EARTH CLOSETS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 461, 14 March 1867, Page 2

EARTH CLOSETS.

(Teresa ths Hlastrated Jxmuon Kews J

LaBOB as philanthropists may, drainage it always their rock ahead, and its heavy u tuiug Or tuo pait| but the privy vault and the sewers are at* institution. The poison too- often sinks in its riverwufd course throngh the subsoil into the well; and even at the point above tidal influence, whence water is supplied from the Thames, the river nymph—towhose 8 glassy waves ’’ schoolboys have addressed so many copies of hexameters and lyrics is calculated to have received into her bosom the outpourings of 700,000 drains. And so the Calder receives th© filth of all Halifax through the Hebbhv and the two rivers flow on lovingly to th© point where their water is filtered and supplies Wakefield. The Medlock and the Irwell are also " silent highways ” for cm v. a-it —j 3 _t_rm- :i XIIVL4 liutuugu wuuuiu, anu OUUUU inw xail*lioHsand a half have been laid out already on casting forth the refuse of London into into the Thames.

Every experiment to deodorise water only ends in vanity and vexation, and by slow degrees the Rev. Henry Motile’* doctrine, that in household service it is cheaper to procure dry earth than to spoil water meets with fuller acceptance. Mr* Wilson, of Edington Mains, speaks of Mr, Moule’s method as the only one which practically effects the separation of fh* fertilising matter from the water in which it is contained, and points out that earth with muen organic matter in it deodorise* more rapidly than when it contains little. Ashes, soot, or charcoal, may all be used, for this purpose, provided they are kept wet; but dry earth or clay subsoil, small and well sifted, are the most act ire deodorisers. Hence the peculiar applicability of earth instead of water to closets. The earth must be supplied iu detail and not in masses, and these layers are, in fact, the whole secret of the process. Its deodorising agency is so powerful, that when the deposits are removed and placed under cover, the mass smells like fresh loam. Every trace of the originaal and its accompaniments is so completely absorbed that the same earth can be used eight or fen times. The mesh through which it should bo sifted is about a fourth of an inch, and 11b 9oz, or Ifc pints, should descend from the box at each time of using. It has been argued that the necessary manipulation would act practically ss a veto on the system ; but it may be urged in reply that it is easier to carry dry earth up stairs than to pump water into a cistern, especially when frost has the pipes in its grip. Public institutions have found eo difficulty in its application. Through the influence of Dr. Fawcus, who has tried several experiments upon it, the svstem which he commenced in the sraol of Alipore, near Calcutta, has been adopted in nearly two hundred barracks and public buildings throughout the East, For two years past it has proved a great boon to the sickwards at Hitchin, and the National Rifle Association sent their testimony to its use at Wimbledon. Mr Simms, in a memorandum on disinfection, dated “ Privy Council Office, July, 1860, ’ also gives his official sanction to the earth closets in country places, where proper drainage is not provided. Beyond this guarded recommendation Government has not as yet ventured to go. _ A little village in Sussex affords a striking proof that the “manipulation” of the system is by no means difficult. A few of the leading inhabitants have undertaken to work it, and enough earth is dried in a day and night for 3s 6d (upon the same plan that bricklayers pursue with their sand) to supply fifty cottages. In two large towns companies have been formed for the same end. They have set up dry-ing-sheds and manure warehouses, and not only remove the pails nightly, or clear out the vaults at intervals, but supply dry earth if needed ; and a company in Bedford-street, Covent-garden, manufactures earth closets. It is, in truth, only the application of the night agency by which all the dust is removed in Paris, where no dustbins are allowed by law,

Custom in this matter would soon become second nature when quickened by the discovery that “ it pays” to adopt it. By pursuing it steadily cottagers are enabled to have very much larger vegetable crops, and farmers have been quite ready to pay £3 a ton for such manure when they can get it. Experiments have proved in fifteen oases that a quarter of an acre manured with one cwt of it, which had been kept five months and used seven times, can grow swedes one-third heavier than ground dressed with superphosphate. Another farmer substituted earth which had passed seven times through an earthcloset for crushed bones at the rate of ono cwt per aere, and grew a most admieable crop of white turnips. Mr itickinson, of New Park Farm, Hampshire, also gives his experience to the effect that the mixture is equal to crashed bones in power, more immediate in its action, and calculated to last three years in the ground. So ii are a few of the benefit* of a system whieh might almost revolutionise our pro; sent drainage and add permanent wraith to health. As Mr Maole well observes in bia *• Manure for tho Millionln

God’s providence there ie no waste. It! was never meant that even the privy-soil, or the sink-water, or the water of the slop bucket should be useless j still less was it meant that they shovld poison fresh air *nd produce sickness,” and too often death.