Appendix--Disposal of Household Waste.

carried and discharged into this hopper, thus sending a considerable volume at one time into the tiles.

The solid excreta may be disposed of by an earth- or ashcloset, in place of the usual privy so universally condemned by all sanitarians.

In the dry earth system sufficient dried earth or garden loam, and sometimes coal ashes, are mixed with the excreta to absorb all. foulness and keep down odor, and prevent putrefaction. An earthcloset, if out of doors, should not be too far away from the house; it should be protected by a substantial structure, well lighted and ventilated; plastered on the inside to prevent exposure in cold. weather, and also the rays of the sun. A dry walk should lead to it from the house, screened from view and the winds. As a rule it is better to locate the earth-closet in an isolated, detached part of the building. The excreta should be received in a movable wooden box, well tarred, or in a galvanized iron pail, which must not be too large, and of such shape that it can be easily carried. All parts of the earth-closet should be above ground, and no vault or pit of any kind should be permitted. The receiving vessel should fit close up under the seat, and each time the closet is used, ashes or dry earth should be added as deodorizers. The property of dry earth, of not only deodorizing but of absorbing and rendering harmless the excreta of animals, has long been well known. A much smaller quantity of earth is required for earth-closets if solids and liquids are separated, which may be accomplished by intercepting the urine under the seat by a separate waste-pipe. The earth-closet is thereby more easily kept free from smell.

The dry earth manure ought to be removed at frequent intervals, and in the summer time used in the garden. In winter time it may be dried in an out-house, and then can be applied over and over again. Ashes are sometimes used in place of earth.

In houses of more pretentions, where the earth closets are located in an extension of the cottage, a more convenient method of disposal of the liquids may be had by a properly ventilated and trapped waste-pipe to carry the waste from the kitchen sink, laundry-tub and bath-tub into a small receiving tank located outside the house below the frost line. This tank may be of wood, iron, earthenware or brick. It may be emptied by hand, by a syphon or other

Appendix-Disposal of Household Waste.

mechanical device. It may be useful to provide a greater trap to prevent the grease from being discharged and clogging the small absorption tiles. It is assumed that the topography of the lot is favorable to such a plan; that there is not a slope from the garden or absorption field toward the house, as then disposal by gravity becomes impossible.

Whether or not farm-houses and laborers' cottages should be provided at all with plumbing work is a question of convenience and comfort. The annoyance of frequent repairs, the difficulty in securing competent mechanics to make repairs, freezing in Winter, and sometimes lack of water for flushing purposes, deter many from putting plumbing into their homes in country districts.

Generally speaking, suburban and country residences, not in reach of sewers may dispose of the sewage by one of several methods, it being understood that the disposal of garbage is the same as for smaller houses, the difference being only one of degree. 1. The sewage may be discharged into an open surface ditch or gutter, removing everything from the house and carrying it into a distant sink hole, or to some low spot where the sewage will be. allowed to soak away and evaporate slowly. This system has not a single feature of merit, and becomes highly offensive to the immediate vicinity of the house.

2. The house drain may empty the sewage into a large open, or leeching cess-pool, which allows the liquids to ooze away through, underground, porous strata, or through fissures and cracks in rocks. This is a system to be utterly condemned. A leeching cess-pool is not only in itself an abominable nuisance, but it unavoidably pollutes the subsoil in the neighborhood of dwellings, contaminates the water supply, and renders obnoxious the air we breathe. Even if where it cannot work danger to our own house, our own well or spring, it may pollute a shallow or deep well of adjoining premises. 3. The drain may deliver the sewage from the house into a tightly-built cess-pool provided with an overflow pipe carried into some ditch or water course. This is a makeshift arrangement which cannot be indorsed.

4. The sewage may be emptied into an absolutely tight cesspool, without any overflow. This is permissible under certain circumstances, but it may become an evil, for it involves long storage, and not immediate disposal, hence, though it avoids the pollution of

Appendix-Disposal of Household Waste.

the water supply, and the contamination of the soil, its objections are many and serious, and it cannot be approved.

There may be cases where there is no other feasible way to dispose of sewage other than to run it into a tight cess-pool. In that case it should be as far away from the house as possible. There should be proper disconnection by traps between it and the house. It should be built in two compartments, one, the larger, to receive the solids, the other smaller, the liquids. Both should be built of moderate size, circular in shape, of hard burned brick, laid in hydraulic cement, and the walls rendered in Portland cement inside and out. Each chamber should be arched over, topped with a man-hole, and covered with an iron cover. It should be supplied with a good ventilator, and must be frequently emptied and cleaned. The liquids may be pumped out and spread upon the lawn, garden shrubs, and vines. The solids may be removed and dug as fertilizers under the soil. An overflow pipe should be provided that the liquids may flow into the proper chamber.

5. The sewage may be discharged into some stream, or water course, which is simply removing the evil from one place to another. The pollution of creeks, rivers and streams must be avoided.

6. The sewage may be disposed of on the premises, or on some adjoining land, either by application to the land, if the topography of the land is favorable, or by some mechanical process of filtering and straining.

Wherever suitable land is available, the application of the sewage to the soil forms the best method for the disposal of sewage. The land should not be near the house nor domestic water supplies, and depending not so much upon the surface as the inclination of the underground geological formation.

The soil of the field should be gravelly and porous. If tight clay or damp, it should be properly under-drained below the frost line. Common two-inch porous tile, one foot long, may be laid eight or ten inches below the surface on continuous boards, with a space at the joint of one-fourth inch, to facilitate oozing out of sewage. The joint should be covered with an earthen cap to protect from dirt falling therein. A fall of two or three inches per hundred feet is sufficient. The tile may be laid in parallel lines five feet apart.

Appendix-Disposal of Household Waste.

They should connect with the main conduit by a Y branch. The main conduit should be laid two feet deep, and the two-inch branches be laid in cement until they reach the depth of eight or ten inches. The main drain or conduit should be four inches in diameter and connect with a flush tank with a fall of not over six inches per hundred feet, where it connects with the branches. The flush tank should be built of hard brick laid in hydraulic cement, and perfectly water tight, circular in form, and large enough to hold one day's volume of sewage. Between the house and flush tank should be placed an intercepting chamber, or grease trap, to catch all solids, paper and fatty matter from the kitchen. This chamber must be cleaned frequently.

The liquid wastes from the house are retained in the flush tank until it is filled, when by means of a gate-valve, the contents are delivered suddenly into the main conduit and thence into the irrigation tiles, and thus the whole absorption field is brought into use, instead of a constant dribbling, trickling stream. The purification begins at once. The clarified liquid soaks into the ground, the impurities being retained by the earth, and quickly destroyed. Air enters the pores of the soil and prepares it for future use, while the tank is again filling up. It is the layer of earth next the surface--the sub-surface, that acts on sewage. Aeration is the sine qua non of the whole system.

For a small country house the whole system should not exceed in cost $250; for a large country residence, $500.

As villages are but an aggregation of country houses, the filth products can be disposed of on the premises therein by the methods given for country houses.

In proportion as the dwellings become crowded together, the gardens attached reduced in size, and the population increased, the community as a whole must adopt proper measures for sewage disposal. To dispose of the slop-water nuisance a six-inch pipe will answer for a whole village of one thousand inhabitants, with branch pipes to each dwelling. From this sewer all surface and subsoil water should be rigidly excluded. The solid refuse may be removed by a system of public scavenging, and disposed of on outlying soil.

Appendix--Money Value of Sanitation.

MONEY VALUE

TION.

OF SANITA

ment.

BY L. F. ANDREWS.

In every department of social life the cost is counted, except that of sickness and death, and in no department is the cost so great as in these, Probably not one person in each thousand of the population of a community, or of the whole State even, ever stops in the rush of life to estimate the cost of sickness in a community, or what proportion of it may be saved, or to calculate the profit that may accrue from preventing it a profit to be fixed in coin, as tangible as any stamped with the head of Liberty by the governHow much labor, time and money are lost in the State, or in any community annually through sickness of those who perform the labor! Vital statistics with their columns and pages of figures of population, number of deaths, number of deaths per thousand of the living, number of deaths under five and ten years, number of deaths from specified diseases, most of which are preventable, all represent expense, loss and misery. They also represent the health of a people. The mortuary table is the barometer of the sanitary condition of a people. That community is the most healthy which has the greatest number of individuals capable of doing the largest and best amount of the varied essential labor for the common good and with the least cessation.

What is the money loss caused by sickness and death among that class who perform the labor of a community—not simply the wage workers, but of all occupations-between the ages of ten and sixty years?

In estimating such loss recourse cannot be had to the usual life expectancy tables, for the lives of the working people, as a mass, are not the people upon whom life insurance tables are based.