Concerning the expense of cleansing the City by the street-orderly system, Mr. Cochrane says:—

Two estimates, then, show an expectation of a yearly saving of no less than 2320l. to the rate-payers of two parishes alone; 938l. to St. James’s, and 1382l. to St. Martin’s. And this, too, if all that be augured of this system be realized, with a freedom from street dust and dirt unknown under other methods of scavagery. I think it right, however, to express my opinion that even in the reasonable prospect of these great savings being effected, it is a paltry, or rather a false, because miscalled, economy to speculate on the payment of 10s. and 12s. a week to street-labourers in the parishes of St. James and St. Martin respectively, when so many of the contractors pay their men 16s. weekly. If this low hire be justifiable in the way of an experiment, it can never be justifiable as a continuance of the reward of labour.

If the street-orderly system is to be the means of permanently reducing the wages of the regular scavagers from 16s. to 12s. a week, then we had better remain afflicted with the physical dirt of our streets, than the moral filth which is sure to proceed from the poverty of our people—but if it is to be a means of elevating the pauper to the dignity of the independent labour, rather than dragging the independent labourer down to the debasement of the pauper, then let all who wish well to their fellows encourage it as heartily and strenuously as they can—otherwise the sooner it is denounced as an insidious mode of defrauding the poor of one-fourth of their earnings the better; and it is merely in the belief that Mr. Cochrane and the Council of the Association mean to keep faith with the public and increase the men’s wages to those of the regular trade, that the street-orderly system is advocated here. If our philanthropists are to reduce wages 25 per cent., then, indeed, the poor man may cry, “save me from my friends.”

As to the positive and definite working of the street-orderly system as an economical system, no information can be given beyond the estimates I have cited, as it has never been duly tested on a sufficiently large scale. Its working has been, of necessity, desultory. It has, however, been introduced into St. George’s, Bloomsbury; St. James’s, Westminster; and is about to be established in St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields; and in the course of a year or two it seems that it will be sufficiently tested. That its working has hitherto been desultory is a necessity in London, where “vested interests” look grimly on any change or even any inquiry. That it deserves a full and liberal testing seems undeniable, from the concurrent assent of all parishioners who have turned their attention to it.

It remains to show the expenses of the Philanthropic Association, for I am unable to present an account of street-orderlyism separately. The two following tables fully indicate to what an extent the association is indebted to the private purse of Mr. Cochrane, who by this time has advanced between 6000l. and 7000l.

“Balance Sheet.

Street-Orderlies.—City Surveyor’s Report.

I have been favoured with a Report “upon street-cleansing and in reference to the Street-Orderly System,” by the author, Mr. W. Haywood, the Surveyor to the City Commission of Sewers, who has invited my attention to the matter, in consequence of the statements which have appeared on the subject in “London Labour and the London Poor.”

Mr. Haywood, whose tone of argument is courteous and moderate, and who does not scruple to do justice to what he accounts the good points of the street-orderly system, although he condemns it as a whole, gives an account of the earlier scavaging of the city, not differing in any material respect from that which I have already printed. He represents the public ways of the City, which I have stated to be about 50 miles, as “about 51 miles lineal, about 770,157 superficial yards in area.” This area, it appears, comprehends 1000 different places.

In 1845 the area of the carriage-way of the City was estimated at 418,000 square yards, and the footway at 316,000, making a total of 734,000; but since that period new streets have been made and others extensively widened. The precincts of Bridewell, St. Bartholomew, St. James’s, Duke’s-place, Aldgate, and others, have been added to the jurisdiction of the Sewers Commission by Act of Parliament, so that the Surveyor now estimates the area of the carriage-way of the City of London at 441,250 square yards, and the footway at 328,907, making a total of 770,157 square yards.

“I am fully impressed,” observes Mr. Haywood, “with the great importance to a densely-populated city of an efficient cleansing of the public ways. Probably after a perfect system of sewage and drainage (which implies an adequate water supply), and a well-paved surface (which I have always considered to be little inferior in its importance to the former, and which is indispensable to obtaining clean sweeping), good surface cleansing ranks next in its beneficial sanitary influence; and most certainly the comfort gained by all through having public thoroughfares in a high degree of cleanliness is exceedingly great.”

Mr. Haywood expresses his opinion that streets “ordure soddened”—smelling like “stable yards,”—dangerous to the health of the inhabitants—impassable from mud in winter and from dust in summer—and inflicting constant pecuniary loss, “can only exist in an appreciable degree in thoroughfares swept much less frequently” than the streets within the jurisdiction of the City Commissioners of Sewers. In this opinion, however, Mr. Haywood comes into direct collision with the statements put forth by the Board of Health, who have insisted upon the insanitary state of the metropolitan streets, more strongly, perhaps, in their several Reports, than has Mr. Cochrane.

But Mr. Haywood believes that not only are the assertions of the Board of Health as to the unwholesome state of the metropolitan thoroughfares unfounded as regards the city of London, but he asserts that from the daily street-sweeping, “the surface there is maintained in as high an average condition of cleanliness, as the means hitherto adopted will enable to be attained.”

“Nor does this apply,” says Mr. Haywood, “to the main thoroughfares only. In the poorer courts and alleys within the city, where a high degree of cleanliness is, at least, as needful, in a sanitary point of view, as in the larger and wider thoroughfares, the facilities for efficient sweeping are as great, if not greater, than in other portions of your jurisdiction. For many years past the whole of the courts and alleys which carts do not enter, have been paved with flagstone, laid at a good inclination, and presenting an uniform smooth non-absorbent surface: in many of these courts where the habits of the people are cleanly, the scavenger’s broom is almost unneeded for weeks together; in others, where the habit prevails of throwing the refuse of the houses upon the pavements, the daily sweeping is highly essential; but in all these courts the surface presents a condition which renders good clean sweeping a comparatively easy operation, that which is swept away being mostly dry, or nearly so.”

After alluding to the street-orderly principle of scavaging, “to clean and keep clean,” Mr. Haywood observes, “between the ‘street-orderly system’ and the periodical or intermittent sweeping there is this difference, that upon the former system there should be (if it fulfils what it professes) no deposit of any description allowed to remain much longer than a few minutes upon the surface, and that there should be neither mud in the wet weather, nor dust in the dry weather, upon the public ways; whilst, upon the latter system, the deposit necessarily accumulates between the periods of sweeping, commencing as soon as one sweeping has terminated, gradually increasing, and being at its point of extreme accumulation at the period when the next sweeping takes place; the former, then, is, or should be, a system of prevention; the latter, confessedly, but a system of palliation or cure.

“The more frequent the periodical sweeping, therefore, the nearer it approximates in its results to the ‘street-orderly system,’ inasmuch as the accumulations, being frequently removed, must be smaller, and the evils of mud, dust, effluvia, &c., less in proportion.

“Now to fulfil its promise: upon the ‘street-orderly system,’ there should be men both day and night within the streets, who should constantly remove the manure and refuse, and, failing this, if there be only cessation for six hours out of the twenty-four of the ‘continuous cleansing,’ it becomes at once a periodical cleansing but a degree in advance of the daily sweeping, which has been now for years in operation within the city of London.”

This appears to me to be an extreme conclusion:—because the labours of the street-orderly system cease when the great traffic ceases, and when, of course, there is comparatively little or no dirt deposited in the thoroughfares, therefore, says Mr. Haywood, “the City system of cleansing once per day is only a degree behind that system of which the principle is incessant cleansing at such time as the dirtying is incessant.” The two principles are surely as different as light and darkness:—in the one the cleansing is intermittent and the dirt constant; in the other the dirt is intermittent and the cleanliness constant—constant, at least, so long as the causes of impurity are so.

Mr. Haywood, however, states that the Commissioners were so pleased with the appearance of the streets, when cleansed on the street-orderly system, which “was certainly much to be admired,” that they introduced a somewhat similar system, calling their scavagers “daymen,” as they had the care of keeping the streets clean, after a daily morning sweeping by the contractor’s men. They commenced their work at 9 A.M. and ceased at 6 P.M. in the summer months, and at half-past 4 P.M. in the winter. In the summer months 36 daymen were employed on the average; in the winter months, 46. The highest number of scavaging daymen employed on any one day was 63; the lowest was 34. The area cleansed was about 47,000 yards (superficial measure), and with the following results, and the following cost, from June 24, 1846, to the same date, 1847:—

“The daily sweeping,” Mr. Haywood says, “which for the previous two years had been established throughout the City, gave at that time very great satisfaction. It was quite true that the streets which the daymen attended to, looked superior to those cleansed only periodically, but the practical value of the difference was considered by many not to be worth the sum of money paid for it. It was also felt that, if it was continued, it should upon principle be extended at least to all streets of similar traffic to those upon which it had been tried; and as, after due consideration, the Commission thought that one daily sweeping was sufficient, both for health and comfort, the day or continuous sweeping was abandoned, and the whole City only received, from that time to the present, the usual daily sweeping.”

The “present” time is shown by the date of Mr. Haywood’s Report, October 13, 1851. The reason assigned for the abandonment of the system of the daymen is peculiar and characteristic. The system of continuous cleansing gave very great satisfaction, although it was but a degree in advance of the once-a-day cleansing. The streets which the daymen attended to “looked,” and of course were, “superior” in cleanliness to those scavaged periodically. It was also felt that the principle should “be extended at least to all streets of similar traffic;” and why was it not so extended? Because, in a word, “it was not worth the money;” though by what standard the value of public cleanliness was calculated, is not mentioned.

The main question, therefore, is, what is the difference in the cost of the two systems, and is the admitted “superior cleanliness” produced by the continuous mode of scavaging, in comparison with that obtained by the intermittent mode, of sufficient public value to warrant the increased expense (if any)—in a word, as the City people say—is it worth the money?

First, as to the comparative cost of the two systems: after a statement of the contracts for the dusting and cleansing of the City (matters I have before treated of) Mr. Haywood, for the purpose of making a comparison of the present City system of scavaging with the street-orderly system, gives the table in the opposite page to show the cost of street cleansing and dusting within the jurisdiction of the City Court of Sewers.

Mr. Haywood then invites attention to the subjoined statement of the National Philanthropic Association, on the occurrence of a demonstration as to the efficiency and economy of the street-orderly system.

“I will now,” says Mr. Haywood, “without further present reference to the Report of the Association, proceed to form an estimate of the expenses of the system as they would have been if it had been extended to the whole City, and which estimate will be based upon the information as to the expenses of the system, furnished by the experiment or demonstration made by the Association within your jurisdiction.

TABLE SHOWING THE COST OF STREET CLEANSING AND DUSTING WITHIN THE JURISDICTION OF THE CITY COURT OF SEWERS.

“The total cost of the experiment was £987 4s. 7d., and, deducting the charges under the head of advertising, Christmas dinner, and petty cash expenses, and also that for office-rent, clerks, messengers, &c., and assigning £50 as the value of the implements at that time for future use, there is left a balance of £822 7s. 3d. as the clear cost of the experiment.

“The experiment was tried for a period of eight weeks exactly, according to the return made to the Commission by the Superintendent of the Association, but as in the statement of expenses the wages appear to be included for a period of nine weeks, I have assumed nine weeks as the correct figure, and the experiment must therefore have cost a sum of £822 7s. 3d. for that period, or at the rate of about £91 per week.

“The total area of foot-way and carriage-way cleansed was therefore 1-15th of the whole of the carriage-way and foot-way of the City; or, taken separately, the carriage-way cleansed was somewhat more than 1-14th of the whole of the City carriage-way.

“To assign an expenditure in the same proportion for the remaining 13-14ths of the whole carriage-way area of the City would not be just, for, in the first place, allowance must be made, owing to the dirt brought off from the adjacent streets, which, it is assumed, would not have been the case had they also been cleansed upon the street-orderly system; and moreover, as the majority of the streets cleansed were those of large traffic, a larger proportion of labour was needed to them than would have been the case had the experiment been upon any equal area of carriage-way, taken from a district comprehending streets of all sizes and degrees of traffic; but if I assume that the 1-14th portion of the City cleansed represents 1-11th of the whole in the labour needed for cleansing the whole of the City upon the same system, I believe I shall have made a very fair deduction, and shall, if anything, err in favour of the experiment.

“Estimating, therefore, the expense of cleansing the whole of the City carriage-way upon the street-orderly system according to the expenses of the experiment made in 1845-6, and from the data then furnished, it appears that cleansing upon such system would have come to an annual sum of 52,052l.

“It will be seen that there is a remarkable difference between this estimate of 52,052l. per annum and that of 18,000l. per annum estimated by the Association, and given in their Report of the 26th January, 1846; and what is more remarkable is, that my estimate is framed not upon any assumption of my own, but is a dry calculation based upon the very figures of expense furnished by the Association itself, and herein-before recited.”

A second demonstration, carried on in the City by the street-orderlies, is detailed by Mr. Haywood, but as he draws the same conclusions from it, there is no necessity to do other than allude to it here.

According to the above estimate, it certainly must be admitted that the difference between the two accounts is, as Mr. Haywood says, “remarkable”—the one being nearly three times more than the other. But let us, for fairness’ sake, test the cost of cleansing the City thoroughfares upon the continuous plan of scavaging by the figures given in Mr. Haywood’s own report, and see whether the above conclusion is warranted by the facts there stated. From June, 1846, to June, 1847, we have seen that several of the main streets in the City were cleansed continuously throughout the day by what were called “daymen”—that is to say, 47,000 superficial yards of the principal thoroughfares were kept clean (after the daily cleansing of them by the contractor’s men) by a body of men similar in their mode of operation to the street-orderlies, and who removed all the dirt as soon as deposited between the hours of the principal traffic. The cost of this experiment (for such it seems to have been) was, for the twelve months, as we have seen, 1528l. 18s. Now if the expense of cleansing 47,000 superficial yards upon the continuous method was 1529l., then, according to Cocker, 770,157 yards (the total area of the public ways of the City) would cost 25,054l.; and, adding to this 6328l. for the sum paid to the contractors for the daily scavaging, we have only 31,382l. for the gross expense of cleansing the whole of the City thoroughfares once a day by the “regular scavagers,” and keeping them clean afterwards by a body similar to the street-orderlies—a difference of upwards of 20,000l. between the facts and figures of the City Surveyor.

It would appear to me, therefore, that Mr. Haywood has erred, in estimating the probable expense of the street-orderly system of scavaging applied to the City at 52,000l. per annum, for, by his own showing, it actually cost the authorities for the one year when it was tried there, only 1529l. for 47,000 superficial yards, at which rate 770,000 yards could not cost more than 31,500l., and this, even allowing that the same amount of labour would be required for the continuous cleansing of the minor thoroughfares as was needed for the principal ones. That the error is an oversight on the part of the City Surveyor, the whole tone of his Report is sufficient to assure us, for it is at once moderate and candid.

It must, on the other hand, be admitted, that Mr. Haywood is perfectly correct as to the difference between the cost of the “demonstration” of the street-orderly system of cleansing in the City, and the estimated cost of that mode of scavaging when brought into regular operation there; this, however, the year’s experience of the City “daymen” shows, could not possibly exceed 32,000l., and might and probably would be much less, when we take into account the smaller quantity of labour required for the minor thoroughfares—the extra value of the street manure when collected free from mud—the saving in the expense of watering the streets (this not being required under the orderly system)—and the abolition of the daily scavaging, which is included in the sum above cited, but which would be no longer needed were the orderlies employed, such work being performed by them at the commencement of their day’s labours; so that I am disposed to believe, all things considered, that somewhere about 20,000l. per annum might be the gross expense of continuously cleansing the City. Mr. Cochrane estimates it at 18,000l. But whether the admitted superior cleanliness of the streets, and the employment of an extra number of people, will be held by the citizens to be worth the extra money, it is not for me to say. If, however, the increased cleanliness effected by the street-orderlies is to be brought about by a decrease of the wages of the regular scavagers from 16s. to 12s. a week, which is the amount upon which Mr. Cochrane forms his estimate, then I do not hesitate to say the City authorities will be gainers, in the matter of poor-rates at least, by an adherence to the present method of scavaging, paying as they do the best wages, and indeed affording an illustrious example to all the metropolitan parishes, in refusing to grant contracts to any master scavagers but such as consent to deal fairly with the men in their employ. And I do hope and trust, for the sake of the working-men, the City Commissioners of Sewers will, should they decide upon having the City cleansed continuously, make the same requirement of Mr. Cochrane, before they allow his street-orderlies to displace the regular scavagers at present employed there.

Benefits to the community, gained at the expense of “the people,” are really great evils. The street-orderly system is a good one when applied to parishes employing paupers and paying them 1s. 1½d. and a loaf per day, or even nothing, except their food, for their labour. Here it elevates paupers into independent labourers; but, applied to those localities where the highest wages are paid, and there is the greatest regard shown for the welfare of the workmen, it is merely a scurf-system of degrading the independent labourers to the level of paupers, by reducing the wages of the regular scavagers from 16s. to 12s. per week. The avowed object of the street-orderly system is to provide employment for able-bodied men, and so to prevent them becoming a burthen to the parish. But is not a reduction of the scavager’s wages to the extent of 25 per cent. a week, more likely to encourage than to prevent such a result? This is the weak point of the orderly system, and one which gentlemen calling themselves philanthropists should really blush to be parties to.

After all, the opinion to which I am led is this—the street-orderly system is incomparably the best mode of scavaging, and the payment of the men by “honourable” masters the best mode of employing the scavagers. The evils of the scavaging trade appear to me to spring chiefly from the parsimony of the parish authorities—either employing their own paupers without adequate remuneration, or else paying such prices to the contractors as almost necessitates the under-payment of the men in their employ. Were I to fill a volume, this is all that could be said on the matter.

Of the “Jet and Hose” System of Scavaging.

There appears at the present time a bent in the public mind for an improved system of scavagery. Until the ravages of the cholera in 1832, and again in 1848, roused the attention of Government and of the country, men seemed satisfied to dwell in dirty streets, and to congratulate themselves that the public ways were dirtier in the days of their fathers; a feeling or a spirit which has no doubt existed in all cities, from the days of those original scavagers, the vultures and hyenas of Africa and the East, the adjutants of Calcutta, and the hawks—the common glades or kites of this country—and which, we are told, in the days of Henry VIII. used to fly down among the passengers to remove the offal of the butchers and poulterers’ stalls in the metropolitan markets, and in consideration of which services it was forbidden to kill them—down to the mechanical sweeping of the streets of London, and even to Mr. Cochrane’s excellent street-orderlies.

Besides the plan suggested by Mr. Cochrane, whose orderlies cleanse the streets without wetting, and consequently without dirtying, the surface by the use of the watering-cart, there is the opposite method proposed by Mr. Lee, of Sheffield, and other gentlemen, who recommend street-cleansing by the hose and jet, that is to say, by flushing the streets with water at a high pressure, as the sewers are now flushed; and so, by washing rather than sweeping the dirt of the streets into the sewers, through the momentum of the stream of water, dispensing altogether with the scavager’s broom, shovel, and cart.

In order to complete this account of the scavaging of the streets of London, I must, in conclusion, say a few words on this method, advocated as it is by the Board of Health, and sanctioned by scientific men. By the application of a hose, with a jet or water pipe attached to a fire-plug, the water being at high pressure, a stream of fluid is projected along the street’s surface with force enough to wash away all before it into the sewers, while by the same apparatus it can be thrown over the fronts of the houses. This mode of street-cleansing prevails in some American cities, especially in Philadelphia, where the principal thoroughfares are said to be kept admirably clean by it; while the fronts of the houses are as bright as those in the towns of Holland, where they are washed, not by mechanical appliances, but by water thrown over them out of scoops by hand labour—one of the instances of the minute and indefatigable industry of the Dutch.

It is stated in one of the Reports of the Board of Health, that “unless cleansing be general and simultaneous, much of the dirt of one district is carried by traffic into another. By the subdivision of the metropolis into small districts, the duty of cleansing the public carriage-way is thrown upon a number of obscure and irresponsible authorities; while the duty of cleansing the public footways, which are no less important, are charged upon multitudes of private individuals.” [The grammar is the Board of Health’s grammar.] “It is a false pecuniary economy, in the case of the poorest inhabitants of court or alley, who obtain their livelihood by any regular occupation, to charge upon each family the duty of cleansing the footway before their doors. The performance of this service daily, at a rate of 1d. per week per house or per family, would be an economy in soap and clothes to persons the average value of whose time is never less than 2d. per hour.” [This is at the rate of 2s. a day; did this most innocent Board never hear of work yielding 1s. 6d. a week? But the sanitary authorities seem to be as fond as teetotallers of “going to extremes.”]

In another part of the same Report the process and results are described. It is also stated that for the success of this method of street purification the pavement must be good; for “a powerful jet, applied by the hose, would scoop out hollows in unpaved places, and also loosen and remove the stones in those that are badly paved.” As every public place ought to be well-paved, this necessity of new and good pavement is no reasonable objection to the plan, though it certainly admits of a question as to the durability of the roads—the macadamized especially—under this continual soaking. Sir Henry Parnell, the great road authority, speaks of wet as the main destroyer of the highways.

It is stated in the Report, after the mention of experiments having been made by Mr. Lovick, Mr. Hale, and Mr. Lee (Mr. Lee being one of the engineering inspectors of the Board), that

“Mr. Lovick, at the instance of the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, conducted his experiments with such jets as could be obtained from the water companies’ mains in eligible places; but the pressure was low and insufficient. Nevertheless, it appeared that, taking the extra quantity of water required at the actual expense of pumping, the paved surfaces might be washed clean at one-half the price of the scavagers’ manual labour in sweeping. Mr. Lee’s trials were made at Sheffield, with the aid of a more powerful and suitable pressure, and he found that with such pressure as he obtained the cleansing might be effected in one-third the time, and at one-third the usual expense, of the scavagers’ labour of sweeping the surface with the broom.” [This expense varies, and the Board nowhere states at what rate it is computed; the scavagers’ wages varying 100 per cent.]

“The effect of this mode of cleansing in close courts and streets,” it is further stated, “was found to be peculiarly grateful in hot weather. The water was first thrown up and diffused in a thin sheet, it was then applied rapidly to cleansing the surface and the side walls, as well as the pavements.” Mr. Lovick states that the immediate effect of this operation was to lower the temperature, and to produce a sense of freshness, similar to that experienced after a heavy thunder-shower in hot weather. But there is nothing said as to the probable effect of this state of things in winter—a hard frost for instance. The same expedient was resorted to for cooling the yards and outer courts of hospitals, and the shower thrown on the windows of the wards afforded great relief. Mr. Lovick, in his Report on the trial works for cleansing courts, states:—

“The importance of water as an agent in the improvement and preservation of health being in proportion to the unhealthiness or depressed condition of districts, its application to close courts and densely-populated localities, in which a low sanitary condition must obtain, is of primary importance. Having shown the practicability of applying this system (cleansing by jets of water) to the general cleansing of the streets, my further labours have been, and are now, directed to this end.

“For the purpose of ascertaining the effect produced by operations of this nature upon the atmosphere, two courts were selected: Church-passage, New Compton-street, open at both ends, with a carriage-way in the centre, and footway on each side; and Lloyd’s-court, Crown-street, St. Giles’s, a close court, with, at one entrance, a covered passage about 40 feet in length: both courts were in a very filthy condition; in Church-passage there were dead decaying cats and fish, with offal, straw, and refuse scattered over the surface; at one end an entrance to a private yard was used as a urinal; in every part there were most offensive smells.

“Lloyd’s-court was in a somewhat similar condition, the covered entrance being used as a general urinal, presenting a disgusting appearance; the whole atmosphere of the court was loaded with highly-offensive effluvia; in the covered entrance this was more particularly discernible.

“The property of water, as an absorbent, was rendered strikingly apparent in the immediate and marked effects of its application, a purity and freshness remarkably contrasted to the former close and foul condition prevailing throughout. A test of this, striking and unexpected, was the change at different periods in the relative condition of atmosphere of the courts and of the contiguous streets. In their ordinary condition, as might have been expected, the atmosphere was purer in the streets than in the courts; it was to be inferred that the cleansing would have more nearly assimilated these conditions. This was not only the case, but it was found to have effected a complete change; the atmosphere of the courts at the close of the operations being far fresher and purer than the atmosphere of the streets. The effect produced was in every respect satisfactory and complete; and was the theme of conversation with the lookers-on, and with the men who conducted the operations.

“The expense of these operations, including water, would be, for—

“Church-passage (time, five minutes), 1½d.

“Lloyd’s-court (time, ten minutes), 3¼d.

“Mr. Hale, another officer, gave a similar statement.”

Other experiments are thus detailed:—

“Lascelles-court, Broad-street, St. Giles’s. This court was pointed out to me as one of the worst in London. Before cleansing it smelt intolerable,” [sic] “and looked disgusting. Besides an abundance of ordinary filth arising from the exposure of refuse, the surface of the court contained heaps of human excrement, there being only one privy to the whole court, and that not in a state to be publicly used.... The cleansing operations were commenced by sprinkling the court with deodorising fluid, mixed with 20 times its volume of water; a great change, from a very pungent odour to an imperceptible smell, was immediately effected; after which the refuse of the court was washed away, and the pavement thoroughly cleansed by the hose and jet; and now this place, which before was in a state almost indescribable, presented an appearance of comparative comfort and respectability.”

It is stated as the result of another experiment in “an ordinary wide street with plenty of traffic,” that “water-carts and ordinary rains only create the mud which the jet entirely removes, giving to the pavement the appearance of having been as thoroughly cleansed as the private stone steps in front of the houses.”

With respect to Mr. Lee’s experiments in Sheffield, I find that Messrs. Guest, of Rotherham, are patentees of a tap for the discharge of water at high pressures, and that they had adapted their invention to the purpose of a fire-plug and stand pipe suitable for street-cleansing by the hose and jet. Church-street, one of the principal thoroughfares, was experimentally cleansed by this process: “The carriage-way is from 20 to 24 feet wide, and about 150 yards long. It was washed almost as clean as a house-floor in five minutes.” Mr. Lee expresses his conviction that, by the agency of the hose and jet, every street in that populous borough might be cleansed at about 1s. per annum for each house. “The principal thoroughfares,” he states, “could be thus made perfectly clean, three times every week, before business hours, and the minor streets and lanes twice, or once per week, at later hours in the day, by the agency of an abundant supply of water, at less than half the sum necessary for the cartage alone of an equal quantity of refuse in a solid or semi-fluid condition.”

The highways most frequented in Sheffield constitute about one-half of the whole extent of the streets and roads in the borough, measuring 47 miles. This length, Mr. Lee computes, might be effectually cleansed with the hose and jet, ten miles of it three times a week, 21 miles twice a week, and 16 miles once a week, a total of 88 miles weekly, or 4576 miles yearly. The quantity of Water required would be 3000 gallons a mile, or a yearly total of 13,728,000 gallons. This water might be supplied, Mr. Lee opines, at 1d. per 1000 gallons (57l. 4s. per annum), although the price obtained by the Water-works Company was 6½d. per 1000 gallons (371l. 16s. per annum). “I now proceed,” he says, “to the cost of labour: 4576 miles per annum is equal to 14⅔ miles for each working day, or to six sets of two men cleansing 2½ miles per day each set. To these must be added three horses and carts, and three carters, for the removal of such débris as cannot be washed away and for such parts of the town as cannot be cleansed by this system, making a total of fifteen men. Their wages I would fix at 50l. per annum each. The estimate is as follows:—