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:—