The Pail System implies in reality the use of a movable cesspool. The pail may be used alone, or may contain ashes and house refuse, or some deodorant. Where the pail is used without any admixture of foreign matter, it should be emptied daily, and care should be taken that the pails for different houses are not exchanged.
In the Goux System the tubs are lined with a composition containing clay and furnished at the lowest part with some absorbent material such as chaff, straw, or hay, which serves to absorb the urine and retard putrefaction. This is, when well managed, somewhat less offensive than the ordinary pail system.
The pails may be supplied with a deodorant, such as sulphate of iron, as at Birmingham, Leeds, etc.; they may be packed with absorbent material, as in the Goux system (Halifax); the ashes and house-refuse may be deposited in the same pail (Edinburgh, Nottingham); or coal ashes may be scattered over the excreta (Manchester, Salford); but all these systems are rapidly being superseded.
Although the pail or tub system is an improvement on the midden system, it is necessarily a cause of considerable nuisance, and its replacement by water-closets should be recommended in towns. In detached country houses it may be retained without nuisance, if the pail or tub is emptied daily, and its contents at once placed in the garden beneath a shallow layer of earth. The pails in large towns are usually collected in specially-constructed closed wagons. In some towns the pail contents have been burnt in a “Destructor” (page [200]) after having been mixed with ashes. In other towns attempts have been made to utilise the excreta, either by selling in their crude condition or after drying and deodorising them by heat. None of these methods repays the cost of collection. Mixing ashes with the excreta diminishes any possible value they may possess as a manure.
The Dry-earth System is an important modification of the pail system. In it dry earth or some other material is added to the excreta, thus converting them immediately into an inodorous mass. Probably the best contrivances for thus deodorising the excreta, as soon as they fall into the receptacle, are Moule’s or Moser’s Earth-Closets.
It is found that 1½ lbs. of dry earth completely deodorise the closet each time it is used. Loamy earth is the most valuable material; a mixture of peat and earth or ashes is very good; sand, gravel, and chalk are practically useless. It is necessary that the earth should be very dry, and that it should be finely sifted. If the earth is damp, decomposition of the excreta speedily occurs. The act of sitting and rising works a hopper which scatters a supply of earth.
Charcoal and sawdust have also been used in connection with Moule’s or Moser’s closet, and with good results. Charcoal has been obtained cheaply for the purpose from street sweepings, and from seaweed, as in Stanford’s closet, in which ½ lb. of charcoal from seaweed is used each time. Mr. Stanford found that while dry clay absorbs only 4 to 5 per cent. of water, dry charcoal prepared from seaweed absorbs 14·7 per cent. The best material, however, is dry earth, but it must be thoroughly dry. The microbes in the earth disintegrate the excreta, converting them into mineral compounds, such as nitrates. Even the paper used disappears. Hence the same earth may be used over again after being stored dry for six weeks. Whether the excreta of an infectious patient are freed from infection by this process is doubtful; if not, the infection might be scattered by means of dust.
The dry earth system is more expensive in use than the pail system, and although applicable to villages and isolated houses, is quite unsuited to large towns, owing to the practical difficulties connected with the procuring and storing of dry earth. The dry earth closet requires frequent attention, in addition to not being so convenient as the pail closet; and there is much less manurial value in the contents of earth closets than in those of pail closets.
The advantages of the earth-closet as compared with the water-closet have been thus summarised by the late Sir Geo. Buchanan. “It is cheaper in the original cost, it is not injured by frost, it is not damaged by improper substances driven down it, and it very greatly diminishes the quantity of water required by each household.” These advantages only accrue when the system is perfectly worked, and do not counterbalance the immense advantage and greater safety of the water-carriage system in towns.
The Privy or Midden System, involving the use of a fixed receptacle, is still prevalent in many towns as well as in innumerable villages. In its worst form, the receptacle consists of a pit with sides of porous materials, allowing percolation of filth in every direction; and in this pit the excreta of whole households are allowed to collect for months. It has been improved by providing a cover to keep out the rain, and thus retard decomposition; still more by providing a drain for the excess of liquid; and by making the sides and bottom of the pit impervious to moisture. The addition of dry ashes to the excreta tends still further to prevent any smell; and the greatest improvement of all consists in raising the receptacle above the ground level, and providing for easy cleaning from the back. The raising of the receptacle involves a diminution in its size, and so prevents the retention of putrefying matters near a house for a long time.