118 Removal, Disposal, & Utilization of Excreta.

CHAPTER XII.

"Before erecting statues, building museums, and buying expensive pictures, towns should be relieved of bad odours and fermenting putrescence. Good privies are far higher signs of civilization than grand palaces and museums of art."-Stramm.

There is no branch of practical. sanitation more important, or which has given rise of late years to so much discussion amongst sanitarians and municipal authorities, as that which deals with the removal of excreta from dwellings and towns, and with its ultimate. destination, whether as regards its economic utilization or simply as regards its disposal in such a manner as to secure it from being any longer a nuisance or a danger to the health of the people; and the subject is one which, far from having arrived at a satisfactory settlement, is daily forcing itself more and more on the attention of all connected with, or interested in, the health of towns, the preservation of watercourses from pollution, and the increase of the reproductive powers of the soil. In thinly populated rural tracts, the subject is of little importance, for that, first of all deodorizers, the earth, receives and assimilates the thinly scattered excretal deposits; and owing to the desiccating power of the sun,

Theory of Utilization.

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the rapid diffusion of effluvia through the air, and the absorption of the liquid and organic matter by the earth, there is little nuisance or danger resulting. "It is only when men collect in communities that the disposal of excreta becomes a matter literally of life and death, and before it can be settled, the utmost skill and energy of a people may be taxed."-Parkes. So far as theory is concerned, we may, without hesitation, accept the views propounded by the advocates of utilization of all excremental matters in enriching and recuperating exhausted soils, and thereby multiplying their productive powers; for the agricultural value of sewage constituents has been abundantly proved by repeated trials and practical operations extended over a series of years and in various countries and climates, from China and Japan to the farms of the North American Union. But putting aside general sewage systems,—that is to say, removal of town sewage by water carriage through a complete system of underground sewers and drains, there is no known system of disposing of the fecal matter of large towns which can yet be called an economical or commercial success. Professor Corfield justly says, that "No scheme which does not remove all refuse matter in as inoffensive a manner as possible, and utilize it so as to make it pay,' can be accepted as anything like a final solution of the question that we have to study, nor can such a scheme be recommended to towns as a feasible plan for the removal of their difficulties."

The Executive Committee of the Society of Arts, at a conference held in 1876 on the health and sewage of towns, came to the following conclusions:-" That with regard to the various dry systems, where collection at

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No profit to be looked for.

short intervals is properly carried out, the result appears to be satisfactory, but no profitable application of any one of them appears as yet to have been accomplished;" and further, that, "as a rule, no profit can be derived from sewage utilization."

Putting aside then, for the present, the economical and commercial view of the question, we will revert to what is, or should be, the primary object of the local sanitary authority,—viz., to secure the removal regularly, rapidly, and thoroughly, of all excreta from dwellings and public latrines; the absolute necessity of our doing so will not be disputed by any reasonable being. The evil effects of allowing fæcal deposits to remain and decompose within, or adjacent to, dwellings, has already been touched upon in the earlier chapters of this book, and it is, therefore, unnecessary to do more than allude to them here; but we cannot too often repeat that this is a duty which must be carried out at any cost. Safety," says

Dr. Parkes, "is the first thing to be sought, profit must come afterwards."

"For health's sake, without consideration of commer cial profit, sewage and excreta must be got rid of at any cost."-Confer., Society of Arts.

I think few people will be found to dispute this doctrine, and no argument is necessary to satisfy any person that accumulations of filth cannot be left in human dwellings without danger to life and health, and violence to all sense of decency and cleanliness.

Some persons may argue that such accumulations do remain, and have remained, for years in well-privies without causing any visible harm; that there are in many native dwelling-houses Sundeshes, which have existed