CHAPTER VII

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CHAPTER VII

Synopsis of Chapter. Early British Sewers—Sewer in the Great Hall of Westminster—Shape of Early English Sewers—Adoption or Recommendation of Pipe Sewers—Early Paris Sewers—Paris Sewers of To-day—Lack of Sewage Data in America—Effect of Memphis Epidemics on Sanitary Progress.

The earliest mention we have of English sewers is contained in an old record of the fourteenth century, which informs us "The refuse from the king's kitchen had long run through the Great Hall in an open channel, to the serious injury to health and danger to life of those congregated at court. It was therefore ordered that a subterraneous conduit should be made to carry away the filth into the Thames." This description of the sewer from the Great Hall presents a vivid picture of the sewers of that day. At first the main sewers were natural water courses which, having become offensive, were arched over to shut out the sight and odor. Street gutters leading to those arched-over water courses became foul in turn, and were replaced by underground channels of the roughest brickwork or masonry. These drains which were square in cross section received and carried off slop water and rain water from the streets; the drains were constructed according to no regular design nor fixed principles, although usually they were 12 inches square and made by laying flat stones to form the bottom of the drain, then building walls of brick and topping off with flat stones, spanning from wall to wall. Excreta were collected in cesspools often built beneath the floor of the house. The introduction of the water closet about the commencement of the century, though it abated the nuisance of the latrine, aggravated the evils of the cesspool by introducing a large volume of water far exceeding in weight the actual excreta, waterlogging the subsoil. The difficulty and expense of emptying the cesspools were increased. Cesspools were therefore connected to sewers by house drains. The channels intended to carry off rain water became sewers. "Sewers and house drains were constructed on no scientific principle.[3] The walls were rough, irregular and porous. Naturally deposits took place in them; hand cleaning was considered a normal incident to the history of the sewer, and irrespective of the volume of sewage to be conveyed, sewers were made large enough to admit the passage of a man to facilitate cleaning."

In 1852, the General Board of Health under the Public Health Act, made their first report to the British Parliament, and advocated very strongly the introduction of smaller pipes in lieu of the large brick and stone drains then in use for house drainage. Prior to this date, the first report of the Metropolitan Sanitary Commission, London, appeared, which, while not to be taken as advocating exclusively the use of small pipes, yet pointed out the necessity of reducing the dimensions and altering the shapes of the old stone and brick structures. From this period, then, can be assumed the adoption and first use of earthenware pipes for house drains and public sewers.

The construction of sewers in Paris dates from 1663, but the earliest of those still in use are not earlier than the beginning of this century. Before the great epidemic of cholera in 1832, the total length of sewers was not more than 21 miles. The sewers of Paris to-day aggregate over 750 miles in length, and constitute one of the sights of the city. According to Mason,[4] "They may be inspected without charge on the first and third Wednesdays of each month in summer, by writing for a permit to the Prefect de la Seine. Descent is commonly made near the Madeleine by a substantial stairway of stone, and the boats awaiting the party at the foot of the steps are fully as large and quite as comfortable as Venetian gondolas.

The great sewer, which is tunnel-like in dimensions, being 16 feet high and 18 feet broad, is, on occasions of a visit, lighted with lamps alternately red and blue, and as these stretch away into the distance the effect is decidedly striking.

Under ordinary circumstances, the sewage confines itself to the center channel, but upon occasions rises above the sidewalk on either hand. The central channel is about 10 feet wide and 4 feet deep with a curved bottom, and a walk on either side. The boats with their loads of visitors are pulled by ropes in the hands of attendants who walk along the sidewalks. On either side of the sewer may be seen the large mains, carrying the city water supply, also the telegraph cables."

Reliable data concerning the construction of sewers were not obtainable in the United States until long after the close of the Civil War. In 1857, when Julius W. Adams was commissioned to prepare plans for sewering the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., which at that time covered an area of 20 square miles, a great proportion of which was suburban territory, the engineering profession was wholly without data of any kind to guide in proportioning sewers for the drainage of cities and towns. The half century intervening since that time, however, has seen the development of sanitary engineering and witnessed the installation of sewer system, rightly proportioned and properly designed, in almost every city, town and village in the United States, while text books on engineering contain all necessary data for their design and construction. It must not be inferred from the foregoing statement that sewers were unknown in the United States prior to the construction of the Brooklyn sewer system. There was one in Boston, for example, which dated from the seventeenth century, while the first comprehensive sewerage project was designed by E. S. Chesbrough, for the city of Chicago in 1855.

There was no great activity in sewer building in this country thirty years ago. Up to that time most of the cities were comparatively small, and no thought was given by the various municipalities to treating the combined sewage as a whole. The conditions were ripe, however, for some unusual event to crystallize public opinion and focus attention on the subject, and the event was furnished by the city of Memphis, Tennessee. Ever since 1740, Memphis had been known as a particularly unhealthful city, where the death rate was abnormally high, and epidemic after epidemic of cholera, yellow fever and other contagious diseases had scourged the inhabitants. So common had those events become, that they were accepted as incident to living in the locality, and were looked upon as special visitations which could not be avoided. Such was the state of affairs when an epidemic of yellow fever broke out in 1879, which caused a death list of 5,150, and was followed the succeeding year by a further death roll of 485, due to the scourge. Had the disease been confined within the boundaries of the city, it is possible that little would have been thought of the matter outside of the state of Tennessee. However, refugees, fleeing in all directions, carried the dread disease with them, until a strict quarantine—a shotgun quarantine—confined the infection to a certain circumscribed area. In the meantime, interference with railroad traffic, armed forces guarding the borders of neighboring states, together with the fear of the dread disease spreading all over the country, brought Congress and the public to a realization of the necessity for doing something to stamp out the disease. The most practical good accomplished by the agitation was the organization of a National Board of Health, a committee from which made a thorough examination of the sanitary conditions of Memphis. What the committee found in the way of filth was almost beyond belief. The city, they found, was honeycombed with cesspools and privy-vaults. Many of the cesspools and privy-vaults were under or in the cellars of houses, where they had been filled with accumulations and abandoned to fester and rot. Filth was everywhere—above ground and beneath the surface, in the house and out of doors. There was only one thing to do—give the city a good cleaning; and that was the only time in history, perhaps, when pressure from the outside forced an almost bankrupt city to observe the laws of decency and sanitation.

The various works which had been built up to this time to supply communities with water, had for their sole object the providing of an adequate supply so far as quantity is concerned, but gave little thought to the quality of the water, so long as it was clear and cold. The sewers or drains on the other hand were constructed solely to prevent a nuisance and with no definite knowledge that an unclean environment and polluted water were conducive to ill-health, while pure water and clean surroundings were conducive to the public health.

Some events were about to happen, however, which would awaken the public mind to the dangers of dirt, and that would usher in the present epoch of sanitation.

Decoration

·BATHING·AND·BVRNING·

·HINDV·DEAD·AT·BENARES·

"Who dies in the waters of the Ganges obtains Heaven"

From Stereograph, copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.

(See page iv)]


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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