen in the modern city, both here and in America, be ahowed to proceed unchecked we are in a fair way to increase rather than decrease the liability of our towns to suffer from epidemics. ' God made the country and man made the town,' said the poet Cowper, and this is a saying which is not only true but filled with deep meaning for those who are interested in the physical and moral welfare of our populations. It is to be hoped that rural districts will make every effort to retain their rural character, and that, if those sanitary measures which foster overcrowd- ing be forced upon them, they will put some compensa- ting restraint upon the owner of ' ehgible sites ' and the s]3eculative builder. With our modern methods of com- munication such dangerous concentration of population cannot be necessary, and one hopes that before the nineteenth century closes people will begin to see the advantages not only of the rus in urhe but also of the urhs in rure. We hear a great deal of the dulness of rural districts, but it must be remembered that in reality our modern methods of communication have placed all the more sohd b2 4 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE advantages of the town within reach of the vihagesj and that a dweller in even the most remote of our villages is able, if he be so minded, at very small expense, to keep himself abreast of modern ideas in all departments of knowledge. The big towns are daily becoming more and more a menace to the country. Might is right in the present day as it ever has been, and it makes little difference whether oppression be practised by fists or votes. If, however, big towns be allowed to devastate rural districts and drain rivers to dryness in order that they may have a gigantic water-supply with the main object of still further concentrating the population in their boundaries ; if the big towns be allowed to use the neighbouring counties as dumping-grounds for nuisances ; if they be allowed to foul the rivers so that the fishing industries are destroyed, and it is dangerous for the countryman's cattle to drink • from them ; if they be allowed to empty their filth along the foreshore of places which are miles distant ; if they be permitted to send their paupers into one county, their lunatics into a second, their scarlet fever cases to a third, and their small- pox to a fourth, it is evident that the country people must rush for the towns in self-defence. It is to be hoped that it may some day be recognised that rural districts have their rights. Free trade is indispensable for the existence of our big towns, and while it has enabled the country at large to grow rich it certainly has not been an unmixed blessing to rural districts. The rural districts have, so to say, sacrificed themselves for the sake of the towns, and are now finding out that they have been nurturing a set of Frankenstein's monsters, which are devoid of gratitude and return evil for good. In the chapters which follow an attempt will be made INTRODUCTORY 5 t(3 set forth the true principles which should guide our actions in procuring a healthy house, pure air, good water, and cheap and wholesome food. It will be first of all demonstrated that a neglect of sound principles lands us in difficulties, and accordingly the first of the subsequent chapters will be devoted to the evils which arise from an over- concentration of popu- lation ; it will further be insisted upon that this over- concentration is an indirect effect of our modern sanitary methods, which give what may be called a fatal facility for the packing of houses in dangerous proximity to each other. This over-concentration is often defended on the ground that it is necessary for the purposes of commerce, but not a few facts will be brought forward which tend to throw considerable doubts on the economic advantages of such concentration. It will be argued that the reten- tion of a rural element in our rapidly developing towns and the allowing of open spaces to inter-penetrate and dovetail with the houses has not only great advantages on the score of health, but will be shown to be equally advantageous when regarded in its purely financial and economic aspects. In the third chapter the shortcomings of modern sanitary methods will be dealt with, and it will be shown that the mixing of putrescible matter with water is a fundamental scientific error which leads to the dissemi- nation of water-borne diseases, the pollution of rivers, and the poisoning of wells. Whether such methods be regarded by the modern light of bacteriology or by the evils and expenses of which they are notoriously the cause, they must be condemned as unscientific, thriftless, and immoral. They are unscientific because they encourage putrefaction and hinder nitrification, which should be our aim in dealing with organic refuse ; they are thriftless 6 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE because they merely waste or practically destroy that \Nhich, rightly used, should be a source of profit and pro- ductiveness ; and they are immoral because, by merely * passing on ' our refuse to be a nuisance else^Yhere than on our own premises, we show a forgetfulness of our duty towards our neighbour and we do unto others that which we are unwilling that others should do unto us. In the fourth chapter, on * The Living Earth,' it will be shown that the humus possesses (in virtue of the animal and vegetable organisms which it contains) a marvellous power not only of turning organic matter into food for plants by what is known as the process of nitri. fication, but that while in this way it tends to in- crease our food supplies, it is no less powerful, if rightly and scientifically used, to protect our wells from all dan- gerous animal pollutions. In dealing with the subject of ' The House ' in the fifth chapter, the many evils which are practically in- separable from what are known as modern sanitary fittings are passed in review, and it is insisted upon that no house can be securely and permanently wholesome unless it have tolerably direct relations with cultivable land. The modern practice of erecting houses on insuffi- cient area and the evil consequences resulting from such practices are dwelt upon, and it is pointed out that the jilanning of town houses involves problems which need not and ought not to trouble the architect of country houses. A few words will be said on the subject of those buildings which are designed for the reception of large numbers of people, such as hotels, barracks, and schools. The subject of ' Air ' is discussed in the sixth chapter. A few elementary facts with regard to air are first given, and then the relationship which exists Ijetween the earth and the air is discussed ; it is insisted upon that vege- INTRODUCTORY 7 tation is essential for the freshening of the air ; and that when, as in overcrowded cities, the air becomes too foul to allow vegetation to flourish, this in itself constitutes a danger to health, for without vegetation neither is the air freshened nor the soil purified. The point which receives most attention when dis- cussing the question of * Water ' in the seventh chapter is the great difficulty of purifying water which has once been fouled, and the doubts which surround all the common processes which are at present advocated for that purpose. It will be shown that, if we want pure water, a scientific and careful bestowal of putrescible refuse is the first thing necessary ; that while putrescible matter mixed with water and allowed to accumulate in underground receptacles not only escapes the salutary action of the humus, but, leaking under pressure, inevit- ably trickles unchanged to our wells, however deep they may be, the same matter, if superficially buried in the humus and allowed to oxidise and nitrify, is not likely to foul a properly made well, no matter how shallow it may be. The necessary relations which exist between earth and water are discussed, and it is shown that every indi- vidual requires a definite minimum amount of earth, air, and water in order to live. Modern methods of com- munication combined with the unrestricted importations of food have enabled us to neglect wdiat may be called the ' earth-unit,' and to concentrate our population in a disastrous fashion, and it is largely due to this neglect of the earth-unit that our increasing difficulties with regard to municipal water-supplies are due, difficulties which must, one would fear, grow progressively greater. In the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters the author gives his personal experiences in dealing with the problem of domestic sanitation. The principles 8 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE ^vbicli should guide us in the management of sanitary details are discussed, and arrangements are described which are believed to be satisfactory, at least in the chcumstances for which they were designed. It must, however, always be borne in mind that circumstances can- not be neglected when dealing with questions of sanita- tion, and that the discovery of a sanitary panacea will certainly never be made. The peculiar questions which arise when dealing with the sanitation of cottages will be discussed, and the best methods of refuse-disposal and water-supply in relation to cottages will receive attention. The burning sanitary questions which arise in country towns and in growing suburbs will be illustrated by per- sonal experiences, which the bulk of readers will recognise as having been in no degree exceptional. A chapter on ' Burial ' has been inserted as being part of the great question of the right bestowal of effete organic matter, and the power of the earth to deal with the dead body as satisfactorily as it deals with all other forms of dead organic matter is insisted upon. The final chapter is devoted to the story of Bremontier, which is inserted as the best example known to the author of the glorious results which have been obtained by a patient waiting upon nature in the true scientific spirit. It is hardly necessary for the author to say that in bringing out this little book he has been prompted solely by a deep sense of the importance of the subject which is discussed in it. It is important not only to the individual but to the nation at large. The bestowal of refuse is a problem which confronts every individual daily and almost hourly. We may practically destroy it so that our native soil gets no advantage, or we may start it upon a round of creative productiveness which will provide food, warmth, houses, and raiment, and in so INT ROD UCTOR V 9 doing find perpetual occupation for the increasing numbers of ' the unemployed.' To what extent it might be possible for the towns to mitigate the prevailing agricultural distress by supplying farmers with manurial matters at a cheap rate is a question well worthy of consideration. Looked at philosophically, the question of the right bestowal of organic refuse is a national question of great political importance which no statesman can neglect, and which has effects vastly more far-reach- ing than is generally supposed. It is hoped that every patriotic man will ponder the question seriously, and will recognise that it has its moral side. It is the duty of each of us to take care that we do not, by apathetic carelessness or culpable ignorance, endanger the health of others, and we must remember that it is no excuse for the adoption of bad and dangerous methods of sani- tation to urge that they are * convenient.' Such an excuse might be put forward in defence of acts which we all recognise as criminal. We are individually under a moral obligation to see the refuse of our dwellings safely bestowed, so as not to endanger the health of others ; but in these matters we are too prone to allow ' rates ' to take the place of morals, and to expect a collection of individuals, merely because they are called a ' board,' to be able to do for us that which we ignorantly profess to be unable to do for ourselves. In sanitary matters, more than in any others perhaps, we are gradu- ally losing our freedom ; but it is high time for the in- dividual to rouse himself to a sense of duty, and insist on his right to individual liberty. lo ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE CHAPTEE II THE CONCENTBATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES .The steadily increasing tendency of population to leave the country and concentrate in towns is a fact which does not admit of a doubt. Of the twenty-nine millions of inhabitants of England and Wales, about 18,500,0C0 are classified by the Eegistrar-General as belonging to town districts and about 10,500,000 as belonging to country districts. In 1801 London contained about one-eleventh of the entire population of England and Wales, whereas, according to the last census, it was found to contain about one-seventh of the entire population. Dr. Gould, of Washington, in a paper read before the seventh International Congress of Hygiene and Demo- graphy, stated that a short half-century ago the urban population of the United States was 8*5 per cent, of the whole, while to-day the urban population constitutes 29 per cent, of the whole. The American city, says Dr. Gould, ' creates itself with appalling suddenness,' and it is probable that Chicago, with its 1,200,000 in- habitants, having doubled its population in the last ten years, may be said in this particular matter to have beaten the record. It must not be forgotten, however, that London has more than doubled its population in the last half century ; that Cardiff has risen from 80,000 to 130,000 inhabitants in the last ten years; that CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES ii Barrow-in-Furness, Eastbourne, Bournemouth, West Ham, and Croydon are all instances of towns, besides many others, which have sprung into existence within the memory of the present generation. It is important to bear these facts in mind, as showing that the English cities, equally with those in America, create themselves with appalling suddenness ; that we do not merely in- herit our cities with their various shortcomings, but that we create them for ourselves, and are directly and solely answerable for their good or ill construction. The cause of this concentration of population is the desire for business, the wish to get money easily and quickly, and to spend it advantageously. A man who trades in a centre of express mail services, telegraphs, and telephones has all the world before him if he knows how to make use of it. There is consequently a rush for such favoured centres, and it has come about that steam and electricity, which annihilate time and space, instead of enabling us to live further apart from each other, have produced a directly opposite effect. The dealer, be he wholesale or retail, likes to be surrounded by a crowd of potential customers, rather than be dependent on a few ; and the artisan naturally turns to great industrial centres as offering the readiest market for his labour, and often finds out too late that the higher wages of the town are more than counterbalanced by the extra cost of living. The crowds of independent and idle persons who settle in the towns do so because they find a greater variety of methods of killing time, or, as they prefer to put it, because the state of civilisation is greater in the towns than in the country. But what is civilisation ? A recent anonymous writer (the author of ' Behind the Bungalow ') speaks of this ' half-hatched civilisation of ours, which merely distracts our energies by multiplying 12 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE our needs, and leaves us no better off than we were before we discovered them ' ; and we must all admit that there is a good deal of this kind of civilisation which passes current at the present day, especially in cities, where a large proportion of the population are the slaves of inane conventionalities. Cities are the abodes of art, and art in all its forms is elevating ; but it is a question whether the increasing difficulties which, especially in London, we encounter in the study and appreciation of nature do not more than counterbalance the artistic advantages. ' Pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical-glasses ' are not the only things worthy the attention of civilised man, and it is noteworthy that many of the leading spirits in all ages have turned from the artificial enjoyments of the town to the greater freedom and more natural pleasures of the country. It is said that our rural fellow-subjects, having been forcibly educated to a pitch w^hich enables them to study all the gay doings of the town, are begin- ning to find the country insufferably dull. The cause of dulness, however, is in ourselves and not in our sur- roundings. Our country friends must be taught that they have at hand one of the surest cures for dulness. Let them learn to study and appreciate the book of nature — that book which is always with us, ever open and inexhaustible — and dulness will become impossible. The mind which has occupation to really interest it cannot be dull or weary, and the surest way to find interest in this life is productive labour. Li the making of a pudding, the raising of crops, the writing of books, the practice of a profession, and in all the constructive arts, it is necessary to use the judgment; and it is this exercise of judgment which is the true complement of book-learning. The man who reads and who produces CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 13 nothing is seldom capable of action ; he becomes giddy with the opinions of others, and finds it impossible to have a fixed opinion of his own. In action and produc- tion the mere see- saw of criticism is of no use, we must make up our minds. We must really think, and the man who has learnt to think runs little risk of being dull. Those who have to cope with the uncertainties of nature are bound to exercise their judgment in a high degree. Unless the farmer be constantly thinking and looking ahead, and unless he bring (often unconsciously) a good deal of science to bear upon his practical work, he will have no chance of success. We are not to sit in judgment on such a one because he does not show the alacrity, sharpness, and power of repartee which are seen in the town dweller. The cockney and the yokel are educated in totally different schools, neither understands the other, and they have for each other a good deal of mutual contempt. It is difficult, however, to believe that he who can perform the varied duties of the farm, and who has been brought up in contact with a wide range of natural phenomena, is not the equal intellectually of the factory hand, who is the slave of a machine which thunders to and fro with brutal accuracy for ten hours at a stretch. Physically, the country labourer is vastly superior to the town dweller, and be it remembered that mental power is mainly dependent on physical health. One of the undoubted consequences of the concentra- tion of population in towns is deterioration in physical health. The disease-rate and the death-rate are both higher in urban than in country districts. The difficul- ties of rearing children are much greater in towns than in the country, and the risk of faulty development in those which are reared is also greater. The undue con- 14 J£SSA VS ON RURAL HYGIENE centration of population must tend towards the deterio- ration of our race, and there can be no doubt that the diminution of the evils of such concentration is a subject which demands very earnest attention. We all of us have to run more or less risk in earning our living. Some enter the army or navy, some go to tropical coun- tries, some become file-grinders, hotel servants, or doctors, and it is not, perhaps, desirable that the bread- winners should look too narrowly at the risks connected with their daily work. Every prudent man, however, will endeavour to secure vigorous health for his wife and children ; and, whenever it can be avoided, these should not be called upon to run unnecessary risks. The Registrar- General's returns show that for every 100 deaths in country districts there are about 120 deaths in towns, and that the death-rate of children under five, per 1,000 living at that age, was (in the year 1890) GG-5 in Lancashire and G5-2 in London, as against 30-3 in Dorsetshire, ol-l in Wiltshire, 31*8 in Berkshire, 31-2 in Rutlandshire, 35*8 in Herefordshire, 35-8 in Shropshire, 35*8 in Hampshire, 36-1 in Oxfordshire, 37-5 in Bedfordshire, 36-0 in Sussex, and 39*3 in Somersetshire ; and, although the infant mortality was higher in the other counties having a more urban character, in none of them (except Lancashh'e and London) did it exceed 57'5. It is thus evident that the risk to children under five is twice as great in London and Lancashire as it is in some of the rural districts. How many children are crippled for life by infantile diseases contracted in towns we have no means of know- ing. Death-rates are nowadays the subject of perennial paragraphs in the newspapers, they are systemati- cally used for puffing localities, and are beginning to form a recognised feature in auctioneers' advertisements. CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 15 Before accepting the death-rate as evidence of the healthi- ness of a locaHty we must take several facts into con- sideration. 1. The mobility of the population in the present day is greater than it ever has been previously. This must have a vitiating effect upon the value of the death-rate, for it is evident to all of us that a man who has contracted a fatal disease, let us say in London, may die at Croydon, Brighton, the Eiviera, Cairo, or elsewhere. This fact must largely lessen the trust- worthiness of local death-rates, although it does not, probably, appreciably affect the trustworthiness of the death-rate for the country as a whole. 2. Again, the death-rate of a city is of little value unless correction be made for abnormal age distribution. London, especially the central parts of it, contains a great deficiency of persons at the extreme (and most vulnerable) periods of life, and this, of course, helps to keep the death- rate lower than it would be if it contained its due propor- tion of tender infants and feeble old persons. The popu- lation of central London, it must be remembered, is largely composed of selected adults imported from the country. 3. Lastly, let it be observed that the death- rate of London is kept down very largely by a process of dilution. If any comparison is to be made between the London of to-day and the London of former times, we must be careful to select identical areas. As it is, the high death-rate of the centre is diluted by the low death-rates of the outskirts, and the healthiness of Hampstead, Lewisham, and other outlying districts is used to conceal the condition of the centre. For the sake of his argument the author has divided the population of London into three portions as nearly equal as the very irregular shape of the registration districts will permit. i6 ESSAYS ON RVRAL HYGIENE 1. The outer portion, consisting of the outlying districts of Hammersmith, Fulham, Hampstead, Isling- ton, Hackney, Poplar, Battersea, Wandsworth, Cam- berwell, Lewisham, and Plumstead, and containing 1,676,475 inhabitants according to the last census. 2. Districts holding a middle position — viz. Ken- sington, Chelsea, Paddington, St. George's (Hanover Square), Marylebone, St. Pancras, Lambeth, Greenwich, and Woolwich, and containing a population of 1,317,078 inhabitants. 3. The central districts, which might be spoken of as London proper. These include, in addition to the * central districts ' of the Kegistrar-General, Westminster, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, St. George's- in-the-East, Stepney, Mile End, Southwark, Newington, Bermondsey, and Kotherhithe. These districts form a compact city in a ring-fence, and contain 1,217,503 inhabitants, a population twice as big as that of any other city in the country. The deaths of the various Death-rates per 1,000 living London Population 4,211,05G 1890 1891 1892 ' Qtr. 2iid Qtr. 3rd Qtr, 4th Qtr. 1st Qtr. 2nd Qtr. 3rd Qtr. 4th Qtr. 1st Qtr. 2nd 3rd Qtr. Qtr. 4tll Qtr. Outlying "j Districts, Topula- >- tion 1,676,475 ) 20-9 15-4 lG-5 21 20-4 20-2 11-1 17-G 25-7 IGl 15-5 lG-8 Middle \ Districts, Topula- r 24-3 17-G 17-6 22 24-3 23-3 16-8 19-7 27-4 18-5 15-7 17-5 tion 1,317,078 j Central ' Districts, ropula- tion 1,217,503 29-6 21 22-9 28-8 28 27-9 20-7 24-9 32-0 22-3 20-2 21-2 CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 17 districts as published in the corrected quarterly tables of the Registrar-General have been taken, and from them death-rates for these three divisions of London have been calculated for every quarter during the last three years. If we take the yearly rates instead of the quarterly we have the following result :— - 1890 1891 1892 Outlying districts . Middle districts . . Central districts . . 18-4 per 1,000 20-4 25-6 18-1 per 1,000 18-5 per 1,000 21-0 „ 19-7 25-4 „ 23-9 From the above tables it is evident that when we boast of London as a healthy city we must exclude the central districts, or London proper, with its 1,200,000 inhabitants. Indeed, the death-rate of London proper was extremely high in these three years ; but, large as the figures are, they do not show the full state of the case, because no correction has been made for age distribution and mobility, which is essential before we can compare them with the rates for the rest of the country. Nothing can show better than these figures the effect of overcrowding on death-rate. Not only are the central districts the most crowded and therefore the poorest, but they are hemmed in on every side by the middle and outlying districts, so that fresh air can never reach them. As a result, we find the death-rates are some 40 per cent, higher than the rates for the outlying districts. In all seasons and under all conditions the uniformity of relation between the rates of the outlying and central districts is maintained. If we take the first quarter of 1890, the second quarter of 1891, and the first quarter of 1892, during each of which we had an epidemic of influenza, we find that the death-rate of the outlying districts was 20*9, 20*2, and 25*7, while for the c i8 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE central districts it ^Yas 29-G, 27*9, and 32-0. Or, take the last quarter of 1890 and the first quarter of 1891, which were characterised by weather of great severity, we find that in the outlying districts the death-rate was 21 and 20*4, while in the central districts it was 28*8 and 28, notwithstanding the fact that the temperature of the central districts was certainly considerably higher than that of the outlying districts. If we take the periods when the climatic conditions are at their best, the same relationship in the figures is maintained. Thus, for the third quarter of the three years the rates of the outlying districts were 16*5, 14*1, and 15*5, while for the central districts they were 22-9, 20*7, and 20-2. Finally, let us take a period when the climatic condi- tions were at their worst, as during the fog of Christmas 1891, which commenced on December 21, and continued for parts of five days. During this fog the mean tempera- ture of the air was 25° F. ; the air was calm, with slight easterly currents, and saturated with moisture ; ozone and sunshine absent. Under these circumstances the irritating products of combustion and the soot from thousands of chimneys remained suspended in the fog, as did also the effluvia from over 4,000,000 human beings and the varied impurities of a big city. The air was bitterly cold and irritating, and from the absence of wind could not be renewed, so that the citizens of London were very much in the condition of gold fish in a bowl whose water has not been changed. The corrected average number of deaths for the fortnight ending January 2, 1892, was 3,728, while the deaths which ac- tually occurred were 5,170, so that we have 1,442 deaths caused by the fog. The death-rate for the whole of London for this fortnight was 32, the figures for the three areas being 29 for the outlying districts, 31*8 for CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 19 the middle districts, and 38 for the central districts. This high death-rate for the central districts, which arc the warmest, seems to show that it is not merely the coldness of the fog which raises the death-rates, but rather the impurities, mechanical, chemical and infective, which it contains. Bad as are the health conditions in the centre of London, they are eclipsed by those of New York. In the city of New York, which had a population of 1,600,000 in 1890, more than 1,200,000 of the inhabi- tants live in tenement houses. The density of population averages 65 persons to the acre, while in many of the wards it is over 200 to the acre, and in one ward it reached 559 persons to the acre. The average death- rate for the past ten years was over 26, and in the year 1890 the deaths exceeded the births by 980; and while there were 39,250 births in the year, the authorities are jubilant because only 10,288 of the children born, or rather more than 26 per cent., died before they were a year old. The deaths in New York invariably exceed the births, so that the population is maintained and increased entirely by immigrants. The birth-rate is exceedingly low. Last year it was only 24, and that was a higher figure than had been reached in any of the thirty previous years. It must be remembered that New York has a magnificent water-supply and a very complete system of sewerage. As in London, there is apparently a very great deficiency of very young and very old in- habitants ; and again, as in London, it may be presumed that a very large number of those who fall ill retire from the city to die elsewhere. Notwithstanding the great activity of the sanitary officers, it is evident that the state of public health in New York is far from good, and c 2 20 ESS A VS ON RURAL HYGIENE that, owing mainly to the density of population, it is not a very wholesome place. The evils of overcrowding have been made more plain and comprehensible by the discoveries which have been made in the new science of bacteriology. When the public hears that a new microbe has been dis- covered in connection with this or that disease, it says : * Now, surely we shall have a cure.' It may be well to point out that, hitherto, in no case of general disease has the discovery of a microbe led to the discovery of a cure ; and the evidence that the study of the life-history of pathogenic microbes is likely to lead to the discovery of * cures ' is, to say the least, not very strong. * Prevention,' however, is better than * cure ' ; and it is clear that the study of the life-history of pathogenic microbes must precede all adequate measures for preventing the diseases which they cause. It was the study of the life-history of the microbes which produce putrefaction which led Sir Joseph Lister to adopt the antiseptic treatment of wounds which has produced such grand results. The knowledge that cholera and typhoid poisons can live in water has led to great caution in the selection and protection of water- supplies, and it is possible that the time is not far distant when we shall regard the wilful mixing of excremental matters with water as, in a sense, an act of public suicide. Again, the knowledge [that typhoid fever, diph- theria, and scarlet fever are often connected with the milk-supply has been the means of arresting many an epidemic. In short, the medical profession has no cause to feel ashamed of its recent progress in the direction of prevention of disease, which, in the words of Sir AYilliam Jenner, should be the great aim of a physician. While certain diseases reach us v'ui water and food. CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 21 there are others which come to us in the air we breathe, and it is well to bear in mind that it is in relation to air-borne diseases that overcrowding is especially dangerous. Whooping-cough, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, tubercle, typhus fever, small-pox, influenza, pneumonia, and plague, and, to a less extent, typhoid fever, are among the diseases which are air-borne, and the spread of which is, in a very obvious way, favoured by overcrowding. It is definitely known with regard to some, and may be safely inferred with regard to all the above-named diseases, that the carriers of the infection are particulate and alive. A sufferer from any one of these diseases is continually giving off infective particles, and the danger of the infection travelling to a second person depends (1) upon the distance of the second from the first ; (2) the ease with which the infected air can be diluted with fresh air. Thus the danger caused by proximity to an infected person in the open air is com- paratively slight, because the chance that the infective particles will be blown away by the wind is very great. When, however, the infected and the healthy come to live under the same roof, to occupy the same room, and, still more, the same bed, the risks of infection are enormously increased, because the air in the confined space gets very largely charged with infective particles which the healthy can hardly avoid taking. Given the rate of movement of the air, the degree of proximity of the individuals, and the number of infective particles given off by the diseased person, and the risk of infection could be stated as a mathematical formula. There is good reason to believe, however, that the mere fact of overcrowding produces some change (possibly chemical) which greatly increases the risks of infection, apart from the mathematical factors above alluded to. Some of the 22 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE facts connected "with the recent epidemic of influenza bring out very clearly the increased danger of infection which results from overcrowding between walls and under a common roof. Overcrowding is seen at its maximum in the fore- castle of a ship after the men have ' turned in,' and the danger to all should any case of infective disease be present among them is well known. The explosive out- bursts of influenza which are liable to occur on board ship have been amongst the startling features of every epidemic. In the same way explosive outbursts of the disease have occurred in establishments where many persons have a common employment under a common roof, as witness the sudden occurrence of a thousand cases at the end of 1889 in the Magazins du Louvre at Paris, and a similar outburst at the General Post Office in January 1890. A careful consideration of the whole of the facts of the epidemic of 1889-90 leads Dr. Parsons, in his report made to the Local Government Board, to conclude : ^ "8. That in public services and establish- ments persons employed together in large numbers in enclosed spaces have suffered in larger proportion than those employed few together or in the open air. 9. That in institutions in which the inmates are brought much into association the epidemic has more quickly attained its height, has prevailed more extensively, and been sooner over than in those in which the inmates are more secluded from one another.' The converse is also true, for Dr. Parsons states that those living away from the possibility of infection and in small groups, such as lighthouse keepers and deep-sea fishermen, enjoyed a re- markable immunity from the epidemic. It must be remembered that what is true of influenza is also true ' See p. 101 of the Report on the Influenza. CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 23 of other air-borne infections. It is known that whooping- cough and measles are prevalent and fatal very much in proportion to the density of population on a given area, and it has lately been shown that, although the mortality in so-called model dwellings is below that of the working- class dwellings as a whole, the occurrence in them of in- fantile infectious diseases, including diphtheria, is dis- tinctly above the average. This is not to be wondered at, for with a large number of persons under a common roof the risks of infection must be proportionate to the number of inhabitants. The modern city is distinctly a modern invention ; it had no counterpart in ancient times. The ancients crowded behind walls from fear of their enemies. The modern city has no walls and no need of them, and there does not seem to be the same necessity for over- crowding that there was in the ancient city. As a matter of fact, however, the modern city both here and m America exhibits a degree of overcrowding on space such, as 1 believe, has never existed in the history of the world. The main cause of the difference between the ancient and modern city is the possession of ivater under Ijressure. In ancient Eome an excellent supply of w^ater flowed from the neighbouring hills along open aqueducts supported on arches, and it is probable that the greatest head of water to be found in ancient Eome was repre- sented by the height of the aqueducts above the level of the ground. Most of the buildings in ancient Eome were what we should consider low. The dwelling-houses were rarely of more than one storey, or at most two storeys, high, and it was only in public buildings— temples, baths, basilicas — that an attempt was made to carry the edifice to any great height. In mediaeval cities, three-storeyed buildings represented the average maximum, for without 24 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE water under pressure very high buildings were imprac- ticable owing to the labour of carrying water to the upper storeys and the difficulty of removing refuse. Formerly a house was scarcely habitable unless it had a courtyard of some kind. This was essential for sanitary purposes — for a well and for the bestowal of refuse pending its removal by the scavenger ; most of the decent houses in mediaeval London had a considerable amount of curtilage, as may be seen by consulting the maps of Aggas, Ryther, Newcourt, and others. The steam-engine and the cast- iron water pipe have together created a new order of things. The steam-engine gives us any head of water we desire, and the modern iron fittings are able to stand any pressure to which we may find it necessary to sub- ject them. There is no longer any difficulty in taking water to the top storey of any house, however lofty ; no longer any difficulty in washing the filth out of an}^ dwelling-house, however big; there is no longer any absolute necessity of limiting the height of buildings ; no longer need of any curtilage to a house, nor for any outlet other than a pipe. This, indeed, is magical. * My estate,' says one, ' has risen in value from 100/. an acre to 5/. a foot.' * My water shares,' says another, ' pay me 12 per cent.' ' My mansions in the sky,' says the builder, ' have sold for double what they cost me.' All the gas shareholders and those who have invested in electric supply companies join in the chorus of delight. This is, indeed, a civilising and wonderful age. Let us build a temple, and place in it a steam-engine, an iron water pipe, and an hydraulic lift. Under these very money-making conditions it is not to be wondered at that the craze of the present time is for tenement houses, which are called model dwellings, flats, or mansions, according to the class for which they are intended. CONCENTRATION OJF POPULATION IN CITIES ^ "Whatever they may be called they are all of the same type, and they are calculated to trouble the soul of the sanitarian who knows the danger of overcrowding on space and under a common roof. Let us hear what Edinburgh can teach us on this subject. In a very excellent paper on the Hygiene and Demography of Edinburgh, which was communicated to the seventh (London) Congress, and w^hich is now pub- lished in the twelfth volume of the Transactions of the Congress, is (p. 66) the following passage : ' Edinburgh enjoyed for many years the unenviable notoriety of being subject to periodical outbursts of fever. These assumed in all cases the epidemic form, and entailed a large mortality among the citizens. . . . There can be no doubt that one main cause of these repeated outbreaks was the manner of housing the inhabitants, which, copied from the French, consisted in piling tenement above tenement until a large overcrowded population was con- fined in a limited space, and could only communicate with the outer world by a narrow stair. . . . When in- fectious disease of any kind broke out in such circum- stances, it spread with great rapidity, and quickly assumed the epidemic form.' Tenement houses are common in Paris, where the overcrowding on space as a consequence is on an average twice as great as in London, and w^here the death-rate is considerably higher than in London. (In 1881 I find the death-rate was 28 per 1,000 in Paris.) The condition of New York has already been alluded to. It is doubtless gratifying to national vanity to have a capital city composed of huge edifices which may be made to look palatial from the outside, but there is also no doubt that the comparatively low death-rate which London has hitherto enjoyed is to be attributed to the fact that as a rule each family has had a house of its own. 26 JESSAVS ON RURAL HYGIENE It is strange that the craze for high buildings has reached its maximum in America, where cities have sprung into sudden existence on the boundless prairie, where space is practically unlimited. The main causes of this seem to be hurry, avarice, an insane spirit of competition, and the difficulties connected with domestic service in a country where the citizens are more willing to slave for a machine than serve a mistress. Life in hotels and boarding-houses is more common in America than here, and co-operative housekeeping has reached a high stage of development. Water, warmth (by steam coils), gas, electricity, telephones, and hydraulic power are supplied to groups of houses from common centres. This is a convenient arrangement, but one which makes for the overcrowding of houses on space. Domestic architecture is in danger of becoming a lost art in cities where the inhabitants are content to be stored in human ware- houses erected by engineers and as full of machinery as a factory. In the most modern city in the world (Chicago), the builders of which have had the oppor- tunity of avoiding all the errors of the past, it is curious to note that the engineer-architects have exceeded all previous efforts in the matter of high buildings and disgraceful overcrowding. The ' Masonic Temple ' in Chicago has twenty storeys and is 265 feet high, and is merely the latest and worst of many similar buildings in the city. In such a city the sewage difficulty is neces- sarily very great, but we learn that a special canal is to be constructed for its reception, and this is to discharge into the upper waters of the Mississippi ! It seems astounding that such an outrage on their noblest river should be tolerated by the American people. The volume of the sewage may be as nothing when compared with the volume of the river into which it is to be discharged, CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 27 but one would ask, Can this ingenious race, who Kke to be considered in the van of progress, do nothing better with the sewage of a great city than this ? And are we to eonchide that their hygiene is founded more on expediency and money getting than on any true scientific, economic, or moral principles ? As regards the state of public health in Chicago, the following figures may help one to form an estimate of it. The annexed table, compiled from the official mortality returns, shows that for 1890 the death-rate was 18-2, and for 1891 22-2. It has not been possible to make any correction for age distribution, but it seems highly probable that Chicago is largely peopled by vigorous adult immigrants who crowd into it in search of employment. The zymotic death-rate was 4*09 in 1890 and 5*61 in 1891, the latter figure being not far from double the zymotic death-rate of London in 1890. The death-rate from typhoid fever was 840 per 1,000,000 in 1890 and 1,596 per 1,000,000 in 1891, the latter figure being nearly five times as great as the largest typhoid fever death-rate ever recorded in London. Croup and diphtheria last year killed 1,087 per 1,000,000 in Chicago, which is a figure enormously in advance of any that have ever been recorded in London. These figures seem to show that no amount of ingenious engineering can counteract the evils of overcrowding on space. Death-rate /per 1,000,000 Living. All causes Zymotic 4,090 5,610 2,896 Diph- theria and cronp Typhoid i'ever Tubercular affections Respira- tory aff'ec- tions Violence! Chicago, 1890 1891 London, 1890 18,214 22,204 20,978 1,051 1,087 330 840 1,596 144 1,859 1,967 2,943 3,136 4,089 4,910 1,069 1,170 719 28 ESSAVS ON RURAL HYGIENE The following account of Chicago, taken from a paper on the Columbian Exposition read before the Society of Arts in December last by Mr. James Dredge, seems to show that the modern American business city is ad- mirably calculated to rob existence of its pleasures : ' No description, in fact, would do justice to this city of 1,200,000 inhabitants, almost everyone of whom appears endowed with preternatural activity ; which owns a street eighteen miles in length, almost a dead level for the whole distance, and on which are houses twenty storeys high ; whose traffic is as noisy as it is ceaseless, both on the smooth-running rope-worked railways and the ill-paved, jolting roads ; where the roar of the loco- motive and the scream of the lake steamer emphasise the fact that repose and silence are unknown, even in the dead of night ; where a pall of smoke, the outpour- ing of a thousand factories and of ten thousand dwellings, reminds the Englishman of home. Picture all these things, and you can form some idea of Chicago, which has been raised in sixty years by the indomitable energy of Americans to the rank of the sixth city of the world in point of population. . . . Great as Chicago is, the period of her true greatness has yet to come. Its commencement will dawai when her inhabitants give themselves leisure to realise that the object of life is not that of incessant struggle ; that the race is not always to the swift, but rather to those who understand the luxury and advantage of repose as well as of sustained effort. Ileal greatness does not depend on length of streets, nor lieight of houses, nor even on colossal fortunes ; but rather on the wise application and equally wise conservation of energy and intellect. When Chicago ceases to be the city of perpetual haste, and adopts the pace which will be inevitably set for her by time, the CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 29 names of her great workers will not be erased so early from the book of life, but will be preserved to give their beloved city many more years of really useful work. At jDresent, I think there are no old men in Chicago, because they have no time to grow old ; and giving themselves insufficient time for leisure, they have, as a necessary consequence, little opportunity for the higher culture which is born of leisure.' It needs to be pointed out that the overcrowding of our cities, which is admittedly the greatest of all sanitary evils, is the direct result of sanitary legislation. When, some forty years since, it was recognised that water- carried sewage inevitably poisoned the wells, no attempt was made to protect the w^ells from pollution ; but the surface wells were compulsorily closed, the inhabitants were sold in bondage to the water companies, and the houses were compelled to pollute our rivers. These measures have given a fatal facility for overcrowding, and wherever a line of sewers is taken the speculative builder follows ; for, not bemg hampered by questions of water-supply or filth-disposal (the sanitary authorities relieving him of all responsibilities in this matter), he is able to erect buildings without any curtilage, and of any height almost that he chooses. Be it observed that this state of things is not limited to London or the big towns. The notion that houses are as well without curtilage as w^ith it has infected the country, as anybody may see for himself when travelling by railway. The train runs through miles of country, with scarcely a house to be seen ; but when we stop at the developing district, grow- ing up round the country station, we find the houses packed almost as closely as they are in the centres of towns. As an instance of this, a village might be men- tioned where land can be bought at very little above its 30 ESS A YS ON RURAL HYGIENE agricultural value. This village has been selected by a railway company for the establishment of ' works,' and the company is erecting row^s and rows of artisans' cottages with at most a few square feet of curtilage each. The onus of draining these cottages will ultimately be thrown on the local authority, with the additional onus, in a few years' time, of providing the inhabitants wdth allotments ; and all the expense of this wall fall upon the ratepayers as a whole. Clearly, the best place for an allotment is round the dwelling, and some compulsion should have been put upon this wealthy company to provide them. A couple of hundred acres of land (enough for 1,000 cottages) might, I suspect, have been purchased in this particular spot for less than 10,000/., and would have added 10/. to the cost of each cottage. What is this to a rich company, especially if it be the means of increasing the health and contentment of their workpeople ? Would it not be money well spent, and spent to the ultimate advantage of the shareholders? We have engendered a stingy habit of mind towards the question of space round houses, which almost amounts to a national insanity. A country town which the writer knows well, where 200 acres of land with a house and farm buildings recently sold for 4,000/., has sanctioned the erection by a building society of 200 dwellings on six acres of land. This building estate will, if successful, have a population of 1,000 persons, or nearly 170 to the acre, a degree of overcrowding about three times as great as that of the average of London. The building society will make a good profit, while the sanitary authority which sanctioned this scheme will ultimately have to deal with the in- fectious diseases of this crowded area, and will not only have to provide, at the expense of the ratepayers as a CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 31 whole, for the safe bestowal of the filth from this area, but will also, possibly, be compelled to provide the tenants with allotments. Can anything be worse from the hygienic point of view than the modern tenement house or monster hotel, where each floor ventilates into the floor above and the floor below, while the ' lifts ' effectually drive the air from one floor to another without renewing it ? In such places, where hundreds live under a common roof, fresh air is impossible. Dr. Ogle, in hi&^ paper on • The Relation of Occupation to Disease and Mortality,' read at the late Congress, pointed out that the mortality of hotel servants was higher than that of any other class, being nearly four times as great as that of the clergy, who enjoy the lowest degree of mortality. This high mortality is not to be wondered at, for the hotel servant never breathes fresh air, and lives day and night in an overcrowded dwelling redolent of humanity, dinners, gas, tobacco, and drains, one or all, most commonly all. Alcoholism may have something to do with this high mortality, but we must all admit that the unwholesome conditions of life are probably the main cause of the alcoholism. Drinking is said to be on the increase in this country, and it is probable that it would be found to bear a very definite ratio to the overcrowding on space. The advantages of hotel life are many, and the charms of living in a pleasant community are very great. These charms have always been recognised, but when we contrast the ' college,' as seen at Oxford or Cambridge, with its ample area and the oj)portunities for society or seclusion at will, with the modern hotel, raised tier above tier, in which tranquillity and fresh air are alike unknown, it must be confessed that, aesthetically and hygienically, the mediaeval architect was ahead of his 32 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE successors. These remarks apply not merely to those great hostelries in cities, where persons are content to jostle each other during a short paroxysm of business or pleasure, but also to establishments erected in health resorts and by the seaside, which have been designed for the reception of delicate persons and invalids, and which are well calculated to bring chronic maladies to a termina- tion. Let us look at the question of overcrowding on space from an economic point of view. It is calculated that to raise the body vertically requires twenty times the force necessary for walking on the level, so that whether we mount stairs to the height of 100 feet or walk 2,000 feet along the level the labour is the same. But I shall be told there are 'lifts,' and, that being the case, it becomes quicl^r and easier to move vertically than horizontally. It costs money to be carried, however, and a ' lift ' is a most extravagant machine, because it does not accommodate the force expended to the weight to be raised. In a report recently issued by the South London Electric Eailway, it is stated that the cost of working the lifts is 10 per cent, of the gross receipts ! We are becoming alive to the fact that the fogs of London are getting more frequent and more virulent, in spite of the steady increase in the use of gas as a fuel. This is due to the overcrowding of houses and the multiplication of chimneys on a given area. In the country, and in most towns, the smoke is diluted to a point which practically gives us no trouble. It need hardly be said that a house of nine storeys will give off three times as much smoke as one of three storeys having the same area. In the centre of London we have been building enormous piles of offices and tenements, adding storeys to old houses, and putting buildings upon every CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 33 garden and back yard, while at the same thne the area of the city has enormously increased. What right have we to grumble at the increased density of the fogs ? We have deliberately caused it, and neither Royal Commis- sion, parliamentary committee, nor anthracite coal will put it right. Even though we got rid of the ' blacks,' we should still have the irritating invisible products of combustion — by far the most harmful of the elements of a fog — to deal with. We have made our bed, and we must lie upon it. The damage done to property by fogs, the extra cost of washing and painting entailed by living in the dirtiest capital city in the world, the serious loss of trade, the cost of using artificial light in the day- time, as well as the injury to health, must be all reckoned as among the penalties we pay for overcrowding. * Clean- liness is next to godliness,' says the old adage, and we are bound to admit that the filthiness of the air of London is a not unimportant factor in causing the moral degrada- tion in which not a few of the inhabitants are sunk. One main object of overcrowding houses is the saving of time in the transaction of business, but there are limits which cannot be overstepped without defeating our object. The check put upon freedom of locomotion by overcrowding, and the time occupied in going from point to point, more than counterbalance the shortness of the distance which we have to travel, to say nothing of the fact, previously alluded to, that vertical movement requires twenty times the force of horizontal movement. In London rapid locomotion is getting daily more and more impossible, and there are so many vehicles and persons in the streets that we are all in the way of each other. Our streets are always more or less blocked by building operations, which must be in proportion to the cubic contents of the buildings on a given area. Then, D 34 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE again, we have beneath our streets sewer pipes, water pipes, gas pipes, hydrauHc power pipes, and pneumatic tubes, as well as wires for telegraphs, telephones, and electric lights. The necessity for interfering with these various subterranean arrangements in any one street must be largely proportionate to the number of dwellers whose front doors open into the street. These being almost unlimited, it follows that our streets, instead of being only occasionally * up,' as the phrase goes, are only occasionally ' down.' Again, the number of vehicles which stop at any given door is proportionate to the number of persons who live behind it. A set of ' man- sions ' with 200 inhabitants may have scarcely more frontage than a modest house accommodating ten per- sons, but the vehicles stopping at them will be twenty times as many. It is the halting vehicles rather than the moving ones which offer the greatest obstacles to traffic. In civilised London we have very few back doors ; our coals are shovelled in and our garbage hauled out under the dining-room windows ; and these tedious operations, performed in the main thoroughfare, are in themselves great obstacles to traffic. The wear and tear of the streets is in proportion to the traffic, and in some of the leading thoroughfares the traffic has become so great that it is wonderful that any material can be found hard enough to stand it. These considera- tions make it clear that the increasing difficulties of locomotion in London are due to the overcrowding of houses on a given area. From the aesthetic point of view the effects of over- crowding are disastrous. Proportion is one of the most important elements in architectural beauty, and few will be found to admire the Gargantuan architecture of the engineer-builder. CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 35 In spite of a somewhat dull uniformity, Eegent Street still remains the finest street in London in virtue of its outline and proportions and the possibility of sun- light getting access to it. Contrast Eegent Street with Northumberland Avenue, that draft}^ gloomy gorge of bricks and masonry, m which the only really pretty building is the cabmen's shelter at the end. It is mere waste to erect fine buildings in situations w^here they cannot be seen without efibrt. Every good building ought to have a proper ' setting.' How would West- minster Abbey look without its greenery and turf ? Can any building look really well without some verdure or floral decoration ? Can any building that has them look really ill ? In London our buildings are getting too high for their confined situations ; they block out the sunlight, their many chimneys foul the air with soot, and, as a consequence, our palaces are grimy, and gar- dening, the most beautiful and the most health-giving of all arts, has become impossible. Wandering in the streets of London, and looking at the dim outline of our grimy public buildings looming through the mist, one is reminded of the lines from the opening of ' Mac- Fair is foul, and foul is fair : Hover through the fog and filthy air. When the air of a city gets so foul as to hinder and arrest vegetation, w^e are hygienically in a ' parlous ' state, as Touchstone would have said. Not only do the green leaves of plants absorb carbonic acid from, and give off oxygen to, the air, but their roots ai*e no less useful in draining and purifying the soil upon which we live. We have heard a good deal about the dangers of an impure soil, and the invariable advice with regard to it is to put something which is impermeable, such d2 36 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE as concrete or asplialte, to prevent the rising of possible impurities from the earth. This is analogous to putting dead bodies into impermeable coffins, whereby the dan- ger of their decomposition is not prevented, but merely delayed. The only way to purify the soil is by cultiva- tion, aeration, and the growth of plants. I believe that an evergreen creeper, such as ivy, does more to keep the foundations and walls of a house dry and pure than do any of the patent impermeable applications. As London, in spite of all its ' betterments,' is getting steadily less habitable year by year, there is very properly a growing tendency to sleep out of town and journey to and fro to business. Not more than 37,000 people sleep in that square mile which we call ' the City ; ' but as more than 300,000 find permanent daily occupation there, it is obvious that there are some 260,000 daily workers who have to be transported to and from the suburbs. If we reckon cost and loss of time in transit, it will not be an extravagant estimate to suppose that this journeying involves a loss of one shilling per head per diem, or, collectively, 13,000/. a day, 78,000/. a week, and over 4,000,000/. per annum. When a man lives out of town he becomes a slave to a railway company, he has to be punctual himself in order not to miss trains which are seldom punctual, and he finds out what it is to bear * the whips and scorns of time.' As he wastes his time in being shuttled to and fro he must be queerly con- stituted if he does not wish for the good old times when it was possible to 'live over the shop.' Our modern facilities of communication cause us to be always in a hurry, and it is certainly a suggestive fact that having invested nearly 1,000,000,000/. in railways, on which we go shrieking to and fro ; having so perfected the penny post that it has become a veritable nuisance with CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 37 its endless delivery of documents, which are mainly worthless waste paper in the form of advertisements ; having annihilated time and space by the telegraph and telephone ; and having abolished darkness by means of gas and electricity — there should arise an ominous crj^ for a limitation of the hours of labour and a demand to do by Act of Parliament that which, ' in the good old days,' the sun did for us. There is yet another consideration which shows the cost of overcrowding houses. AMien growth occurs in an organised body, such as a tree or an animal, all parts increase ipciri passu, and there is no necessary loss of health or vigour. But in a city growth is more like an inflammatory swelling, the cells of the part increase, while there is no adequate increase of the channels which bring nutriment. Stasis is apt to occur, and unless relief be given by surgical means the death of the part will follow. The modern city is ever in need of surgical interference ; new thoroughfares have to be cut in order to give relief to congested districts, and these operations can only be carried out by means of an expenditure of money which is simply appalling in amount. The at- tempt to improve the sanitary state of a city by a process of * Haussmannising ' must be futile. If we make a fine boulevard through the slums the inhabitants are merely piled in heaps on either side ; the width of the street is increased by increasing the overcrowding of inhabitants under a common roof, which is the greatest of all sani- tary evils. Not long since a scheme was foreshadowed in one of the magazines for turning the Euston Eoad into a boulevard by appropriating all the front gardens and back yards, and erecting huge tenement houses on either side. No proposition could be worse from a sanitary point of view. It cannot be too earnestly insisted upon 38 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE that the air of the grimiest back yard is better than that of any room, even though its (generally closed) windo^^-s command a view of a stately boulevard. The breathing of fresh air, so important to all, is doubly important to very young children. Children under four are too young to play in the streets ; their mother's home duties are too arduous to allow her to take them to the park, and the little girl who might do so has been driven to school by the law. The result is that the little children have to breathe the fetid air of a small living room from week's end to week's end, instead of being able to play in a little yard, where the mother could watch them through the open door, as formerly was the case. The value of an open space is largely in proportion to its proximity to the dwelling. A little back yard or garden of one's own is worth iu finitely more than Hyde Park a mile off, and the old graveyard converted into a garden a hundred yards down the street is far more precious to the poor town dweller than Epping Forest or Burnham Beeches. This mention of disused graveyards leads one to say a few words on the disposal of the dead. Cremation is just now being strongly advocated, but on insufiicient grounds, and for the following reasons: — 1. Eational earth burial has never been shown to be productive of any evil, and the facts of bacteriology point to the con- clusion that it is not a source of danger to the living. Even the scandalously irrational burial which has been permitted in the past has caused very little definite mischief, not even in those cases where the act of conse- cration has not been able to keep off the dangerous invasion of the graveyard by the railway contractor. 2. Cremation is wasteful, and involves a needless expen- diture of fuel, and would help to still further pollute CONCENTRATION OF TOPULATION IN CITIES 39 the air of our cities by products of combustion, always poisonous to breathe, and not always odourless. Dead bodies should be left to nitrify in the earth and provide nourishment for trees which, while affording us timber and firewood, would at the same time effectually cleanse the soil of its impurities and render it fit to be used for burial a second time. The advocates of cremation say that this economic argument is false because the products of combustion are indestructible, and must ultimately go to nourish plants somewhere and somehow. This is doubtless true, and by parity of reasoning we might do well to throw our money into the street instead of paying it into the bank, and we might advocate the fertilising of the market gardens round London by setting fire to the manure in the London mews. 3. The necessity for burying the dead which hitherto has existed has had the indirect effect of separating the living and preventing to some extent the overcrowding of houses. If our ceme- teries are to be replaced by furnaces with tall chimneys pouring noxious gases into the air, and if the ground which would be occupied by cemeteries is to be covered by houses, it is clear that we shall gain nothing from a sanitary point by the introduction of cremation. 4. Although the writer is a professor of medical jurispru- dence, he thinks the objection that cremation will enable the poisoner to escape detection is a minor objection, though real. The overcrowding of houses means loss of liberty, for the closer we crowd together the more likely we are to suffer from the sanitary negligence of others, and the more necessary does it become to regulate our actions by by-laws and Acts of Parliament. I need hardly insist on the fact, so ably enforced by Herbert Spencer, that personal liberty is necessary for social evolution, and 40 ESSA VS ON RURAL HYGIENE that Acts of Parliament are evils only to be tolerated for the avoidance of greater evils. The growth of Acts of Parliament of late years, and the new offences w^hich they constitute, was recently forcibly pointed out by the chief constable of Liverpool in a letter to the Times, in which he stated that in 1890 there were as many as 11,279 cases in Liverpool under the Education and Health Acts alone. Overcrowding has necessitated the compulsory notification of disease and the appointment of a crowd of inspectors, and there are those who wish to compel us to take out a license for our houses, which is only to be given when they are fitted with the particular sanitary apparatus which happen to be in fashion. It is well to bear in mind that the overcrowding of which I am complaining is largely the result of compulsory Acts of Parliament which curtailed our liberty in the matter of water-supply and sewerage, while they gave to the speculative builder opportunities by which he has not failed to profit. When a couple of years since the in- fluenza made its reappearance among us, a distinguished engineer wrote to the papers with the kindly object of comforting us by the assurance that the perfection of our sanitation would certainly lessen the ravages of the epidemic. It need hardly be said that the author's opinion was directly opposed to his, for influenza being an air-borne disease, and the overcrowding of houses and the fashion of many families living under a common roof having largely developed since its last appearance, it seemed probable that the epidemic would be more severe than formerly, and more difficult to eradicate. Can nothing be done to check the overcrowding of houses and persons ? Although we have passed many laws for the improvenaent of the public health, we have not sought as yet to put any very severe restraints on the CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 41 builder and landowner, and we have not sought, as would seem but reasonable, to limit the number of inhabitants who may be accommodated on a given area of land. It is the object of all traders, whether they be public companies or individuals, to have the largest number of customers on the smallest possible area, and therefore any attempt at restriction cannot be popular. Neither would such restriction be popular with the sanitary authorities, who have to collect rates ; for rate- able value is unfortunately directly proportionate to the overcrowding of houses on a given area. We have bor- rowed large sums of money, and the rates have more than kept pace with our sanitary progress (the rates of the author's own house have risen more than 30 per cent, in the last twenty years), and as houses pay rates the authorities encourage building by every means in their power ; they foster overcrowding and perhaps call it ' betterment.' Sanitary authorities are now being en- couraged to embark in business as purveyors of water, gas, electricity, and locomotion ; and as their success in business will depend upon the number of customers they can crowd into their respective areas, they are likely to be more biassed than ever in favour of over- crowding. One of the functions of a sanitary authority is to protect the public from the rapacity of public companies ; and one would fear that the desire to make money out of the needs of the inhabitants must hamper the judg- ment and impartiality of the authority. This fashion of sanitary authorities to become purveyors must be re- garded as an interesting socialistic experiment, but not one which is likely to conduce to the public health or public convenience. We have many sanitary laws, and the present does not seem the time to advocate a return 42 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE to the liberty of the past. Unless the sanitary condition of our towns is to get steadily worse, we must have a law to prevent overcrowding. Such a law seems to me to be the necessary complement of all the others. It seems needful to insist that every building shall have a minimum curtilage in proportion to its cubic contents, and it is evident that any such rule, to be of value, must be of universal application throughout the country. Such a rule, we shall be told, is impossible because of the high price of building land in cities ; but to this objection the answer is that the exorbitant price of building land is the result of the absence of any such rule. The value of building land is, cceteris paribus, pro- portionate to the number of inhabitants it will accommo- date ; and if the accommodation of a given area is to be unlimited, the price of land will be almost unlimited also. It is evident that any rule for making the minimum curtilage proportionate to the cubic contents must not be too exacting, and must be very simple and capable of universal application. Suppose we were to say that the curtilage of a building shall in no case be less than an area expressed by a figure representing 1 per cent, of the cubic contents of the building. This is certainly a very modest demand. Let us see how it would work. By such a rule as this a building like the Masonic Hall at Chicago, which is I14ft. x 117ft. x 265ft., and which (to take round numbers for simplicity) contains about 3,500,000 cubic feet, would require 35,000 square feet of curtilage, and since the area of the building itself is 13,000 square feet, the size of the entire plot of ground which it would require would be 48,000 square feet, or about an acre and one-eighth. Assuming that this buildmg can accommodate 1,000 persons (probably alow estimate), it is evident that, even with the compulsory CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 43 curtilage which I suggest, we should still have a condition of overcrowding on space which must be regarded as indefensible. The average London dwelling-house, which has about twenty feet frontage with a height of sixty feet and a depth of fifty feet, contains 60,000 cubic feet, and ought, according to the rule I have suggested, to have a minimum curtilage of 600 feet — i.e. a back yard as wide as the house, and thirty feet long. Such a house would accommodate about ten persons, and would occupy 1,600 square feet of ground, or, with its necessary proportion of street, 2,200 square feet, or, as near as may be, the twentieth of an acre. Even under these ch'cumstances we should have 200 inhabitants to the acre, which is a number certainly largely in excess of what ought to be allowed. It is evident that, unless we know the maxi- mum number of inhabitants which is to be permitted on a given area, it is impossible to make any reliable calcu- lations as to water-supply and sewage disposal. It does not seem to me more unreasonable to set a limit to over- crowding houses on a given area than it is to requh'e a definite cubic space for the inhabitants of common lodgmg-houses. This rule could not, of course, be applied to existing houses, but the cubic contents of such houses or of houses built to replace them ought not to be suffered to be increased unless this rule or something like it be observed. If we allow the cubic contents of buildings to be indefinitely increased, regardless of the question of curtilage, as is being done in every part of London, it is certain that the condition of public health must steadily deteriorate. To imagine otherwise would be to give the lie to those elementary facts of physiology and hygiene which are universally admitted. To pur- chase plots of vacant ground at exorbitant rates, and 44 ASSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE miscall them * lungs,' is no true remedy for over- crowding. The only true remedy is to have the open ground dovetailing with the houses. Let us also remember that overcrowding in the daytime is no less harmful than overcrowding at night. The citizens of London have seldom had an qjq to anything except immediate profit. They allowed Moorfields and the Drapers' garden to be sold for enormous sums, without a thought for the health of the thousands of young men and women who daily toil in that overcrowded spot called ' the City ' ; and they have taken no heed of the Eegistrar- General's returns, which are telling them that the death-rate at the prime of life {i.e. between the ages of thirty-five and sixty-five), which has been steadily rising for the whole kingdom, is nearly 70 per cent, higher in London than it is in the best country districts. No regulation other than the insistence upon a proportion being observed between cubic contents and curtilage would serve to check overcrowding. An arbi- trary rule to limit the height of buildings is not suffi- cient, because if the builder be not allowed to soar he will commence to burrow, as he is doing in Chicago, and as he has done for many years past in London. A cry- ing need in London is for back doors and back streets between the houses for delivering goods, and beneath which could be laid the various subterranean pipes and wires, the repairing of which is so frequent a cause of blocking the main thoroughfares. A system of back streets would do more to facilitate the traffic of the tho- roughfares than a similar addition made to the width of the main streets. It will be urged that these views are impracticable, because overcrowding is necessary for business, and it is indeed asserted by some that the commercial prosperity CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 45 of this country and of America is largely clue to the fact that the business men are content to literally crawl over each other in an ecstasy of frenzied competition which is making existence a burden. It is certain, however, that this question of overcrowding on space is one which must be dealt with in the future in no niggardly spirit, and that our national and commercial prosperity very largely depend on our willingness and ability to face it. The inadequate housing of the working classes has probably more to do with their chronic discontent than is gene- rally supposed. A real ' home,' be it remembered, is a very different thing from a room in a barrack. A home that is clean and bright and beautiful, the beauties of which have increased year by year under the owner's fostering care, where the children have space to grow up healthily, and where there is some escape from the dirt and din of the workshop — a home in which it is possible to take a pride, and which is a source of daily pleasure — "is something which a man will weigh carefully in the balance before he lightly determines on throwing up his employment. A decent home without sufficient space is impossible, and the sooner that great industrial com- panies and employers of labour grasp this idea the better. That the labouring classes are beginning to grasp it is shown by the recent agitation in the East-end of London against replacing the two-storeyed houses by industrial barracks. The fashion of piling people in heaps, and offering them libraries and bagatelle-tables as a compen- sation, must come to an end, and one looks forward hopefully to the working of the Allotment Act, especially w^hen it is recognised that the proper place for the allot- ment is round the house. Thirty perches (rather less than a fifth of an acre) is the maximum amount of garden which a man can cultivate at his leisure, and it 46 ESSAYS ON 7^ URAL HYGIENE is the little bit of garden which converts a dwelling into a home, which provides a delightful occupation for a man's leisure hours, which freshens the air round the dwelling, which keeps a man from the tavern and the sixpenny betting hell, and which is capable of turning all the refuse of the house into profitable garden produce. Not much improvement is to be looked for until the con- science of the educated and upper classes has been roused. As long as persons in high position are content to leave their broad acres and swelter for the season in highly decorated ' bijou residences,' where the servants are poked away underground or in miserable attics, not much improvement can be expected. Many of the persons who come to London for the season are philan- thropists whose hearts ' bleed ' for the miseries of the East-end. These people forget that when they come to town they make it necessary for humbler people who minister to their wants to come to London also ; and that, if they who are wealthy are content to live on a very insufficient area, their poor dependents must neces- sarily be packed together in great discomfort and at the cost of their physical and moral well-being. Let those who are sorry for the state of overcrowding in cities stop out of them, and spend their incomes in the country. If they can succeed in making those who live round them in the country happy and contented, and thus check the rush for the towns, they will do infinitely more good than by subscribing to city missions or ' People's Palaces.' Unless we can succeed in checking the over- crowding of cities by some such regulation as that which has been suggested, it is probable that all the money we have spent and are spending on so-called sanitary im- provements is money thrown away, and that, in so far as modern hygienic methods have enabled people to live CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION IN CITIES 47 closer packed than heretofore, they have worked mis- chief rather than good. Those who have the control of developing districts will do well to keep them as rural as possible, and encourage private gardens by every means in their power. The house ought to be taxed in proportion to its size, and not the garden round it ; for a garden is a great boon in a town, even to those who do not own it, because it serves to keep the dwelling- houses asunder. A person who owns a garden may, if he be so minded, be quite independent of the sanitary authority ; and a wise sanitary authority will do well, by a remission of taxation, to encourage him by every means in its power. So long as sanitary authorities are content merely to encourage the jerry builder by clearing up his messes and making good his deficiencies, not much improvement is to be expected. Such policy may be * good for trade,' but it is not good for the pubhc health. Finally, one hopes that it may be increasingly pos- sible for a man to own his dwelling and the ground around it, and that the transfer of land may be much facilitated. Without wishing to embark on a discussion as to the relative advantages of large and small holdings, it seems necessary to point out that no one is so likely to do justice to the land and to improve it as the absolute owner, whether he owns a thousand acres or only one. If a man owns a bit of land, be it farm or garden, he is bound in self-defence to make the best of it, and he can have no object in quarrelling with, cheating, or shootmcr his landlord. This last is a point which political econo- mists not unfrequently neglect. We are often told that large holdings are more economical than small ones, and it is pointed out that on the farms of our large proprietors the yield per acre is greater than the yield on the land 48 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE of the peasant proprietors of France or elsewhere. Our big farmers, however, have not of late years grown rich, and it is doubtful if free trade is the sole cause of this. Is it not possible to farm too high for profit ? We may drive a steamship ten knots an hour at a profit, but lose by attempting to get fifteen knots out of her. So I fancy that much of the profit of farming is frittered away in a lavish expenditure on artificial fertilisers, in the desire to get excessive crops. Small holdings and gardens and what has been called the dovetailing of the houses and the land, have two advantages which are often lost sight of. The first is, that the producer and consumer are largely identical, so that the middleman and free trade are alike powerless to do him harm. The second is, that all the refuse of the house is available for the land, and in pro- portion to its amount is the expense of buying ' artificials ' and the risk of keeping stock done away with. The key to good agriculture is thrift, and no arrangement more thrifty than that w^hich has been indicated can be con- ceived. The key to good sanitation is agriculture, and therefore no effort should be spared to maintain a rural element even in our great industrial centres. 49 CHAPTER III ON THE SHORTCOMINGS OF SOME MODERN SANITARY METHODS The chief aim of sanitarians has ever been, and ever will be, the securing for the masses of the people the two chief necessities of life — pure air to breathe, pure water to drink. Whether or not we are able to secure these two necessities depends very largely upon the method which we adopt for the treatment of putrescible refuse ; and it is to this point, and the modern fashion of mixing putrescible refuse with water, that the present chapter will be devoted. It may be well to remind the reader that all dead organic matter is putrescible, and that, when putrescible matter is spoken of, all organic matter, inclusive of excre- ment, is meant. Nature moves in a circle, animals feed on each other and on vegetables, vegetables feed on the dead bodies of animals and vegetables, and on the solid and gaseous excrements of animals. Animal and vegetable life are complementary, and mutually support each other. This is a law of nature, and in making this assertion I run no risk whatever of being contradicted. The laws of nature are inexorable ; i.e. they are not to be set aside by human prayers — not even by that best of all prayers, labour. Those who disobey the laws of E so ESSAYS ON Ji URAL HYGIENE nature, or who enter into a contest ^Yitll her, are sure to be worsted in the end. If we fight with nature we court calamity. Those who fight with nature may be compared to Sisyphus, who, according to the old mythology, was con- demned in the lower world to a never-ending contest with the force of gravity — With many a weary sigli and many a groan Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone ; The huge round stone resulting with a bound, Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground. By means of great expenditure of time and money, we may wage for a period with nature a war which may be apparently successful. The war can never be really successful, it will never terminate, nature in the end will assert her eternal sway, and crushing defeat must be our lot. As the inevitable destiny of putrescible matter is to become the food of vegetables, a destiny which we can delay at the most only for a brief period, our proper course in dealing with it is clearly not to attempt to pre- vent or even to delay the inevitable. Such a course is to disobey the laws of nature, to fight with her and court ultimate defeat. Our wiser plan is to help nature in her work, and thus win her smiles. It has been the wise custom in all ages of the world to dispose of putrescible matter by burial in the earth. Dead bodies have in all ages been buried, and the greatest of all lawgivers and sanitarians, Moses, gave most explicit directions that excremental matters should be treated in the same way. This is a not unimportant fact, and although we do not in this country follow the whole of the Mosaic law, nevertheless, that law is so pregnant with marvellous SOME MODERN SANITARY METHODS 51 wisdom, that we ought not to discard any item of it with- out first questioning ourselves most strictly as to our reasonableness in so doing. The latest advances of modern science seem to show that in this particular Moses was absolutely in the right. It has been shown, I think conclusively, that the decomposition of organic matter, whether in the earth, air, or w^ater, is brought about by minute fungoid organ- isms, the growth of which has the effect of resolving the highly complex organic compounds into soluble salts or gaseous bodies, which can be absorbed by the roots of plants. Now when putrescible matter is buried in the earth it undergoes decomposition without the occurrence of putrefaction — that process which is at once offensive to the senses and dangerous to health. This is effected by means of fungi, which produce oxidation of the organic bodies. If sufficient air has access to the pores of the soil, and if sufficient moisture be present, the nitrogen takes oxygen to form nitric acid, and this, combining with the bases, forms soluble nitrates. The carbon also in a similar way forms carbonic acid and carbonates. A good account of these active organisms which are ever present in the soil will be found in a paper by Professor Wollny/ of Munich. These organisms are so incalculably numerous that their activity must be ex- ceedingly widespread. Koch found enormous quantities, even in winter, m the soil not only of crowded places like Berlin, but in that also of remote fields. At the observatory of Mont Souris 750,000 were found in a gram of earth, and at Genevilliers from 850,000 to 900,000. 1 ( Ueber die Thatigkeit niederer Organismeu im Boden,' Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fur offentliche Geszmdheitsjpflege, vol. xy. p. 705, 1883. E 2 52 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE If the action of the microbes be checked by antisep- tics, the vapour of chloroform or heat (100° C), the chemical changes in the earth cease. That the formation of nitrates and carbonic acid from organic matter in earth to which air has access is due to microbes has been proved by direct experiment. When, however, organic matter is mixed with earth, and air is admitted in insufficient quantity or entirely excluded, the decomposition is of another kind ; and besides small quantities of carbonic acid and carburetted hydrogen, there is formed water, ammonia, free nitro- gen, and a great quantity of a black carbonaceous peat- like matter (the so-called sour humus). Schlosing found that the nitric acid in the soil dis- aj)peared when the air was replaced by nitrogen. The kind of organism seems to vary with circum- stances. As long as air is freely admitted, the mould- fungi {Schimmelpilze) preponderate ; and when air is excluded, the schizomycetes (spaltpilze) increase. The formation of nitric acid in organic earth mix- tures depends on the amount of oxygen which is present in the air admitted. Thus Schlosing found by experi- ment that the formation of nitric acid varies as under : — Oxygen . . 1-5% 6 11 16 21 Nitric acid . 45-7 m.g. 95-7 132*5 246-G 1C2'6 The nitrification which took place with a limited supply of oxygen was due probably to the air already mixed with the earth before the experiment began. Miller and Boussingault have shown that no nitrifi- cation takes place in thoroughly soaked earth to which little air has access, and that when oxygen is absent the nitrates in the earth are reduced. The formation of carbonic acid also depends upon the admission of air SOME MODERN SANITARY METHODS 53 (containing free oxygen), Ijut some carbonic acid is formed even though all air be excluded. Oxygen in air . . Pure X. 6% 11 18 21 Carbonic acid . . 9-3 m.g. 15-9 16 lG-6 IG Nitrification is assisted by a moderate amount of moisture. It attains its maximum when the moisture reaches 33 per cent., and above and below this the process of nitrification and formation of carbonic acid is hindered. Temperature has a great influence on oxidation in the earth. Oxidation reaches a maximum with a tem- perature of about 50° C. (120° F.), and stops at 55°. Oxidation goes on most quickly in the dark. Thus, oxidation depends not only on the presence of the organisms, but also on the presence of other factors, such as suitable aeration, suitable moisture, suitable temperature. These factors may all be suitable, or some may suit and others may not suit the oxidation process. The decomposition of organic matter in the soil is governed by that factor ichicli is at its mifiimum. The process of decomposition is much influenced by the physical condition of the soil, as, e.g, — (a) Permeability for air and water. (b) Nature and permeability of subsoil. (c) Slope. (d) Aspect. (e) Warmth dependent on aspect, mineral composi- tion, colour and moisture and nature of the crop. Barren soils are warm, while those covered with green crops are cool. That the variations of the ground water have a bear- ing on the oxidation processes cannot be doubted, when 54 ^^-^^KS* ON RURAL HYGIENE we reflect that the soakmg of the upper layers of the earth is much mfluenced by the height of the ground water. When all the layers of earth are soaked, putre- factive processes, through the medium of schizomycetes, take place. When the ground water falls, and the air again enters the pores of the soil, the growth of those organisms is favoured which assist in the oxidation of the soil. All changes which organic matter undergoes in the earth are thus seen to be brought about, almost exclusively, by the life of organisms, the activity of which is ruled by the same natural laws which govern the growth of higher plants. There can be no better illustration of the true economy of nature than this action of the microbes in the soil on the conversion of organic matter into soluble salts and gases which serve as food for plants. The growth of the microbes depends upon the con- currence of those conditions which, by experience, we all know to be favourable to the growth of higher plants. There must be a good supply of free oxygen, sufficient, but not too much moisture, and a summer temperature. In well-tilled ground, broken up so as to admit air to its pores, and in a * fine growing season,' in which sunshine alternates with showers, this process of oxidation is at its maximum. The microbes are active beneath the surface manufacturing plant food from organic matter, and the favourable conditions above soil and below cause a vigorous growth of crops. When, on the other hand, the weather is unfavour- able, and when in consequence of excessive cold, excessive drought, or excessive wet, crops are not developed as they should be, the microbial life is also checked, and the change of the organic matter is delayed, and it is SOME MODERN SANITARY METHODS 55 stored up for future use' in more favourable seasons. This is the explanation apparently of the fact well known to farmers, that the effect of organic manures is more permanent than that of the so-called artificial manures, which at present are so much in vogue. The organic manure remains entangled in the soil, and is not readily w^ashed out of it in winter when the temperature is low, or even in unpropitious summers. It cannot be washed out until microbial growth has changed it into soluble salts, and when this change takes place, which it does in ' good ' w^eather, the roots of the growing plants seize hold of the ever- forming soluble salts and appropriate them to their own use. In fact, the farmer who uses organic manures from the farmyard or elsewhere need trouble himself very little with agricultural chemistry or experiment. He may feel certain that if he buries his organic manure directly it is produced it will not be wasted. It will not give off ammonia to the air, nor will the juices be washed away by rain to the same extent as when it is left above ground to be a nuisance. There seems to be no doubt whatever that all heaps of manurial matter w^hich give off ammonia and other gases to poison the a^ir, and perhaps do more serious mischief, are allowing valuable matter to escape, which ought to be undergoing oxidation in the earth. There can be no doubt whatever that to the agriculturist stink means waste, and it is to be hoped that, when the bucolic mind has imbibed this great and important truth, the country will be more evenly pleasant than it is. The reason why farmers allow putrescible matter to fester in heaps appears to be — 1. That the matter has to wait until land is clear and circumstances permit of its being dragged to the fields ; 56 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE and (2) that when the matter is thoroughly rotten and most offensive, a more rajjid and visible result is produced, notwithstanding that the total result is probably less than if it had been applied to the ground at once. It is certain that putrescible matter intended for manure must waste more above ground than when buried im- mediately beneath it. Eich farmers are now building sheds over their yards to prevent the access of rain to the manure, and are i^roviding tanks for the reception of liquid which drains away. This involves a very great expense, and it is at least doubtful whether the result is better than that got by the immediate application of such matters to the soil — a process which involves no extra expenditure of any kind — a most important matter, because the only acceptable test of good husbandry is the balance-sheet. Mr. Warington, F.K.S., in his valuable little book on ' The Chemistry of the Farm,' says : ' The most complete return to the land would be accomplished by manuring it with the excrements of the men and animals consum- ing the crops ' (p. 28) ; and again, ' Farm3^ard manure is a ''general" manure; that is, it supj)lies all the essential elements of plant food. . . . The effect of farm- 3^ard manure is spread over a considerable number of years, its nitrogen being chiefly present not as am- monia, but in the form of carbonaceous compounds, which decompose but slowly in the soil.' The immediate return is often less than when arti- ficial manure, consisting of soluble nitrates and phos- phates, is used, but the important point seems to be that the return is tolerably sure to come in the long run. The late Professor Voelcker, in the article ' Manure ' in the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' gives an interesting table of the experiments of Sir John Lawes and Dr. SOME MODERN SANITARY METHODS 57 Gilbert, spreading over a period of twenty-four years, in which is shown the effect of different manures on cro^os. The most successful results with artificial manure were got by applying nearly 1,400 lb. weight per acre of mixed ammonia salts, superphosphate and sulphates (potash, soda, and magnesia). With this manure there was an average production of 37^ bushels of wheat, weighing on an average 59 lb. per bushel, and multiplymg these two figures together we may say that the production of wheat averaged 2,21'2'5 lb. The production of barley averaged 41^ bushels, weighing 53| lb., and multipljdng these figures we may say that the average jproduction was 2,588 lb. Where the land was manured with 14 tons of farmyard manure the average production of wheat was 85;^ bushels, weighing 60 lb., giving a figure of 2,115 lb., and of barley, 48| bushels, weighing 54| lb., giving a figure of 2,650 lb. This farmyard manure, when used for wheat-grow- ing, gave a yield of 97 lb. less than when the best arti- ficial manure was used ; and when used for barley-grow- ing it gave 62 lb. more than when artificial manure was used. These figures are certainly not such as should discourage us in the use of farm^^ard manure, especially when we remember that the average agriculturist is not likely to apply his artificial manures with the knowledge and judgment of Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert ; and that in the use of farmyard manure it is not easy for him to go very wrong. Again, farmyard manure is stuff' which must be used, while chemicals are things which must be bought, and need to be analysed when bought. Among the * Memoranda' (issued in June 1891) of results obtained by Sir John Lawes at Eothamstead will be found the following, which still further bears out the point in question. Barley and wheat have both been 58 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE grown continuously upon the same land for thirty-eight years, upon a series of experimental plots, each plot being manured with different mixtures of chemical manures, with farmyard manure, or (in the case of one plot in each) left unmanured continuously. The results are given in tabular form, in which is set forth the average yield of each plot for the whole thirty-eight years and for each half of the thirty-eight years (nineteen years 1852-70, and nineteen years 1871-89). There are in all (of barley and wheat) fifty-five plots of which these particulars are given. The most important fact seems to be that on fifty-four of these plots the average yield, whether of barley or wheat, was less in the second nineteen years than in the first nineteen years, showing that the fertility of the land had in every instance excerpt one deteriorated. This solitary exception is the plot upon which barley has been grown continuousl}^, and which has been manured year after year with fourteen tons of farmyard manure to the acre. Upon this plot the yield for the first nineteen years averaged 48 bushels of dressed grain and 27| cwts. of straw per acre, while for the second nineteen years the average was 49;^ bushels of dressed grain and 29 J cwts. of straw. The most successful of the artificially manured barley plots was No. 4, a.a.s., which had been dressed continu- ously with 275 lb. nitrate of soda, 400 lb. silicate of soda, 200 lb. sulphate of potash, 100 lb. sulphate of soda, 100 lb. sulphate of magnesia, and 3|- cwts. of superphosphate. Upon this plot the yield for the first nineteen years aver- aged 50i bushels of dressed grain and 30 J cwts. of straw, Avhile for the second nineteen years the average was 44 1 bushels of grain and 28^ cwts. of straw. Upon most of the other plots the yield was far inferior to the above, and upon the plot which had been unmanured continuously the SOME MODERN SANITARY METHODS 59 average yield for the first nineteen years was 20J bushels of grain and 11 1 cwts. of straw, and for the second nine- teen years 13^ bushels of grain and 7 cwts. of straw. On the plots devoted to wheat the average yield in the second nineteen years has, without exception, been less than in the first nineteen years, and the plot manured with farmyard manure does not show that pre-eminence of fertility which is the case with the barley. Thus, on the most productive of the artificially manured wheat plots, the yield in the first nineteen years averaged 39 bushels of grain and 41 §- cwts. of straw per acre ; and in the second nineteen years the average was 34 bushels of grain and 38^ cwts. of straw. This plot has been manured each year with 200 lb. sulphate of potash, 100 lb. sulphate of soda, 100 lb. sulphate of ]nagnesia, 3J cwts. of superphosphate, and 600 lb. ammonia salts. On the plot dressed continuously with farmyard manure the yield of the first nineteen years averaged 35| bushels of grain and 33J cwts. of straw, and in the second nineteen years 32^ bushels of grain and 30J cwts. of straw. The object of the above extracts is to show the high value of organic manure — which they undoubtedly do. In the case of barley there can be no doubt on this point, but in the case of wheat the results with organic manure are surpassed by some of the artificially manured crops. In the season of 1890, the results of which are tabu- lated in these ' Memoranda,' the results obtained with organic manure were so remarkable that they deserve to be quoted, although they have not the value of the nine- teen-year averages. The ^deld of barley on the plot dressed with farmyard manure was 53 bushels of grain and 29^ cwts. of straw 6o ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE (against 47^ bushels and 22J cwts. on the best of the artificially manured plots) , and the yield of wheat on the plot dressed with farmyard manure was 50 bushels of grain and 48 1 cwts. of straw against 48 bushels and 46^ cwts. on the best of the artificially manured plots. The season of 1890 seems to have been characterised by a rather dry spring and a rather wet summer. It is a great mistake to suppose that farming is in any way comparable to a chemical experiment. In ex- periments conducted in the laboratory the chemist is able to control all the conditions of the experiment, but in farming the condition which above all others influences the result, viz. the weather, cannot be controlled. When chemical manures are used with judgment and applied at the right moment, and when the weather is favourable, there is no doubt that the result is often sur- prising and gratifying. When, however, the weather is unfavourable, when the drought is so great that the chemicals cannot be dissolved, or when the rain is so heavy that they are washed out of the soil, the result is not encouraging. If organic manures are used, they waste but little in bad seasons, and much remains in the ground for next year's crop. The farmer, however, w'ho appHes chemicals in a bad season gets neither crop nor residuum of manure for next year. Mr. Warington says that * farmers have a prejudice in favour of the latter ' (ix. organic) * manures, but it is clear that the quickest return for capital invested is afforded by the former class' (i.e. inorganic). Surely we have no right to blame the farmers for their prejudice, w^hich seems to be in all respects reason- able. The doctrine has obtained in this country of late years that it is good economy to waste all our home- grown organic manure, and to import chemicals from SOMP. M0DERI4 SANITARY METHODS 6t South America for the purposes of agriculture. This is a strange doctrine ; but as most of our farmers are now too near bankruptcy to pursue this course, one may hope that ere long they will begin to clamour for that which we now waste so wickedly. One more word before bringing these remarks on farming to a close, remarks for which no apology is needed, because their bearing on the subject of sanitation must be obvious. It will be noted that in the hands of Lawes and Gilbert farmyard manure gave better results with barley than with wheat. May not the fact that farm animals are largely fed with barley-meal have something to do with this ? There are experiments which show that minimal ingredients in manures are not without effects which are often surprising. There are a 'priori grounds for thinking that the best manure for barley must be the excrement of a barley-eating animal, for in that excre- ment must be all that is necessary for barley. It is to be regretted that some agriculturist does not make the experiment of growing wheat with the excrement of a wheat-eating or bread-eating animal. As a gardener the author has grown potatoes with the excrement of a potato-eating animal, and certainly the result has been most encouraging. One has been obliged to draw illustrations as to the practical result of burying organic matter from the agri- cultural employment of farmyard manure, because facts based upon exact experiments with the organic refuse of our towns is not forthcoming. The poijit to be insisted upon is this: that the i^roper destiny of organic refuse is immediate burial just below the surface of the soil. Most of the shortcomings of modern sanitary methods 62 ASSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE are due to the fact that in our cleaHng with organic re- fuse we commit a scientific error — i.e, we pursue a course which is in opposition to natural law. This error consists in mixing organic refuse with water. "When organic refuse is mixed with water it under- goes changes which differ widely from the changes which it undergoes when mixed with earth. According to Wollny, whose paper has been quoted previously, the process of oxidation of organic matter and the formation of nitrate take place most readily when a moderate amount of moisture is present. The most favourable amount is about 33 per cent., and if the moisture rise above or sink below this amount, the pro- cess of nitrification and the formation of carbonic acid are hindered. When water is in excess the amount of free oxygen is insufficient to favour the growth of the neces- sary fungi, and, in place of oxidation, putrefaction takes place, with the formation of ammonia, free nitrogen, carbonic acid, and carburetted hydrogen. Under these unfavourable circumstances it is possible that the nitrates which may have been formed may be again reduced. This process of deoxidation takes place in mixtures of putrescible matter with water, and takes place also, it is said, in soil which is thoroughly soaked with sewage (?.e?-7?m??e/?^ and reliable som'ce of wealth in any country. The waste of valuable matter which takes place in London and our big towns must make us blush. One could wish that this waste were limited to our big towns, but it is not so. It is common throughout the country, even in rural districts. Free trade has made food very cheap indeed, and cheap food, especially inqwrted food, ought absolutely to increase the fertility of a country, for obvious reasons which need not be particularised. The fertility of this country is not increasing, to judge by the agricultural distress. The farmers are crying out for ' protection.' The first kind of protection needed seems to be a pro- tection from ourselves and from the sinful waste of fertilising matters which local boards, municipalities, and Imperial Parliament equally foster. If we made a proper use of our organic refuse we should enrich posterity. As it is, we reap and we do not sow. If municipalities would bury organic refuse, and plant the seed of some forest tree suited to the soil and situation (which in these days of cheap foodstuffs would probably be the best branch of agriculture to pursue), they would earn the blessings instead of the curses of posterity, and they would beautify the face of nature instead of making it hideous with tall chimneys, pumping stations, and precipitating tanks. This piece of advice will, just now, fall very flat, for of all agricultural arts, forestry seems the deadest in this country. As a defence for gigantic sewage schemes, it is often said that you can do nothing well without co-operation, and this is the excuse for compelling all, whether they SOME MODERN SANITARY METHODS, 75 want them or not, to contri])ute towards the cost of sewers. If co-operation be for a good end, the result is a great good ; but if co-operation be for a bad purpose, the result is a great evil. I need say no more. The last charge which has to be brought against water-carried sewage is a serious one — viz. that it encourages overcrowding in cities, which is universally admitted to be the greatest of all sanitary evils, and one which cannot be counterbalanced. Water- carried sewage encourages overcrowding be- cause it enables us to build houses with no outlet except a hole for the sewage to run through. The growth of London must be a source of alarm to sanitarians, and it is impossible not to admit that our system of sewers has been a most important factor in its production. Look at Charing Cross, where a street of gigantic clubs and hotels has arisen, each without curtilage of any kind, and where a handsome profit has been made by setting the first law of sanitation at defiance. You will find the same thing to a greater or less extent throughout the Metropolitan area. It is difficult to say why we are so prone to crowd into cities. In former days we crowded behind walls as a protection from our enemies. Those days are at an end, but the crowding is greater than ever. The com- mon cant of the day is that in this nineteenth century we have annihilated time and space. Certainly in cities both are excessively precious. The telegraph, the telephone, and the steam-engine ought to have diminished overcrowding, but they have not. The stream is still mainly from the country towards the town, the attraction being the making of money and the spending of it. 76 ESS A YS ON RURAL HYGIENE It may be well to glance at the effect of this over- crowding in this city. It is a common remark that London is a very healthy city, and as a proof of this assertion persons point to the death-rate, which certainly of late has not been excessive. The London of the Eegistrar-General, however, is a very extensive place, and many of the outlying parts are almost rural in character, so that, if you want to find the effect of living in a crowded city, it is not fair to take London as a whole. The author is no believer in the healthiness of London. It is true that our death-rate has not been raised by any great epidemic of late years, but London is undoubtedly a city where an abundance of second-rate health exists. The crowds that throng the doors of hospitals increase, and in the medical profession there is a great outcry about ' hospital abuse,' which means, probably, that decent folk are not able to cope with the amount of chronic disorders with which they are beset. Again, the mobility of the population in the present day makes our vital statistics very uncertain. Many a healthy l^erson is imported into London, and being wounded in the battle of life, returns to the country to die or recover, as the case may be.* There is a scarcity of ver}- young and very old people, and in order to appreciate the vital statistics of London, great allowances have to be made for the abnormal age distributions. In order to judge of the effect of overcrowding, let us look at the vital statistics of the ' Strand ' Ilegistration District, which is about the centre of London, and from which one would have to walk very many miles to reach the country in any direction. The ' Strand' enjoys many advantages. It is mainly a wealthy district, extending in irregular form from :SOME MODERN SANITARY METHODS n Temple Bar to Buckingham Palace. It includes the whole of the Green Park and half St. James's Park. It has a gravel soil, and slopes gently, with exposure to the south, to the fringe of (potentially) the noblest river in the country. The worst and poorest parts are at the north-east corner. The true death-rate of a London district is difficult to get. The Pvegistrar-General, however, has been in the habit of publishing quarterly the * true ' death-rates of the London districts after complete distribution of deaths occurring in public institutions. The author has compiled a table by which one is able to compare ' The Strand ' with the whole of London for nine quarters, and with Dorset (for ten years, 1871-80). — Birth-rate Dciith-rato Zymotic deatli-rate Deaths under one year to 1,00U birtlis London ' Btrand,' and St. Mar- tin's-in-the-Fields . Dorset (ten years, 1871-80) .... 32-5 23-7 20-53 19-9 21-8 17-10 2-7 2-G 1-G8 151 192 108 The county of Dorset has been chosen for comparison ])ecause it is a * healthy district,' and if we are to do any good we must always aim at a high standard. Again, the Dorsetshire labourer has always been a favourite stalking-horse for cockney politicians, and it may be well to show how much healthier he is than the Lon- doner, notwithstanding the rustic's supposed condition of chronic starvation. This table is very interesting. Dr. Letheby said * a high death-rate means a high birth-rate, and a high birth-rate is the invariable concomitant of prosperity.' This dictum does not evidently apply to the Strand. Dr. Farr, on the other hand, pointed out that ' a low 78 ESSAYS O.V RURAL HYGIENE birth-rate implies a small proportion of young adults and a large proportion of the aged.' This dictum again does not apply to the Strand, as we shall see by a refer- ence to the next table, in which an endeavour has been made to make corrections for the abnormal age-distribu- tion which obtains in that district, and which Dr. W. Ogle rightly insists is absolutely necessary before one can arrive at just conclusions. The table speaks for itself. ' The Strand '—Mean Pojpulation 1871-80 = 37,461. u o 1 tn ■ ^ S 5 o tJ Ages '> to to n -tit-' n , o (D O i-H E O 1 ." CO would have ' stribution of en normal to +3 +3 u o ft o would have 1 ath-i ate of D I in the Stran 3 o S3 43 ^t + s g;^ O c3 ^^ 5 o - s ^ c3 cS P an '^ 2 s-^ ^ •= s-g g cS o "3 ^-i^ 3 ■^ cS ■^-1 a? +3 K ;-y P foul the air, but it will aid in the ventilation of the room just as the fire does, by creating a draught up its little chimney. In school-rooms and other places where mental work is to be done, good ventilation is of the greatest import- ance, and has a very great influence on the quality of the work done. We must all of us try to set a good example in this matter of cubic space and ventilation. When, for ex- ample, we wish to show hospitality to our friends, we must remember not to stint the supply of the prime necessary of life. The average London dining-room is perhaps 20 feet by 16 feet by 12, and contains, inclusive of the space occupied by furniture, &c., less than 4,000 cubic feet, or space considered suflicient for five convicts in prison. If we wish to do honour to our guests we invite sometimes as many as eighteen, and to wait upon them we employ four servants, and we light the 154 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE room ^Yith half-a-dozen lamps or their equivalent — i.e. we put into our 4,000 cubic feet of space the equivalent of twenty-eight people, and we give them 143 cubic feet of space each, and as we provide no adequate inlet or outlet for fresh air, it is not to be wondered at that the discomfort often reaches agony point, and that the conversation lags; nor is it a matter of surprise that the average London dinner, where you are suffocated and over-fed, is reckoned among the duties rather than the pleasures of existence, and that the malaise of the following day is (often wrongly) attributed to the quality of the wine. The * At home,' where 150 persons (not reckoning the lights) crowd into about 8,000 cubic feet of space, with something like 50 cubic feet of space each, is, as is de- monstrated by arithmetic, as nearly as possible three times as bad as the dinner. Perhaps the day will dawn when it will be considered ' bad form ' to give your guests not more than one-twentieth of the cubic space, and far less than one-twentieth of the fresh air, which is allotted to criminals. Again, will nobody set us an example of keeping good hours? 'Early to bed and early to rise,' sa^^s the old pro- verb, * makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise.' If we keep what are known as ' bad ' hours (?.e. the hours till lately kept by the House of Commons), we are perforce obliged to spend those hours in rooms artificially lighted and warmed, and instead of breathing fresh air we breathe foul. The evils arising from this need not be dwelt u^^on. Such a state of existence is hardly compatible with good health. The M.P. at the end of the session, and the young lady at the end of the season, are standing ex- amples of this fact. During the summer there are about fifteen hours of daylight and nine of darkness. It AIR 155 is the fashion to rise ahont seven hours after sunrise, and to retire about seven hours after sunset, and the masses follow the leaders of fashion. Will anybody calculate the unnecessary waste of gas and other illumi- nants caused by our obstinate refusal to make use of the sunlight? How many cubic feet of carbonic acid and sulphur compounds are poured into the London air in consequence of this perversity ? How much unnecessary smoke is poured into it from the same cause ? What advantage, if any, is got by converting night into day ? We have dwelt mainly upon the i)ollution of the air by respiration and organic refuse. The pollution by inorganic matter is, in large cities, scarcely less impor- tant. The London atmosphere is the dirtiest in the world. The skin and linen of the Londoner are grimy in a few hours after cleansing. As a consequence the Londoner is always washing, and he makes a boast of his enforced cleanliness, instead of being ashamed of the grimy cause of it. It is always well to make a virtue of necessity. The London air is loaded with soot from chimneys, and with carbonic acid and sulphur compounds, the re- sult of the combustion of coal and gas. In dry weather also it reeks of ammonia given off from the streets un- washed by rain and covered with horse-droppings. Only a very few plants will live in London, and none of them can be said to flourish. There is not a rose and scarcely a fir-tree of any kind in the metropolis. The leaves of plants are choked with soot, and they are killed by the acid in the air. This state of things has grown with the growth of the city. At present there are probably few ladies strong enough to walk from Charing Cross in a straight line into the real country in any direction. 156 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE If the wind -were to drop to a deaxl calm for a week many of the dwellers m the centre of London would cer- tainly be killed or seriously affected by the overcharged atmosphere. When cold and calm coincide we get fog and darkness. In December 1873 the death-rate in the central districts rose from 18 to 43 per 1.000 from this cause alone, and deaths from diseases of the respiratory organs were 551 above the average. At this time it was found necessary to remove 36 out of every 100 animals exhibited at the Smithfield show, and of those removed -many had to be killed. They were victims to fog. ^Ye have not improved since then, and, in spite of all our efforts, the smoke will remain proportionate to the number of houses. There can be little doubt that the domestic fireplace is the main cause of the trouble, and therefore it becomes the moral duty of the householder to burn as few coals as possible in order to diminish the smoke. The better the combustion of the coals the greater the heat given off ; less fuel is consumed, and less smoke escapes up the chimney. It is cheap and comfortable to diminish the smoke of our fires, another added to the many instances already given of the thriftiness of good sanitary morals. Grates of fire-clay with solid bottoms are a great im- provement on the old-fashioned grates, and save quite a fourth of the coal. Here is comfort and hope. It is difficult, however, to get even small improve- ments effected in houses held on short lease, and espe- cially when improvements are ' compensated ' for by increased rents and rates. Our comfort dwindles and our hopes are dashed. 157 CHAPTEK VII WATER Water is an article of first necessity to all of us. With- out pure water there cannot be health. Pure water has served moralists of all times as a symbol of purity. The Christian Sacrament of Baptism is an instance of this. Our moral responsibility with regard to water should be to regard its purity as something too sacred to be defiled. In this Christian land, how^ever, there is scarcely a watercourse which is not polluted, and many of our loveliest rivers have been wantonly converted into sewers. In his introduction to * The Crown of Wild Olive,' Professor Euskin gives an eloquent description of our swinish apathy with regard to water. The passage is so beautiful, that no apology is needed for quoting it in full. ' Twenty years ago there w^as no lovelier piece of low- land scenery in South England, nor any more pathetic in the world, by its expression of sweet human cha- racter and life, than that immediately bordering on the source of the Wandle, and including the low moors of Addington, and the villages of Beddington and Carshal- ton, with all their pools and streams. No clearer or diviner waters ever sang with constant lips of the hand 158 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE which ''giveth rain from heaven"; no pasture ever Hghtened in spring-time with more passionate blossom- ing ; no sweeter homes ever hallowed the heart of the passer-by with their pride of peaceful gladness — fain hidden, yet full confessed. The place remains (1870) nearly unchanged in its larger features ; but with deli- berate mind I say, that I have never seen anything so ghastly in its inner tragic meaning — not in Pisan Maremma — not by Campagna tomb — not by the sand- isles of the Torcellan shore — as the slow stealing of aspects of reckless, indolent, animal neglect over the delicate sweetness of that English scene. Nor is any blasphemy or impiety, any frantic saying or godless thought, more appalling to me, using the best power of judgment I have to discern its sense and scope, than the insolent defiling of those springs by the human herds that drink of them. Just where the wellmg of stainless water, trembling and pure, like a body of light, enters the pool of Carshalton, cutting itself a radiant channel down to the gravel, through ways of feathery reeds, all wavmg, which it traverses with its deep threads of clearness, like the Chalcedony in Moss- agate, starred here and there with the white Grenouillette ; just in the very rush and murmur of the first spreading currents, the human wretches of the place cast their street and house foulness ; heaps of dust and slime and broken shreds of old metal, and rags of putrid clothes, which, having neither energy to cart away, nor decency enough to dig into the ground, they thus shed into the stream, to diffuse what venom of it will float and melt, far away, in all places where God meant those waters to bring joy and health. And in a little pool behind some houses farther in the village, where another spring rises, the shattered stones of the well, and of the little fretted WATER 159 channel which was long ago built and traced for it by gentle hands, lie scattered, each from each, under a rugged bank of mortar and scoria, and bricklayers' refuse, on one side, which the clean water, nevertheless, chastises to purity ; but it cannot conquer the dead earth beyond ; and then circled and coiled under fester- ing scum, the stagnant edge of the pool effaces itself into a slope of black slime, the accumulation of indolent years. Half-a-dozen men, with one day's work, could cleanse those pools and trim the flowers about their banks, and make every breath of summer air above them rich with cool balm, and every glittering wave medicinal, as if it ran, troubled only by angels from the porch of Bethesda. But that day's work is never given, nor, I suppose, will be ; nor will any joy be possible to heart of man for evermore, about those wells of English water.' If poetry may be defined as the art of conveying absolute truths in the most beautiful and forcible lan- guage attainable, of at once compelling the intellect and gratifying the senses, then the above passage must take a high rank among short English poems, for its beauty is equalled by its matter-of-fact truth. Unfortunately for the purity of English waters, the Public Health Act of 1848 encouraged the emptying of town sewerage into rivers, and we are still taught as one of the chief tenets of our sanitary creed that we should dirty as much water as possible in washing away from our houses filth which ought to be buried. As a con- sequence of this, pure water is becoming daily more difficult to get, and nowadays it is considered safer and better to drink water — hard, charged with carbonic acid, and deficient in oxygen — which has been raised at infinite cost from the depths of the earth, than to drink of the i6o ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE * brook which babbles by,' with every bubble freshened by the air and charged with its maximum amount of oxygen. The reason for this is that the brook has almost certainly been fouled by receiving the filthiness from dwellings nearer to its source, and the natural conse- quence is the reflection that, if the brook has already been fouled, a little more fouling can do no harm, and thus the brook gathers sewage as it flows, till, having passed through sundry towns in its course, it flows out to sea a seething, stinking sewer. We all of us deplore this state of things, but few of us, in thinking of the cause of such filthy impurity, ever pause to put to ourselves the solemn question, ' Is it I ? ' We inveigh against the 'Board,' we say that such a state of things is disgraceful, we shut our eyes to the fact that the disgrace falls upon ourselves as well as others ; and even though we may be favourably circumstanced for doing our duty towards the watercourses, the pangs of conscience are seldom sufficient to make us stop our quota of pollutions ; at least to do our own duty, and, doing it, set a good example to others. Eichard the Second (whose advisers probabl}" remem- bered the epidemics of ' the Black Death ' in the reign of his grandfather) passed an Act in 1388 which imposed a penalty of twenty pounds (worth how much of our money ?) on persons who fouled ditches and rivers with filth and refuse, and in 1876 Parliament passed an Act intended to save rivers from pollution. This Act is put in force against ' Boards ' and ' Authorities ' (with how much success the Thames, the Mersey, and the Clj^de will testify), but is seldom enforced against individuals; and although it is often easy for an individual to cease polluting a watercourse, it is often impossible for a sanitary authority to do so in the face of the apathy of WATER i6i the individuals by whom the members of the ' Board ' have been elected. Not mifrequently the ' Board ' is content to let the individuals alone, because millions spent in sewers and other millions spent in waterworks is ' good for trade ' in general, and, possibly, specially good for the special trade of some of the members of our local parliaments. The demon of self-interest has always to be reckoned with when devising measures intended to benefit the public health. Many diseases are caused or conveyed by impure water, the most notable being cholera and enteric fever. Let us take the commonest of these diseases, enteric or typhoid fever. The patient who is attacked with typhoid is attacked insidiously; he suffers from the disease, generally days, sometimes weeks, before its nature is recognised. The poisonous excreta of this patient pass into a watercourse or perhaps into a cesspool (a pit in which excrement and water are commingled), and the water leaks from the cesspool into the well, and then those w^ho drink of the well suffer in their turn from typhoid. Water thus poisoned by leakage usually bears evi- dence, both physical and chemical, of its contamination, but this does not appear to be necessarily the case, and there are instances of tainted waters being pleasant to the eye and palate. That the germs of cholera and typhoid will live in w^ater is certain, and their power of diffusion through water is infinite. One dejection from a tj'phoid patient is theoretically capable of infecting an almost unlimited volume of water. The mischief which one case of typhoid may do is told by Professor de Chaumont in ' Our Homes.* ' A very remarkable case was investigated a few years l62 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE ago by Dr. Thorne Thorne at Caterliam and Redhill, Surrey. The Caterbam Water Company found that they were unable to supply the whole district with their ex- isting arrangements, and in the more remote part of the district they were obliged to get part of their supply from a neighbouring company. In the meantime they determined to enlarge their sources of supply by digging additional wells, and cutting and enlarging the adits from one to the other. Careful arrangements were made to prevent contamination of the water during the work, and the men were instructed to carefully avoid fouling the water with any escremental matter. One of the workmen, newly taken on, was suffering, unknown to himself, from a mild attack of typhoid fever, accom- panied with diarrhoea, and he confessed that he was obliged not only to have resort to the buckets, but even to make use of the adit itself, on emergency. About twelve or fourteen days after he began to work typhoid fever began to show itself among the consumers of the water ; the disease spread rapidly, and about 350 cases with several deaths took place. When Dr. Thorne Thorne investigated the circumstances, one remarkable fact became evident — viz. that the disease was almost entirely confined to that part of the district supplied with the company's water pure and simple, whilst the outlying part, which was only partially supplied from the company's wells, but whose chief supply was from those of the neighbouring company, remained nearly free from disease. This fact, joined with the other, that the disease broke out just about the usual time after the workman must have been the cause of contaminating the well, pointed clearly to the Caterliam Company's water as the medium of contagion. Another corrobo- rating fact was, that at the Lunatic Asylum, where the WATER 163 water-supply was from a deep well on their own premises, the inmates remained free from the disease ; and at the barracks, the Guards, who also drank the water of the Asylum well, did not suffer. The latter was a pure water, as I had an opportunity of analysing it myself. The remedial measures adopted were to stop the supply of water at once, to pump the wells dry several times, to scrape the sides of the wells and the adits and wash them with chloride of lime, and to throw large quantities of Condy's fluid into the water. From that time the disease entirely ceased. No more marked proof could be given of the transmission of the disease through water.' "No more marked proof could be given of the enormous diffusion which takes place when typhoid poison is mixed with water, and of the dangers which necessarily attend upon water-carried sewage. If we foul the brooks, rivers and wells which are about our houses we must rely on water companies for the first necessary of life, but if the common source gets poisoned we encounter epidemics of an extent unknown before. The following case which is quoted (in German) in the sixth report of the Kivers Pollution Commissioners tells a similar tale ; and it also tells us that typhoid poison cannot be removed from water by the most per- fect underground filtration. The ensuing version of the ' Lausen case ' is taken, however, from Mr. Noel Hartley's little book on 'Water, Air and Disinfectants,' published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. In the village of Lausen, near Basle, in Switzerland, which had never within the memory of man been visited by epidemic typhoid, and in which not even a single case had occurred for many years, there broke out in August, 1882, an epidemic, which simultaneously attacked a large portion of the inhabitants. About a 11 2 i64 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE mile from Laiisen, and separated from it by the moun- tainous ridge of the Stockhalden, which was probably an old moraine from the glacial epoch, lies a small parallel valley — the Fiirlerthal. In an isolated farmhouse, situated in this valley, a farmer, who had just returned from a long journey, was attacked by typhoid fever on June 10. During the next two months three other cases occurred in the same house. The inha^bitants of Lausen were entirely ignorant of what had occurred in this solitary mountain farm, which was cut off from all com- munication with the rest of the world ; when on August 7 ten of the villagei's were suddenly struck down by typhoid fever, whilst during the next nine days the number of cases had already increased to 57 out of a population of 780 persons living in 90 houses. In the first four weeks the number of cases reached 100 (that is to say, that out of every 100 persons in the village more than 12 were attacked) ; and altogether, to the close of the epidemic at the end of October, 130 persons, or 17 in every 100 of the population, were attacked, besides 1-1 children who were infected at Lausen during their summer holidays, and became ill after their return to school in other localities. The fever cases were pretty equally distributed throughout the entire village, but those houses (six in number) which were supplied with water from their own private wells, and not from the public fountains, were entirely exempt. This remarkable difference led to a suspicion that the public water-supply was connected with the cause of the epidemic, although the ajiparent immaculate source of this supply seemed to negative any such suspicion. The water came from a spring situated at the foot of the adjacent Stockhalden ridge. It was then received in a tank lined with brickwork and carefully protected WATER 165 from pollution ; nevertheless, a careful investigation of the source of this spring placed beyond doubt the origin of the infection. Ten years previously it had been proved that direct water communication through the intervening mountains existed between the spring and a brook in the Fiirlerthal, flowing past the farmhouse in which the typhoid fever cases occurred. At that time {i.e. ten years before) there was spontaneously formed, by the giving way of the soil for a short distance below the farmhouse and close to the brook, a hole about 8 feet deep and 3 feet in diameter, at the bottom of which a moderately clear stream of water was observed to be flowing. As an experiment the whole of the brook water was now diverted into this hole, at the bottom of which it entirely disappeared, but in an hour or two the spring at Lausen, at that time nearly dry from a long drought, overflowed with an abundance of water which was turbid at first, but afterwards clear, and this overflow continued until the Fiirler brook was again confined to its bed. It was, however, afterwards noticed that, whenever the meadows below this hole were irrigated with the water of the Fiirler brook, the volume of the Lausen water-supply became greatly augmented a few hours afterwards. Now this irrigation, i)ractised every year, was carried on in the summer of the epidemic from the middle to the end of July, the brook being polluted by the dejections of the typhoid patients — for it was in direct communication with the closets and dung- heaps of the infected house, whilst all the chamber-slops were emptied directly into it, and the dirty linen of the patients washed in it. Soon after the irrigation had begun the water-supply to Lausen, which was at first turbid, acquired an unpleasant taste, and increased in volume. About three weeks after the commencement of i66 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE the ii'rigation the sudden outbreak of typhoid fever in Lausen occurred. In his search after the cause of this outbreak, Dr. Hagler, of Basle, did not rest satisfied with the evidence just recorded, but supplemented it by the following ingenious and conclusive experiments : The hole in the Fiirler was reopened and the brook again led into it ; three hours later the fountains at Lausen delivered double the quantity of water. ' Eighteen hundredweight of salt, previously dissolved in water, was now poured into the hole, and soon the water at Lausen exhibited a great increase of saltness, until the solid matter in the water increased threefold. The passage of the Fiirlertbal water to the fountains of the fever-stricken village was thus ascertained beyond doubt. But another interesting question here presented itself: did the water find its way through the Stock- halden by a natural open conduit, or was it filtered through the porous material of the old moraine ? ' * To decide this point 2^ tons of flour were first care- fully and uniformly diffused in water, and then thrown into the hole ; but neither an increase in the solid con- stituents nor the slightest turbidity of the Lausen water was observed after this addition.' This remarkable case shows : — 1. That the power of mischief possessed by water- carried sewage is enormous. 2. That the diffusibility of typhoid poison in water is practically infinite. 3. That water containing typhoid poison may not be purified by filtration through nearly a mile of solid earth (a filter fine enough to arrest particles of wheat flour), although it must be borne in mind that the filter in this instance was deeply buried and that the certain absence WATER 167 of air and aerobic microbes rendered the oxidation and purification of the water passing through it an impos- sibihty. The fact, also, that the Lausen ^Yater became turbid when the Fiirler brook overflowed seems to indicate that, although the flour-experiment gave a negative result, solid particles were, nevertheless, able to find their way through the Stockhalden ridge. 4. That large typhoid epidemics are favoured by a water-supply common to many people, if by mischance that water-supply gets fouled. Medical literature is crowded with instances of mis- chief caused by water being contaminated by leakage from sewers and cesspools. The fact is so well esta- blished that it is not necessary to weary the reader with instances. The above cases show clearly, (1) that one man has infected 350 others ; and (2) that infections may travel for a mile through an underground filter. In the face of the Lausen case it would almost seem that the absolute protection of a water-supply is nearly impossible. Deep wells which are sunk in chalk or any other porous soil are liable to pollution from foulness find- ing its way into them from the surface or through cracks or fissures in the soil, and this danger is propor- tionate to the amount of water pumped from the well. Professor de Chaumont says ^ : ' The area of surface drained by wells is a question of some difficulty. It has been stated as a circle the radius of which is the depth of the well ; but this appears to be a grave understate- ment of the case, if we look to the evidence which has been obtained from the efl:ects of pumping upon distant wells, or the way in which weUs have sometimes been drained by outflows of water at distant lower levels. A ' Our Homes, p. 787. i68 ESSA YS ON RURAL HYGIENE well in a gravel and sandy soil in South Hampshire was found to be drained dry in consequence of an outflow of water in a gravel pit dug a considerable distance off. The difference of level between the higher point (that is, the bottom of the well) and the lower (the outflow at the gravel pit) was 21^ feet, the distance between the two 1,720 feet ; so that the area drained had a radius equal to eighty times the depth, here represented by the fall or difference in level between the two points.' Messrs. Rogers Field and "Wallace Peggs have, in the same work, given us the followmg instructive informa- tion : — 'Deep wells are much less liable to contamination than shallow wells, but even they are not safe from the insidious influence of cesspools. A very striking in- stance of this occurred at Liverpool some years ago in the case of the Dudlow Lane well, sunk in the New Eed Sandstone formation. This well was situated in a sub- urban district some distance from Liverpool, and was 247 feet deep with a bore hole at the bottom, another 196 feet deep, making 443 feet altogether. The effect of the continuous pumping from this well was to dry the wells of the houses in the neighbourhood, and these were then used in several cases by the householders as cess- pools. The consequence was that the water in Dudlow Lane well was gradually polluted, and in five years after the well was constructed it had to be disused. ' The following is the official report of the Water Com- mittee on the matter : — ' In the case of the Dudlow Lane well the committee were compelled to cease pumping from February 1872 to May 5, 1873, in consequence of the dangerous extent to which the water was contaminated. It was ascertained that the evil was mainly due to percolation from cess- WATER 169 pools and disused wells which had been receptacles for drainage ; and the committee caused the communica- tion with several of these to be temporarily diverted, at the same time pressing the local authorities, and co-ope- rating with them, to carry out a complete sewerage scheme for the district. By these means the quality of the w^ater was so far improved that it was brought with- in the limits defined by the Eivers Pollution Commission as *' reasonably safe," and the pumping was resumed.' Now we are told that the danger of contamination of deep w^ells is not due merely to their depth but still more to the depression of the level of the water which is caused by the pumping. When the demand for water is great and the pumping is severe the flow of water from the soil around the well into the well itself is con- siderable, as the distance to which the influence of the pumping extends depends so much on the depression of the water due to the pumping ; it is convenient to ex- press this distance in terms of the depression, or, in other words, to say that the distance the well draws is twenty times the depression, thirty times the depression, and so on. This distance is most important from a sanitary Locality Authority Nature of strata Depression of water in well Extreme distance to which influence of Ratio of distance to pumping extends depression Nuremberg(l) ^ " (^) Dresden . . Thiem . Salbach . Fine sand . . >> Fine gravel . . ft. 1 2 8 in. 4 2 2 ft. 33 33 108 24 15 22 Leipsic . . Gravesend . Thiem . Clutterbuck Very coarse gravel . . . Chalk. . . . 6 10 7 G 1,050 GOO IGO 57 Liverpool . Deacon . New Eed Sand- stone . . . 82 11,710 143 1 170 JSSSAVS ON RURAL HYGIENE point of view, determining, as it does, not only whether one Tvell will influence another, but whether or not a well will be polluted by a cesspool or other source of contamination in the neighbourhood, and we have there- fore given a few examples of the distance under different circumstances : — From the foregoing table it will be seen * that the dis- tance to which the influence of pumping extends varies greatly in different cases, being in one case only fifteen times the depression, and in another as much as 160 times the depression. The chief circumstance which seems to influence the distance is the degree of permea- bility of the strata through which the water has to per- colate. In fine sand and fine gravel, where there is a large amount of resistance to the passage of the water, the distance varies from fifteen to thirty-nine times the depression. In the chalk, where fissures exist which facili- tate the passage of water, the distance is fifty-seven times the depression.' Thus it appears that even the deepest wells may be fouled by cesspools, and if by cesspools, equally by leak- ing drains or sewers. And since we cannot know when a cesspool or a deeply buried sewer begins to leak, it is impossible to feel quite secure with regard to water- supply from deep wells in the chalk, which is just now the most popular source for water, and is being largely recommended. The danger of contamination from a distance is (in the case of chalk and other porous soils) proportional to the depth of the well, and also in some degree to the demand made upon the well for water ; so that a public well may not prove dangerous until popu- lation has mcreased around it and the demands made upon the well have proportionately increased. "With regard to the pollution of wells, it must be WATER 171 pointed out (1) that such pollution is almost always from underground sewers or cesspools, the contents of which have had no chance of aeration and purification ; (2) that such pollution is caused by leakage — i.e. the direct irruption of water from cesspools, &c., into wells without filtration of any kind; and (3) that water in sewers and cesspools, when it begins to leak, is under the pressure of a superincumbent column of water, and hence the burrows which it gradually forms extend long distances. The mechanical conditions of water thrown on the surface of the ground and water stored in under- ground tanks are entirely different — as different as are the biological conditions. Let us look at the possibilities of a typhoid epidemic from the pollution of a public well. At Lausen we saw that 19 per cent, of those who drank the polluted water suffered from typhoid, and if the same proportion be maintained in other instances, then we might reasonably expect, in the case of typhoid poison finding its way into a public well, that nineteen would suffer out of every 100 persons dependent upon that well for their water — 190 persons in a population of 1,000 ; 1,900 persons in a po- pulation of 10,000 ; or 19,000 persons in a population of 100,000. Of those attacked 5 per cent, at least would die. Water companies throughout the country ought to be made liable to an action for damages in the case of their water being turned to poison. The most vigilant supervision must be maintained in order to prevent contamination ; and frequent analyses should be made by independent analysts at the expense of the company. It is, we have seen, an easy matter to foul rivers, watercourses and wells. How can water be purified when once fouled ? Filtering only removes coarse float- ing impurities, and most certainly is not to be relied 172 £SSAVS ON RURAL HYGIENE upon for the removal of typhoid poison. When a filter has been too long in use it may dirty the water instead of cleaning it. Filters of sand which are used inter- mittingly, and which are thoroughly aerated, seem to be the best, and to be able (by means of organisms growing in them) to oxidise much organic matter. Boiling will probably destroy typhoid and similar poisons ; but boiling for a short time only is, as is well known, not absolutely reliable. Evaporation and re condensation is a sure method of purification. This is being done for us constantly by the sun, which evaporates the water which falls upon the earth, raises it in clouds, and gives it back to us again as rain. Nature is constantly engaged in purifying the water. If we wish to have a constant supply of pure water near at hand we must religiously abstain from careless water pollution. Prevention is better than cure, and it is far easier to stop water pollution than to remedy it. In rural and semi-rural places water should never be used for carrying excrement ; and building should be so controlled that water- carried excrement may not become necessary. Water fouled by domestic use should be thrown on the nearest available piece of ground. Some will be thus evaporated, some will be absorbed together with much organic matter by the roots of growing plants ; and the rest will filter slowly through the earth and find its way to a watercourse in a state of practical purity. During the summer months, while vegetation is vigorous and the temperature high, scarcely any of the water will soak far away, but all will be evaporated and absorbed by the roots of the plants. Trees and vege- tables, be it observed, are the best and really the only effectual scavengers. They also suck the water from the WATER 173 soil and keep it dry. It has been estimated by Pettenkofer that an oak tree with 711,592 leaves will, during the summer, evaporate 8J times the amount of rain falling on the ground which it covers. The Eucalyiitus r/lohulus will evaporate eleven times the rainfall. We should always expose waste water to the air and to alternations of tem- perature ; the heat or the east wind will dry it up and stop the growth of organisms ; cold will freeze it, and equally stop the growth of organisms. In sewers and cesspools there is neither heat nor cold, summer nor winter. In that muggy damp atmosphere evaporation and oxygenation are impossible. And waste water, after travelling miles of pipes, is not appreciably diminished in volume, and is charged in addition with whatever of impurity it may have met with in its dark journey. From what has been said it will be gathered that cesspools ought not, under any circumstances, to be per- mitted. If they be mere holes dug in a porous soil, their contents may soak nobody knows where ; if they be impermeable, they are still hot-beds of filth-disease, which affect those in the neighbourhood. There is all the difference imaginable between a cess- pool and an old-fashioned privy. The latter was more or less open, but little liquid found its way into it, and evaporation rendered the contents so solid that soakage and leakage were, if not impossible, at least difficult of occurrence. A cesspool receives water, and its contents must soak away, diffusing poison through the earth. The constant pouring of liquid slops into the same hole day by day is sure to cause cracks and fissures in the soil, and the pressure of water is sure to force an outlet often where least suspected. Cesspools must be written down as the most immoral 174 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE of all insanitary subterfuges, and their construction should be absolutely disallowed. Excrement should never be allowed to come into contact with water. Open channels are better than closed pipes for the escape of waste water from houses. Closed sewers should only be resorted to in cases of the direst necessity and with a full sense of their danger. And solid excrements (which are often dangerous poisons) should be kept out of them lest the diffusions of excrement poison become co-extensive with the sewer. Under existing conditions surface wells are not safe sources for water. A well of moderate depth, protected from surface drainage and in the middle of a well- cultivated plot of ground, would be a safe source for water if no cesspools existed. Surface wells in towns, the soil of which is excrement sodden, are little better than cesspools, and they are highly dangerous. The most dangerous surface wehs of all are probably those in big towns like London, where, owing to the gas in the earth and the sulphur in the air, vegetation is at its minimum. As we have seen, no method of purifying fouled water short of evaporation does anything but remove the coarse impurities. Neither domestic filtration nor filtration by public bodies can be regarded as certainly reliable for ridding water of organic poisons. The schemes which are so general throughout the country for precipitating and filtering sewage W'ater succeed only in making the water less objectionable to the senses. They often add to the amount of dissolved matter in the water, and certainly leave the organic poisons untouched. All this is recognised and stated by the Kivers Pollution Commissioners in their sixth report made to Parliament in 1874, and yet we find the sanitary authorities of WATER 175 this country countenancing and even encouraging such schemes (notably in the Thames Valley), well knowing that, after the expenditure of millions of capital and a large annual outlay, the Thames water will be even less fit for drinking purposes than it was before. While these schemes are countenanced, be it observed, there is no attempt to make individuals do their duty. The idea seems general that it is impossible to supply too much water for the daily use of households. This is very questionable. Enough is as good as a feast. No very large amount of water is needed for the attainment of absolute cleanliness, both personal and domestic. The man who is minded to be clean will attain his end with a small amount of water ; and even though we take a river to those who love dirt, they will make no use of it. It is certainly not advisable to dirty more water than is necessary, because by law the water must be purified again before it returns to the river, and this entails end- less expense on sanitary authorities. If those who rely on public bodies for their water- supply are made to pay for exactly as much as they use, we may be sure that no excessive waste will take place, and there is but little fear that the price will be such as to prevent even the poorest from having enough. The objection which is raised to the supplying of water by meter is, that under such circumstances the poor would be insufficiently supplied. It would be easy, however, to adopt a sliding scale of charges, giving the water of necessity at a low rate and charging more for the water of luxury. If sixpence per thousand gallons were charged for the first ten gallons per head per diem, this would amount to Is. ^d. per head per annum. A 176 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE shilling per thousand might be charged for the next five gallons per head per diem, and Is. 6fZ. for the next five gallons, and so on. In towns the question of water-supply assumes an urgency which is proportioned to the degree of over- crowding, and it is in this connection that it becomes advisable to say a few words on what may be spoken of as Hygienic units. The prime hygienic unit is necessarily the individual man, and the problem which sanitarians have to solve is how to provide this individual with pure air, pure water, food, and raiment. The individual requires a definite average amount of pure air, a definite average amount of pure water, and a definite average area of the earth's surface for producing his food, clothing, and other necessaries. It may not be unprofitable to consider these units of air, water, and earth in relation to the individual, because it will be evident that our ability in the present day to practically neglect one of them causes serious difficulties in dealing with the other two. Human life is only possible on the condition that a certain area of the surface of the earth be dedicated to its support. Pope has drawn a charming picture of the recluse, Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, "Whose flocks provide him with attire, Whose trees in simimer yield him shade, In winter fire. And since all the necessaries of life come from the earth, it seems but natural to ask the question : What area of ground is necessary for the support of a man ? fVATER 177 Although this question must be fundamental when discussing matters of practical hygiene, it is, neverthe- less, not capable of any exact answer. If ^Ye speak of the area necessary for the support of an individual as an earth unit, it will be at once evident that the unit must vary in size with the fertilit}^ of the ground and the latitude in wdiich it exists, because more food, firing, clothing and houshig is required in cold climates than in hot ones. It would be very hazardous to make any calculations for practical application, be- cause the fertility of the soil varies, and the unit which might be sufficient in a year of plenty would fail to support its owner in a year of scarcity. Theoretically, an island like England should support a very large population, because, being surrounded by the sea, an inexhaustible source of food is within reach of all. A soldier on service is said, according to Parkes, to need about 31 oz. of dry food per diem, of which 18 oz. should be carbohydrates, 7 oz. proteids, 4J oz. fats, and 1^ oz. salts. Now, 30 oz. of oatmeal contain about the requisite quantity of carbohydrates together with 3 J oz, of proteids and IJ oz. of fat. If, therefore, a man had 2 lb. of oats per diem, and were allowed fish ad lib, for supplying the deficiency of proteid and fat in the oatmeal, it is theoretically conceivable that he might continue to exist and work. If we take the yield of oats per acre at 50 bushels, vreighing 40 lb. per bushel, this gives us 2,000 lb. of oats per acre ; and if 2 lb. per man per diem be sufficient (with the addition of fish) to support life, it is evident that each man requiring 730 lb. of oats per annum needs rather more than one-third of an acre for his food-supply. Although it is well known that oatmeal and herrings formerly constituted the N l^g ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE staple food of the Scotch peasantry, and still forms tio inconsiderable portion of their diet, this third of an acre must be looked upon merely as a theoretical minimum, and is brought forward for the purpose of enforcing the self-evident fact that a certain area of ground is necessary for the support of each human life. Although agriculture advances with civilisation and the productiveness of the soil is capable of being in- creased to a very decided extent, yet it is probable that the needs of civilised man more than keep pace with the improvement of the soil, and as all the paraphernalia of civilisation come directly or indirectly from the soil, it is certain that the higher the state of civilisation the greater is the area of soil necessary for the support of the man. Be it remembered that our complicated cloth- ing and highly finished dwellings are, equally wdth our food, all productions of the soil. Our theoretical minimum is calculated for a sub- sistence diet for a man in full work, and if, bearing in mind that a man must be clothed and housed as well as fed, we double this theoretical minimum, and treat men, women and children all alike, it is probable that this two-thirds of an acre would be a sufficient area of cul- tivable land for the bare support of each unit of our population. Of the 37,000,000 acres of England and Wales, about 28,000,000 are cultivable, and as the population of Eng- land and Wales is about 28,000,000, it seems probable that, if our foreign supplies were stopped, we might, with the help of our inland and sea fisheries, manage for a time at least to support our population on home-grow^n produce. The Chinese are credited with supporting a very large population in proportion to the area of cul- tivable land in the country, and although we have very WATER 179 little certain knowledge, it is on all hands admitted that the population of China is exceedingly dense, that they export a very large quantity of home-grown products, of which the chief are tea and silk, and that their importa- tion of foodstuffs is insignificant. The Chinese are pro- bahly the most hard-working, contented and thrifty people in the world, and they are probably ahead of all other nations in their knowledge of practical agriculture and pisciculture, and it is, of course, to their advance in these matters that the possibility of feeding so large a population on home productions is greatly due. Although the human population in China is very large, the animal population is not so great in propor- tion. In England the horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs are collectively more numerous than the human popula- tion, but in Chma this is not the case. Almost all the labour which with us is done by horses or by steam is in China done by human beings, and the soil is made to a great extent to produce food for man without the interme- diate action of live stock. These facts in a large degree ex- plain how it is that such a numerous population is sus- tained. It also explains the opposition of the Chinese offi- cials to the introduction of railways and steam machinery. Almost the only source of force in China is human muscle, and as this astute race is not likely to be deluded into the belief that steam machmery can create force, and as the people are contented and peaceable, and as their trade goes on steadily instead of by fits and starts, booms and strikes, they are naturally unwilling to introduce machinery which must have the effect, as it has had with us, of dislocating their industries, and must bring about a complete change in the habits of the people. The Chmese seem to adhere to the maxim, * Let icell enough alone.' When we speak of the dense population of China it is n2 i8o ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE well to remember that the Chmese live upon one plane, and that the population is not piled up in houses storey upon storey as with us. This living upon one plane has the effect of bringing the population very much en evidence, but it is not possible to have the same amount of over- crowding under these conditions as is to be found in the leading cities of Europe and America. The city of Pekin contains about sixty persons to the acre, and when viewed from the top of the walls it is said to present the appear- ance of a city of gardens. In England and America the discovery of the steam- engine has led to an excessive concentration of population in certain localities for manufacturing purposes, and in order to feed these urban populations it has been found necessary in Great Britain to remove all restrictions on the importation of food, and thus it has come about that the agriculturist has had no share in the commercial prosperity of the country ; the artisan has been artificially fattened, and the agriculturist has been starved, and it is in no way surprising that the latter should wish to change from the plough-tail to the workshop, and thus increase the competition with which artisans have to contend. The land which is necessary for the support of the British individual is nowadays scattered about the globe, and may be at the Antipodes. It is usually com- pletely out of sight, and the consumer of imported food seldom gives a thought as to how and where it was pro- duced. Imported food is so cheap that the high cultiva- tion of our own country has ceased to be a matter of prime importance, and there being but little demand for organic manure we have begun to burn so much of the refuse of our cities as is combustible, while the rest is used to destroy our fisheries and block our ports. What the end will be it is not difficult to see. WATER ibi The fertility of a country which imports a large pro- portion of its food ought, if a rational use were made of excremental and other refuse, to increase, and the ability of the land to support life should increase with it, but in England there has been for years a gradual process of agricultural degradation, and corn-lands which supported human life have been largely converted into pastures for the support of the lower animals. Owing, so to say, to the neglect of the earth unit and the extraordinary and unprecedented concentration of population in certain localities, we are beginning to ex- perience difBculties in supplying the individual with his unit of water. The London County Council has recently stated that any scheme for the supply of water to its district must, in order to be efficient, be calculated on a minimum supply of thirty-five gallons per head per diem for a popu- lation of 12,500,000 ! Not only is the Council apparently endowed with the spirit of prophecy, but it seems to con- template a concentration of population on the area which it controls three times greater than that which obtains at present. If, instead of sixty-five persons to the acre, we are eventually to have 195, and if the Council is going to do everything to encourage and nothing to check this fearful concentration, it is evident that the public health must steadily deteriorate. However, let us accept the figures and see what they mean. Thirty-five gallons for 12,500,000 is 437,500,000 gallons a day and close upon 160,000,000,000 gallons per annum. This amount of water is nearly one-third more than that which is calculated to flow over Tedding- ton Weir. Having fouled one Thames until it is dan- gerous to drink of it, London is crying for a second. The question is. Will it get it ? 182 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE This question of water- supply for our big centres of population has of late years become rather urgent, and is likely to occupy public attention for some years to come. The fact that London and Birmingham have both fixed their eyes on the same source in the Welsh hills, and that Birmingham was the first in the field and has compelled London to look elsewhere, is one to make us ponder the whole question rather seriously. Glasgow has taken Loch Katrine, Liverpool has taken Lake Yyrnwy, Man- chester has cast its eyes upon Thirlmere, Birmingham is looking to the Welsh hills, and all these towns have ex- pended, or are seeking to expend, enormous sums on the erection of municipal waterworks. This, of course, has to be done with borrowed money, and as our successors will have to pay a great part of our bills it is very necessary to be sure that posterity will reap a benefit as well as a liability. The great aim of the sanitarian should be to pre- vent overcrowding, and it at once becomes a question whether, regarded from the national point of view, it is better to allow populations to settle in spots where water is to be obtained, or by the expenditure of milHons on great engineering schemes to bring the water to certain spots and thereby quietly encourage overcrowd- ing, with all the phj^sical and moral degradation which it entails. There can be no doubt that the bringing of water under pressure in large quantities to any given spot tends to increase the rateable value and is good for the landowner and the manufacturer, but whether it is of benefit to the public health is, to say the least, doubtful. That it is the duty of sanitary authorities to stop the pollution of rivers and other sources of water there can be no doubt, but this is a duty they practically never per- WATER 1 8 form, because it is a disagreeable one and brings them into conflict with individuals. The duty of a sanitary authority to provide pure water is interpreted as an injunction to embark on a huge speculative business with thousands or millions of borrowed capital — a speculation in which posterity runs the risk and the directors incur no responsibilities. This is a proceeding very dear to the heart of the average vestryman, and is naturally popular because it is con- sidered to be ' good for trade.' The amount of water required per head is, in these modern times, very large. The inhabitants of London consume about thirty gal- lons per head, which is slightly below what is considered necessary — thirty-five gallons per head being the amount which is at present accepted as sufficient. This number is, of course, an average, and includes the water used for animals as well as man, for municipal and manufacturing purposes, and also for power, such as the working of hydraulic lifts and the driving of light machinery ; and it is to be noted that the use of water as a motor is on the increase. Great as is the amount of water used per head, it is likely to be greater in the future. Now all the water which is available for our con- sumption has its origin in rain which, falling upon the earth, percolates through it to appear again in the form of springs, or finds its way along the lines or surface drainage to the lakes and rivers. An inch of rain is equal (approximately) to 22,000 gallons per acre (actual number 22,624), so that an annual rainfall of 30 inches gives 660,000 gallons of water per acre. If this quantity of water falls upon cultivated land, what amount of it will percolate through the upper strata of the soil and find its way to the wells ? This is necessarily a difficult question to answer, and 1 84 ESS A VS ON RURAL HYGIENE must depend upon the character of the soil and the nature of the growth and crops upon it. The draining of land ujm'ai'ds by means of the roots of plants and the evaporation carried on by the green leaves is so great that no water can possibly be added to the subterranean stores during the period of growth — i.e. from the middle of March to the middle of October ; and this fact, which is generally recognised, finds expression in the saying (common in many parts of the country), that 'the springs never rise until after the first frosts of autumn ' — i.e. until the green leaves have been killed and their large evaporating surface abolished. Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert, by their experiments on rainfall and percolation, carried on at Eothamsted, have shown that of the rain falling upon the bare earth the amount lost by evaporation is tolerably constant. At Eothamsted this amounts to about 17 inches per annum, so that with an annual rainfall of 30 inches about 13 inches wall percolate the soil and 17 inches will be evaporated. These results, be it remembered, are those obtained with bare soil and with the soil of Eothamsted, but the relative amounts of percolation and evaporation will necessarily vary wdth the character of the soil and the amount of vegetation. Mr. C. Greaves, who carried on experiments at Lee Bridge for a number of years, showed that of 25 inches of rain falling upon pure sand, about 21 inches would percolate the soil and 4 inches would be lost by evapora- tion ; but if the same amount of rain fell upon turfed soil the percolation would be not much more than 7 inches and the evaporation would amount to 18 inches. Mr. Greaves also showed that the yearly evaporation taking place from a surface of water amounted to over 20 inches. WATER 185 To estimate the effect of vegetation on percolation is necessarily difficult. The final judgment of Sir John Lawes and Dr. Gilbert in the matter is given in remarks made by Ihe latter at the Institution of Civil Engineers in March 1891. Dr. Gilbert said: 'It was difficult to estimate exactly what deduction should be made for vegetation. A large proportion of any area thoy had to consider was covered with vegetation. Sir John Lawes and himself had considered that the minimum amount would average 2 inches as in the case of downs and waste lands, where there was very little vegetation ; where, with a heavy grain crop or good mangel crop, there might be an evaporation of 7 inches or more. Taking the average of a large area round London, partly covered with vegetation and partly bare, over a large number of seasons, they thought that between 3 and 4 inches should be deducted from the 14 inches of percola- tion, so leaving 10 or 11 inches. Supposing the average rainfall to be about 30 inches, that left about 19 or 20 inches for evaporation by the soil and by vegetation. This agreed very fairly with the results of Dr. Evans and others.' These remarks were made a j^ro^^os of a paper by Mr. Thornhill Harrison * On the Subterranean Water in the Chalk Formation of the Upper Thames and its Relation to the Supply of London ; ' and Sir John Lawes, in a communicated note, drew attention to the fact that at Rothamsted there was evidence that one river had dis- appeared, that the River Yer was dwindling, and that the wells of the district had frequently to be lowered. The water-supply in the district was diminishing, they wanted all they could get, and certainly they could spare none for the necessities of London. It may be interesting to add that analyses of the rain- i86 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE water collected at Rothamsted have given as the most recent and trustworthy results 0*248 part of nitrogen or ammonia per million of water. The extremes observed were 5*491 and 0*043 per million, the variations being dependent on the richness of the atmosphere in ammonia and on the quantity of the rainfall, the smaller dej)Osits contaming the larger proportion of ammonia. The summer rains are generally richer in ammonia than the winter rains. Estimations of chlorine and sulphuric anhydride, made at the same time, give 1*99 and 2*41 parts per million. If we estimate that one-third of a rainfall of 30 inches may be stored for future use we shall probably be in excess of the amount. To get, however, at the exact amount is less important than to recognise the fact that water is a limited commodity, and that so soon as popu- lation exceeds a certain density it becomes necessary to go far afield for water. If in London each individual be supplied on an average with 35 gallons of water per diem, this amounts to something over 12,000 gallons a year. Of the 660,000 gallons which fall on each acre of ground in London, we have reason to think that not more than 220,000 gallons are stored, so that at our present rate of consumption we could not accommodate much more than eighteen persons to the acre, suppos- ing such persons to be dependent for their water upon private wells. Very early in the history of every city it has been found necessary to bring water artificially from the out- skirts to the centre. London in ancient time not only had the Thames running through it from west to east, but it was inter- sected by a number of smaller streams. We read of WATER 187 Langbourne, Sherborne, Wall Brook, the Fleet Paver, Old Bourne, Tybourne, Ay Brook, Westbourne, and Bayswater. The names of these various streams are practically all that remains of them ; the streams them- selves have disappeared long since. Let us take the case of the most important of these streams, the Pviver Fleet, which was formerly a river of some size, by which barges of large tonnage could get as far as Holborn, at the spot where the Viaduct now is. The Fleet rose at the foot of Highgate, and flowed through St. Pancras, to enter the Thames at Blackfriars. In the first place, much of its water was diverted to supply conduits for the City, and this, combined with the drainage of private wells sunk by the ever-increasing population along its course, had the natural effect of largely diminishmg the bulk of the Fleet Eiver, which came to be known as the Fleet Ditch. A part of the water diverted from its source returned to it near its mouth in the shape of sewage and surface drainage, so that the shrunken waters of the Fleet Ditch became too foul to be tolerated by human sense. It was accordingly closed in and con- verted into a sewer, which now empties into the great intercepting sewer on the north side of the Thames. The waters of the Fleet Eiver are now discharged into the Thames at Barking. The same thing has happened to all the other tributaries of the Thames in the London district ; their shrunken waters are enclosed m sewers and conducted to Barking, a point many miles lower down than their natural point of entry into the Thames. The dislocation of Thames water which has taken place, and is still going on, is prodigious. Every gallon of water pumped from the Thames or from wells sunk in the Thames Basin diminishes, slightly but surely, the volume of the river, 1 88 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE The 150,000,000 gallons which are distributed daily by the London water companies, although not all derived from the river itself, are in reality abstracted from the Thames or its tributaries, and tend to diminish the bulk of the river. In addition to this, the rain falling on the metropolitan area (118 square miles) finds its way for the most part into the sewers, and instead of replenish- ing the Thames in its metropolitan course is all conducted to Barking. Again, one must remember the enormous increase of population in the Upper Thames Valley, between Oxford and Kingston. This population is supplied with water abstracted directly or indirectly from the Thames, and this further assists to diminish the bulk of the river, ■ although a great part of this water is returned to the river in the form of sewage. That the bulk of the river is seriously diminished is shown by the fact that it has become necessary to build a new lock below Eichmond in order to carry on the navigation. The shrinkage of the Thames has been less appreciable in London than otherwise would have been the case, because of the narrowing of the stream by the Thames Embankment. Thus we have in London the demonstration that the supply of water is strictly limited, and is simply pro- portionate to the area which is drained by the source of water (be it well, spring, river or lake) selected for the supply. We have in London, also, a demonstration of the old proverb that ' one cannot eat a cake and have it,' and that if we pump the water from a river or the springs supplying such river, the bulk of such river must be diminished. The commercial prosperity of London is due to its situation on the Thames, which has afforded unrivalled facilities for inland and foreign trade, ancl WATER 189 there can be no doubt that, in spite of steam and rail- ways, the maintenance of our silent highway is still of paramount importance. We have seen that the bulk of the river between Teddington and London is alread}^ so shrunken that we are being compelled to block the way of our inland navigation by a lock and weir below Kichmond, and there can be no doubt that the debris and sludge of the sewage of some five million people cannot fail to block the way of our outward navigation. But the more money that is to be paid for steam-dredging so much the better for that particular trade, and the more difficult becomes the navigation of the Thames so much the better for the railways. This may be * business,' but it is not ' thrift,' and there can be no doubt that modern business and old-fashioned thrift are like the hare and the tortoise of the fable, and that, in the long run, slow and steady will win the race. This opinion is not likely to be shared by those who are under the delusion that the steam-engine can create force instead of merely storing or transforming it, and that the wind and tides, and that most perfect of all machines, the human hand, are unable to compete with steam. Wells within the area of a city are so certain to get fouled by the subterraneous tricklings from sewers and cesspools that it has become the fashion to compulsorily close them. Thus it comes about that the actual area occupied by a city is not available for water-supply, and the 16,000,000,000 (sixteen thousand million) gallons of water which would be yielded by wells upon the 118 square miles occupied by London are discarded as a beverage, because they have percolated through the London soil. Big cities render their own area unavail- able for water-supply, and consequently they have to look to other areas. IQO ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE What must be the area of the gathering ground set aside for the supply of 100,000,000,000 (one hundred and sixty thousand milhon) gallons of water per annum ? This must depend upon the character of the soil and the rainfall of the district. If it be sought to obtain this amount from wells in the London district, it is evident that about ten times the present area of London would be necessary, or about 1,180 square miles of country. If this amount is to be brought from a district with a big rainfall (say 60 inches per annum, of which 40 would be available for storage), then a quarter of this amount, or 295 square miles, will be sufficient. In the latter case the water will be gathered from uplands, and the ground will have to be purchased outright and thrown out of cultivation, because high manuring will be dangerous to those who drink the water. Lands have been afforested, a church and village submerged, in order that Liverpool may drink. Birmingham, Manchester, and London are anxious to imitate this example. What would be said of an absolute monarch, who, having wilfully fouled his streams, destroyed a church and village in order to form a reservoir for his aqueduct ? It thus appears that a city reduces much land to a state of agricultural degradation. First, the land upon which the city is built becomes agriculturally unproductive. Secondly, the gathering ground for water-supply must not be highly cultivated if the water is collected by gravitation of surface-water to a lake. Thirdly, land is needed for the purification of the sewage, the extent of which must depend upon the amount of water-supply. This land will produce nothing but rye-grass, and is, therefore, in a state of agricultural degradation. IVATER 191 The preceding paragraphs demonstrate the almost Self-evident truth that, in order to live, we must each of us have a certain area of land, and figures have been quoted to show that in this country about two-thirds of an acre per individual might be sufficient. If the indivi- dual live on his land he will certainly get enough fresh air and more than enough wholesome water from a well sunk in it. All refuse of every kind would be returned to the land in order to maintain and increase its fer- tility, and finally he might be buried in it. The life of this imaginary person might not be luxurious, but his hygiene would be complete, the privacy of his home would not be invaded by a ' Board,' and there would be no sanitary rate nor burial rate. The person living in a city needs more land than our imaginary hermit, because in addition to the area which he occupies, and which he needs for the supply of his food and clothing, he must have land appropriated for water-supply, purification of sewage and burial. Whether or no these figures and calculations as to the amount of land necessary for the support of the indivi- dual be absolutely correct is a matter of not much importance ; but it is certainly interesting to arrive at the paradoxical conclusion that the inhabitant of an overcrowded city really requires more land for his sup- port than the country cottager, even assuming that their needs for food and clothing be identical. The difiiculties of supplying a proper quantity oi fresh air in overcrowded cities does not need any lengthened discussion. IQ2 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE CHAPTEE VIII PRACTICAL DETAILS The writer may fairly claim to have had considerable experience in practical sanitation. For thirteen years he acted as honorary secretary, and subsequently vice- chairman, of the Parkes Museum of Hygiene, and he is bound to admit that it was in the course of listen- ing to many lectures by several persons at this useful institution that he became impressed with the fact that the dangers of water-carried sewage more than counter- balanced its advantages, and that it is not the interested patentee who is to be regarded as the herald of the Sanitary Millennium. In the course of professional work, both in hospital and private practice, scarcely a day passes that he is not confronted with ' filth disease ' in one form or another requiring investigation as to causation ; and, further, he has had experience of practical sanitation as a citizen in three distinct places, viz. (1) In London, where he has lived for more than twenty years ; (2) in a country town, where, as a small owner of houses and cottages, the sanitary question has presented itself in aspects such as are common in semi-rural districts; and (3) in a village ten miles from London, where he has occupied for five years a ' suburban villa ' of the commonest type, and has practically studied the question of the sanitation of a growing suburb. PRACTICAL DETAILS 193 In order that the dwelUng and its surroundings may be wholesome, it is essential that all excremental and putrescible refuse be removed cvcnj daj/. To allow such stuff to accumulate for a week before removal, as is done in some places where what is known as the 'pail system' is in vogue, is quite indefensible, and I believe that a daily removal would be found easier of accomplishment than a weekly removal. The vessels used for this pur- pose by municipalities are often absurdly heavy, cum- bersome and expensive, and, even when cmptii, are more than one man can easily move, and such as to require a cart of special and peculiar construction for their trans- port. With a daily removal the vessels should be cheaper and lighter — mere galvanised buckets with lids — and of such a size that one man can carry two of them when charged with their daily quota. In tliis way the initial cost and the cost of dragging the deadweight of the ex- pensive two-man pails is saved, and the pails can bo moved and shifted at least four times as quickly when two can be lifted by one man than when one requires two men to lift it ; and when we take into consideration the fact that a man working alone has never to wait for his mate, it is tolerably clear that daily collection is eco- nomically equal to and sanitaril}^ vastly superior to a weekly collection. But the stuff being collected, what is to be done with it '? To this question there is only one answer. It must be buried immediately, and the nearer the ground be to the houses which provide the refuse the greater will be the economic success of the undertaking. As soon as the material has been put beneath the surface of the ground it is safe ; it can neither pollute air nor water, so that the greater the proximit}^ of the burial-ground to 194 ESSAVS 0?^ RURAL HYGlEh^E the houses the better. It follows as a necessity that ground used for the burial of exeremental and putrescible refuse must be cultivated ; but in this there can be no difficulty, because such ground will produce all garden crops in the greatest perfection — fruit, flowers, vegetables. There is no reason whatever why public gardens and the trees planted by the side of streets should not receive their quota of putrescible matter. If applied with care and knowledge it can do nothincj hut good. It needs hardly to be said that no antiseptics of any kind must be mixed with the refuse before it is put to the ground. All antiseptics, whether they he mineral salts or tar pro- ducts, render the ground sterile, and it is certain that no practical gardener would willingly run any risk of allow- ing antiseptic bodies to come into contact with the roots of his plants. It may be taken as an axiom that, where antiseptics are necessary, the hygienic arrangements are bad and incomplete, and it may further be taken as an axiom that, when antiseptics have been added to sewage matters in sufficient quantity to kill the microbes in the sewage and to arrest putrefaction, such sewage has no longer any manurial value, but, on the contrary, is a source of great danger to the agriculturist. Fortunately for the sewage farmer, the methods of ' treating ' sewage with antiseptics need not always be taken seriously, but are to be regarded as mere perfunctory amusements which Bumble is obliged to i)lay at so long as the Local Government Board is looking at him. Town sewage is necessarily of most uncertain com- position, containing as it does not merely putrescible matter which is good for the soil, but trade refuse (strong acids, alkalies and the like) and an abundance of anti- septics (which are always largely used both by public authorities and private persons wherever water-carried PRACTICAL DETAILS 195 Sewage Is in vogue), which, apphed to the soil, can onl^^ produce results of the most woeful kind. Each variety of refuse needs its own peculiar and suit- ahle treatment. To mix domestic refuse and manufactur- ing refuse, and to imagine that any one method of treat- ment will satisfactorily purify the mixture, is absurd. As a matter of fact, this indiscriminate mixing destroys the value of the whole of it. It must be borne in mind that, in all our arrangements for dealing with organic refuse, our aim must be nitrifi- cation and not putrefaction. The key to success is free exposure to the air. Although the knowledge that nitrification is caused by a microbe is a recent acquisition, the practical conditions which favour the production of nitrates have long been known. The following passage from a paper by Dr. J. M. H. Munro, in the 'Journal of the Koyal Agricultural Society ' for December 1891, puts the whole matter very plainly : — ■ ' Boussingault, the pioneer of the experimental method in agricultural science, was well aware of the importance of nitrates and of the reason of it, one of his earliest essays bearing the title "On the Influence of Saltpetre on the Development of Plants." As early as 1856 he had suc- ceeded in devising a method for estimating the nitrate present in soils, and he gives us the result of testing over thirty samples. He found the nitrate in traces only, or in very small quantities, in some forest and meadow soils and soils with growing crops ; in very small quantity after very wet weather in autumn, and immediately after the growth of a crop ; in larger quantities in fallow soils in a dry autumn, and in largest quantities after a long spell of dry weather during the summer. In one case he gives under two parts of nitrate per million in the soil of o 2 196 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE a hop field in September after heavy rains, six hundred parts per milUon in the same soil in the following July after a long spell of dry weather, and thirty-three parts again in the following October. Whether his figures are strictly accurate or not, the great fluctuation in this float- ing capital of the soil was evidently quite familiar to him, and subsequent observers have but confirmed the general tenor of his results. Greedily absorbed from the soil by a growing crop, easily washed out of it by the winter's rains, and accumulating or hcinrj formed in the soil during warm and not too dry weather, and especially in fallows — these were obviously the main determining circum- stances of the fluctuations. ' It is only natural that the mode of formation of such a valuable substance should be an interesting and promis- ing field of inquiry. To the natural process of nitrifica- tion, as it occurs in the nitre-producing villages of India, Europe has been, and still is, largely indebted for a supply of nitrate of potash w^herewith to make gunpowder. The heaps of nitre- earth found near the sites of former habitations consist of house refuse mixed with porous soil, ashes from the fires, urine. See. After long-continued exposure to Indian warmth, lixiviation of this nitre-earth with water furnishes a solution from which saltpetre is extracted by evaporation and crystallisation. ' In 1777, when France could not import saltpetre, the Government caused to be printed "Instructions for the Establishment of Nitre-heaps," which Boussingault makes the subject of one of his essays, and his observations and drawings make it plain that before his time the practical conditions of nitrification were well known. Heaps of soil mixed with ashes and animal refuse, arranged in layers separated by loose straw- kept under cover, freely exposed to air, and watered as often as possible with urine, i PRACTICAL DETAILS ic^-j turned and removed once or twice if practicable, furnished in the course of some months a notable supply of nitre. If treated after the manner prescribed, we learn that about 450 tons of material would in two years furnish about 4 J tons of crude saltpetre. The watering with urine w^as to be stopped some months before the final lixiviation. Though earth was regarded as a purely me- chanical agent, and any earth not too compact would serve, the best was known to be that already chanjed with nitrate, such as cave earth, manured garden soil, the earth in the neighbourhood of stables and refuse-heaps, &c. The necessary potash of course came from the ashes, the oxygen from the atmosphere, and the nitrogen in Bous- singault's time was known to be supplied by the urine and animal matter, and to be converted by the putrefaction of these into ammonia before undergoing oxidation and combination with the potash to form nitrate. * For the potash of the ashes substitute the lime of the soil, and for the nitrogen of the animal matter that of the decaying vegetable matter of the soil, w^hich is slowly given off as ammonia during the decay, and it is seen that the formation of nitrate of lime in soil proceeds on the same lines as that of saltpetre in the nitre-heap. That the formation of nitrate is encouraged by warmth, by moisture, by porosity of the soil, by tillage and other operations favouring free admission of air, and by the presence of lime or potash, was as well known fifty years ago as it is to-day. But the combination of the atmos- pheric oxygen with the nitrogen and hydrogen of the ammonia resulting from decaying vegetation was then, and for very many years afterwards, supposed to be as purely chemical an action as the combination of nitric acid, once formed, with lime or potash to produce nitrate of lime or nitrate of potash,' 198 ESSA YS ON RURAL HYGIENE When excremental matters are buried they must not be buried deeply. The end we wish to obtain is nitrifi- cation, not putrefaction; and to this end oxygen and microbes are both necessary. Theoretically, perhaps, the best course would be to allow them to remain upon the surface, for we know that such matters, when left on the surface of the ground, quickly cease to be offensive to our senses. Practically, the best course is to bury them immediately beneath the surface, one spit or half a spit being amply deep enough. To bury such matters deeply is to court failure and endanger the water-supply. When ' earth- closets ' are in use there are certain practical points which demand attention. In the con- struction of an E.G. every attention must be paid to cleanliness and decency and their easy maintenance. An E.G. should never be contained within the four walls of the main structure of a house. It should either be a distinct building or should be approached by a short passage or corridor with cross- ventilation or verandah. If possible, it should be lighted from the top. In one which was built for the writer the roof is composed en- tirely of semi-opaque glass, and thus the least impurity is at once noticed. The floor must be of concrete or tiles. The receptacle beneath the seat should be of galvan- ised iron, and may be removed from the front or by a special opening in the back or sides. Guides must be placed upon the floor beneath the seat in order to ensure that the pail is always placed accurately in the same spot. The seat should be of mahogany or some equally hard wood polished, the walls should be match- boarded and varnished, and thorough ventilation should be provided. The earth should be stored in a bin alongside the seat, PRACTICAL DETAILS 199 and should be thrown upon the dejection by means of a scoop, such as is used for flour or sugar. The various me- chanical contrivances for precipitating the earth are too accurate. When they are used the earth falls always upon exactly the same spot, whereas the dejecta do not. To attempt in the e.g. to imitate the mechanical details of the w.c. seems to be a mere silliness. If a scoop be used, and if the earth be stored in a bin, the emptiness of the bin and the absence of earth are at once evident on enter- ing the closet, and there is less likelihood of the neces- sary replenishments being forgotten. The earth must on no account he artificially dried over a stove. If this be done there is great risk of sterilising the earth and stopping that microbial interaction between the earth and the faeces, which is the main thing to be encouraged. In the same way the unnecessary and expensive use of heat in manufacturing ' Poudrette ' serves to diminish the manurial value of faecal matter submitted to this process. If the earth be sifted and stored in a shed for a few weeks before it is wanted it will be quite dry enough, and it is most important for comfort that the earth should not be so dry as to raise a powdery dust when it is thrown into the pan. A small quantity of ash may be mixed with the earth, but always in quantity short of that which raises a cloud of pow^dery dust. Ash, be it remembered, is sterile, and although it has a useful effect in drying the dejecta and providing bases for com- bining with nitric acid, it tends, if used in too great a quantity, to check rather than encourage microbial action. When patent hoppers are used for shooting on the earth, the dryer and more powdery the earth is, so much the better for the patent hopper, but so much the worse for microbial action. An earth'Closet should always be provided with a 200 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE brush (of the kind known as a ' kitchen hearth-brush ') in order to sweep away any crumbs of earth which may be spilled accidentally. An earth-closet should be emptied every day, and the contents should be placed in a shallow trench and lightly covered. If earth be scarce, the contents may be placed in a heap in an open shed, in which case the microbial action will soon reduce the whole to the condition of garden earth or humus. This humus may be used again and again, and the microbial activity, and its power of chang- ing faecal matter to humus, will suffer no loss whatever, but will rather tend to increase by a multiplication of the microbes. The bulk of the earth which is used in this way tends to increase, but the manurial value of a given weight does not tend to increase after a certain point has been reached. Because closet-earth has been found by chemists to contain less nitrogen than pure Peruvian guano or nitrate of soda, it has been said that it has small manu- rial value, but those who say so form their opinions on theoretical grounds, and not from practical experience. The writer has now had ten years' experience, and his belief is that closet-earth is as fertile as it is possible for earth to be, and if used with common agricultural skill and knowledge is capable of producing all garden crops — fruit, flowers, vegetables — in high perfection. It is not, of course, comparable in any way to the artificial stimu- lants so much in vogue with agriculturists, and only an ignorant person would make any comparison between them. Chemical manures can only be used in a state of extreme dilution, and if used too strong may cause incal- culable mischief. In the same way * night-soil,' which consists of partially dried excrement and urine, and is more comparable to guauo than to closet-earth, is some- PRACTICAL DETAILS 201 times dangerous from its strength, and requires to be used with caution. Closet-earth, when ripe, is earth, not manure. It is simply the richest earth possible, inca- pable probably of further enriching, but equally incapable of doing mischief by its strength. The estimation of nitrogen does not tell us all that we want to know about a manure. Our ignorance concern- ing the causes of fertility and sterility of soils is still very great. The recent discovery that the fertility of the soil for certain leguminous plants depends not upon any- thing which the chemist can detect, but upon the pre- sence of microbes (almost invisible to the highest powers of the microscope, absolutely imponderable in the most delicate balance), which grow as parasites on the roots of the plants, and play an indispensable part in their nourishment, must force upon us the conclusion that, useful as chemistry has been to the agriculturist, it cannot tell us all that we require to know concerning the causes of fertility or sterility. Speaking with ten years' experience, I have no hesi- tation in stating my belief that for horticultural purposes closet-earth is unsurpassed. The garden where my ex- periments have been made is in a low^-lying situation near a stream, and the only fault which I have to find with it is that the crops have a tendency to be gross and too luxuriant. The cause of this fertility is not to be attributed solely to the nitrates in the closet -earth, but it is quite conceivable that some of the microbes, which we know swarm in the intestines of man, may play an im- portant part in the change which excremental matters undergo in the soil, and in the interchange between the soil and the rootlets. That organic manures (' farmyard manure ') are superior to all artificial manures is now generally ac- 202 ESS A YS ON RURAL HYGIENE knowledged, but farmers are apt to complain that they * foul the land ' — i.e. that the undigested seeds of weeds, grasses and forage plants which the animals have con- sumed are liable to germinate and choke to a greater or less extent the crop which is being cultivated. Man, however, is a 'cooking animal,' and there- fore very few vegetable seeds are liable to pass through his intestines and still remain capable of germinating. Closet-earth produces very few weeds, although there ap- pear upon ground w'here it is used seedlings of goose- berries, currants, strawberries and raspberries, and of any other fruit which is habitually consumed without being previously cooked. If these seedlings be preserved, some of them wdll be found exceedingly prolific. The best kind of earth to use with an e.g. is un- doubtedly garden mould or humus, and the richer the earth is and the fuller it is of microbes the more quickly will all be changed to earth. If earth taken from a considerable depth be used it is sure to be comparatively sterile, and the change is slow ; or again, if ashes, which, of course, are absolutely sterile, be used in large quantities, or if the earth have been accidentally sterilised by over- heating, the action may be very much delayed. Again, the temperature and humidity of the air are all important in their relation to the interchanges between the earth and the organic refuse. It is quickest in ordinary summer weather, when sunshine alternates with showers, and it is checked to a greater or less extent by cold and also by drought, for without a certain degree of mois- ture the nitrifying microbes fail to grow. I think one would be justified in saying that in ordinary summer weather the humification of excreta is accomplished in about three weeks, but that in unfavourable weather (cold or drought) it may be delayed to a degree proportionate PRACTICAL DETAILS 203 to the length of the unfavourable conditions. When what I have called ' humification ' is complete, all has been turned to humus with an earthy smell and without any offensive qualities whatever. The humus necessary for the working of the e.g. has been increased in quantity and improved in quahty, and if this be used a second time the humification of the excreta will {cceteris i>arihus) be quicker than before. This is a most important matter, but, as we have seen, it is easily explicable now we know that the change is biological and not merely chemical. It is difficult to see that anything except sterilisation could destroy this power of the earth ; but it is, of course, conceivable that some undesirable microbe may get a footing, just as happens occasionally with fer- mentation, and upset or interfere with the normal process. In alcoholic fermentation the process is accompanied by a very large growth of the ferment, so that the product of yeast from one fermentation is sufficient to induce satisfactory fermentation in (perhaps) 100 times the bulk of the fermentable liquid which yielded it. With ordinary care the brewer not only has no difficulty in perpetuating his fermentations, but has a large surplus of yeast to dispose of. In the same way the process of humification will go on ad infinitum if very ordinary care be taken to see that all the conditions are favour- able to the process. The power of the earth to humify excreta is not diminished but is increased hy repeated use, ' as if increase of appetite did grow by what it fed on.' The importance of this fact cannot be over-estimated, because with care an e.g. can be satisfactorily managed wherever a few cubic yards of earth and a dry shed to keep it in are obtainable. If the earth which has been used be stored in an open shed, freely exposed to the air and turned over occasionally, it will be ripe again and 204 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE ready for use in a time varying, in this climate, from three weeks to three months, as the case may be. Mr. F. Bennet, of Marlborough, who is well known as a geologist, has conclusively shown that humification can be perpetuated by the intelligent use of a very few cubic feet of earth. This fact is of the greatest importance as showing the possibilities of the e.c. system in places where earth is not readily obtainable. If an E.c. is to be entirely satisfactory the following points must be attended to : — 1. It must be well constructed and ventilated and must be emptied daily. 2. The earth used must he pure garden humus taken from the top layer, and not the under laj^er, of the soil. 3. The closet-earth must be stored in a dry shed freely exposed to the air and turned over occasionally. The causes of failure of earth-closets appear to be the following : — 1. The employment of earth or other material which is no longer ' living.' Earth which has been overheated, or taken from a great depth below the surface, has no power of humification, and the same may be said of ashes, which are useful enough to mix with earth in order to increase its absorbent proi)erties, but which are sterile and powerless to effect any change in the organic refuse. Eeal ' living earth ' is unequalled as a deodoriser. 2. The admixture of liquids in too great quantity. The nitrifying and humifying microbes require a certain amount of moisture for their growth, and an average amount of urine mixed with the dejecta is no dis- advantage. If, however, the closet be largely used for micturition only (as is very apt to be the case in female communities), the fluid becomes excessive, putrefaction sets in, and the closet becomes offensive. If the closet PRACTICAL DETAILS 205 be emptied every day, as it should be, no serious incon- venience will arise from comparative failure, and if the contents be superficially buried every day, as I have advised, then it matters little how much mismanagement, ignorance, and carelessness is lavished upon this safe and simple contrivance. In the North of Europe (Denmark, Sweden and Nor- way) a closet is in use in which by a very simple con- trivance the urine is separated from the solid matter. These closets are or w'ere recently in use even in the city of Copenhagen, and were wonderfully successful. In female communities it may be advisable to pro- vide a distinct arrangement for micturition only and to allow the urine to run with the house-slops. It need hardly be said that household-slops must on no account be put into the pail of an earth-closet. In every house there is much organic refuse provided by the kitchen, and in towns where there are no gardens or back-yards this is carried away by the dustmen and hucksters or is burnt upon the kitchen fire. In country places the putrescible refuse of the kitchen is consigned to the hog-bucket, and that useful animal the pig converts it into pork and manure, or the poultry get the benefit of it, and thus indirectly benefit us. Supposing that neither pigs nor poultry be kept, the safe and economic bestowal of such refuse is perfectly eas}-. Take a piece of galvanised wire netting three or four feet wide, and with it enclose a circular space about three or four feet in diameter, the netting being fastened and supported by two or three iron or wooden stakes driven into the ground. Into this little wire enclosure throw all refuse from the house and garden which is capable of rotting, the parings and waste of vegetables and other 2o6 £SSAVS ON RURAL HYGIENE food, the mowings and sweepings of the lawiis and paths, weeds, fallen leaves, &c. &c. Such a heap as this, exposed on all sides to the air, is not offensive, and the component parts of it midergo humification. AVhen the w^re enclosm'e will hold no more a little earth must be thrown upon the top, and the heap must be left for several weeks freely exposed to the weather. It will settle down and diminish in bulk, and finally is entirely converted into fine garden mould suitable for potting or for enriching the soil. The final act in the management of this refuse-heap is to sift it and consign the residue to the garden bonfire. When one netting inclosure is filled a second must be formed, so that in connection wdth a house there must alwa3^s be two heaps, one forming and the other ripening. Such heaps, if freeh' exposed on all sides, are not in the smallest degree offensive, and if by any accident they should become so, as by the addition of an excess of cabbage leaves in ' muggy ' weather, it is only necessary to put a little earth on the top, when the odour will be at once arrested. In a kitchen garden the cabbage leaves left upon the ground are apt to be very offensive in the autumn and winter, and the smell from this cause in the market gardens round London is at times sufficient to constitute a veritable nuisance. This nuisance ought not to be suffered, because it can be instantly checked by raking the dead leaves into a heap, and throwing a little earth over them. All ammoniacal smells should warn the farmer and gardener that he is losing valuable material. In a house and garden there is a never-ceasing accu- mulation of refuse and rubbish, and it must be borne in mind that all of it has a definite value. In dealing with such refuse the rule must be (1) that whatever is PRACTICAL DETAILS 207 capable of rotting must be put in a heap to ' humify ; ' (2) whatever is not capable of rotting, but is eomlnistible, must be burnt. In every garden it is necessary to reserve a space all the year through upon which to burn combustible rubbish, and it is needless to say that the resulting ash is of great value as a mineral manure, and contains large quantities of potash and other bases (lime, silica, &c.). When rub- bish is burnt, the nitrogenous matters (which constitute the staple food of all plants) are lost, but when it is allowed to slowly undergo humilication the nitrogen is retained in the form of soluble nitrates and nitrites. It is thus evident that it is wasteful to burn organic matter which is capable of undergoing humification or nitrification. This dogma applies doubly to the cremation of the dead, in which process valuable fuel is used in getting rid of that wdiich easily humifies, but is with difficulty burnt. Coal-ashes are no less valuable for the soil than wood- ashes, provided, of course, the combustion of the coal has been perfect. The public use the words * ashes ' and * cinders ' as though they meant the same thing, so that it may be well to state that cinders are worse than use- less as a manure, and that all ashes added to the ground ought to be either white or red, according to the nature of the coal, and that they ought to be sifted through a fine wire sieve, and whatever is combustible be used for fuel. If the cinders of a house be thoroughly sifted, it will be found that the ash resulting from a ton of coals occupies a very small space, and that the ashes of an average middle-class villa will scarcely fill a couple of bushel-measures in a year. In every house there is a certain amount of incom- bustible refuse, in the shape of broken glass, crockery and the like, and this will be found invaluable whenever 208 ESSAVS ON RURAL HYGIENE good bottom drainage is required, and as a foundation for garden paths. The secret of good garden paths is to have them well sloped and drained, so that water runs off them readily, and to make them of sterile materials, so that weeds will not readily grow. If beneath the top dressing of gravel a layer of ash (not cinders) be placed it will be found that in course of time the path will grow exceedingly hard and firm. Garden paths should be sxi'c^t every day. If leaves are allowed to lie upon paths, and if the earthworms drag them into the path, the path will soon cease to be sterile and will grow abundant weeds. A garden path should be slightly convex, well drained, made of clean and sterile materials, of which the biggest pieces should pass through a sieve with an inch mesh, and should be swept every day. There is scarcely any form of domestic refuse which is not serviceable in the garden, and as the occupant of a suburban villa I may state that in the course of between five and six years the ' sanitary ' cart belonging to the local Board has never had occasion to call. I feel that it * robs me of that which not enricheth it, and makes me poor indeed.' I see it at the neighbouring houses taking away a variety of things having a very definite value, and I feel that the times are out of joint when a l)ody of persons co-operate in order to keep a burglar with a horse and cart whose duty it is to rob them severally and by turns. I feel it rather a strain upon my con- science to pay rates in support of an institution which is not only useless but which literally preaches thriftlessness to the unthinking poor. Amongst the refuse of a house must be reckoned the bones of animals used for food. These are among the things which are believed to be the ' perquisites ' of cer- PRACTICAL DETAILS 209 tain persons, and which for one reason or another do not trouble us. Between refuse which is marketable and refuse which is ' taken away ' there is a broad distinction, and everyone must be left to deal with the former accord- ing to his own particular ideas. Bones which have been used for cooking and have had all the gelatin (that ' cultivating medium ' for microbes which permeates the uncooked bone) boiled out of them are singularly inde- structible, and if buried in the garden remain for years to hinder tillage. They should always be burnt and should be used for manure as ' bone ash,' which is in- valuable. The shells of oysters and other ' shellfish ' should also be burnt, as their destruction in the soil is a very slow process. There is one form of litter or refuse which is largely the result of ' free trade,' and which, perhaps, is more difficult to deal with satisfactorily than any other form of litter, viz. the innumerable tins and canisters in which imported food is brought to our markets. They are in- combustible and indestructible, and of very small value as ' scrap ' for melting down. It need hardly be said that a very poor or thrifty person w^ill put an old tin to a variety of uses. They can be made, for instance, to answer all the purposes of a flower-pot, and I can call to mind a first-rate Swiss hotel w^here the excellent floral decorations sprung from a basis of concealed meat tins. Finally, the best thing to do with them is to beat them into a manageable bulk with a hammer and bury them at such a depth that they cannot interfere with tillage. They are said to oxidise and disappear very quickly when buried in this way. They form a good foundation for paths and roads when they have been subjected to a thorough pounding with a big hammer. In concluding the present chapter I am very pleased P 2IO ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE to be able to quote the opinions of aVell-known engineer, Mr. Charles Richardson, C.E ., of Clifton. No man knows better the aims and objects of engineering and also its limits and the inutihty of attempting to disobey the laws of natm-e. Mr. Eichardson's views of the water-closet seem to be identical with my own, and he brings his own experiences by way of illustration. The following quota- tions are taken from a paper on ' Sewage ' read before the Clifton Scientific Club, March 5, 1892 :— ' What is the meaning of all our fears for the sanitary state of our houses, the appointment of sanitary inspec- tors, the anxiety of householders about the pipes and sewers and the fixing of sewer ventilation-pipes, &c., but a full acknowledgment that there is danger all around us and in every household more or less, since the introduc- tion of the water-closets ? '■ I may now relate a striking instance of the effect of the introduction of the water-closet system into an old and healthy town. ' I was formerly the owner of an estate which lay about a mile from, but in the same parish as, an old primitive country town of about 2,000 inhabitants. My tenant was the best farmer in the district, and also a church- warden. The living was a rich one. When the old man died a new vicar came there, who was not satisfied with the old-fashioned vicarage; so, among other improve- ments, he put into it two water-closets. ' Now up to this time there had been no such thing \n the town. All the houses had old garden privies, and most of them had a little well of good water. There were no underground drains, but little open ditches carried the rain-water into the town ditch, which was also an open ditch at the bottom of a meadow. Now the town had always been very healthy, and fever was almost unknown PRACTICAL DETAILS 211 there. When the vicar had put m his water-closets, two or three of his neighbours followed his example, and they all ran their drains into the town ditch. *This, of course, changed its contents into seicage, which shortly began to give forth its characteristic odour. * The vicar was the first to notice it, and at the next vestry meeting he told them the ditch must be covered. The smell, of course, kept on growing worse, and the vicar more importunate ; but the vestrymen only stared at him, till at last he told them they must do it, or he would write to the Board of Health in London, and have an inspector sent down, who would order it to be done : it could be done for 600/. a mason told him. An old farmer then got up and said : '' I have known this place, man and boy, for seventy years, and I have never heard a complaint till you came among us. The place is very healthy, and I want to know icki/ we should iioiv be called upon to put our hands into our pockets to such a tune as that." : - ' The vestrymen would not move ; neither did the vicar give in. He wrote to the Board ; they sent down an inspector ; the ditch was condemned, and ordered to be covered, as the present law directs. * My tenant then wrote to me, telling me of the facts and of the hardship to him of having to pay for this sewer. I immediately wrote to him a reply, which he might show to his vicar. I pointed out forcibly the evils he was bringing upon the town, namely, that he would bring terrible fevers there, till then almost un- known ; that he would destroy all the drinking water in the wells ; that his sewer would cost at least a thousand pounds, and yet was only the first instalment of a much larger outlay involved in his new system ; that, for his 212- ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE own sake, as well as that of his parishioners, I strongly recommended him to take out his water-closets and to go back to the garden privy, but to make it a dry privy ; that this would cost him very little, and that he would thereby save his poorer neighbours the great cost of the sewer and its further developments, as well as all the other evils I had indicated. My tenant took my letter and laid it before the vicar, who read it through twice, slowly and attentively ; and then, pushing it back across the table, said : *' Mr. Eichardson may know better than other people ; but I prefer to take my own course." My tenant then stood up, picked up the letter, and, bringing his fist down heavily upon the table, said: ''I will not act one minute longer as your churchwarden, and I won't give a i^enny more to j^our church or schools, or anything you propose ; for I feel certain that all those evils men- tioned in this letter will surely take place ; " and he strode out of the room. ' The culvert was built — it cost 1,200/. — and all was quiet for a year or more ; and then, in writing to my tenant, I asked him how things were going on. His reply startled me. He said: *'The place is full of fever, and it is worse m the vicarage than anywhere else. The parson has already lost three of his children, and is himself on his back and hardly expected to get up again." . , .... . ... ...... ' The vicar was very bad for a long time, and vowed that if he ever got up again, and placed his foot outside of the parish, he would never place it again within the dreadful place. He did eventually get well, and exchanged livings with another incumbent, accej^ting one of very little more than half the income. * The epidemic of typhoid fever in the jDlace was so bad that the London Board again sent down their inspector PRACTICAL DETAILS 213 to report upon it. His report was that all the wells were contaminated, that more sewers must be built, and that waterivo7'ks must be constructed to convey good water to the town from the hills six miles away. * I sold my estate shortly after this, and do not know what has been done there since 1878. But does it not appear strange that the Law should give its support to the mere whim of an individual, and thus enable him to bring such trouble, loss and death into a place hitherto healthy ? * The efect of the introduction of the water-closet into a new locality is very striking in this instance. Here we have an old market town, of over 2,000 inhabitants at the beginning of this century ; a place of little change, with its weekly markets and its quarterly fairs, with its old-fashioned cottages, each with its bit of garden, and most of them with little wells of good water, not- withstanding the old-fashioned cess-pit privy in the garden. This had gone on for years upon years, through many generations, and yet fever was quite a rare thing in the town under these old conditions. Suddenly, the water-closet was introduced, and three years later an epidemic of typhoid fever swept the place, which was so bad and fatal (particularly in those houses which had connections with the new drains) that the central Board in London sent down a special officer to report upon it ! * I have been personally connected with other cases, all of which indicate the same result, though not perhaps in so striking a manner ; and I am fully convinced that the water-closet system must be abolished before long or we shall have no wholesome water left in the moderately populous parts of England. If this is so, the sooner we set about the reform the better it will be for every one, 214 £SSAVS ON RURAL HYGIENE and the sooner we shall have our beautiful water-springs and pure rivulets restored to us. * The question may naturally be asked now, ** What do you propose as a substitute for the water-closet ? " My reply is : *' Follow Nature." She is the only safe guide ; use the wonderful surface soil she has provided for the purpose, and get utterly rid of sewage ! ' To begin with, the dry privy cannot easily be excelled if properly constructed. Taking first the case of the working man having a bit of garden, for whom the arrangement must be practically self-acting. The plan of construction is this : As no cess-pit is allowed, the catch is made by raising the privy floor 16 or 18 inches, and you go up two steps to enter. The back wall is built against a garden bed, and with a low but wide archway at the bottom, leading into the catch. The seat above is fixed against this back wall. The catch is floored with tiles, or bricks on the flat, smoothly laid in mortar, and this floor is carried through the little archway, thus extending the catch up to the garden bed outside, towards which it has a slight fall of an inch, so that all moisture runs down to the garden bed. The floor above, of the privy itself, should slope slightly the other way and towards the door. ' The privy is made fit for use by simply tipping a barrowful of earth against the archway into the catch. If the privy is now used for twelve months there is no bad smell, for the droppings remain dry, and there is no sewage ; but it should always be cleaned out once a year, when the garden is dug. Now, the labouring man uill dig up his garden bed for the sake of growing his own vegetables, and he will also take a little trouble to get manure for it when he is digging it up, and this he can do so easily by first casting the little heap of earth upon PRACTICAL DETAILS 215 the droppings inside and then raking or shovelUng them all out together off the tiled floor on to the garden bed, which can be done in three minutes from a catch so constructed that he will do it for the sake of the advan- tage he gets to his crops. ' Then, for a better class of houses, the same i)rincii)le of construction must be carried out ; but, in addition, a box of dry earth may be kept in the privy and a small handful of it thrown down the seat after use ; this wdll make the privy unfailingly sweet and innocuous, so that it may be built as a lean-to against any outside wall of the house, and be entered through a door from the inside of the house. The dry earth may otherwise be thrown down by raising a handle, as in the water- closet, and as was practised in a dry-earth arrangement which was taken up a few years ago by an unfortu- nate company in Bristol, and worked at a loss for some time. ' I became connected with this company because of my strong feeling in favour of the earth system, and in opposition to the water system. I threw away some money upon it ; but I learnt a good deal that was useful and practical. 'This company used to sell dry earth "commodes," made something like a big, easy, highbacked bedroom chair. The seat-board was made to lift as in a water- closet, and underneath the perforated seat below was placed an earth-box, much like a galvanised iron upright coal-box, to receive the dejecta, having a little earth sprinkled on its bottom. This earth-box was put in through a front panel. On the right side of the seat was a brass handle, as in a water-closet, and a pull at this threw a small handful of earth over what was in the bottom of the earth-box below. The back was double, 2i6 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE and held the earth. This commode could he placed in a hedroom, and was perfectly sweet. ' In using the term " dry-earth," I do not mean earth that has heen artificially dried or desiccated, but onh^ earth dug from a garden bed in an ordinarily dry state ; for in getting a barrow full it has to be riddled through a quarter-inch mesh, in order to keep out the stones. ' The company- undertook to supply fresh earth, and brought back the nitrogenised earth, which was thrown into a stall of an old stable ; and it was found that, if the heap of nitrogenised earth were left for a fortnight, all sign of former use had disappeared, jmper and all, and that it was then fit to be used again ; also that this might be repeated six or more times. On more than one occasion I examined some that had been used six times, and neither by the appearance, the smell, nor the feel of it in handling could the least difference be noticed from that freshly riddled ; but I was informed that, when used on the garden or the farm, its valuable qualities as a manure were largely increased. The onl}' trouble I ever heard complained of with regard to these commodes was in the prejudice of the servants against carrying the earth- box up and down. ' It must be borne in mind, however, that the water- closet arrangement has been vastly improved since it was generally established ; so may we expect that the earth system would be very greatly improved after it had become largely adopted. * Lastly, another question may now be asked : " How would you put down a system that is in such general use? By Act of Parliament ? " I should reply : " No, that might not be fair ; for it has been recognised and legislated for l)y Parliament." I should merely make the objectionable system pay for all its requirements by a local " rate " PRACTICAL DETAILS 217 upon the closets. In this there could be no hardship. For example : Last summer I spent some weeks in a most picturesque little town in North Wales, where some of the best houses were beginning to introduce the water- closet. Now in the centre of that little town there was a beautiful fountain of pure water, erected by some be- nevolent individual for the benefit of the townsfolk, who were constantly filling their pitchers there. I could see at once that that pretty fountain was doomed shortly. When the water becomes polluted let a rate be levied upon the water-closets in the place, sufficient to procure an equally good supply until the original spring runs pure again, which it would, no doubt, in a year or two after all the water-closets had been abolished. Also let the same rate pay for all the sewers and drains they render necessary, and for the men who have to look after them. I do not think that the vicar I have before alluded to would have been so eager to put the new water-closets into his vicarage if he had known that he and his two or three friends would have had to pay for the sewer which they made necessary. At any rate, they would soon have taken them out again when the rate did come upon them ! ' And now, in conclusion, I may add the following reflection : — ' This century has been by far the most remarkable, in the intellectual history of the world, for its great progress in scientific discovery and invention. But, in the midst of all the beneficial inventions made during the period, there is one which is wholly ev\l—\ mean the water- closet. It bears a remarkable likeness to the eating of the forbidden fruit by our first parents. It was, outwardly, exceedingly fair to look upon, and pleasing to the eye ; but inwardly it has spread death around, and has become 2i8 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE a veritable tree of the knowledge of good and evil ! For the great spread of the diseases which it fosters has given rise to the investigations into the causes of those diseases and into their means of spreading. It has led to the discovery of the different micro-organisms and to the use of antisei^tics.' 219 CHAPTEE IX PERSONAL EXPERIENCES IN A COUNTRY TOWN In the winter of 1881-2 the writer purchased a house and about two acres of garden in the town of Andover. The house had been for some time untenanted, and the garden was so overgrown with weeds that the paths were scarcely recognisable. The house is situated in one of the most low-lying parts of the town, and is one of a type very common in country towns, being entered directly from the street, while behind it is a garden as umbrageous and secluded as can be desired, running down to the banks of a trout stream (the Anton). Our forefathers generally chose the valley rather than the hillside as a spot for building. Valleys are fertile and sheltered, and present no difficulties in the matter of water-supply, a most important point when every gallon of water had to be raised by hand. A situ- ation on the banks of a stream, by pure rushing w^ater, was one to be coveted. The river was a source of power, and was always used to drive a mill; it was a source of food, for it was kept well stocked with fish ; and it was a source of water which might safely be used for drinking or other purposes, and which brought fertility to the soil. In the valley life can be sustained at a lower cost than on the hill, and hence its popularity. 220 ESSA YS ON RURAL HYGIENE The nineteenth century in Great Britain has so far been an era of money-getting ; the population has increased threefold, and a very large proportion have a great deal more wealth than is sufficient to purchase the necessaries of life. We have, among other luxuries of the age, the great boon of water under pressure, which enables persons to build houses in elevated positions, and which, rightly used, should in time make the hill-top blossom as luxuriantly as the valley. The right use of this water under pressure should be its application to the land round the house as it runs to waste after having served for household purposes. It would then percolate into the soil, conferring greatly increased fertility, and find its way to the valley again by natural channels, and in doing so would be a source of danger to no one. Unfortunately the water-pipe as it climbs the hill is always accompanied by its filthy companion, the sewer-pipe — that sanitary Satan which has brought * death into the world and all our woe.' Through this pipe the waste waters return to the valley, charged with every foul abomination. This waste water or sewage periodically floods the low-lying situations, is a source of perennial offence and expense, and finally so fouls the valley-stream that none dare drink of it. Thus, under existing circumstances, those who live on high ground get a minimum amount of good from the water which is pumped up to them, while those who remain in the valley get a maximum amount of harm, and suffer financially from the depreciation of their property. This state of things must go on until it is made compul- sory upon every individual householder or landowner to apply the waste waters to the land and return a clear and clean effluent to the public streams. The writer's Utopia is a place where there are water-pipes and no sewer-pipes, where every cottage on a hillside has around PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 221 it an allotment sufficient to be fertilised by and to purify the waste waters, which should run clear as crystal in open channels, without needing so-called ventilation. In country places water under pressure was a rare luxury at the beginning of the present century. AVater was pumped from a well on the premises, house-slops flowed in open channels to the nearest stream, and ex- cremental matters were deposited in a dry pit. The town of Andover at this time had open gutters running down either side of the street crossed by little bridges opposite the doors. With such an arrangement pollution of wells was not likely to occur, there is no record of any epidemic disease, and the river was full of fish. Every house had ample curtilage, and most of them good gardens, for the town never having been a walled fortress there had never been any necessity for overcrowding. With the introduction of the water-closet it is probable that the open gutters became unbearable, and it is certain that the old dry pits became converted into cesspools which endangered the purity of the w^ells. Between 1850 and 1860 the open gutters were replaced by underground drains. These underground sewer- drains, unlike the open gutters, have to carry semi-solids as well as liquids. Blockages are necessarily frequent in low-lying places where the drains are of small calibre and the fall insufficient. . This was (and is) particu- larly frequent in the street where the writer's house is situated, and during heavy storms the sewage matter flowing from higher levels has occasionally been forced out of the drains and has been deposited in the street. This state of things necessarily depreciated the value of property in the street, and as it was whispered that the kitchen of the house which the writer purchased was occasionally flooded, it was not surprising that the sum 222 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE ultimately accepted for the property was more than forty per cent, below the price originally named as a reserve by the vendor when it was put up to auction. Before purchasing the writer satisfied himself by a careful examination of the floors that the house was not damp, and soon after purchasing he found by ocular demon- stration during a storm that the flooding of the kitchen was caused by sewer- water rushing in through an tin- trapped drain. No better example could be found of the depreciation of property in the valley by the filth flowing from higher situations. To move the kitchen sink and cut it oft' entirely from direct communication with the sewer was an easy matter. The house was soon let, and the writer retained about two-thirds of the garden in his own hands. This garden is situated by the Eiver Anton, 189 feet above Ordnance datum. To the north and east the ground rises gradually until at the distance of a mile or so an elevation of 280 feet is reached. It is bounded on the west by the River Anton, on the north and east by a wall, and on the south by a double row of cottages called ' Portland Place.' These cottages collectively form a little street leading to a private bridge over the Anton. They w^ere owned by four or five different persons and had been built at various times, the name of ' Portland ' possibly indicating that the Premiership of the Duke of Portland in 1807 was the date of the chief part of them. Many of these cottages ought never to have been built, and collectively they had two radical faults : (1) insufficient curtilage and (2) no entrance to the back premises except through the street door. In these days one hopes that no sanitary authority would allow such cottages to be built. If there be no way of removing filth except through the parlour PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 223 and front door, ifc is certain that the evil day will be put off and that the filth will be allowed to accumulate. The collec- tion of dirt and rubbish and the overloaded condition of some of the old privies in the backyards of these cottages are better imagined than described. These privies had been dug years previously, and the majority of them were waterlogged, because in this particular position one cannot dig a hole three feet deep without coming to water. It is essential that a privy pit should be dry. Waterlogged privies, such as these w^ere, assert them- selves in a most unpleasant manner and make a large area round them the reverse of pleasant. In some of these privies the enterprising owner had fixed water-closets, but as there was scarcely any fall to the sewer in the street, and as old boots and bits of wood and oyster-shells myste- riously found their way into the pij^es, the cottages with w.c.s were perhaps worse off than those with the more primitive arrangement. The back doors of these cottages were at various levels and the cottages were divided into groups of three or four by walls. The slop-water was taken by two underground drains, one running eastward to the sewer in the street and the other running west- ward to a little stream the course of which is parallel to the Anton, and a few yards from its left bank. The natural slope of the surface in this situation is from the street to the stream, the latter being nearly two feet lower than the former. This underground drain was provided with the usual gratings, which were a frequent cause of petty disputes, and the drain itself was generally blocked at some point, and was a perennial source of income to the neighbouring builder. Portland Place consists of twenty-seven cottages and three other tene- ments at its western end, which, having more curtilage, might be spoken of as villas. These need to be men- 224 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE tioned, because two of them at least were provided with w.c.s w^hich drained direct mto the ' Uttle stream ' of which mention has been made. This ' Portland Place ' is close to the house which the writer purchased, and helped, it need not be said, to materialh' depress its value. The original object of this purchase was the garden, for amusement and the pro- duction of fruit and vegetables, and doubtless the pui- chaser was influenced also by a sort of sent ental re- gard for a spot which he had known all his life. Had this not been the case he would probably have hesitated longer before buying a property which had so many sanitary drawbacks in its surroundings. Mention has been made of the Eiver Anton and the * little stream ' w^hich runs parallel to it. This latter stream rises as a spring beneath a summer-house near the centre of the writer's garden and joins the main stream of the Anton just below the first mill a few hun- dred yards lower down. This stream, which is only a foot or two in width, used to be a pretty little babbling brook. It received a quota of slop-water from Portland Place, but this was no annoyance whatever, as it caused only a passing turbidity. AYhen, however, with what is called the ' advance of civilisation' two or three of the * villas ' at the west end of Portland Place adopted w.c.s, it will readily be conceived that the beauty of this little stream vanished. It became filthy and malodorous. Then commenced the covering in of the stream in the belief, which is so prevalent in the present day, that evils which are hidden are thereby remedied. When streams of this kind are covered in it is certain that in course of time blockages will occur, and our little stream was no exception. It was covered in, in fact, and for the reasons given ; it got blocked, and with the PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 225 result that the garden I had purchased was improperly dramed and the land more or less sour. It \\'as evident that the only chance of making this garden at once pleasant and productive was to get possession of the neighhouring cottages, and so to ob- tain complete command of the 'little stream.' Circum- stances proved favourable. The property came into the market, and the writer soon became the owner of all the cot- tages and villas which were essential (twenty-three in all). The various steps in the improvement of this pro- perty have been as follows : — 1. The demolition of the partition-walls between the back yards of the cottages and the provision of means of access and egress to these back premises for the purpose of scavenging. 2. The removal of nine w.c.s and the filling up of all the old privy pits and the substitution for these of an arrangement of pails which might be used on the earth system. 3. The removal of the underground slop-drain and its replacement by an oi^en gutter made of Staffordshire brick running from east to west — i.e. taking the course of the natural slope of the ground. 4. The opening up of the ' little stream ' in every part of its course, and the removal of the blockages which had occurred in two or three places. This was followed by a permanent fall of the level of the stream in the waiter's garden amounting to nine inches ! 5. The providing for the daily scavenging of the cottages. The last measure has been the most important of all. A man was engaged to act as scavenger and under - gardener whose duty it has been to remove the closet Q 226 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE pails evcrxj morning and bury their contents superficially in the garden. For such a plan to succeed it is essential that the removals should be daily, and the writer has elsewhere entered fully into the economic aspects of daily versus weehhj removals. The success of this plan has been complete. 1. There is no accumulation of faecal matter near the cottages. 2. There is no dangerous conveyance of such matter for long distances either by pipe or any other means, and the land for burial being close at hand, the daily cleansing of these cottages is effected easily -and quickly, the whole process not occupying more than an Hour. For the success of this plan it is essential that the cottages should be in close proximity to the land. They cannot be too close, while every yard of porterage adds to the expense. 3. All nuisance has been absolutely stopped. The cottages are kept clean, and the garden where the faecal matters are buried is not made in the least unpleasant. The material is placed immediately below the surface — i.e, it is just hidden by a layer of earth. The eye sees nothing and there is absolutely no odour. In fact, there is very much less annoyance than is caused by ordinary dungings and mulchings. 4. The ' sanitary arrangements ' of the cottages being of the simplest, the incessant dribble of money for the repair of ' closets,' traps, syphon-bends, gullies, ven- tilator-pipes, &c., has ceased. 5. The fertility and beauty of the garden have been enormously increased, and its value, which was depre- ciated by its filthy surroundings, has probably rather more than recovered. Ig may be well to state that the garden produces all the ordmary fruits and vegetables in a state of perfection PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 227 which is clearly above the average. The improvement in its fertility has been steady and gradual from the first. When first occupied by the writer it had been neglected for about two years, and, as has been stated, it was so overgrown with weeds that the paths were scarcely recog- nisable. The burning of the thick felt of weeds with which the ground was covered resulted in about a thousand bushels of ashes. To reduce this wilderness to a condition of decent tillage has necessarily taken time. Nothing, probably, has been of more assistance in this direction than the removal of the blockages in the * little stream ' and the consequent lowering of the level of the water. In the first year the garden was manured entirely with stable-dung, but since the acquisition of the cottages the only stable-dung which is allowed to come into the garden is a quantity sufficient to make a hot -bed in the spring. At the present time (and for some few years past) the garden is receiving the daily scavenging of twenty cottages with an average population of at least one hundred persons. The area actually under cultivation amounts (exclusive of paths and grass) to about 5,400 square yards, or \\ acre. Not only is the excremental matter from these cottages removed to the garden but the ashes as well. On making a visit to one of the cottages one day the writer encountered an ash-heap close to the back door. The heap consisted of cinders, ashes, potato peelings and similar refuse, bits of paper, fish-bones, &c. The flies were buzzing over it, and it was distinctly mal- odorous. A woman who had been confined the day before was lying in the next house. ' What do you do with your ashes ? ' was the question asked. ' Oh, we sell them to Mr. So-and-so ' (the higler), was the reply. '• What does he give you for them ? ' 'A a 2 228 ESSA YS ON RURAL HYGIENE penny a bushel.' ' So will I, and I will provide you with a bushel measure to store them in, and when the measure is full they shall be removed and you shall be credited with a penny.' This plan has answered well. The ashes when received are carefully riddled through a sieve, and the cinders go a good way towards the maintenance of the greenhouse fire during the winter. The real ash is applied to the land, and has a most beneficial effect not only by providing mineral manure, but also by improving the physical condition of the soil. It is often stated that while ' wood ashes ' are good for the land, ' coal ashes ' are of small value, the reason of this distinction being caused by the confusion in the mind of the public between cinders and ashes. Cinders are of no use whatever as manure, and only serve to hinder tillage. There is nothing in coal ash which can do any harm and much that will do good, especially in close soils, to which the gritty particles of coal ash give a certain porosity. I have said that this garden of 3 J acre has been manured with the refuse of about one hundred persons for some years, and it may be stated that, proceeding methodically, it takes four years to go completely over the whole of the ground in cultivation. The observer is usually astonished at the small amount of excremental material which has to be dealt with, not more, usually, than will lie in a furrow ten or twelve feet in length made in the ground with a spade. Directly it is de- posited in the furrow it is lightly covered, and there is an end for ever of any offence or any danger. The first crop taken off the land is always a succulent green crop of the cabbage tribe, and the plants are dibbled in on the third day after the deposit. No other crops except cabbages seem to flourish in the fresh material, but the cabbages may be followed by potatoes, these by PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 229 celery (planted between the rows), the celery by peas or beans, and these again by parsnips or carrots, without any fresh manuring, and with a most abundant yield. There is no doubt that this excremental refuse confers a fertility upon the soil which is not exhausted for years. I have been urged by some practical gardeners not to apply the material to the ground at once but to store it in a heap with earth and ashes to allow it to ' ripen ' before applying it. Those w^ho give this advice have derived their experience from ' night soil ' from privy pits which has undergone a certain amount of desiccation by the draining away of the fluid matter, and which is undoubtedly a most potent and dan- gerous manure when applied pure without previous admixture with earth and exposure to the air. By im- mediate burial before ammoniacal decomposition sets in there is no danger of this kind, and one is sure that nothing is lost. Further, if excrement be left above ground, blowflies and other insects will deposit eggs in it, and then the gardener will complain that ' closet- earth brings grubs,' but by immediate burial this draw- back is avoided. Many practical gardeners w^ho have seen the results of the plan of ox)erations which has been described have admitted that the results could scarcely be better than they are. Not only vegetables but all the ordinary garden fruits are produced in high perfection. A large con- tribution is always sent to the local flower show, the object being not so much to show siagle specimens of this or that forced to unnatural dimensions, but to demonstrate that the garden will produce every kind of common flower, fruit, and vegetable in a condition above the average, and that sanitation may be both complete and profitable. 230 jSSSAVS on rural HYGIENE The iDast season (1892) has been a favourable one for low situations because of the small rainfall and the large amount of sunshine, and the yield of the garden has been very large indeed. The gooseberries, rasp- berries, and currants were remarkable alike for size and quantity ; one cluster of white currants {i.e. a collection of bunches growing from one spot on a stem) was found to weigh 14 oz. Thirteen varieties of potatoes (twelve of each sort) were exhibited at the local show, and the 156 tubers averaged more than | lb. each, and the total yield of potatoes was at the rate of 11 tons to the acre. Peas, beans, carrots, turnips, parsnips, lettuce, cabbage, celery, artichokes, apples, pears, plums, peaches, are all some- thing more than creditable for size and total produce. As a flower garden it is no less successful. For roses it is especially favourable, and the broad green path down the centre flanked on either side by hardy peren- nials and common annuals shows a wealth of colour and a luxuriance of growth which are almost tropical. The figures of peas, currants, raspberries, and gooseberries, which have been produced from photographs, and are one-fifth less than natural size, will convey some idea of the luxuriance of the crops (see figs. 3, 4, 5, 6). I have dwelt upon the quality and variety of produce from this garden of little more than an acre manured with the excremental and other refuse of one hundred persons, because in this respect it is in contrast with a 'sewage farm,' which, as is well known, can be made to produce practically nothing but rye-grass and mangel. In the garden there is no excess of fluid with the manure, and the careful hand tillage brings about the aeration of the humus, and thus the nitri- fication of the organic matter is quickly produced. If one had to deal with the same amount of excremental Fig. 3. Gooseberries and Raspberries Q less than natural size). Fig. 4. Gooseberries Q less than natural size). Fig. 5. Black and White Currants Q less than natural size). Fig. 6. Peas Q less than natural size). PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 231 matter in the form of ' sewage ' it would be accompanied by a daily quota of 1,000 or 1,500 gallons of water, a large proportion of which would have been previously boiled, and thus deprived of its oxygen and other gases. Under such circumstances proper tillage and nitrifica- tion is impossible, and the attempt to produce any crop other than rye-grass is labour in vaui. A word of caution needs to be uttered as to the great harmfidncss of antisej^tics from the agricultural point of view. Speaking broadly, it may be stated that any organic matter which has been mixed with chemical antiseptics or disinfectants becomes sterile and poisonous to plant life. In ' town sewage ' there is always great danger to agriculture from the admixture of antiseptics, and the danger is not alwaj's to be avoided even when the ' pail system ' is employed. A town surveyor was recently contending with the writer that fresh excrement was not a good manure, and in support of this he instanced a failure on his part to grow mangel. The first year, he said, scarcely a seed sprouted, and even in the second year the crop was very stunted and miserable. As, however, I elicited the fact that his material was mixed with a preparation of carbolic acid, the failure of his agriculture is not surprising. If daily removal be resorted to the admixture of anti- septics is unnecessary, and it cannot be too strongly insisted upon that any such mixture of antiseptics with manurial matters is fatal to any scheme for their utilisa- tion. At the present time (October 1892) there are rumours of cholera, and as various schemes for disinfection have been put forward in the public press and elsewhere it may not be amiss to say a few words on the subject. 232 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE In dealing with all organic refuse we ought always to have before our eye those processes which we may call ' natural,' whereby the organic matter is nitrified and dissipated, and we should be careful to do nothing to hinder such processes. The admixture of organic refuse with antiseptics (whether salts of mercury or tar deriva- tives) hinders its ultimate dissolution by killing the microbes in the soil and in the organic matter itself. The admission of these antiseptics into sewers or cess- pools renders the whole of the material in the cesspool or sewer a dangerous application for agricultural pur- poses. These antiseptic bodies, when used for disinfect- ing excremental matters, are often applied hastily, and there is no attempt to thoroughly mix the antiseptic with the material to be disinfected. These two are never allowed to remain long in contact, but the handle is pulled and away it goes to be diluted instantly to a degree which probably extinguishes its antiseptic power. Many of the antiseptic bodies (notably the mercurial salts) have the power of coagulating albumen, and it must l)e a question as to whether this action may not have occasionally a preservative effect on noxious microbes by causing spores to be hermetically sealed, as it were, in a case of coagulated albumen. If this be so, it is conceiv- able that antiseptics clumsily and perfunctorily used may actually preserve an infective particle. They will most certainly arrest the process of nitrification and dissolution in the earth whereby the noxious microbe is probably destroyed for ever. The writer's opinion is that, if infective material be buried in the earth (without admixture with water or antiseptics), it is hardly conceivable that any harm can result, and all evidence tends to show that the living humus will effectively protect the wells from infection (if PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 233 these be properly made) by completely arresting the passage of microbes. The fact that chemical antisejDtics often coagulate albuminous fluids, and are certainly fatal to the biological processes in the soil, is one which must be ever before the mind. The safest disinfectant is heat, and it is the onlv one which, practically S2)eaking, is always at hand. On the occurrence of a case of cholera in a rural district, I think the safest course w^ould be to bury all the excreta of the patient, and then wash the vessels and clothing in water gradually brought to the boiling-point, which water should ultimately be throw^n upon the surface of the soil. The clothing and infected linen should be placed in a washing * copper ' wdth cold water and soda, and allowed to soak until the albuminous stains have been dissolved. The copper fire should be then lighted and the contents thoroughly boiled. To burn good linen because a cholera patient has used it seems to be at once needless and silly. In times of infective disease, the washing copper, intelligently used, is the best antiseptic, and the cheapest, because in this way the first stage of the laundry work is accomplished, and there is no bill for poisonous chemicals. Infected clothing should not be mixed with salts of mercury or carbolic acid, because the albuminous matter (blood, &c.) is thereby coagu- lated, and the proper cleansing of the clothes in the laundry is interfered with. Neither should linen be plunged into 'boiling water for the same reason, but, as advised, it should be allow^ed to soak for some hours in cold water and soda, w^hereby the albuminous stains are dissolved, and then be gradually boiled. If the actual boiling of the excreta of cholera patients could be arranged before being allowed to flow into the sewer, no more effectual process of disinfection could be conceived, 234 ^'SSA VS ON RURAL HYGIENE although, without special precautions, such process would be necessarily offensive. We constantly hear in the present day of the dangers arising from a * foul soil,' and there are those who attri- bute many of the evils which come upon us in the form of disease to foulness of the soil. It cannot be too strenuously asserted that there is only one sure and certain way of keeping the ground sweet — viz. by tillage, aeration and cultivation of it. To pour antiseptics upon it, or to cover it with concrete, is no cure. These methods will but skin and film the ulcerous place, Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen. If the soil be tilled so that it brings forth trees or herbage with green leaves, the air will be freshened and purified by the oxygen given off by the leaves, and the soil itself will be cleansed from all impurities. It is a common mistake to bury offensive things too deeply. If organic matter be buried in the barren subsoil instead of the living earth of the upper strata, nitrification will be delayed, and the possibility of contamination of the neighbour- ing wells will be greater than when such material is buried superficially, and within reach of the husband- man's tillage. In the burial of the dead the mistake has been made not only of hindering the dissolution of the body by every means that ignorance, superstition and self-interest can suggest, but also by the fashion of burying too deeply. The body should be laid in the humus and should be covered by a mound of earth, which in all cases should be planted with shrubs and trees suitable for the soil. If this be done, it is hardly conceivable that any poi- sonous or other organism can find its way to the wells. 235 CHAPTER X PERSONAL EXPERIENCES {continued)— WATER- SUPPLY The water-supply of the writer's cottages is worthy of more than passing mention. The house, garden and cottages, as was stated in the previous Chapter, are close to and only a very few feet above the level of the River Anton, and runnmg parallel to the Anton is a tiny rivulet which may be called the 'little stream.' Those who have not seen them can hardly imagine the beauty of the Hampshire trout streams, with the rippling of clear sparkling water over waving weed and bright patches of gravel where the trout lie. Unfortunately there is no truer proverb than that ' Familiarity breeds contempt,' and it certainly is true that the dwellers by the banks of the Anton, far from worshipping the river or even treating it with decency, seem to make every attempt to spoil its beauty and heap upon it every indignity. It is instructive on a bright summer's day to lean over the side of a boat and peer into the recesses in the bed of the Anton at points where the gardens of villas or cottages reach its banks. It is then that one realises what a pauperising thing is a running stream to those who are lazy and ignorant, how urgently our rivers stand in need of care, and how futile is the Pollution of Rivers Act ! In the bed of the Anton, one may see, by peering 236 BSSAVS ON RURAL HYGIENE to the bottom, an old kitchen range, old iron buckets and pails innumerable, hoop iron, gas-pipe, bits of wire- netting, old boots and shoes, broken bottles, crockery, old meat tins, the ribs of an umbrella, oyster-shells, and, in short, every conceivable kind of house refuse. One only sees at the bottom a very small part of what is thrown into the river, the greater part having floated away down stream. The riparian owner or occupier keeps no dust-bin and he has no rubbish-heap. He is absolutely ignorant of the right use of refuse, and throws everything into the river — dust, weeds, lawn-mowings, dead leaves, parings and trimmings of vegetables, prun- ings of trees, old gooseberry bushes, and finally his old garden tools and water-cans. Under such conditions a river soon gets foul. The rubbish dams back the mud and it becomes difficult to keep the bed of the river clean. The weeds grow, and the beauty and utility of the stream are both reduced, while the thoughtless people who cause these obstructions are being deprived of material every scrap of which should be turned to profitable account. Bathing in such a river becomes unpleasant and dangerous, and boating, from the accumulation of weed, is no longer a pleasure. The trout cease to spawn when they can find no clear gravel for the purpose, and the millers complain that their head of water is seriously diminished. ' What are you going to do with that ? ' I said one day to a helper in the garden who was making for the river bank with a basket of weeds and rubbish in his hand. ' Chuck it in the river, sir,' was the re2:)ly. ' What would you do with it if there were no river ? ' was my next question, and this brought the man to his senses ; and from that time I believe not a single weed or any other refuse has been thrown from my garden into the PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 237 Anton. The gardener carefully returns all rubbish to the soil either in the form of ' humus ' or ash, because he recognises that low-lying gardens are much in need of replenishment, and that if everything be taken off his land and be thrown into the river the level of the soil will ultimately sink. Is a running stream of no use to the agriculturist ? Eiver mud is most certainly a valuable addition to light soils, especially those on the chalk, but before being ap- plied to the land it should be allow^ed to ' ripen ' in a heap with other rubbish. Applied direct it will choke the pores of the soil and do mischief. Again, is river- weed of no use as a manure ? In Cornwall sea-weed is rightty regarded as a most valuable manure, and it is certain that river- weed must have a similar though inferior value, and would do nothing but good to the light chalk soils of Hampshire. At present a running stream is a pauperising medium to those who dwell upon its banks, instead of being of distinct value not only as a source of w^ater and fish, but also of mud and weed suitable for putting on the land. The recognition of the utility of a river by the agricul- turist seems to be the surest road to its proper conservancy. The above digression has been made to show the utter disregard of the average riparian for the purity of his stream. The smaller the stream the less regard is had for it, and, as has been previously stated, the little stream running parallel to the Anton was utilised to receive the contents of w.c.s and house-slops until it became a veritable nuisance, was in great part covered in, got blocked, and ceased to act as an efficient drain for the land. The history of this rivulet was, in short, that which is common to nearly all the rivulets in the country. The surface wells for the supply of the cottages were 238 £SSAVS ON RURAL HYGIENE close to the back doors, and being only a few feet deep it was customary to dip water out of them. The dipping utensils might be anything which was handiest, and might be clean or otherwise. The parapets of the wells were of wood (in places rotten) and only a few inches high, and the paving round them was a rough pitching of the worst description, generally sodden. An underground slop- drain, often blocked (the gratings of which had that odour which is called ' faint '), ran within a few inches of the wells, and finally the steyning or brick lining of the wells was very deficient. Under the circumstances it appeared to the writer that it w^as incumbent upon him to * lay on ' water from the works of the Andover Water Company, which have since (as is the fashion of the day) been bought by the municipality and paid for by a bill on posterity. This water comes from a well about 90 feet deep in the chalk, and had been pronounced of good quality. There might be fissures in this chalk well through wdiich sewer or cess- pool water might gain access to it, and the water might be contaminated by leakage from a sewer en route (no one could speak with certainty on this point), but the laying on of the municipal water relieved one of responsibility, and this probably was the chief reason for this course of action. It has been mentioned how all the w.c.s were re- moved and how underground drains were replaced by open gutters, and there can be no doubt that the whole- someness of the cottages has been enormously improved thereby. There is no longer any foul excremental matter in the 'little stream' (which receives only house-slops), and there are no longer gratings emitting faint or foul odours at the back doors of the cottages. It is often stated that as house-slops have to be got rid of, and as house- slops are very foul smelling, it is PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 239 the best course to construct an underground drain for their reception and allow it to carry off excremental matters as well. This is one of the chief arguments in favour of a comprehensive water-carried system. But there can be no doubt that the admission of excre- mental matters is the main cause of all the difficulties of the * drainage ' question, because when excremental matters are mixed with slops the mixture is so abhorrent to our senses that it must he covered vp, and it is put underground in closed channels instead of being delivered upon the surface of the soil, in accordance with those true scientific principles which should guide us in these matters. Now, as soon as all access of faecal matter to the ' little stream ' was stopped it became possible to open it in its entire length, to get rid of the accumulations of mud, and, as has been mentioned, to restore the i^roper drainage of the land under cultivation. The stream being open, any accidental arrest of the current is seen instantly and removed at once. The stream receives the house-slops of twenty-three tenements, and I can state emphatically that this causes practically no annoyance. When a wash-tub is emptied there is a passing turbidity of the water, which quickly clears again, and there is an end of the matter. It would be perfectly easy to filter these slops through a bed of earth before allowing them to run into the stream, but they cause so little trouble or annoyance that I have not thought it necessary to do so as yet. It must be borne in mind that house-slops have been to a lar^^e extent boiled either in cooking or w^ashing processes, and are therefore mainly sterile and far less likely to contain noxious germs than are excremental matters. Their admission to a stream is not probably fraught with any danger to the riparians lower down. This stream is 240 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE kept absolutely free from accumulation by ducks, which are allowed to work in it, and are most useful in stirring the bottom and keeping it bright. Ducks are very useful as scavengers. Although the house-slops which flow into this stream are as nothing when compared with the fffical matter which formerly flowed into it, I am never- theless of opinion that the sanitary authority should insist upon these slops passing through some filtering medium before being admitted to a public watercourse. Personally I should rejoice to receive such an order, be- cause it would mean that the authority had been roused to a sense of its duty as to the jorotection of its natural water-supplies. Public authorities are ready to spend large sums of (borrowed) money on waterworks, but seldom show the least desire to really protect the purity of streams and rivers. As a matter of fact, the town river has not been * dragged ' for fourteen years, although this is a necessary process which has to be undergone by every stream which, like the Anton, is dammed at intervals by mills. Thus far it will be observed the measures taken for the sanitary improvements of this small property have been (1) the abolition of all w.c.s and privy pits ; (2) the daily committal of all excremental refuse to the earth ; (3) the replacing of underground slop-drains by open gutters ; and (4) the opening up of the * little stream ' and the removal of blockages. The weak point in all these arrangements, which seemed like a standing reproach, was this, that, although the property was on the very brink of a sparkhng river which came welling out of the chalk hills, it was never- theless advisable not to drink the local water but to obtain a supply from the water company. The shallow PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 241 dip-wells close to the cottage doors were obviously so liable to contamination that, in spite of the rejieated assurance of its being ' beautiful water,' common jn-u- dence made it imperative to get a supply from another source, and the ' laying on ' of the municipal water w^as the safest and readiest plan. The reader will scarcely need to be reminded that to ' lay on ' water costs money, that the sum paid as ' wvater-rate ' is not inconsiderable, that it has to be paid in the case of cottages by the landlord, and that it is not always easy to raise the rent in proportion. Again, cottages cannot be too simple in construction, and all sanitary fittings, including pipes, taps, &c., which are sure to be in constant need of repair, add to those ex- penses which the owner is bound to incur, whether or no he recover them from the tenant. We all need to be reminded that if we, by ignorance or carelessness, foul the water which is beneath our feet, and have to bring water from a distance, the cost of living is thereby increased, rent must be higher, and less of the wages will be able to be spent in food, clothing or luxuries, and that it is a most unthrifty arrangement for dwellers in a place where the potentialities of pure water are infinite to wilfully foul this water, and go to another source a mile distant, and ninety feet below the surface. The sum paid for water for the cottages is 8 per cent, of the gross rental, and the sum paid for rates and taxes is 14 per cent, of the gross rental. Shallow w^ells are universally regarded in these modern days as dangerous sources for water, and there can be no doubt that they are often contaminated, and have been a frequent cause of sickness. How have they been contaminated ? The answer to this is certain and most important. They have always R 242 ASSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE been contaminated by direct inflow of filth from the siii- face of the ground in which they are dug, or by the leak- age of cesspools or sewers direct into the well, through fissures in the soil and defects in construction. The cause of the fouling of shallow wells is universally found in a neighbouring cesspool or sewer, in a collection of filth which has been mixed with water, and has been put into the l)arren subsoil, instead of being thrown upon the surface, to be dealt with by the fresh air and the living earth. Since the adoption of subterraneous sewage methods, the fouling of surface wells has become so common that it is now the fashion to condemn them. The wells have already had, so to say, to give way to the sewer. It has been the repetition of the wolf and the lamb of ^ sop's fable — the sewer fouls the well, and therefore the well is abolished. This may be practical, but it is not logical or thrifty. If the subterraneous collections of filth were abolished, and if our surface wells were properly constructed, we might drink of them with perfect safety ; for it is well known that the filtration of water through a few feet of earth deprives it of organic matter with a completeness which is almost absolute. I determined to try the experiment of making a shallow well in the centre of m}^ own garden — a garden, be it remembered, which is rather highl}^ manured with human excrement. The well is in the centre of the garden, at the inter- section of two paths where I have made a circular clearance, with the well in the middle, the paths passing round it. The well is only five feet deep, and the water stands at a depth of three and a half feet. The well is completely lined with large concrete pipes, which sink PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 243 Into the gravelly soil at the bottom, and project rather more than a foot above the surface of the ground, so as to form a parapet. The junctions of these concrete pipes have been closed by cement, and the space outside the pipes (which are 2 feet 6 inches in diameter) between them and the soil has been filled in with solid concrete. The well has been fitted with an oaken lid, covered with lead, and tarred on the inside. In this way it has been made impossible for any water to enter this well, except through the bottom. The sides are absolutely impermeable to the very bottom, and the high parapet and close-fit- ting lid effectually prevent the entrance of rain or sur- face drainage. In order to draw the water a pump has been fixed, a leaden pipe from which enters the well through a hole cut in the concrete sides. This hole has been carefully closed, and the waste from the water which is pumped is taken to the ' little stream ' by an iron pipe fifty or sixty feet long. Every drop of water which enters this well must have filtered through at least five feet of earth, and, humanly speaking, it should be impossible for germs of disease to gain access to it. Within the limits of the garden of which the well is the centre, there is neither cesspool nor sewer, nor any other subterraneous col- lection of filthy water, and any short cut for filth from the surface by cracks or fissures in the soil has, by the construction of the well, been made impossible. Inspection is easy, and it is possible to know the con- dition of the well to the verij bottom with the greatest ease. Thorough inspection of this well is a matter of minutes, while thorough inspection of a deep well is a serious matter, and is practically impossible except to experts. With deep wells sunk in the chalk, or any other porous soil, there is always a risk of contamination by K 2 244 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE cesspools, sewers, or other similar subterraneous arrange* ments, the contents of which may leak into the well through fissures in the soil. One might almost say that the danger of fissures invading the sides of a well is in proportion to its depth. One may certainly say that no well sunk in a porous soil can possibly be safe, if there be sewers or cesspools in its neighbourhood, unless it have an impermeable lining reaching to the very bottom. If filthy water were put upon the surface of the ground, all wells, deep or shallow, which were properly protected from surface drainage would be safe. If there be sewers or cesspools in the neighbourhood of a well, such well cannot be safe, be it shallow or deep. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that the fouling of wells is due entirely to our unscientific methods of treating filth. The only difficulty which has been experienced with the author's well is to keep insects out of it ; spiders, wood-lice, earwigs, &c. finding their way beneath the crevices of the lid, and this in spite of tarring the inside. This invasion by a few insects is unimportant from a sanitary point of view, but it obviously interferes with the value of any bacteriological examination. I am un- willing to seal the well up, because thereby I should lose the power of examination and inspection. In conversation with Professor Frankland I explained the circumstances of this well to him, and he most kindly offered to make a chemical examination. I need hardly say that I accepted this kind offer, and accordingly, in April 1892, 1 sent a sample of water to the Professor and in due course received his analysis and report. The latter was as follows : — * This water contains a large amount of saline matters in solution and is verv hard. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 245 * It is organically very pure ' (the italics are my o^yn) ' but it exhibits strong evidence of having been in contact ^ith animal matter (23revions animal contamination), and would on this account be condemned for dietetic use.' This letter was accompanied by a printed circular which it is necessary to give in extenso in order that the reader may fully comprehend the whole question. DIUNKING- WA TER Memoeandum No. 8 Previous Sewage or Animal Contamination There is reason to believe that the excrementitious matters which exist in sewage are often possessed of intensely in- fectious properties ; and that sewage mixing with water, even in the minutest proportion, is hkely, by such properties, to spread particular diseases among populations which drink the water. Thus is explained the peculiar power which impure waters have been shown to exercise on many occasions in promoting great epidemics of typhoid fever and cholera. The existence of an infectious property in water cannot be proved by chemical analysis, and is only learnt, too late, from the effects which the water produces on man. But though chemistry cannot prove any existing infectious property, it can prove, if existing, certain degrees of sewage-contamina- tion. And every sewage-contamination which chemistry can trace ought, prima facie, to be held to include the possibility of infectious properties. Nearly the whole of the animal matter which gains access to drinking-water consists of sewage, that is, solid and liquid excrements. The column headed ' Previous Sewage or Animal Con- tamination ' in the accompanying analytical table expresses. 246 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE in terms of average London sewage, the amount of animal matter with which 100,000 lb. of such water was, at some time or other, contaminated. Thus 100,000 lb. of the water of a shallow well at Andover had been polluted with an amount of animal matter equal to that contained in 5,100 lb. of average London sewage. So far as chemical analysis can show, the whole of this animal matter had been oxidised and converted into mineral and innocuous compounds at the time the analysis was made ; there is, however, always a risk lest some portion (not detectable by chemical or microscopical analysis) of the noxious constituents of the original animal matters should have escaped that decomposition which has resolved the remainder into innocuous mineral compounds. But this evidence of previous contamination implies much more risk, when it occurs in water from rivers and shallow wells, than when it is met with in the water of deep wells or of deep-seated springs. In the case of river water there is great probability that the morbific matter, sometimes present in animal excreta, will be carried rapidly down the stream, escape decomposition, and produce disease in those persons who drink the water ; as the organic matter of sewage under- goes decomposition very slowly when it is present in running water. In the case of shallow-well water also, the decom- position and oxidation of the organic matter are liable to be incomplete during the rapid passage of polluted surface water into shallow wells. In the case of deep-well and spring water, however, if the proportion of previous contamination do not exceed 10,000 parts in 100,000 parts of water, this risk is very inconsiderable, and may be regarded as nil if the direct access of water from the upper strata be rigidly excluded ; because the excessive filtration to which such water has been sub- jected in passing downwards through so great a thickness of soil or rock, and the rapid oxidation of the organic matters contained in water when the latter percolates through a porous and aerated soil, afford a considerable guarantee that all noxious constituents have been removed. It follows from what has been already stated that chemical PERSONAL EXPERIEXCES 247 analysis cannot discover the noxious ingredient or ingredients in water polluted by infected sewage or animal excreta ; and as it cannot thus distinguish between infected and non- infected sewage, the only perfectly safe course is to avoid altogether the use, for domestic purposes, of water which has been polluted with excrementitious matters. This is the more to be desired because there is no practicable process known whereby water, once contaminated by infected sewage, can be so purified as to render its domestic use entirely free from risk. Nevertheless, as it is very diflicult in some localities to obtain water which has not been more or less polluted by excre- mentitious matters, it is desirable to divide such pre\iously contaminated drinking-waters into three classes, viz. : — 1. Eeasonably safe water. 2. Suspicious or doubtful water. 3. Dangerous water. Bcasonahly safe ivatcr. — Water, although it exhibits pre- vious sewage or animal contamination, may be regarded as reasonably safe when it is derived either from deep wells (say 100 feet deep) or from deep-seated springs ; provided that surface-water be carefully excluded from the well or spring, and that the proportion of previous contamination do not exceed 10,000 parts in 100,000 parts of water. Suspicious or doubtful luater is, 1st, shallow-well, river or flowing water which exhibits any proportion, however small, of previous sewage or animal contamination ; and, 2nd, deep-well or spring water containing from 10,000 to 20,000 parts of previous contamination in 100,000 parts of water. Dangerous water is, 1st, shallow-well, river, or flowing water which exhibits more than 20,000 parts of previous animal contamination in 100,000 ; 2nd, shallow-well, river, or flomng water containing less than 20,000 parts of previous contamination in 100,000 parts, but which is known from an actual inspection of the well, river, or stream to receive 248 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE sewage, either discharged into it directly or minghng with it as surface drainage ; 3rd, as the risk attending the use of all previously contaminated water increases in direct propor- tion to the amount of such contamination, deep-well or deep- seated spring water exhibitmg more than 20,000 parts of previous contamination in 100,000 must be regarded as dangerous. River or running water should only be placed in the second class provisionally, pending an inspection of the banks of the river and tributaries ; which inspection will obviously transfer it either to the class of reasonably safe water if the previous contamination be derived exclusively from spring water, or to the class of dangerous water if any part of the previous contamination be traced to the direct admission of sewage or excrementitious matters. E. Frankland. That the water was organically very pure was highly satisfactory, and its condemnation for dietetic purposes no more than was to be expected, and Dr. Frankland clearly could not avoid condemning such water taken, as he had been informed, from a shallow^ well in the centre of a garden which received large quantities of human excrement. From the above document, however, it is clear that the well was condemned on account of its shallowness and situation, and not on the merits of the analysis. It is the almost invariable custom of analysts to condemn such water, but, nevertheless, I should have no hesita- tion in using the water of this particular well (1) because it is easy of complete inspection, (2) because there is neither sewer nor cesspool within reach of it, and (3) because the water is bright and palatable and is pro- nounced as ' organically very pure.' For the purposes of the argument three analyses made by Professor Frankland have been placed in juxta- position. PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 249 The first is that of water taken from a deep well belonging to the Kent Water Company. Three Analyses of Water by Dr. Franldand, with Remarks. In parts per 100,000. 1— t *- Total solid matter •Ha - 5o a .2 '3 a 1 •11 Previous sew age or animi contaminatio 6 M t-l 05 •« 'Deep Well of the Kent Com- pany. June 23, 1892 . . 40-80 •038 •010 •494 •504 4,6202 2^4 28^4 'ShalloNv Well, Andover. Apr. 1892 . . . 37-60 •054 •008 •542 •550 5,100 19 27-8 ♦Deep Well, An- dover. June 12, 1875 . . 28-28 •106 -031 •444 •475 4,120 1^25 221 ^ 'Excellent qualitj' for dietetic use.' 'Especially distinguished for its very liigh degree of organic purity.' (Report to Registrar-General, June 30, 1892.) * This figure is not given by Dr. Frankland, but has been calculated by the Author from the amount of X. as nitrates and nitrites. * ' Clear. Organically very pure, but it exhibits strong evidence of having been in contact Nvitb animal matter (previous animal contamination), and would on this account be condemnetl as unfit for dietetic use.' (Letter to the Author, May 13, 1892.) * Slightly turbid, wholesome, palatable and of excellent quality for dietetic purposes. As it is derived from a deep well, the evidence of previous animal contamination which it exhibits may be safely disregarded. The hardness is rather less than that of chalk waters generally. It is well suited for the supply of a town. (Letter to Secretary of Andover Water Company, Juue 12, 1875.) The second is from the shallow well in the author's garden at Andover. The third is from the deep well formerly belonging to the water company at Andover. The first of these waters is praised for its excellent quality and very high degree of organic purity ; the second, though ' organically very pure,' is condemned as unfit for dietetic use, while the third is of ' excellent quality for dietetic purposes,' and ' well suited for the supply of a town.' A close examination of the figures shows that the third water is probably the best, notwithstanding its ' slight 250 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE turbidity ' and its relatively larger amounts of organic carbon and organic nitrogen. The other two waters (the deep Kent and shallow Andover) are not at all unlike in composition, and examination of the figures only would render it difficult to say which was the best. This term, ' previous sewage or animal contamination,' seems to me rather a misleading one (not to say terrify- ing). The surface of the earth is the common receptacle of dead organic matter of all kinds, and rain passing through the upper layers of the soil must dissolve the ni- trates which are formed t'/i these upper layers ?ind carry them through to the deeper ones. For the purpose of convert- ing organic matters into nitrates the first few inches of the soil (owing to the access of air and a plentiful supply of microbes) is of more value than all the rest, and if filthy water escape the action of the upper layers it may travel for any distance without being nitrified. The cases of the Dudlow Lane well at Liverpool (p. 168) and the typhoid epidemic at Lausen (p. 163) may be studied in this con- nection. The nitrifying power of the soil increases apparently with cultivation, and there is good reason to believe that the nitrifying power of humus is proportioned to the degree of high cultivation to which it is brought. If, however, filthy water be allowed to escape the action of the upper actively nitrifying layers, and be conducted by pipes beyond the reach of them, as is the unscientific custom of to-day, it is very doubtful if proper nitrification is ever attained. The nitrates in solution show that organic matter has been nitrified and rendered harmless, and it is difficult to understand why they should be a sign of danger in shallow wells and lose such significance in deeper wells notwith- standing the fact that the deeper layers of the earth have but little action on organic matter. If dangerous filthy PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 251 water has managed to leak five feet through the earth without undergomg any nitrification it would experience no difficulty in trickling in the same condition for the next 500 or 1,000 feet, and the deeper it gets the less likelihood is there of nitrification taking place. While, undoubtedly, we want evidence oiiwcBcnt sewage contamination, it is difficult to see the bearing upon die- tetic value of j)reviom sewage contamination. The fact that saltpetre owes its origin to the fermentations of a dung-heap in no way affects its wholesomeness. While freely admitting that, under conditions commonly existing^ shallow wells are dangerous sources of water- supply, one must insist that the danger is entirely due to water-carried sewage leaking from sewers or cesspools, and one must have considerable doubt whether deep wells are so uniformly safe as is generally supposed, because filthy water having escaped the action of the upper layers of the soil stands little chance of nitrification in the deeper layers. Dr. Kenwood, of the Hygienic Laboratory, Uni- versity College, has kindly made two analyses of this water which do not materially differ from that of Pro- fessor Frankland. Dr. Kenwood, however, regards the water, judged on the merits of its analysis, as a ' fair water,' and reasonably safe. To go back to the lesson which is taught by this garden at Andover. The excrement of over 100 people is buried daily in little more than an acre of ground, with horticultural results distinctly above the average. The slop-water runs in open gutters to an open stream ; there is not a single underground sewer-pipe, drainage-pipe, or cesspool upon the premises. A shallow well sunk in the centre of the garden yields water which is ' organically very pure,' and which, personally, I should not fear to use for dietetic purposes, 252 ESSAY'S ON RURAL HYGIENE Here we have the complete circle of changes — the right use of refuse leading to the profitable production of food without causing any danger to the water. In low-lying villages the best source of water is probably to be found in in'operly constructed surface wells, provided there be no sewers or cesspools, and slops run in open channels on the surface of the ground, and, of course, away from the wells. The bacteriological examination of the writer's shallow well has been so far satisfactory. Dr. Sims Woodhead has been most kind in supplying the necessary cultivating media and apparatus from the laboratory of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the examination has been made twice. The inoculation of the gelatine plates was made by the author on the spot. On the first occasion the well was new, and debris of all kinds had been dropped into it and the water had been stirred up. There w^ere found some 700 growths per c.c, and nine species, among which mucors largely predominated. This examination scarcely merits to be recorded, because the circumstances were obviously unfair. On the second occasion, in July, there were found only eight growths per c.c, and only three species could be made out. This amounts to practical purity ; for it must not be forgotten that the pump through which the water is drawn stands in the open air, and that it has not yet been found possible, as has been said, to prevent sundry small insects from finding their way round the rim of the well- cover. This freedom from bacteria might have been safely predicted, for it has been absolutely established that humus is, as a filter for bacteria, quite unsurpassed. The clearness and brightness of this water are absolute, and when the well was last inspected (late in January PERSONAL EXPERIENCES 253 189B), every stone on the bottom was clearly visible, and no appreciable sediment of any kind had taken place. It is not only the vital and biological condition of humus which makes it such a good filter, but its me- chanical condition also. Well-tilled humus is loose, j)orous and crumbly, and it is not liable to have dangerous cracks or fissures formed in it as the result of drought and heavy rain. The surface of well-tilled land soon adjusts itself to the pressure of water falling upon it, and it is hardly conceivable that filth can make a ' short cut ' into a well properly made and with cultivated sur- roundings. The best surrounding for a well is probably turf, and the next best is well-tilled humus. No well, be it deep or shallow, can be always safe unless it be properly looked after and receive intelligent attention. The old-fashioned dip- well, without parapet, surrounded by coarse pitching and sour-smelling puddles, where filthy water is thrown day after day, must get fouled, and those who drink of it do not deserve to escape the penalties of their neglectful carelessness. It is very important that the waste water from a well be conducted to a safe distance. The constant drip of water in the same place day after day is sure to wear a channel along the course of pipes or brickwork, and in this way a short cut by which filth may reach the well will certainly in process of time be made. It is the con- stant delivery of liquid filth day after day in the same place which constitutes the danger of cesspools and sewers, for directly a leakage is made it is bound to travel steadily along the path of least resistance. Those who wish to be safely guarded against leakages of this kind must be careful never to throw their slop -water for many days together in the same place. In sewers and cesspools we are apt to get a column of water capable of 254 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE exercising no little pressure, which, of course, increases the danger from leakage almost infinitely. It must never be forgotten that filth in a cesspool underground and filth deposited on the surface of the ground are in totally different conditions, both vital and ph^^sical. On the surface those chemical and biological processes which constitute our protection are forwarded, and the dangerous pressure of a column of water is impossible. In a cesspool nitrification is delayed, and it is almost certain that sooner or later the pressure of the fluid will cause an irruption which must in time worm a passage to the nearest water source. 255 CHAPTER XI PERSOXAL EXPEEIEXCES IX A LOXDOX SUBURB In the year 1887 the writer supplemented his profes- sional residence ^Yith a country cottage in a suburb in the Thames Yalley. The cottage selected was a ^ villa ' of the commonest cockney type, abominably planned and abominably built, but not much worse than its neighbours. The attraction lay in the fact that all its windows looked south or east ; that from its windows one commanded a view of an attractive rural district; and that the villa had a garden of a quarter of an acre, very picturesque and well exposed to the sun. This little house drew its water from a private well and drained through a grating in the ground which pre- sumably took the sew^age somewhere, but no one could tell where that somewhere was, and no little difficulty was experienced in finding the inevitable cesspool. The w.c, wedged into a recess close to the kitchen door, was absolutel}' dark and without ventilation, except into the house. Although this house was not the author's property, the owner allowed him to carry out his ideas and so rearrange matters that all refuse should be re- turned to the soil without the intervention of sewer or cesspool. It must be remembered that the design of the house was, so to say, a fixed quantity, bad but unalter- 256 £SSA rS ox RURAL HYGIENJE able, and the plans adopted were merely makeshifts, and such as proved feasible under the circumstances. The old w.c. was routed out with its pan, levers, cistern, and pipes, and the cesspool was emptied and abolished. An e.g. was erected just beyond the limits of the house. The contents of the e.g. are buried every day just beneath the surface, and thus the question of excrement disposal was easily settled. Next as to the bestowal of slops : {a) kitchen-slops, (h) bedroom-slops (soapy w^ater and urine), and (c) the waste of a big fixed bath holding about thirty gallons. The kitchen sink was so placed that its waste-pipe could not reach the outside of the house without being placed beneath the floor, and therefore the recej)tacle for this wasta had to be sunk in the ground. A gal- vanised iron ' copper ' wdth spherical bottom is used for this purpose, and this is emptied every day and put to the shrubs or wherever it may be wanted. This is done by the lad who cleans the boots &c., and takes four minutes at the most. It has been done by a succession of lads, and no difficulty has ever arisen. There is no smell, no unsightly appearance, and this w^aste water has proved very fertilising. At intervals the receptacle for the kitchen- slops is scoured and polished with sand- paper. If it had been possible to obtain a fall for the kitchen waste, it might have been feasible to empty it by turning a tap instead of by a dipper, and thus some time w^ould have been saved ; but in practice the neces- sity of dipping has proved to be no hindrance to efficiency, and the shape of the receiver lends itself to cleanliness. Experience leads one to say that kitchen- slops should always receive independent treatment. Of all the house-slops they are infinitely the most con- centrated, and contain a large amount of grease and EXPERIENCES IN A LONDON SUBURB 257 suspended matter, so that in arranging for their disposal the constant shifting of the spot on which they are deposited is of importance. For the disposal of the bedroom-slops the following method was adopted : A sink was placed outside one of the upper windows. This sink has the appearance of, and is indistinguishable from, a flower-box, and is, in fact, used as such. From this descends a IJ-inch zinc pipe {ivithoiit trap of any kind) on to the surface of the soil, the total fall being about eleven or twelve feet. This pipe is freely exposed to the air in its entire length, and passes across the roof of an outhouse to reach its destination on the ground. The slops are received on an ordinary garden bed adjoining the north wall of the premises (i.e. the wall with southern aspect). This bed was deeply trenched in 1887, and at the bottom was placed all the rubbish that could be found in order to give good bottom drainage. On the surface was arranged, in a straight line and parallel to the wall, and about four feet from it, a few lengths of old zinc guttering which happened to be at hand, through some of which at intervals rough holes were knocked with a pointed coal hammer. The end of the delivery-pipe is laid in this zinc gutter, and thus the slop-water is guided in the right direction. The size of the bed thus roughly ' laid out ' for the reception of these slops is three yards broad by nine yards in length, or twenty- seven square yards in all. The soil is a stiff loam lying over brick earth. The whole arrangement was experimental, and was done with the roughest materials, because the writer felt he had his experience to gain, and as his possible failures would have to be paid for by himself, and not by his brother-ratepayers, he moved with caution* 258 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE Since this simple contrivance was arranged in 1887, np to the present time (October 1892) it has not been touched, and is still working as well as ever. The gi'ound on which the pipes lie has been tilled and the relative position of the lengths of guttering (some of which have no holes) has been occasionally changed, so as to vary the amount of fluid at particular spots ; but beyond this nothing has been done, and good crops of strawberries and spinach have been gathered and plenty of peaches have been plucked from the trees against the walls. There has been no trouble of any kind with this simple arrangement, no smell, no sloppiness ; and during the severe winter of 1890-91 the slop- water ran away and soaked into the earth with as much readiness as it does at midsummer. There are no traps and, the fall being considerable, water cannot freeze in the pipe ; with the pipes arranged outside the house, it is impossible to have any ' traps,' and that is a distinct gain. The whole arrangement is now covered with creepers and hidden from view. A similar plan has been adopted with the waste of the fixed bath. A zinc pipe (without traps) has been conducted, by means of a rustic ornamental arch, across the path surrounding the house, and this delivers on to the surface of the ground and pours the water into a gutter scraped in the soil with a hoe, and running through a bed of shrubs (privet, hollies, yew, aucubas and laurels) . The gutter wants occasional clearing with a hoe or rake, and the shrubs nearest the water need more pruning than their neighbours, but no trouble has yet arisen with this simple contrivance, which is in the front of the house, a few feet from the parlour window, and between it and the road. The soil is a thirsty one, and when the plug of the bath is pulled up the gutter EXPERIENCES IN A LONDON SUBURB 259 fills, and two minutes later the thirsty earth has sucked up every particle of the water. This gutter is about fifteen feet in length. This is a very simple history of a common cockney villa, such as a clerk with 300Z. or 400/. a year might very well occupy, and of which there are thousands in this district. It is rated at 38Z., and the whole of its bedroom-slops are disposed of in two gutters, one of which is nine and the other five yards long, while the kitchen-slops are given to the shrubs, which make a brave show in consequence in the summer. Of the quarter of an acre of garden only a very few square yards are absolutely needed for refuse utilisation and disposal, and were the material to be used ten or twenty times as great there would be no difficulty. We habi- tually drink the water from the surface well, which, although hard, runs no risk of contamination. For the fixed bath we have the water of the Grand Junction Company in order to save the necessity of a special cistern and the labour of pumping. The arrangements which have been described are very simple, but simple as they are they require some attention in the way of clearing away dead leaves or other debris which may arrest the current of the water. If anything goes amiss with these simple contrivances it becomes evident instantly, and a rake or garden trowel are the only implements necessary for rectification. To persons who have grass land and w^ho keep a big staff of servants the disposal of house-slops can cause no diffi- culty. I have been at some pains to show how there is no difficulty in houses of the most modest type. It is some satisfaction to feel that one lives in a house without sewer or cesspool and with no putrefying collections of filth beneath the surface of the ground. s2 26o ESSAVS ON RURAL HYGIENE It is some satisfaction to feel that the refuse of your house is neither a source of annoyance to yourself nor of clanger to your neighbour, to feel that there is one house at least in the district (how many more are there ?) which sends no filthy water to the river, and the sanitation of which is no expense to the ratepayers and a profit to yourself. The reader needs to be informed, however, that he has very little liberty in sanitary matters, and that it is dangerous to spend much money upon any system unless it be that particular system which happens to be in fashion and which has received the sanction of the local authorities, and which the local authorities have power to comi^el one to adopt. The suburban district in which the writer's cottage is situated contains 26,000 inhabitants and 7,000 acres of land, the chief industry is market gardening, and there are very few houses without gardens or ample cur- tilage. Of course the district fouls the Thames. People have been permitted to send their filth into the Thames, and it is noteworthy that about the worst offender in this respect was a large building estate covered with high-class houses, which is enclosed by gates and fences and has retained its autonomy with regard to its roads. Why this wealthy estate should not have been com- pelled to deal with its own filth it is difficult to conceive. To have done so would have been easy, because the filth is not mixed with trade refuse of any kind. But such matters nowadays are never dealt with piecemeal, and the ratepayer gets imbued with the notion that, although he is too lazy or ignorant to deal with his own small amount of refuse satisfactorily, he and his eliow- ratepayers will be able to deal satisfac- EXPERIENCES IN A LONDON SUBURB 261 torily ^Yith any amount when their heads are put together and they become a ' board.' They have only to cast their eyes at London and many places in the neighbourhood to know how insu- perable are the difficulties of dealing with sewage on a large scale, how insurmountable are the chemical diffi- culties, and how well-nigh impossible it is to get the engineering arrangements (which are mainly out of sight) properly carried out by the contractors. However, it goes without saying that this district adopted a large sewage scheme which involved the taking of pipes in many instances along hundreds of yards of road in order to reach the doors of houses standing in isolated positions and surrounded by acres of market-garden ground. The roads were soon 'up' for the sewers, and eventually miles of pipes were laid and ' sewage works ' were erected, the whole costing, so it is said, about 120,000/. This figure is doubtful, because the author does not remember ever receiving a detailed statement of the cost in which the ratepayers had been involved. It may be well to state that the raison cVctre of these huge works was not the improvement of the public health of the district, but merely the stopping of the pollution of the Thames. The thing was done, and the domestic refuse of 26,000 people was mixed with the trade refuse of the district, including the waste from a big brewery, a dye-works, and a soap works, and this was taken to one spot. ' What are you going to do with your sewage ? ' I asked of a local magnate one day in the train ? * A process,' was the reply. ' Which ? ' I asked. '"Oh, I don't know ; there's hundreds of 'em.' This answer probably gives a fair idea of the knowledge of the sewage question 262 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE which is possessed hy the average vestryman, who merely sees that a great scheme is ' good for trade,' and especially good for the jerry builder, who invariably follows a line of sewers. The ' process ' adopted in this instance was precipitation by means of alum and iron-salts, and the success of it may be judged of by the following extract from the local paper for July 16, 1892 : — * Local Board. * An ordinary meeting of the Board was held at the Town Hall on Tuesday. . . . ' The effluent discharge difficulty. — Mr. J. C. M., a resident of E — Pioad, protested against the discharge of effluent into the Old Eiver, which flows at the edge of his property. He urged that something should be done immediately to remedy the nuisance, and stated that when he bought the property he was wholly influenced to purchase by the fact of the river being well stocked with fish — affording sport and pleasure. Being ver}^ partial to aquatics, he purchased a boat, and built a slip and boathouse, looking forward for some amusement in the future. But since the effluent from the Board's sewer works had been discharged into the river the fish had been driven away or poisoned by the chemicals in the liquor, which was so polluted and dis- gusting that it made one ill to see it, and the smell was intolerable. He asked the Board to restore the river to its original purity ; otherwise he was compelled to dispose of his property under forced sale and remove from the locality, and he would have to call upon the local authority to recoup any loss he may sustain thereby. — Mr. E. said he fully confirmed the statement of the letter. The nuisance was reallv fearful. Last EXPERIENCES IN A LONDON SUBURB 263 week the smell was very bad, and the water was extensively polluted. Sometimes that discharge was of a pure and satisfactory nature, but at other times it was directly opposite. Mr. M. having remarked that the matter was receiving careful consideration, the matter dropped.' The local board had adopted the ' separate ' system and a precipitation process aided by chemicals, and already they were in difficulties, and it was an open secret that an inspector from the Local Government Board had condemned their effluent, which was as described in the above cutting. At this time (summer of 1892) their action had resulted in an increased pollution of the river, and not- withstanding that they had more sewage than they could deal with they were askmg for more. On June 16 the following notice was received : — Fullic Healtli Ad, 1875. LOCAL BOARD.— FOKM E. NOTICE TO DBAIN HOUSE. To Mr. The Oivner or Occuiner of We, the Local Board for the District of in the County of , being the Urban Sanitary Authority for the said district, hereby give you notice that whereas the above-named house, within the said district, is without a drain sufficient for the effectual drainage thereof, we therefore require you, in pursuance of the provisions in 264 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE that behalf of the Pubhc Health Act, 1875, to make, within the space of one month from the service of this notice upon yon, two covered drains from the said house to and emptying into the street sewers, in the mode required by our regula- tions. The work of making the connections as required by our regulations 2 and G will be done by us. The size of the drains, materials, level and fall to be as stated in our regulations 9 and 10. Ventilating-pipes, soil-pipes, and other fittings to be pro- vided and fixed in accordance with our regulations. And we give you further notice that, if the above notice is not complied with, we shall execute the works required and recover the expenses thereof in manner provided by the said Act. Dated this 16th day of June, 1892. Town Hall, SfUrveyor, This notice was accompanied by a copy of the regu- lations, which w^ere as follows : — Fuhlic Health Act, 1875. LOCAL BOARD. REGULATIONS FOR HOUSE CONNECTIONS WITH SEWEBS AND HOUSE DRAINAGE. Note. — These Regulations are in addition to the By-laws 07i this subject — Nos. 60 to 69. The Main Drainage of the District being constructed on the ' Separate System,'' a duplicate system of drains will be required for all houses, vide Regulation 6. 1. Application for connection. — The owner or occupier of EXPERIENCES IN A LONDON SUBURB 265 any premises desiring to have the same connected with the sewers must make appHcation at the office of the sm-veyor to the local hoard on Form A. The local hoard will make all connections with the sewers, and lay drain-pipes, &c. beneath the public street up to the houses as follows : — ■ 2. Upon the receipt of such application the surveyor will — so soon as he conveniently can — proceed to lay down 6-in. drain-pipes from the main (foul-water) sewer to the boundary of the applicant's premises, as near the house as the ch'cum- stances of the case will permit. 3. The owner or occuiner to ^pay cost. — The cost of this work shall be paid in advance by the applicant to the local board, at the surveyor's office, in accordance with a schedule of prices fixed by the board. The amount to be so paid shall in all cases be decided by the surveyor. 4. The expense of keeping in repair the work so done shall be borne by the local board. But if any of such pipes shall be choked by reason of the placing therein of any substance other than ordinary sewage matter, the owner or occupier of the premises drained by such pipes shall defray the cost of cleaning the same. Where two or more premises are drained by such pipe, the surveyor shall determine by whom and in what proportion the cost of re- moving any such obstruction shall be paid. Notwithstanding the payment mentioned in regulation 3, the pipes so provided by the board in consideration of such payments shall remain the property of the board, and no person shall have any claim to them. 5. Disconnecting chamber. — A. disconnecting chamber shall be pro\ided, the position and size of which shall be fixed by the surveyor. 6. Bain-icater, hoiu disposed of. — Kain-water will not be permitted to pass into the foul-water sewer, but into a storm- water sewer ; exceptions in particular cases may be made by order of the board. Wherever new or suitable storm-water sewers already 266 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE exist, a duplicate system of drains, the one (generally called ' the house-drain ') for foul- water and the other for rain-water, must, if the surveyor think necessary, be carried out in such a manner that the least possible amount of rain-water reaches the foul- water sewer from the premises drained. This duphcate system must also be carried out in all cases where it is contemplated to construct storm-water sewers in the streets, in such a manner that the rain-water can be dis- connected from the foul-water drains with which it may have been allowed to be temporarily connected, in as simple and inexpensive a manner as possible. To obviate in a great measure the necessity of laying a rain-water drain through some premises, the roof gutters of houses should be so arranged as to conduct as much rain- water as possible to the front, to be discharged into the street gutters by open channels, or by not less than 4-in. pipes, into the storm-water sewer in the street, as the surveyor may direct. The work of providing and laying the iron chamiel- pipe across the footpath, or the 4-in. pipes into the storm- water sewer under the road, will be executed by the surveyor upon the owner or occupier making application on Form A, and paying the sum fixed by the board for such work. 7. No 'person shall connect any drain, dc. ivithout giving notice. — No person shall connect any drain-pipe, soil-pipe, water-closet, urinal, trap, cesspool or other fitting with any drain-pipe communicating or intended to communicate with any sewer, unless he shall have previously given the surveyor one week's notice in writing of his intention so to do. Such notice to be given on Form B. A plan of the proposed house drainage must be submitted with this notice, such ^Dlan to show all necessary particulars and to be drawn to a scale of 20 feet to 1 mch. Note. — A register of sewers and house drains" will be kept in the surveyor's office, into which all such plans will be transferred, for future reference. 8. Nor alter drains. — No person shall remove or make any alteration in any drain-pipe, soil-pipe, water-closet, urinal, EXPERIENCES IN A LONDON SUBURB 267 trap or other fitting communicating with any sewer, unless he shall have previously given the surveyor one week's notice in writing of his intention so to do. Such notice to he given on Form C. 9. House drains, lioio to he constmcted. — As far as possible, all house drains shall he laid in straight lines ; where changes in direction occur, the same shall he made by bend-pipes, or in manholes, as may be suggested by the surveyor — the pipes to be 6 inches internal diameter for the foul-water drain and not less than 4 inches for the rain- water drain, of good quality stoneware, well glazed, and must be laid with true gradients ; the inclination to be 1 inch in a 2-ft. pipe, or as steep as circumstances will conveniently permit, but in no case less than ^ inch in a 2-ft. pipe, and to insure a true and perfectly even inside surface, Hassall's single-lined stoneware pipes, or other equally good pipes, jointed in cement, and to be approved of by the surveyor, shall be used. All pipes to be carefully bedded on the solid ground at least 2 feet below the surface and jointed up so as to be water-tight. 10. Drain-inpes under buildings. — So far as possible, no drain-pipe shall pass beneath any building ; where such is, however, absolutely necessary, then the pipes shall be of cast iron |-in. thick, coated with Angus Smith's varnish inside and out. Such pipes to be not less than 6 inches internal diameter for foul-w^ater drain, and shall be not less than 4 inches diameter for rain-water drain — to be jointed with lead similar to gas and water mains. No communication whatever will be allowed with the interior of the building. 11. Ventilating injjes. — From the top of the disconnecting chamber a main ventilating shaft shall be provided, having a sectional area not less than a 4-in. pipe. This shaft to be fixed to the front or side wall of the building — whichever is the highest and most conveniently situated — and carried to within a foot of the top of the chimney-pots or 3 feet above the eaves, as may be directed by the surveyor. This pipe is to act as an upcast or outlet for sewer-gas. At the other end 268 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE of the house drain, and wherever a soil-pipe or w.c. is placed, a pipe or pipes for letting in fresh air must be provided. Such pipes shall be 4 inches internal diameter. Rain-water stack-pipes shall not be used as ventilators or soil-pipes. 12. Soil-2)i2)cs. — Soil-pipes shall not be fixed inside any building, but shall be placed outside the walls thereof, and the connection with any closet inside shall be made as short and as straight as possible. Every soil-pipe shall be 4 inches internal diameter, and ventilated by being continued the same diameter above the eaves of the roof, or to such a height as the surveyor may direct. Where such pipe ends near a window a mica-flap inlet cap must be provided. Every soil- pipe shall be either of lead, weighing not less than G lb. per square foot, or of cast iron not less than ^^^-in. thick, pro- perly jointed, its continuation for ventilation to be the same, or of galvanised iron of 20 b.w.g. 13. Waste-jjij^es to be disconnected. — All waste or overflow pipes from sinks, baths, cisterns, safes, &c. must be brought outside the house by the shortest and straightest route, and there discharged in the open air, over a trapped gully, of patterns which may be seen at the surveyor's office. 14. Drains to be self -cleansing. — Every drain shall be so arranged as to be self- cleansing, in order that it may be at all times free of deposit. Where this cannot be effected without flushing, proper flushing apparatus shall be provided in the manner directed by the surveyor or inspector acting under his authority. 15. Stoppage in drains. — Should any stoppage in any drain occur, information must be given to the surveyor, who will instruct the inspector to ascertain by opening the dis- connecting chamber, or by other means, whether the stoppage is in the road, and if it is, to rectify the same forthwith. IG. Protection against flooding. — Wherever any premises are proposed to be drained the levels of which are not sufficiently above the invert of the sewers to protect them from the possibility of flooding, the drainage of such places, EXPERIENCES IN A LONDON SUBURB 269 if sanctioned at all by the local board, will be at the risk of the owner of the property proposing to carry out such drainage. Such drains shall be of iron and provided with a reflux valve, and also a screw- down stop-valve. And in localities subject to flooding from Thames water, every closet, sink or other inlet to the sewers shall be jQxed at or al)ove the level of 18.50 above Ordnance datum. And to prevent the flooding of the sewers by percolation into the house drains, these drains up to the level of Trinity High- water mark, or 12.50 above Ordnance datum, shall be laid with iron pipes, jointed with lead, or Hassall's double-lined pipes, or other approved quality, jointed with cement, the same as the sewers. 17. Water-closet sui^ply cisterns, seats, dc. — All water- closet pans and fittings shall be of the simplest description. No container, D trap, or other similar fitting will be allowed under any pan. Every water-closet that is not a valve-closet shall be supplied by not less than a two-gallon waste-preventer cistern of approved pattern, fitted immediately over the closet, the down-pipe from which shall be 1^ inch internal diameter, and shall be fitted as straight as possible ; the bottom of the cistern shall be at least 5 feet above the closet-seat. All valve-closets shall be of approved pattern, with after- flush, and shall be supplied by a 1-in. pipe from an inde- pendent cistern to that which supplies the house. The seats of all w.c.s shall be so constructed as to be easily removable, in order that every part of the closet may be inspected with facility. The trap of every indoor closet shall be provided with a 2-in. ventilating-pipe, from the top of the trap to the soil-pipe ventilator outside the building, above the highest inlet into the same, or independent of the soil-pipe. 18. Work to be inspected before covered up. — No builder, plumber, or other workman shall be allowed to do any work in connection with the drainage of any premises unless he 2/0 ESSA YS ON RURAL HYGIENE agrees to conform to these regulations ; and all work shall be executed m every respect in accordance with these regula- tions. All such work shall be inspected by the surveyor or inspector appointed for that purpose, and every facility shall be afforded for such inspection. No underground or enclosed work shall on any account be covered up or concealed from view until the same shall have been duly mspected and passed by the surveyor or inspector. 19. Defective drains, d'c. — Any drain-pipe, soil-pipe, trap, water-closet, urinal, sink or other fitting, laid, used, or con- structed otherwise than in accordance with these regula- tions and with the provisions of the Public Health Act, or which shall in the opinion of the surveyor be of defective quality, shall upon notice in writing from the surveyor be removed or repaired in the manner determined by the surveyor. 20. Notices, dx. — All notices and applications required by these regulations are to be made upon the printed forms to be obtained at the surveyor's office. The surveyor's approval to all plans submitted with such notices will be given on Form D. 21. Cess2?ool filled up. — Upon the completion of the con- nections between any premises and the sewers, the owner or occupier of the said premises shall — whenever required by notice so to do (Form E) — construct a proper water-closet or closets in accordance with the regulations, and immediately thereafter empty, cleanse, and fill in all cesspools and other receptacles for sewage matter upon the premises, to the satis- faction of the inspector. 22. Ventilators and drains, dc. to he kept open. — All openings for ventilation made in accordance with these regulations or by order of the surveyor shall at all times be kept open and perfectly free from obstruction. Every occupier shall at all times see that all drains upon his premises, and that all traps and other fittings, are at all times in good order, clean, and free from obstruction. To prevent such things as rags, cabbage leaves, hair, EXPERIENCES IN A LONDON SUBURB 271 pieces of soap, &c. &c., from passing into the drains, all openings to the drains must be protected by proper gratings. Surveyor. Approved and adopted hy the Local Board this 11th day of February, 1890. Clerk. Chairman. The attention of the ratepayers is especially called to the folloiuing sections of the Public Health Act of 1875 : — Sec. XXI. — The owner or occupier of any premises within the district of a local authority shall be entitled to cause his drains to empty into the sewers of that authority, on condition of his giving such notice as may be required by that authority of his intention so to do, and of complying with the regulations of that authority, m respect of the mode in which the communications between such drains and sewers are to be made, and subject to the control of any person who may be appointed by that authority to superintend the making of such communications. Any person causing a drain to empty into a sewer of a local authority without complying mth the provisions of this section shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds ; and the local authority may close any communica- tion between a drain and a sewer made in contravention to this section, and may recover in a summary manner from the person so offending any expenses incurred by them under this section. Sec. XXIII. — Where any house within the district of a local authority is without a drain sufficient for effectual drainage, the local authority shall, by written notice, require the OTM.ier.or occupier of such a house, within a reasonable time therein specified, to make a covered drain, or drains, emptying into any sewer which the local authority are entitled to use, and which is not more than one hundred feet from the site of such house ; but if no such means of drainage 272 ESSAYS ON RURAL HYGIENE are within that distance, then emptymg into such covered cesspool or other place, not being under any house, as the local authority direct, and the local suthority may require any such drain or drains to be of such materials and size, and to be laid at such level, and with such fall, as on the report of their surveyor may appear to them to be necessary. If such notice is not complied with, the local authority may, after the expiration of the time specified in the notice, do the work required, and may recover in a summary manner the expenses incurred by them in so doing from the owner, or may by order declare the same to be private improvement expenses. These regulations show conclusively how arbitrary is the power possessed by any local authority, and how great is the expense to the householder (in addition to the increase of rates) of complying with the require- ments. These requirements also amply account for the popularity of ' sewage schemes ' among builders, plumbers, the proprietors of patent pipes or varnishes, and also among water companies, for be it observed that the adoption of water-closets makes one dependent upon a water company for cleanliness. The whole regu- lations are remarkable for their precise directions for wasting rain-water, and contain no single word as to its storage. The document is also remarkable in so much as an earth-closet is not even mentioned as a possible alternative for the system proposed ; notwith- standing that every e.g. erected would save the Thames from pollution and tend to lessen the difticulties into which the ratepayers have been run by the ' board.' The above documents have been printed in order to show the householder what a ' sewage scheme ' means, and how with its adoption the Englishman's house ceases to be his castle and becomes a mere profitable plaything EXPERIENCES IN A LONDON SUBURB 273 for patentees. The name of the board has been suppressed because the writer is well aware that its actions are largely controlled by higher authorities ; and the actions of this particular board do not differ materially from those of others. The facts are given merely as types of what is common. The writer hafi no complaint against individuals, and he gratefully admits that, except in sending a peremptory order to foul the Thames, the action of the board towards himself has been reasonable and considerate. In answer to the above circular the board was informed of the arrangements which have been described, an official visited the premises, and having assured himself that we neither polluted the Thames nor annoyed our neigh- bours, and that we were not poisoning ourselves, he appeared to be satisfied, and no further action has been taken. This cottage is probably the only one of the group of fifty houses to which it belongs that is without sewer or cesspool, and positively does not endanger the Thames. It would, however, be quite feasible for all the others to adopt similar measures, and many probably would do so but for the compulsory power of the board, which makes occupiers chary of spending money upon arrangements which the board has the legal right to destroy, and then further compel the householder to spend money not as he fancies, but as ' We the Board ' order. Then, again, people think that, as they pay the rates, and as the sewers are in any case an expense to them, they may as well connect ; and they are further stimulated by the thought that obedience to the board is the readiest road to peace and quiet, and as for the ' effluent,' that is an affair for the board, the Thames Conservancy, and the Local Government Board to settle between them. T 274 ESSAVS ON RURAL HYGIENE It is not (but it ought to be) a matter which concerns the individual. The above httle history has shown how a great sewage scheroe was undertaken to save the Thames from pollution, and how the pollution was worse than ever when the scheme was finished. It also shows that at a time when the ' board ' was in trouble about its effluent, and was receivmg more sewage than could be satisfactorily treated by its existing plant, it was nevertheless serving peremptory notices uj)on householders which could have but one effect, viz. the increase of its own difficulties. It need hardly be said that the usual complaints are being made about the smells from sewer gratings, &c., and the inevitable question of ' ventilation ' has cropped up. Indeed it may safely be predicted that the sewage diffi- culties of this district, so far from being ended, have only just begun, notwithstanding an expenditure (both public and private) which cannot be far short of a quarter of a million of money, or nearly lOZ. per head of population. The poor are apt to fancy, when they see the streets and roads blocked by ' works,' that it is good for trade and they do not stop to think that possibl}^ money which might go mto then pockets is being sent out of the district for the purchase of patent pipes, machinery and chemicals, and that the work itself is largely executed by labourers imported by the contractor. These schemes are thoroughly bad for the labouring classes, because they seek to do by mechanical means that which can only be done efficiently piecemeal and by the aid of hand labour. Such schemes starve the ground and cause less money to be spent in cultivating the soil and in harvesting crops. A quarter of a million of money (the sum probably spent by the 26,000 persons of the district) at 3 per cent, will yield 7,500/. per annum, or enough to pay good jEXPERIENCES in a LONDON SUBURB 275 weekly wages all the year round to 150 extra scavengers, and the wages of the staff, the cost of maintenance and the sums paid for chemicals would probably support fifty additional scavengers. There can be no doubt that, from the point of view of employment for the poor and the provision of work all the year round, these big schemes are thoroughly bad. And, further, there is no doubt that, if the sums spent on pipes and machinery (public and private) had been sunk for the provision of extra labour, the Thames would have been saved from pollu- tion, there would have been no annoyance, and a profit would have been made. Most certainly the poor labourer and those who are anxious to provide constant employ- ment for the working classes should in no case support big sewage schemes, which rob them of work. If the sums raised by * rates ' be spent in the district not much harm will result, and rates spent in labour will probably save the * poor-rate.' But if huge sums be spent upon imported machinery which is erected by labour which is also often imported, and if such machinery and plant lead to the employment of less local labour and the starving of the soil of the district, then it is evident that big sewage schemes, which are bad for everyone (except the landowner, jerry-builder, and water share- holder), are especially bad for the poor. Even if the scheme be entirely carried out by local labour and home- manufactured materials, the gain is only transient, and we have to consider the relative advantages of spasmodic versus permanent employment. Refuse, if properly used, is a source of food and icages, hut if improperly used it merely leads to 2raste and starva- tion. That is a fact which the poor man has to bear in mind when he votes at municipal elections. It will be profitable to consider the financial aspect a t2 276 ESSAYS OJV RURAL HYGIENE little more in detail. The rateable value of the writer's cottage is, as has been stated, 38L, and for the first half- year of residence (1887) the rates were : district rate, \l, 18s. ; poor-rate, IL 18s. ; burial-rate, 6s. 4(:L ; or a total of 4L 2s. 4fZ. (8L 4s. %d, for the year). Since then the rates have gradually crept up, and for the last half-je2iV (1892) the amount was : district rate, 3Z. 16s. ; poor-rate, 2?. 4s. 4