“Speaking of the disgusting practices at the Voirie, Mr. Gisquet says, ‘I have seen men stark naked, passing entire days in the midst of the basins, seeking for any objects of value they might contain. I have seen others fishing for the rotten fish the market inspectors had caused to be thrown into the basins. Two cartloads of spoilt and stinking mackerel were thrown into the largest of the basins; two hours afterwards all the fish had disappeared.’
“The emanations from the Voirie are, as may well be supposed, most powerfully offensive. To a stranger unaccustomed to the atmosphere surrounding them it would be almost impossible to make the tour of the basins without being more or less affected with a disposition to nausea. Large and numerous bubbles of gas are seen constantly rising from a lake of urine and water, while evaporation of the most foul description is going on from many acres of surrounding ground, upon which the solid matter is spread to dry.”
The late M. Parent du Châtelet, a high authority on this matter, stated (in 1833) that the emanations from the Voirie were insupportable within a circumference of 2000 mètres (about a mile and a quarter, English measure); while the winds carried them sometimes, as was shown when an official inquiry was made as to the ravages and causes of cholera, 2½ miles; and in certain states of the atmosphere, 8 French miles (not quite 5 English miles). The same high authority has also stated, that in addition to the emanations from the cesspool matter at the Voirie the greater part of the carcasses of about 12,000 horses, and between 25,000 and 30,000 smaller animals, were allowed to rot upon the ground there.
To abate this nuisance a new Voirie was, more than 20 years since, formed in the forest of Bondy, 8 miles from Paris. It consists of eight basins, four on each side of the Canal de l’Ourcq, arranged like those at Montfaucon. The area of these basins is little short of 96,000 square yards, and their collective capacity upwards of 261,000 cubic yards. The expectations of the relief that would be experienced from the establishment of the new Voirie in the forest have not been realized. The movable cesspools only have been conveyed there, by boats on the canal, to be emptied; the empty casks being conveyed back by the same boats. The basins are not yet full; for the conveyance by the Canal de l’Ourcq is costly, and in winter its traffic is sometimes suspended by its being frozen. In one year the cost of conveying these movable cesspools to Bondy was little short of 1500l.
In the latest Report on this subject (1835) the Commissioners, of whom M. Parent du Châtelet was one, recommend that all the cesspool matter at the Voiries should be disinfected. M. Salmon, after a course of chemical experiments (the Report of the Commission states), disinfected and carbonized a mass of mud and filth, containing much organic matter, deposited (from a sewer) on the banks of the Seine.
The Commissioners say, “The discovery of M. Salmon awakened the attention of the contractors of Montfaucon, who employed one of our most skilful chemists to find for them a means of disinfection other than that for which M. Salmon had taken out a patent. M. Sanson and some other persons made similar researches, and from their joint investigations it resulted that disinfection might be equally well produced with turf ashes, with carbonized turf, and with the simple débris of this very abundant substance; and that the same success might be obtained with saw-dust, with the refuse matter of the tan-yards, with garden mould, so abundant in the environs of Paris, and with many other substances. A curious experiment has even shown, that after mixing with a clayey earth a portion of fæcal matter, it was only necessary to carbonize this mixture to obtain a perfect disinfectant powder. Theory had already indicated the result.”
This disinfection, however, has not been carried out in the Voiries, nor in the manufacture of poudrette.
From the account of the general refuse depositories of Paris we pass to the particular receptacles or cesspools of the French capital.
The Parisian cesspools are of two sorts:—
1. Fixed or excavated cesspools.