EARTH CLOSETS.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIII, Issue 3019, 30 March 1867, Page 6

EARTH CLOSETS.

We have been pleased to find that the Town Board ai o sufficiently alive to the immense importance of introducing measures to prevent the dire mischief to health caused by the want of a deodorizing agent, to supply which they hare directed " earth closets" to be used. The very great want of sanitary measures in this respect has been long felt, for little doubt has existed in the minds of intelligent men that a source of malignant diseases has for a long time existed in Wellington, and to remove which no attempt whatever had been made, till it had become a disgrace to the community at large. The eradication of this evil has, however, now, thanks to the Town Board, been determined upon, and we gladly hail the first steps in that direction. While the subject was under the consideration of the Board, an offer was made to them to supply *' charcoal duat" at a certain price for the same purpose. That charcoal is, in the words of a distinguished chemist, "by far the cheapest and best disinfectant," few will deny,|nor will any one hesitate to acknowledge the wonderful power it hat of absorbing, and, by oxidation, destroying noxious effluvia of all kinds, and consequently arises its imm«nse value as a purifier of air and water, not only arresting putrefaction but even restoring what has already become putrid. The uninitiated in these matters would do well to peruie oarefully an article in Enquire Within on •• Charcoal as a Disinfectant," where, among other inferences from the established facts stated, Dr. Sfcenhouae says •—" If our soldiers and sailors, therefore, when placed in unhealthy iituations, were furnished with charcoal respirators, and if the floors of the tents and the lower decks of the ships were covered by a thin layer of freshly burnt wood charcoal, I think we could have little in future to apprehend from the ravages of th« cholera, yellow f evei , and similar diseases, by which our forces have of late been decimated." That ao valuable a preservative of health should be largely, and in numerous ways, used by all who know its intrinsic value, is but a necessary result ; and we find that, among other methods of application, are its use in hospitals, where in a powdered state it is 'set about in pans, purifying the atmosphere cren of the dissecting roomj its power of purifying water in filtration ; its great importance in cookery, in sweetening tainted meat, freshening vegetables, &c. ; its value as a respirator, arresting as it does all poisonous gases which would otherwise exercise their deleterious properties upon the lungs, and so injure the system. These and many others may be called the common every-day applications of the great disinfecting and deodorizing principle of charcoal. As regards its use in the manner under consideration, it remains to add, that latterly common earth has been found by experience of peculiar efficacy when used for a similar purpose. As every one will readily see, it is an agent which has this great and important advantage — that nature has placed it at hand to every one. Now " charcoal dust" is pomposed of carbonized earth, te the extent.'of two- thirds ; and the remaining one-third of wood-charcoal ; consequently it has the merit of combining the advantages of the two deodorizers under consideration. While earth may be said to imprison noxious exhalations, charcoal does more, by destroying them 5 consequently the inference is obvious : )f earth is a good deodorizer in its natural state, much greater must its powers be when to a great extent carbonized and mixed with a proportion of wood charcoal. The subject claims the earnest consideration of every inhabitant of Wellington, for unless each one puts his Bhonlder to the wheel, the Town Board's measures will have but a partial effect, in arresting the baneful practice which, till lately, has been too general. — Wellington Independent.