DESSOIR, LUDWIG (1810-1874), German actor, whose name was originally Leopold Dessauer, was born on the 15th of December 1810 at Posen, the son of a Jewish tradesman. He made his first appearance on the stage there in 1824 in a small part. After some experience at the theatre in Posen and on tour, he was engaged at Leipzig from 1834 to 1836. Then he was attached to the municipal theatre of Breslau, and in 1837 appeared at Prague, Brünn, Vienna and Budapest, where he accepted an engagement which lasted until 1839. He succeeded Karl Devrient at Karlsruhe, and went in 1847 to Berlin, where he acted Othello and Hamlet with such extraordinary success that he received a permanent engagement at the Hof-theater. From 1849 to 1872, when he retired on a pension, he played 110 parts, frequently on tour, and in 1853 acting in London. He died on the 30th of December 1874 in Berlin. Dessoir was twice married; his first wife, Theresa, a popular actress (1810-1866), was separated from him a year after marriage; his second wife went mad on the death of her child. By his first wife Dessoir had one son, the actor Ferdinand Dessoir (1836-1892). In spite of certain physical disabilities Ludwig Dessoir’s genius raised him to the first rank of actors, especially as interpreter of Shakespeare’s characters. G. H. Lewes placed Dessoir’s Othello above that of Kean, and the Athenaeum preferred him in this part to Brooks or Macready.
DESTOUCHES, PHILIPPE (1680-1754), French dramatist, whose real name was Néricault, was born at Tours in April 1680. When he was nineteen years of age he became secretary to M. de Puysieux, the French ambassador in Switzerland. In 1716 he was attached to the French embassy in London, where he remained for six years under the abbé Dubois. He contracted with a Lancashire lady, Dorothea Johnston, a marriage which was not avowed for some years. He drew a picture later of his own domestic circumstances in Le Philosophe marié (1726). On his return to France (1723) he was elected to the Academy, and in 1727 he acquired considerable estates, the possession of which conferred the privileges of nobility. He spent his later years at his château of Fortoiseau near Melun, dying on the 4th of July 1754. His early comedies were: Le Curieux Impertinent (1710), L’Ingrat (1712), L’Irrésolu (1713) and Le Médisant (1715). The best of these is L’Irrêsolu, in which Dorante, after hesitating throughout the play between Julie and Célimène, marries Julie, but concludes the play with the reflection:—
“J’aurais mieux fait, je crois, d’épouser Célimène.”
After eleven years of diplomatic service Destouches returned to the stage with the Philosophe marié (1727), followed in 1732 by his masterpiece Le Glorieux, a picture of the struggle then beginning between the old nobility and the wealthy parvenus who found their opportunity in the poverty of France. Destouches wished to revive the comedy of character as understood by Molière, but he thought it desirable that the moral should be directly expressed. This moralizing tendency spoilt his later comedies. Among them may be mentioned: Le Tambour nocturne (1736), La Force du naturel (1750) and Le Dissipateur (1736).
His works were issued in collected form in 1755, 1757, 1811 and, in a limited edition (6 vols.), 1822.
DESTRUCTORS. The name destructors is applied by English municipal engineers to furnaces, or combinations of furnaces, commonly called “garbage furnaces” in the United States, constructed for the purpose of disposing by burning of town refuse, which is a heterogeneous mass of material, including, besides general household and ash-bin refuse, small quantities of garden refuse, trade refuse, market refuse and often street sweepings. The mere disposal of this material is not, however, by any means the only consideration in dealing with it upon the destructor system. For many years past scientific experts, municipal engineers and public authorities have been directing careful attention to the utilization of refuse as fuel for steam production, and such progress in this direction has been made that in many towns its calorific value is now being utilized daily for motive-power purposes. On the other hand, that proper degree of caution which is obtained only by actual experience must be exercised in the application of refuse fuel to steam-raising. When its value as a low-class fuel was first recognized, the idea was disseminated that the refuse of a given population was of itself sufficient to develop the necessary steam-power for supplying that population with the electric light. The economical importance of a combined destructor and electric undertaking of this character naturally presented a somewhat fascinating stimulus to public authorities, and possibly had much to do with the development both of the adoption of the principle of dealing with refuse by fire, and of lighting towns by electricity. However true this phase of the question may be as the statement of a theoretical scientific fact, experience so far does not show it to be a basis upon which engineers may venture to calculate, although, as will be seen later, under certain circumstances of equalized load, which must be considered upon their merits in each case, a well-designed destructor plant can be made to perform valuable commercial service to an electric or other power-using undertaking. Further, when a system, thermal or otherwise, for the storage of energy can be introduced and applied in a trustworthy and economical manner, the degree of advantage to be derived from the utilization of the waste heat from destructors will be materially enhanced.
The composition of house refuse, which must obviously affect its calorific value, varies considerably in different localities, according to the condition, habits and pursuits of the Composition and quantity of refuse. people. Towns situated in coal-producing districts invariably yield a refuse richer in unconsumed carbon than those remote therefrom. It is also often found that the refuse from different parts of the same town varies considerably—that from the poorest quarters frequently proving of greater calorific value than that from those parts occupied by the rich and middle classes. This has been attributed to the more extravagant habits of the working classes in neglecting to sift the ashes from their fires before disposing of them in the ash-bin. In Bermondsey, for example, the refuse has been found to possess an unusually high calorific value, and this experience is confirmed in other parts of the metropolis. Average refuse consists of breeze (cinder and ashes), coal and coke, fine dust, vegetable and animal matters, straw, shavings, cardboard, bottles, tins, iron, bones, broken crockery and other matters in very variable proportions according to the character of the district from which it is collected. In London the quantity of house refuse amounts approximately to 1¼ million tons per annum, which is equivalent to from 4 cwt. to 5 cwt. per head per annum, or to from 200 to 250 tons per 1000 of the population per annum. Statistics, however, vary widely in different districts. In the vicinity of the metropolis the amount varies from 2.5 cwt. per head per annum at Leyton to 3.5 cwt. at Hornsey, and to as much as 7 cwt. at Ealing. In the north of England the total house refuse collected, exclusive of street sweepings, amounts on the average to 8 cwt. per head per annum. Speaking generally, throughout the country an amount of from 5 cwt. to 10 cwt. per head per annum should be allowed for. A cubic yard of ordinary house refuse weighs from 12¼ to 15 cwt. Shop refuse is lighter, frequently containing a large proportion of paper, straw and other light wastes. It sometimes weighs as little as 7¼ cwt. per cubic yard. A load, by which refuse is often estimated, varies in weight from 15 cwt. to 1½ tons.
The question how a town’s refuse shall be disposed of must be considered both from a commercial and a sanitary point of view. Various methods have been practised. Sometimes the Refuse disposal. household ashes, &c., are mixed with pail excreta, or with sludge from a sewage farm, or with lime, and disposed of for agricultural purposes, and sometimes they are conveyed in carts or by canal to outlying and country districts, where they are shot on waste ground or used to fill up hollows and raise the level of marshland. Such plans are economical when suitable outlets are available. To take the refuse out to sea in hopper barges and sink it in deep water is usually expensive and frequently unsatisfactory. At Bermondsey, for instance, the cost of barging is about 2s. 9d. a ton, while the material may be destroyed by fire at a cost of from 10d. to 1s. a ton, exclusive of interest and sinking fund on the cost of the works. In other cases, as at Chelsea and various dust contractors’ yards, the refuse is sorted and its ingredients are sold; the fine dust may be utilized in connexion with manure manufactories, the pots and pans employed in forming the foundations of roads, and the cinders and vegetable refuse burnt to generate steam. In the Arnold system, carried out in Philadelphia and other American towns, the refuse is sterilized by steam under pressure, the grease and fertilizing substances being extracted at the same time; while in other systems, such as those of Weil and Porno, and of Defosse, distillation in closed vessels is practised. But the destructor system, in which the refuse is burned to an innocuous clinker in specially constructed furnaces, is that which must finally be resorted to, especially in districts which have become well built up and thickly populated.