The 'Pail' System

The causes of the ill-success of the pail system appear to me to be in large measure due to the great weight of the pails, and, in consequence of the exceeding foulness of the material, the great distances which they have to be carried.

By the adoption of the 'dry catch' the weight of material would be enormously decreased and its daily transference by means of a proper shovel and travelling receptacle would be found both easy and economical.

If the material removed be buried superficially every day with a view to cultivation and production, the land to which it is removed cannot be too near to the houses. This may seem a strong assertion, but I make it without any hesitation whatever. Should the necessity ever arise, I feel sure that all the parks and square gardens might be used in the manner I have indicated for sanitary purposes, not only without offence, but with a certain great increase in the productiveness of the ground, always provided that the atmosphere be not too foul (as is the case in central London) to permit of horticulture or agriculture in any form.

If the dry catch be used the material is not sloppy and liable to spill, and thus the great hindrance to its transport is removed.

Finally, the initial expenses and repairs of pails would no longer fall on the sanitary authority, and the huge cost of lugging about these absurdly clumsy putrefaction boxes would be at an end.

We have three specimens of municipal pails in the Parkes Museum, and these vary in weight from 40 lbs. to 50 lbs. The 50-lb. pail, which is 18 inches in diameter and 15 inches deep, weighs, when filled with water, 187¼ lbs.

If, by the help of two men, a horse, and a lorry, one has to take, in addition to the excreta, fifty pounds weight of galvanised iron, or wood and iron, a mile each way, the expense becomes huge, and anything like a daily removal is impracticable; but if one has to transport a pound of solid excrement a few hundred yards only, then the problem is a very different one.

Any sanitary authority which adopts 'dry method' should endeavour to arrange for a daily removal. I am no advocate of 'conservancy,' but would rather see the immediate utilisation of the excreta. It is only by immediate burial that one gets the full manurial value of them.

The burial must be done with a view to the cultivation of the land. It must be superficial. The excreta must be merely covered with the earth, no more. Furrows half a spit deep are ample. It is in this way only that one insures the oxidation of the excrement and the protection of the wells.

It is the almost universal custom to bury night soil deeply, and I could quote many instances in which excreta have been buried three or four feet deep, and have been exhumed some months later unchanged and still foul. If they be buried deeply, the farmer or gardener gets no benefit and the wells are endangered. The farmer, be it remembered, spreads his dung on the surface of the ground, with a maximum exposure to light and air and then ploughs it in; nothing could be more truly scientific.

We hear that in India, in spite of the earth system, typhoid is rife, and the opinion is very general there that typhoid spreads through the air. I have never been in India, and am not competent to express any opinion, but I have heard that in some places in India the excreta are deeply buried, and if this be the case, it appears to me that if the ground gets deeply fissured during drought, the torrential rains which follow may very well wash this too deeply buried and unchanged excreta into the water sources.

If excreta are to be used for agricultural purposes, no chemical antiseptics must on any account whatever be mixed with them. Antiseptics are a source of serious danger to the agriculturist. The best antiseptic for such a purpose is earth.