16

he works—that is, his architectural surroundings—will
tone down any too strongly developed tendency to real-
ism. Why, even our foe, the frock-coated gentleman,
might not pose amiss when twisted into a miserere or a
gargoyle.
Such are the few thoughts that seem to me to be im-
portant to us sculptors at the
present day, and their im-
portance to us means importance to the nation at large,
for if art is to be of any use at all it must be in touch
with the nation. As Mr. Frederick Harrison has lately
said, when speaking of the great Gothic period of art and
the memorials it has left to us : “These vast temples are
the creations of
generations of
men,
and the embodiment
of entire epochs, and he who would know the middle
ages should study in detail every carved figure, every
painted window, each canopy, each relief, each
portal in
Amiens or Chatres, Rheims, Bourges, Lincoln or Salis-
bury, and he will find revealed to him more than he can
read in a thousand books.”
DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE FROM ISOLATED DWELL.
INGS.
IT
is a very difficult matter nowadays to dispose of
sewage from country houses with a due regard to
modern sanitary requirements. Our forefathers found
no trouble in the
matter, for they regarded the smell of
fermenting animal matter as one of those things that
had to be borne, like the east wind, if indeed they did
aver that it was actually healthful. They established a
midden at the bottom of the garden, and somewhere
nearer the house they dug a cess-pool, connected
by a surface
gutter with the scullery. All the slops were
carried out in buckets and poured into the drain, after
which, on the principle of “out of sight, out of mind,”
no further consideration was given them. As a rule
they leaked into the soil, and it was fortunate, if they
did not gain access to the well, to eventually spread the
attacks of low and typhus fever which used to periodi-
cally break out in our country places. There
were, how-
ever, two saving features in this system. There were no
water closets to dilute this mass of sewage; indeed, when
all the water had to be raised from a well and carried in
buckets, the amount used for all purposes was compara-
tively small. In the absence of water closets and fixed
baths, there were no pipes inside the house to conduct
deleterious gases
into the various apartments, and a
great danger which now exists was avoided. The prog-
ress of science and increase of refinement have now
caused the midden to be looked upon as an abomination
by the middle and upper classes, and it has been almost
universally replaced by some other arrangement in their
dwellings. A kind of compromise has been found in
the “earth closet” or “pail” system, which is
very widely
used in some of the large towns in the north, as well as
in the country. If this be well installed and
managed
with great care, it has a great deal to recommend it—at
least in theory. In practice the results are often un-
pleasant, and users are always glad to replace it by the
water-borne system of sewage disposal. As a matter of
fact a house that is not fitted with water closets cannot
be regarded as fulfilling the domestic requirements of
our times, and its value for letting or selling is sensibly
lessened.
It is a comparatively easy matter to provide a house
with efficient means of delivering its sewage beyond its
precincts. The difficulty is to know what to do with it
in the absence of a main drainage system into which it
can be turned. If there is a a stream near, the tempta-
tion to pollute it is very strong, but fortunately the law is
generally stronger still. The most obvious device is a
cess-pool, and it is one that can be made to act fairly well
for a short time. But with the lavish employment of
water for bathing and washing now customary, a cess-pool
is filled in a week or
two, and then comes the difficulty
of emptying it and disposing of its contents. By this
time they are putrid and foul smelling, and must be dug
into the ground, or distributed
very widely over meadow
land at a distance from the dwelling. In any case a
temporary nuisance is created, and this recurs so often
as to become practically continuous. The only condi-
tions under which a tight cess-pool can be successfully
employed are : That it shall be a considerable distance
from the house, that there shall be plenty of land avail-
able, that labor shall be cheap, and that the householder
shall not mind exposing his servants to risks that he ob-
jects to run himself.
Of course nine-tenths of the difficulties can be avoided
if the cess-pool be leaky; but such a condition is in flat
contradiction to all accepted sanitary rules. This is
however, one form of leaky cess-pool which is quite ad-
missible, and when the configuration of the ground per-
mits its use, it furnishes a fairly satisfactory solution of
the sewage problem. If the foul liquid can be distributed
through a large mass of porous earth, it is dealt with in
a natural way, and rapidly oxidized by the
agency
of a
certain class of beneficent bacteria. The necessary con-
ditions are that there should be ample time and
oppor-
tunity between each application of sewage for air to
penetrate to every portion of the soil that has been fouled,
to support the organizations which
carry on the process
of nitrification. Now, in a leaky cess-pool this does not
usually occur,
for the liquid is constantly dribbling
away,
and the earth it traverses becomes “sewage sick,”
and unable to deal with it. To avoid this, the best
method is to substitute for the usual cistern an automatic
flushing tank, which will empty itself two or more
times a day. The tank discharges into a series of
gar-
den or field drains laid as near the surface as possible,
not deeper than twelve inches, along which the
liquid
rushes, a little escaping at each pipe joint. These drains,
if laid in a fairly porous soil, never become water logged,
and they form passages through which the air can readily
flow. Indeed, care should be taken to provide them
with ventilating openings. A meadow, or an orchard,
is the most convenient place to lay such drains, as then
they will not be interfered with by plowing or digging.
This system would be practically perfect for most
country
houses of moderate size, were it not that it is
essential to remove all solids and glutinous particles
from the sewage to prevent them choking the drains.
This involves some kind of catch chamber —it may be a
tank to be emptied at intervals, or a perforated bucket
that can be cleansed daily. In either case there
is a very disagreeable operation to be performed by some-
body, and a
temporary nuisance. Still there are thou-
sands of families that are quite resigned to
put up
with
this evil, and also with a cess-pool that leaks to they know
not wr here, but most probably under the foundations of
their home. It is a great advantage to be able to direct
the leakage into perfectly innocuous channels where the
organic matter will be rapidly oxidized to organic ni-
trates. There are, however, many instances where even
this simple system cannot be carried out. Take the case
of the villa built on its half acre of flat land just beyond
the limits of the sewage system of the town to which it
is nominally connected. There is not sufficient fall to
admit of the use of an automatic
flushing tank, while a
moderate sized tank will fill the
cess-pool of six feet cube
in ten days. Pumping must then be resorted to. If
there is a well on the premises the only safe method is
243
THE SOUTHERN ARCHITECT.