Note.—From 24th June, 1846, to 24th June, 1847, the Commission made their own experiment upon the Street-Orderly System—the expenses of such experiment are included in the above amounts. In 1849 the area of the jurisdiction of the Commission was increased by the addition of various precincts under the City of London Sewers’ Act.
“The total cost of the experiment was £987 4s. 7d., and, deducting the charges under the head of advertising, Christmas dinner, and petty cash expenses, and also that for office-rent, clerks, messengers, &c., and assigning £50 as the value of the implements at that time for future use, there is left a balance of £822 7s. 3d. as the clear cost of the experiment.
“The experiment was tried for a period of eight weeks exactly, according to the return made to the Commission by the Superintendent of the Association, but as in the statement of expenses the wages appear to be included for a period of nine weeks, I have assumed nine weeks as the correct figure, and the experiment must therefore have cost a sum of £822 7s. 3d. for that period, or at the rate of about £91 per week.
| Squ. Yards | |
| “Now the total area of the carriage-way of the City of London was at that time | 418,000 |
| “And the area of the foot-way | 316,000 |
| “Making a total of | 734,000 |
| “And the area of the carriage-way cleaned by the street-orderlies was | 30,670 |
| “And the area of the foot-way | 18,590 |
| “Making a total of | 49,260 |
“The total area of foot-way and carriage-way cleansed was therefore 1-15th of the whole of the carriage-way and foot-way of the City; or, taken separately, the carriage-way cleansed was somewhat more than 1-14th of the whole of the City carriage-way.
| “It has been seen also that the total cost of cleansing this 1-14th portion of the carriage-way, after deducting all extraneous expenses, was at the rate per week of | £91 |
| Or at the rate, per annum, of | £4732 |
“To assign an expenditure in the same proportion for the remaining 13-14ths of the whole carriage-way area of the City would not be just, for, in the first place, allowance must be made, owing to the dirt brought off from the adjacent streets, which, it is assumed, would not have been the case had they also been cleansed upon the street-orderly system; and moreover, as the majority of the streets cleansed were those of large traffic, a larger proportion of labour was needed to them than would have been the case had the experiment been upon any equal area of carriage-way, taken from a district comprehending streets of all sizes and degrees of traffic; but if I assume that the 1-14th portion of the City cleansed represents 1-11th of the whole in the labour needed for cleansing the whole of the City upon the same system, I believe I shall have made a very fair deduction, and shall, if anything, err in favour of the experiment.
“Estimating, therefore, the expense of cleansing the whole of the City carriage-way upon the street-orderly system according to the expenses of the experiment made in 1845-6, and from the data then furnished, it appears that cleansing upon such system would have come to an annual sum of 52,052l.
“It will be seen that there is a remarkable difference between this estimate of 52,052l. per annum and that of 18,000l. per annum estimated by the Association, and given in their Report of the 26th January, 1846; and what is more remarkable is, that my estimate is framed not upon any assumption of my own, but is a dry calculation based upon the very figures of expense furnished by the Association itself, and herein-before recited.”