What shall we do with our refuse? : a contribution to the discussion on the sewage question, at the Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association / by Henry Simpson.

Henry Simpson

Date:: 1869

Credit: What shall we do with our refuse? : a contribution to the discussion on the sewage question, at the Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association / by Henry Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$oloset in a somewhat summary manner. First, he says, it is not dry, as he has heard of unpleasant splashing. This, I think, is a mistake. In an institution I am acquainted with where a few are in use for the infirm and feeble, and found to he a great comfort, the persons he names have rather complained of the dryness causing the ascent of dust than of the opposite fault. But this is a trifling matter easily dealt with. Next, the quo- tation from Krepp, advertising Lienur's system, is of course intended to make the boldest pause. When you speak of millions you are dealing with numbers of which we can form no estimate whatever, of which we have no definite idea, and in order to grasp their full meaning they must be subdivided into more manageable quantities. When you classify and systema- tize, and work out into a proper organization, these monstrous numbers lose their terror-exciting and bewildering vastness. Dr. Hawksley calculates that 3,000,000 inhabitants will occupy 500,000 houses, and divides these into 500 sections of ] ,000 houses each. Each section he divides into ten sub-sections, each requiring a man and a boy with a waggon and pair of horses. A town of 100,000 inhabitants, according to this cal- culation, will occupy 16,666 houses and a fraction; but say 17,000 houses; i.e., 17 sections—each divided again into 10 sub-sections—so that you would require 170 waggons,—no great number after all. If we take the population of Man- chester and Salford as 500,000 it would give 83,330 houses in round numbers, but say 85,000 houses. This would be broken up into 85 districts requiring 850 waggons, &c, and if these were distributed over the vast area occupied by these towns I venture to say that the streets would not be blocked up, nor the traffic interrupted, more especially as this work would be over by nine in the morning. But in this rough calculation I have proceeded on the sup- position that the earth would have to be brought into the town,$