Of the Sewermen and Nightmen of London.
We now come to the consideration of the last of the several classes of labourers engaged in the removal of the species of refuse from the metropolis. I have before said that the public refuse of a town consists of two kinds:—
- I. The street-refuse.
- II. The house-refuse.
Of each of these kinds there are two species:—
- A. The dry.
- B. The wet.
The dry street-refuse consists, as we have seen, of the refuse earth, bricks, mortar, oyster-shells, potsherds, and pansherds.
And the dry house-refuse of the soot and ashes of our fires.
The wet street-refuse consists, on the other hand, of the mud, slop, and surface water of our public thoroughfares.
And the wet house-refuse, of what is familiarly known as the “slops” of our residences, and the liquid refuse of our factories and slaughterhouses.
We have already collected the facts in connection with the three first of these subjects. We have ascertained the total amount of each of these species of refuse which have to be annually removed from the capital. We have set forth the aggregate number of labourers who are engaged in the removal of it, as well as the gross sum that is paid for so doing, showing the individual earnings of each of the workmen, and arriving, as near as possible, at the profits of their employers, as well as the condition of the employed. This has been done, it is believed, for the first time in this country; and if the subject has led us into longer discussions than usual, the importance of the matter, considered in a sanitary point of view, is such that a moment’s reflection will convince us of the value of the inquiry—especially in connection with a work which aspires to embrace the whole of the offices performed by the labourers of the capital of the British Empire.
It now but remains for us to complete this novel and vast inquiry by settling the condition and earnings of the men engaged in the removal of the last species of public refuse. I shall consider, first, the aggregate quantity of wet house-refuse that has to be annually removed; secondly, the means adopted for the removal of it; thirdly, the cost of so doing; and lastly, the number of men engaged in this kind of work, as well as the wages paid to them, and the physical, intellectual, and moral condition in which they exist, or, more properly speaking, are allowed to remain.
Of the Wet House-Refuse of London.
All house-refuse of a liquid or semi-liquid character is wet refuse. It may be called semi-liquid when it has become mingled with any solid substance, though not so fully as to have lost its property of fluidity, its natural power to flow along a suitable inclination.
Wet house-refuse consists of the “slops” of a household. It consists, indeed, of all waste water, whether from the supply of the water companies, or from the rain-fall collected on the roofs or yards of the houses; of the “suds” of the washerwomen, and the water used in every department of scouring, cleansing, or cooking. It consists, moreover, of the refuse proceeds from the several factories, dye-houses, &c.; of the blood and other refuse (not devoted to Prussian blue manufacture or sugar refining) from the butchers’ slaughter-houses and the knackers’ (horse slaughterers’) yards; as well as the refuse fluid from all chemical processes, quantities of chemically impregnated water, for example, being pumped, as soon as exhausted, from the tan-pits of Bermondsey into the drains and sewers. From the great hat-manufactories (chiefly also in Bermondsey and other parts of the Borough) there is a constant flow of water mixed with dyes and other substances, to add to the wet refuse of London.
It is evident, then, that all the water consumed or wasted in the metropolis must form a portion of the total sum of the wet refuse.
There is, however, the exception of what is used for the watering of gardens, which is absorbed at once by the soil and its vegetable products; we must also exclude such portion of water as is applied to the laying of the road and street dust on dry summer days, and which forms a part of the street mud or “mac” of the scavager’s cart, rather than of the sewerage; and we must further deduct the water derived from the street plugs for the supply of the fire-engines, which is consumed or absorbed in the extinction of the flames; as well as the water required for the victualling of ships on the eve of a voyage, when such supply is not derived immediately from the Thames.
The quantity of water required for the diet, or beverage, or general use of the population; the quantity consumed by the maltsters, distillers, brewers, ginger-beer and soda-water makers, and manufacturing chemists; for the making of tea, coffee, or cocoa; and for drinking at meals (which is often derived from pumps, and not from the supplies of the water companies);—the water which is thus consumed, in a prepared or in a simple state, passes into the wet refuse of the metropolis in another form.
Now, according to reports submitted to Parliament when an improved system of water-supply was under consideration, the daily supply of water to the metropolis is as follows:—
| Gallons. | |
| From the Water Companies | 44,383,329 |
| „ „ Artesian Wells | 8,000,000 |
| „ „ land spring pumps | 3,000,000 |
| 55,383,329 |
The yearly rain-fall throughout the area of the metropolis is 172,053,477 tons, or 33,589,972,120 gallons, 2 feet deep of rain falling on every square inch of London in the course of the year. The yearly total of the water pumped or falling into the metropolis is as follows:—
| Gallons. | |
| Yearly mechanical supply | 19,215,000,000 |
| „ natural ditto | 38,539,972,122 |
| 57,754,972,122 |
The reader will find the details of this subject at p. [203] of the present volume. I recapitulate the results here to save the trouble of reference, and briefly to present the question under one head.
Of course the rain which ultimately forms a portion of the gross wet refuse of London, can be only such as falls on that part of the metropolitan area which is occupied by buildings or streets. What falls upon fields, gardens, and all open ground, is absorbed by the soil. But a large proportion of the rain falling upon the streets, is either absorbed by the dry dust, or retained in the form of mud; hence that only which falls on the house-tops and yards can be said to contribute largely to the gross quantity of wet refuse poured into the sewers. The streets of London appear to occupy one-tenth of the entire metropolitan area, and the houses (estimating 300,000 as occupying upon an average 100 square yards each[62]) another tithe of the surface. The remaining 92 square miles out of the 115 now included in the Registrar-General’s limits (which extend, it should be remembered, to Wandsworth, Lewisham, Bow, and Hampstead), may be said to be made up of suburban gardens, fields, parks, &c., where the rain-water would soak into the earth. We have, then, only two-tenths of the gross rain-fall, or 7,700,000,000 gallons, that could possibly appear in the sewers, and calculating one-third of this to be absorbed by the mud and dust of the streets, we come to the conclusion that the total quantity of rain-water entering the sewers is, in round numbers, 5,000,000,000 gallons per annum.
Reckoning, therefore, 5,000,000,000 gallons to be derived from the annual rain-fall, it appears that the yearly supply of water, from all sources, to be accounted for among the wet house-refuse is, in round numbers, 24,000,000,000 gallons.
The refuse water from the factories need not be calculated separately, as its supply is included in the water mechanically supplied, and the loss from evaporation in boiling, &c., would be perfectly insignificant if deducted from the vast annual supply, but 350,000,000 gallons have been allowed for this and other losses.
There is still another source of the supply of wet house-refuse unconnected either with the rain-fall or the mechanical supply of water—I mean such proportion of the blood or other refuse from the butchers’ and knackers’ premises as is washed into the sewers.
Official returns show that the yearly quantity of animals sold in Smithfield is—
| Horned cattle | 224,000 |
| Sheep | 1,550,000 |
| Calves | 27,300 |
| Pigs | 40,000 |
| 1,841,300 |
The blood flowing from a slaughtered bullock, whether killed according to the Christian or the Jewish fashion, amounts, on an average, to 20 quarts; from a sheep, to 6 or 7 quarts; from a pig, 5 quarts; and the same quantity from a calf. The blood from a horse slaughtered in a knackers’ yard is about the same as that from a bullock. This blood used to bring far higher prices to the butcher than can be now realized.
In the evidence taken by a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1849, concerning Smithfield-market, Mr. Wyld, of the Fox and Knot-yard, Smithfield, stated that he slaughtered about 180 cattle weekly. “We have a sort of well made in the slaughterhouse,” he said, “which receives the blood. I receive about 1l. a week for it; it goes twice a day to Mr. Ton’s, at Bow Common. We used to receive a good deal more for it.” Even the market for blood at Mr. Ton’s, is, I am informed, now done away with. He was a manufacturer of artificial manure, a preparation of night-soil, blood, &c., baked in what may be called “cakes,” and exported chiefly to our sugar-growing colonies, for manure. His manure yard has been suppressed.
I am assured, on the authority of experienced butchers, that at the present time fully three-fourths of the blood from the animals slaughtered in London becomes a component part of the wet refuse I treat of, being washed into the sewers. The more wholesale slaughterers, now that blood is of little value (9 gallons in Whitechapel-market, the blood of two beasts—less by a gallon—can be bought for 3d.), send this animal refuse down the drains of their premises in far greater quantities than was formerly their custom.
Now, reckoning only three-fourths of the blood from the cattle slaughtered in the metropolis, to find its way into the sewers, we have, according to the numbers above given, the following yearly supply:—
| Gallons. | |
| From horned cattle | 840,000 |
| „ sheep | 1,743,000 |
| „ pigs | 37,500 |
| „ calves | 25,590 |
| 2,646,090 |
This is merely the blood from the animals sold in Smithfield-market, the lambs not being included in the return; while a great many pigs and calves are slaughtered by the London tradesmen, without their having been shown in Smithfield.
The ordure from a slaughtered bullock is, on an average, from ½ to ¾ cwt. Many beasts yield one cwt.; and cows “killed full of grass,” as much as two cwt. Of this excrementitious matter, I am informed, about a fourth part is washed into the sewers. In sheep, calves, and pigs, however, there is very little ordure when slaughtered, only 3 or 4 lbs. in each as an average.
Of the number of horses killed there is no official or published account. One man familiar with the subject calculated it at 100 weekly. All the blood from the knackers’ yards is, I am told, washed into the sewers; consequently its yearly amount will be 26,000 gallons.
But even this is not the whole of the wet house-refuse of London.
There are, in addition, the excreta of the inhabitants of the houses. These are said to average ¼ lb. daily per head, including men, women, and children.
It is estimated by Bousingault, and confirmed by Liebig, that each individual produces ¼ lb. of solid excrement and 1¼ lb. of liquid excrement per day, making 1½ lb. each, or 150 lbs. per 100 individuals, of semi-liquid refuse from the water-closet. “But,” says the Surveyor of the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers, “there is other refuse resulting from culinary operations, to be conveyed through the drains, and the whole may be about 250 lbs. for 100 persons.”
The more fluid part of this refuse, however, is included in the quantity of water before given, so that there remains only the more solid excrementitious matter to add to the previous total. This, then, is ¼ lb. daily and individually; or from the metropolitan population of nearly 2,500,000 a daily supply of 600,000 lbs., rather more than 267 tons; and a yearly aggregate for the whole metropolis of 219,000,000 lbs., or very nearly about 100,000 tons.
From the foregoing account, then, the following is shown to be
The Gross Quantity of the Wet House-Refuse of the Metropolis.
| Gallons. | Lbs. | ||
| “Slops” and unabsorbed rain-water | 24,000,000,000 | = | 240,000,000,000 |
| Blood of beasts | 2,646,000 | = | 26,460,000 |
| „ horses | 26,000 | = | 260,000 |
| Excreta | 219,000,000 | ||
| Dung of slaughtered cattle | 17,400,000 | ||
| Total | 24,002,657,000 | = | 240,263,120,000 |
Hence we may conclude that the more fluid portion of the wet house-refuse of London amounts to 24,000,000,000 gallons per annum; and that altogether it weighs, in round numbers, about 240,000,000,000 lbs., or 100,000,000 tons.
As these refuse products are not so much matters of trade or sale as other commodities, of course less attention has been given to them, in the commercial attributes of weight and admeasurement. I will endeavour, however, to present an uniform table of the whole great mass of metropolitan wet house-refuse in cubic inches.
The imperial standard gallon is of the capacity of 277·274 cubic inches; and estimating the solid excrement spoken of as the ordinary weight of earth, or of the soil of the land, at 18 cubic feet the ton, we have the following result, calculating in round numbers:—
Wet House-Refuse of the Metropolis.
| Liquid | 24,000,000,000 gal. | = | 6,600,000,000,000 | cub. in. |
| Solid | 100,000 tons | = | 3,110,400,000 | „ |
Thus, by this process of admeasurement, we find the
| Wet House-Refuse of London | = | 6,603,110,400,000 cubic in., or 3,820,000,000 cubic feet. |
Figures best show the extent of this refuse, “inexpressible” to common appreciation “by numbers that have name.”