The sanitarian who loses sight of classification, and who, in his eagerness for a big scheme, is neglectful of details, has not mastered the elements of his trade.
The only rational treatment for excremental matters is immediate superficial burial, with a view to the production of crops, as detailed in 'Rural Hygiene.' It is to be hoped that, with this object in view, some municipality will purchase a tract of land and endeavour to give the poor an object-lesson on the right use of refuse. If convenient access to such a farm by means of canal, river, or railway siding could be obtained, it would make little difference whether it was two or twenty miles from the town, but the nearer the land is to the houses the better. Such a farm must be hand-tilled, and, if skilfully hand-tilled, would certainly produce as much food as a market-garden. It would employ an enormous amount of labour, and would at least pay its labour bill. I am not advocating that such a farm should be used as a playground for the semi-criminal, semi-imbecile, and generally incompetent class who go to form the 'unemployed'; for the trade of agriculture, to be successful, demands both skill and energy. The 'unemployed' should be set to stone-breaking, street sweeping, dung-collecting, road picking and ramming, and scavenging generally, under the eye of foremen in town, and then, if found worthy, they might be exported to the farm.
Fig. 29.—Arrangement for Small Tenements.
Fig. 30.—Section A-A.
Figs. [29] and [30] are intended to show the plan and section of a group of the smallest town tenements, with a scavenger's alley between them and the three gutters, two closed at both ends, to be filled with absorbent material to collect the urine, and one to be filled with non-absorbent material to filter and aërate the slop-water, which should always flow in open channels when practicable. The 'scavenger's alley' should be protected by gates. It is thought that the excrement would be primarily collected in comparatively small vessels, like garden water-tanks upon wheels. The excrement having been allowed to drain before collection, and being in a semi-dry, sticky condition, would have no tendency to slop about during a journey, and in a covered vessel such as I have described might be sent any distance without danger or offence. Arrived at the farm the tank would be transferred to a second pair of wheels, and by being tilted would easily deposit its contents in a furrow previously made in the ground with a spade. The tank should be dried and lime-whitened and returned to the town, and three days after the deposit of the excrement in the ground, plants of the cabbage order should be dibbled in. Cabbages and their allies are the only plants which really flourish in the fresh material; but after the cabbage crop has been harvested any garden crop may be grown, and it will be found that the fertility of ground treated as I have suggested is very great and very persistent.
The best method of treating kitchen waste and putrescible refuse, such as cabbage leaves and the trimmings of vegetables, &c., is to throw all together into a heap enclosed by a circle of wire netting. In the course of a few months complete humification will take place.