CHAPTER VI.

The Commencement of Scientific Investigation.

Quite early in the last century scientists had been led to think something of the chemistry of the soil, but many years were yet to elapse before any attention was to be devoted to the scientific disposal of sewage, in relation to which, in some way, the soil plays an important part. For several years, however, ere the matter was taken up by the Government, it had been the subject of inquiry by a few interested and scientifically disposed persons, who ultimately succeeded in making their opinions heard.

Early Commissions of Inquiry.

It was not until 1857 that the Government of the day was induced to appoint a Commission to inquire into the best mode of distributing the sewage of towns and applying it to beneficial and profitable uses. No very satisfactory results being the outcome, a Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1862 “to inquire into the best means of utilising the sewage of our cities and towns, with a view to the reduction of local taxation and the benefit of agriculture," thus indicating the importance which sewage had been discovered to possess agriculturally. A second Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1864 to inquire into any plans for dealing with the sewage of the Metropolis and other large towns, with a view to its utilisation for agricultural purposes.

Towns on the banks of rivers and streams, and on the sea coasts, at first discharged their water-borne sewage directly therein, and the state into which rivers and streams were brought by the discharge of this crude matter into them led to scientific investigation being directed to the discovery of some means which should obviate their pollution, and, as a result of the Government taking cognisance of the matter, the first Royal Commission was appointed in 1865 to inquire into the best means of preventing this pollution of rivers. This was followed by a second Roval Commission in 1868. As a result of this investigation it was reported that "rivers

which had received sewage, even if that sewage had been purified before its discharge, were not safe sources of potable water."

So important was the subject considered that in 1868 another Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into and report upon the operation and administration of the sanitary laws of places outside the Metropolis, and also included sewage disposal within the scope of the investigations. Yet again, in 1875, the then President of the Local Government Board appointed a committee to inquire into the several modes of treating town sewage. This was followed by the Royal Commission of 1882, to inquire into and report upon the system under which sewage was discharged into the Thames by the Metropolitan Board of Works, whether any evil effects resulted therefrom, and, in that case, what remedies could be applied for remedying or preventing the same. Ever since 1847 London had been discharging its crude water-borne sewage into the Thames, and in hot weather its vicinity became almost unbearable at low tide. Indeed, it was to the hot summer of 1858, and to the neighbourhood of the Houses of Parliament to the Thames, that we are indebted for the Victoria Embankment. "The noble river, " said Mr. Disraeli, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, so long our pride and joy, which has hitherto been associated with the noblest feats of our commerce and the most beautiful passages of our poetry, has really become a Stygian pool, reeking with inevitable and intolerable horrors." And so the Houses, anxious to get away from the river, hastily passed the scheme which eventually developed into the Embankment.

The general conclusions of these Commissions had been that sewage could only be properly purified by land treatment, and as a consequence it has been usual to require local authorities to adopt land treatment, with the result that the requirements" of the Local Government Boards up to 1908 were that installations for " treating " and " disposing " of water-carried sewage and storm water should be large enough to deal fully with three times the average amount of the dry

weather flow," and less fully with a further equal volume of sewage; and this practically involved the use of land as a sine qua non. In May, 1898, the fifth and present Royal Commission was appointed. In 1901 there was issued the first and interim Report, chiefly dealing with the use of land for sewage purification, and which embodied the opinion that there are cases in which the Local Government Boards would

be justified in modifying, under proper safeguards, the abovementioned requirement as regards the application of sewage to land.

In the same Report it was also pointed out that at the time of the earlier Commissions the science of bacteriology was in its infancy; that since they reported, a large amount of exact knowledge had been gained concerning the part played by bacteria in various processes of nature, and under conditions unthought of by man; and that consequently the Commissioners conceived it their duty to study the various questions connected with sewage disposal, not only from a chemical but from a bacteriological point of view.

Practical Results of the Fifth Royal Commission.

This Commission was appointed by the Government on May 7, 1898, briefly to inquire into and report on :-(1) (a) What method or methods of sewage treatment may properly be adopted? (b) If more than one method may be adopted, by what rules should the particular method of treatment be determined? (2) To make any recommendations which may be deemed desirable, having in view the existing law on public health. (3) Economy and efficiency.

When these pages were written, the Commissioners were still sitting, and carrying on a work the objective of which is second to none in its influence on public health. During the existence of the Commission, and up to the writing of these pages, the Commissioners have issued seven voluminous Reports and several Appendices, full of data and information of the highest value to all engaged in sewage treatment and disposal, the results of hearing the evidence of several civil engineers, surveyors, bacteriologists, chemists, and others who have made a special study of that science, and of experiments made on behalf of the Commission.

The writer, speaking in a few words of the results of this work, feels he cannot do better than repeat what he said on a previous occasion in relation thereto:-" The Report, in so far as it throws fresh light on the solution of the problem, is in many respects somewhat disappointing, but, on the other hand, it possesses one or two surprising features. In one way it may be said to do no more than corroborate and lend the weight of the decision of a Royal Commission to the opinions already held by several prominent men who have laboured to elucidate some of the mysteries surrounding the satisfactory treatment of sewage; in another it somewhat

depreciates methods which have within recent years been brought into prominence. Yet, the further the Report is looked into the more its value is realised, and the fact appreciated that the decade of the Commission's existence has not been spent in vain. One result has been the modification of the up to then inflexible requirements of the Local Government Boards relating to the construction of sewage. treatment installations."'*

* "Some Features of the Fifth Report of the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal (1908)," in Journal of the Royal Sanitary Institute, February, 1909.

CHAPTER VII.

The Water-Carriage of Sewage.

Increase in sanitary knowledge in the latter half of the nineteenth century brought in its train gradual improvement in the methods employed in the collection, treatment and disposal of the sewage of communities, and especially was this so in the case of some large towns. The storage of excrementitious matter, on conservancy principles, in towns came to be looked upon as a highly insanitary procedure, and one productive of considerable danger to the public health. Advanced sanitarians of those days conceived the idea that water-carriage through conduits could be usefully employed in getting rid of the night soil from the precincts of houses, and then discharging their contents in the best available manner away from towns. Some of those towns situated on the banks of rivers, or on the sea coast, seemed to possess suitable facilities for this purpose, and some few of them first took advantage of water-carriage.

Drains and Sewers.

Essential features of this system are house water-closets connected with drain-pipes running therefrom, and thence to the general town sewerage system. At first neither pipedrains nor sewers were constructed with that care which is now considered to be an essential feature of the proper execution of the work. Both drains and sewers were then usually constructed of bricks, and the former especially were generally much too large for their purpose; and when earthenware pipe drains came into vogue, and any joints were made, clay was used for the purpose, becoming leaky in most cases not long after they were made. It was many years before the present method of making the joints air and water tight, by the employment of cement, came into general and then into compulsory use.

Discharge of Crude Sewage into Neighbouring Waters.

Many towns which were situated on the sea coast, or on the bank of rivers and estuaries, looked upon their positions as eminently suitable for speedily and easily getting rid of their