The drainage and sewerage of Bombay : being a report submitted to the Bench of Justices of that city / by their Executive Engineer Hector Tulloch.

  • Tulloch, Hector.
Date:
1872
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The drainage and sewerage of Bombay : being a report submitted to the Bench of Justices of that city / by their Executive Engineer Hector Tulloch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    consideration of a sewerage scheme for a town need not be liampered by the question of the removal of the night-soil. Whether the night-soil is thrown into the sewers, whether it is carried into them by the water-closet system, or whether it is excluded from them altogether, the town must have a sewerage system. But as it would be all the better for that system if tlie question of the removal of the night-soil were considered simultaneously with it, the engineer is bound to state his views on the subject. Not being an advocate for the present Halalcore System, I will point out the great objections to it. In the first place, the night-soil is removed only once a day —between half-past four and eight in the morning. It is clear, therefore, that a large quantity of the filthiest matter must lie about from nine to eighteen hours ot the day, giving out the foulest exhalations. To satisfy oneself that this is the case, it is only necessary to visit the gullies at the backs of the houses at any hour after the sweepers have done their work. It will be found that every privy has more or less ordure in it awaiting- removal. Can it be conducive to the well-being of the people to keep excrement in the precincts ot their dwellings all the day long ? In the second place, it is impossible to remove all the night- soil from a privy by hand. Theoretically, the halalcore sweeps up all he finds ; but, practically, a sufficient quantity is left behind to create as great a nuisance as before. In order to prove this to one's satisfaction, it is only necessary to visit the gullies at that hour—say nine in the morning—when every privy ought to be clean and inoflPensive ; when, in fact, it has just been swept and made clean by the halalcores. My experience is that the privies are very little less off'ensive at this time than at any other. The very processes of sweeping and removing such foul matters create and intensify the nuisance which they are intended to prevent. In the third place, I am of opinion that the back slums