In Paris both hose and carts are used for watering the thoroughfares, the former for the boulevards, the avenues, and a certain number of first-class streets. The watering plant belongs to the municipality, and they have various forms of carts, containing 220, 242 and 286 gallons respectively, and will water from 2,400 to 3,350 square yards. The watering by hose is attended to by the ordinary street cleaners, who can easily water 24,000 square yards in about thirty-five minutes, deducting the time necessary to connect the apparatus with the mains, but this requires a gymnastic performance, which, if once seen, is not easily forgotten.
Watering the streets with sea water should be adopted whenever it is feasible, as it not only gives a delightful freshness to the air and dispels iodine, but it also causes the surface of the street to maintain its humidity for a longer period than when fresh water is used, as it impregnates the soil with hygrometric matter.
This has been often attempted artificially, not only by adding common salt to the water used for watering, but also by adding chloride of calcium, notably in Rouen, where this material is obtained from the manufactories of pyroligenous acid in the neighbourhood. It is stated that on a mile of road, 16 feet in width, 5,630 gallons of water were necessary daily, but that the same result was attained with 1,480 gallons of chloride solution, marking 30° Beaumé, and costing about ½d. per gallon, the humectation remaining good for five or six days with the solution of chloride. With water only in 1,093 yards, in four rounds daily, 3,520 gallons were used, the cost being 48s.; with chloride of calcium the cost was 32s. per day.
Watering the roads with a largely diluted disinfectant, such as "Sanitas" in the liquid form, is frequently of great benefit, and where it can be afforded, it should be occasionally done, especially in the narrower streets and more crowded districts of a city or town.
[Chapter X.]
CONTRACTS V. ADMINISTRATION BY LOCAL AUTHORITY.
Amongst the questions which I addressed to the surveyors of the principal towns of England was the following:—"Is the house refuse collected by the Sanitary Authority or by a Contractor?" and out of the ninety towns from which I received replies, only thirty were found to employ contractors for this purpose, and of these the authorities of two of them proposed to dispense with the services of the contractor, and to administrate the work with their own staff, as they found the existing state of things was thoroughly unsatisfactory.
This is hardly to be wondered at when the nature of such contracts comes to be considered. The "dust" or "slopping" contractor, or whatever he may be designated, can hardly be expected to be a philanthropist, whose principal object in carrying out his contract is that of benefiting his fellow creatures and not himself; on the contrary, it may fairly be assumed that the contractor's object is to serve his own interests, and to make his contract pay. It is but natural, although the result may not be eminently satisfactory either to the ratepayers, who require a careful and systematic cleansing of their dustbins and streets, or to the Sanitary Authority and their officers who have to look after him. The officers, if they do their strict duty, will probably be engaged in constant disputes and litigation with the contractor as to the due and proper observance of the terms of his contract, and the consequence of their time being thus occupied instead of in other more important matters, is naturally detrimental to the interests of the ratepayers.
If we turn to the articles of agreement or contract usually drawn up between a Sanitary Authority and a contractor for scavenging, we find that they are generally very binding in their phraseology, and enter fully into the details of the work; they should state very clearly the number of times in every week that the contractor shall cause all the ashpits in the districts enumerated to be emptied and cleansed, the manner in which this work shall be performed, and how the materials thus removed shall be disposed of and the place of their ultimate destination. The conditions should further specify what amount of manual, team labour, and carts, are necessary for the work, and also what plant the contractor must keep in the way of ladders, baskets, shovels, and brooms, &c. The conditions should also contain a carefully prepared list of the streets to be swept, and the manner and number of times this work must be executed, and arrange for the disposal of the materials thus removed.