573
Attempt to
separate
12
To attempt to separate the rain water from this sewage, in the mau drainage of Mr. COOPER proposes (and has already obliged my firm to construct) by a continuous open channel, running from house to house and discharging into the street channels, will be impossible to work in practice.
hack yards
by open
gutters impracticable
Description of Chinese houses.
Refuse from upper floors of Chinese houses.
Roofs of Chinese houses.
Mr. Chadwick gives
The Surveyor General describes this proposal in the following words:- His roof drainage and the rain which falls upon his back yard may in most cases be allowed to escape over the surface through gutters into the side channels and thence into the nearest of the numerous street gratings which everywhere communicate with the storm-water drains.”
Chinese houses are usually built in blocks, and to drain, by an open channel through the division walls, would cause endless trouble. Should a stoppage of only a few minutes take place, in a division wall towards the end of a long line of houses, the ground floors of these houses would be flooded, and this, with the tropical showers we sometimes get here, such as 9 inches in five hours, and 5 inches in three hours, would not take many minutes, a few leaves on sticks might be sufficient.
The damage to merchandice, which is always stored on the ground floor of every Chinese house, would be very large, and the Chinese would naturally resent any such system, and block up the openings in the division walls on the higher side of their yards; surreptitiously making some rough drain connecting with the pipe sewer. This when once effected would be very hard to discover.
The use of the back yards by an open drain would be strongly opposed by the tenants. Each house may be a separate property and it has never been the custom to insert any easement clauses in conditions of sale.
I may mention that I have consulted several Chinese, who are large owners of property, and their opinion is very strong against anything in the nature of a continuous open channel in back yards.
With the exception of the back yards, the whole of Chinese property is covered by the houses and the kitchens (which are usually 6 feet deep). The number of stories vary from two to four. The more valuable neighbourhood has houses with the greater munber of stories. Each story is usually subdivided by an intermediate floor, the subdivision is caused by the old and also the New Building Ordinance, which fix the thickness of walls for each story, instead of for the height of the building. Plans are therefore first made for a three storied house; each story being made high enough, to allow of subdivision after they are completed.
Access is gained to the kitchens in the upper floors (in those houses which possess back yards) by bridges, each of which takes 5 feet off the area of the back yard open to the sky. From this bridge, the dirty water and refuse are thrown into the back yard. the down pipes from the kitchens generally being choked or removed. It must be borne in mind that each floor is usually let separately, there being no stairs down the back of the houses.
Even the roofs are very generally used for various purposes, such as drying and curing of fish, manufacturing various articles of food, dyeing and bleaching of goods, and the immense amount of manufactures which require light and air. Latrines on the roof are common, and the usual connection for the urinal of each floor is the down pipe from the roof.
The minute description and careful plans given by Mr. CHADWICK of Chinese description houses, show, very forcibly, the difficulty of attempting any such refinements and plans of of sanitary science as the Separate System involves.
Chinese houses Drainage
from Janes
The lanes and streets, dividing the houses, are also very narrow and a and streets. large amount of dirty water and refuse is thrown into the streets, and consequently
finds its way into the drains. Mr. CHADWICK remarks:--
Streets
in a dirty condition.
"Washing and other domestic operations are conducted on the side
walks."
The multifarious occupations, all necessitating the production of refuse necessarily and garbage, which are carried on in a Chinese Street would astonish the stranger, unaccustomed to the modes and habits of Chinese life; the consequence being, that the streets are necessarily in a dirty condition, and to allow the washings from these streets and lanes into drains, suitable for rain water only and unprovided with ventilators, would of itself very soon cause a nuisance.
Sir ROBERT RAWLINSON 8ays :---
13---
Sir Robert
on duplicate
"The duplicate systems of sewers are seldom required. The sewer proper Rawlinson would then be without the flushing and cleansing given by the roof water during falls of rain and the washing off land, ditches, roads, and gutters during the rate of "first falls of heavy rains would in many cases be as polluted and polluting as the
in the true sewers."
sewage
sewers.
water from
In a paper printed in the Minutes of the Institution of Civil Engineers on Opinion that the sewering of Towns on the Separate System by Mr. A. E. WHITE, the following of and remark occurs :-----
16
しら
back yards should not be separated
"It probably is necessary in almost all cases (in order to avoid an from sewage. unreasonably complicated arrangement of branch drains) to admit the water from back roofs and back yards to the sewers, even where there are separate drains for surface water."
earrying out
From the remarks above on the construction and working of Chinese Difficulty of houses, I trust I have shown how very difficult it is, even with the present the Separate Combined System, to effect the drainage of tenements. The Separate System of System. drainage is a refinement which most towns, even at home, shrink froni adopting, and which the Chinese are utterly unsuited for. I have shewn that there cannot be, in purely Chinese districts, any rainfall which would not be polluted, and the remarks of Sir ROBERT RAWLINSON on this head are greatly to the point. Therefore, if the rain water drain is liable to pollution, it immediately becomes a sewer, and the carrying out of the Separate System would only mean providing two sets of sewers.
the cause of
As the question of house drains has been but briefly mentioned in House drains Mr. COOPER'S report, I will only add my testimony to the badness of their not entirely construction and design, speaking generally, but to:-"Attribute the chief cause complaint.
of foul eminations from the main sewers opening in the streets and elsewhere
to the house drains, is hardly fair; as the main sewers are also very defective in places, and practically unprovided with any system of ventilation.
The course adopted for some years has been, that, wherever foul gas was complained of trapping the street gullies was resorted to, thus reducing even the small amount of ventilation that existed, instead of constructing proper ventilators.
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I again quote from Sir ROBERT RAWLINSON :----
to sewers the
"If sewer air at any ventilator or any other point should be offensive, Ventilation additional means for ventilation on this sewer are required, and should remedy. as soon as possible be supplied. Trapping should not be resorted to in any case."
destroyed
My general experience is, that very few traps laid down in Chinese houses Traps are allowed to remain intact. My firm has within the last few years laid down by Chinese. in new Chinese houses some hundreds of cast iron traps, and I will undertake to prove that nearly all the gratings are broken, and the bottom of the traps knocked out. The custom being to make the house drains take refuse of every description, such as vegetable matter, fruit skins, &c., the traps at once become choked and the blame is laid on them. Quite recently I discovered in a first class Chinese house, the cast iron trap laid down by my firm about four months before had been removed, and a grating of exactly similar pattern on top, but with a plain connection to the sewer had been substituted, the trap having no doubt caused trouble and inconvenience.
should be
From the above remarks, and my experience generally, which would be House drains borne out by any person interested in and acquainted with Chinese property, simple. it is plain that any house drain and connection must be of the most simple character, and in no case permitted inside the dwelling house.
traps.
If the main sewers in the streets and lanes are thoroughly well ventilated. Suggestion I would go so far as to say that for the purely Chinese districts, it would be well to use no for the Government to recognize the above facts, and not to attempt any thing. in the nature of traps, but to enforce the construction of good pipe connections
ends. properly jointed with strong iron gratings at the open
conveyed
The drainage, with the rapid discharge, owing to the steep gradients of the Drainage streets, the short distance to the sea by adopting numerous outfalls, and the absence of focal matter, would not have time to decompose, therefore, with the to the sea. sewers fully ventilated, no absolute necessity for trapping is required.
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