“Church-passage (time, five minutes), 1½d.
“Lloyd’s-court (time, ten minutes), 3¼d.
“Mr. Hale, another officer, gave a similar statement.”
Other experiments are thus detailed:—
“Lascelles-court, Broad-street, St. Giles’s. This court was pointed out to me as one of the worst in London. Before cleansing it smelt intolerable,” [sic] “and looked disgusting. Besides an abundance of ordinary filth arising from the exposure of refuse, the surface of the court contained heaps of human excrement, there being only one privy to the whole court, and that not in a state to be publicly used.... The cleansing operations were commenced by sprinkling the court with deodorising fluid, mixed with 20 times its volume of water; a great change, from a very pungent odour to an imperceptible smell, was immediately effected; after which the refuse of the court was washed away, and the pavement thoroughly cleansed by the hose and jet; and now this place, which before was in a state almost indescribable, presented an appearance of comparative comfort and respectability.”
It is stated as the result of another experiment in “an ordinary wide street with plenty of traffic,” that “water-carts and ordinary rains only create the mud which the jet entirely removes, giving to the pavement the appearance of having been as thoroughly cleansed as the private stone steps in front of the houses.”
With respect to Mr. Lee’s experiments in Sheffield, I find that Messrs. Guest, of Rotherham, are patentees of a tap for the discharge of water at high pressures, and that they had adapted their invention to the purpose of a fire-plug and stand pipe suitable for street-cleansing by the hose and jet. Church-street, one of the principal thoroughfares, was experimentally cleansed by this process: “The carriage-way is from 20 to 24 feet wide, and about 150 yards long. It was washed almost as clean as a house-floor in five minutes.” Mr. Lee expresses his conviction that, by the agency of the hose and jet, every street in that populous borough might be cleansed at about 1s. per annum for each house. “The principal thoroughfares,” he states, “could be thus made perfectly clean, three times every week, before business hours, and the minor streets and lanes twice, or once per week, at later hours in the day, by the agency of an abundant supply of water, at less than half the sum necessary for the cartage alone of an equal quantity of refuse in a solid or semi-fluid condition.”
The highways most frequented in Sheffield constitute about one-half of the whole extent of the streets and roads in the borough, measuring 47 miles. This length, Mr. Lee computes, might be effectually cleansed with the hose and jet, ten miles of it three times a week, 21 miles twice a week, and 16 miles once a week, a total of 88 miles weekly, or 4576 miles yearly. The quantity of Water required would be 3000 gallons a mile, or a yearly total of 13,728,000 gallons. This water might be supplied, Mr. Lee opines, at 1d. per 1000 gallons (57l. 4s. per annum), although the price obtained by the Water-works Company was 6½d. per 1000 gallons (371l. 16s. per annum). “I now proceed,” he says, “to the cost of labour: 4576 miles per annum is equal to 14⅔ miles for each working day, or to six sets of two men cleansing 2½ miles per day each set. To these must be added three horses and carts, and three carters, for the removal of such débris as cannot be washed away and for such parts of the town as cannot be cleansed by this system, making a total of fifteen men. Their wages I would fix at 50l. per annum each. The estimate is as follows:—
| £ | |
| “Annual interest upon the first cost of hose and pipes, three horses and carts | 30 |
| Fifteen men’s wages | 750 |
| Three horses’ provender | 150 |
| Wear, tear, and depreciation of hose, &c. | 250 |
| Management and incidentals, say | 120 |
| £1300.” |
The estimate, it will be seen, is based on the supposition that the water supply should be at the public cost, and not a specific charge for the purposes of street-cleansing.