We have now to see the means by which this 15,000,000 cubic feet of cesspoolage is annually removed, as well as to ascertain the condition and incomes of the labourers engaged in the removal of it.
Of the Cesspool System of London.
A cesspool, or some equivalent contrivance, has long existed in connexion with the structure of the better class of houses in the metropolis, and there seems every reason to believe—though I am assured, on good authority, that there is no public or official record of the matter known to exist—that their use became more and more general, as in the case of the sewers, after the rebuilding of the City, consequent upon the great fire of 1666.
The older cesspools were of two kinds—“soil-tanks” and “bog-holes.”
“Soil-tanks” were the filth receptacles of the larger houses, and sometimes works of solid masonry; they were almost every size and depth, but always perhaps much deeper than the modern cesspools, which present an average depth of 6 feet to 6½ feet.
The “bog-hole” was, and is, a cavity dug into the earth, having less masonry than the soil-tank, and sometimes no masonry at all, being in like manner the receptacle for the wet refuse from the house.
The difference between these old contrivances and the present mode is principally in the following respect: the soil-tank or bog-hole formed a receptacle immediately under the privy (the floor of which has usually to be removed for purposes of cleansing), whereas the refuse is now more frequently carried into the modern cesspool by a system of drainage. Sometimes the soil-tank was, when the nature of the situation of the premises permitted, in some outer place, such as an obscure part of the garden or court-yard; and perhaps two or more bog-holes were drained into it, while often enough, by means of a grate or a trap-door, any kind of refuse to be got rid of was thrown into it.
I am informed that the average contents of a bog-hole (such as now exist) are a cubic yard of matter; some are round, some oblong, for there is, or was, great variation.
Of the few remaining soil-tanks the varying sizes prevent any average being computable.
What the old system of cesspoolage was may be judged from the fact, that until somewhere about 1830 no cesspool matter could, without an indictable offence being committed, be drained into a sewer! Now, no new house can be erected, but it is an indictable offence if the cesspool (or rather water-closet) matter be drained anywhere else than into the sewer! The law, at the period specified, required most strangely, so that “the drains and sewers might not be choked,” that cesspools should “be not only periodically emptied, but made by nightmen.”