Dirty Dustbins and Sloppy Streets

itants; wet, and muddy, badly formed, ill-drained streets, cause dampness in the subsoil of the dwelling-houses in the vicinity, and a humidity in the atmosphere, both of which ten

ppings or other organic impurities. Professor Tyndall, in his beautiful experiments, has proved that dusty air is alive with the germs of the bacteria of putrefaction, whilst the pure fresh air which he gathered on a mountain peak[47] in the

includes any highway (not being a turnpike road), and any public bridge (not being a county bridg

reement with the Trustees of any turnpike road, or with the Surveyor of any county bridge,

which are not repairable by the Urban Authority should be borne by them, although for th

dirty habits of the people, and this filth it is found exceedingly difficult to dislodge. The remedy for this is to compel the owners of the abutting properties to have the courts and alleys properly paved with asphalte, or other equally impervious material, after which it would be easy for the Urban Authority to cause them to be swept at least once

the contents of these receptacles has been removed. In most cases it is necessary to cleanse the principal streets of a town at least once a day, and this appears to be the practice of nearly all the ninety towns referred to, but only seven of them appear to have this operation repeated more frequently; in several cases, however, the horse droppings, &c., are removed at once, under what is called the "orderly" system, and this is especially necessary in s

nt of time and as a general rule the value of a horse rotary brush-sweeping machine is undoubted, the only time at which such a[50] machine fails to do effective work is on the occasions when the mud to be removed (owing to a peculi

he rotary brush, which is divided into four or more parts, works diagonally, it is drawn easily by one horse, clearing itself of mud or dust in its progress, a

at a more moderate figure. It is, of course, necessary to sweep the ridge of dust or mud which is left by the machine at the side of the street into heaps by hand labour,[51] and to remove it by carts; other machines have been invented for cleansing streets, which by means of elevators, or other

hine, which is drawn by one horse, and which will, they say, s

for the work of sweeping the streets is of some importance, as affecting the ul

not old, dry, and brittle, each knot should be of uniform size and be firmly set, and the number of knots in each broom head is also a matter of choice. A convenient and fair test of the s

various forms and descriptions of pavements, climatic influence introduces a rather disturbing element, which may seriously affect any conclusions that may be drawn; it may, however, be taken for granted that a street, the surface of which is metalled on the macadam principle with stones of a soft or gritty character, will require more

f, and the state of repair and gradient of the street are both of considerable importance in affecting the results, the practice too, of bringing out the house refuse into the streets in improp

ained some valuable information on these points, which he has detailed in a report he presented

5

00 YARDS SUPERFICIAL OF DIFFERENT DESCRIPT

When paved. Condition of rep

es swept in one month. Gross cost per 1

Yds. supr.

{ Gra

77 Very good 4,503

1872 Good 3,287

. { Gr

2 and 1874 Bad 5,150

y Rd.

76 Very good 11,980

1877 Good 16,86

r St. {

cert-ainable Moderate 15

. { Mac

o Good 14,540

Ditto Bad 16,534

5

f manure obtained from each description of carriageway is not readily ascertainable. In dry weather the value of manure collected from granite setts, with or without impervious joints, is about equal, but when the sweepings are wet, and consequently of little value for sale, the quantity yielded by the ordinary pervious jointed pavement is greater than from the impervious, and therefore the total value is relatively favourable to the latter class, whilst to get rid of the sweepings from macadamised streets is a source of additional expense. H

of a macadamised roadway, being principally composed of silicat

st be got rid of in the most economical and speedy manner, and this is effected either by filling up old disused quarries with it, or depositing it upon waste lands, or forming embankments for new roads, but in no case should it be used, as I have before stated, upon building sites; it is difficult and exp

d six a.m. in the summer months and four and seven in the winter. This work in connection with the col

ipts derived by the municipality from this source have greatly diminished. At the present time it is disposed

nterest, especially with regard to the use of disinfectants, which are largely used in that city in connection with the

one group being sub-divided into three sections, each under the charge of an executive engineer, and the other into five sections similarly supervised. These sectional engineers have under them 51 superintendents and 61 overseers, whose em

] used for fish, poultry, and offal. At a strength of one-eighth, and mixed with three per cent. of sulphate of copper, sulphate of zinc makes a good disinfecting liquor, which preserves its qualities a long time, and is of great use in private houses. Carbolic acid is not, strictly speaking, a disinfectant; it does not act like chloride on putrid matter, but it arrests and prevents fermentation, doubtless by destroying the spores, it is, therefore, always employed when it is desired to destroy the germs of putrid fermentation. It is used at a strength of about one-fortieth, say a gallon of acid to 40 gallons of water. At strengths of one-one hundredth and one-two hundredth it gives good results for watering once or twice a week in summer those parts of the "Halle