Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State For the Home Department, from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an Inquiry Into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain; With AppendicesChadwick, Edwin
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Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State For the Home Department, from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an Inquiry Into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain; With Appendices
Chadwick, Edwin
Housing -- Great Britain; Public health -- Great Britain
Seconds.
Along a straight line 90
With a true curve 100
With a turn at right angles 140
The Commissioners of the Holborn and Finsbury divisions agreed to
require that the curves in sewers, passing from one street to another,
shall be formed with a radius of not less than 20 feet; it is also
required that the inclination or fall shall be increased at the
junction, in order to preserve an equal capacity for the passage of
water, and of effect in sweeping away the deposit.
When by heavy falls of snow or otherwise the refuse of the streets is
carried into such sewers, is there any difficulty in sweeping it
away?—None whatsoever.
In what number of years would the saving in cleansing sewers by
flushing repay the expense of applying the apparatus to the existing
sewers in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions?—In seven years.
Have you any doubt of the practicability of carrying all the surface
cleansing of the streets into the sewers, and removing it by
conveyance in water, instead of by hand labour and cartage?—I
entertain no doubt whatever that it might be done, where there is a
good sewer and proper gully-holes and shoots; with a good supply of
water these would carry away rapidly all the surface refuse; the
experience of the sewerage in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions prove
it.
How does it prove it?—At every opportunity the street-sweepers sweep
all they can into the gully-holes, and it is swept away without
inconvenience.
One practical witness states that the expense of the cartage alone of
the refuse from a Macadamised street of half a mile, in the winter
time in the metropolis, is 5_l._ weekly. What would be the comparative
expense of carrying it away by the sewers?—It would save the whole
expense of the cartage; it would be less than the present expense of
sweeping and filling into the carts, and if there were a sufficient
supply of water on the surface, the work might be conducted with great
rapidity.
You are aware that one inconvenience of the existing mode of street
cleansing, independently of the great expense, is the length of time
during which the wet refuse remains to the public annoyance on the
surface, until removed by the slow process of sweeping and
cartage?—Yes; and the men would appear to delay for the purpose of the
dirt being removed, by being washed by rain into the sewers.
Do you conceive that all the business of street cleansing and house
draining might be consolidated advantageously to the public?—Yes,
clearly so, and with great economy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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