The greatest comfort and convenience of modern dwellings is the source of some of the housekeeper's worst anxieties; and a sufficient knowledge of plumbing apparatus to be able to keep it from giving trouble, or to diagnose the malady, if symptoms appear, and have the proper remedy applied, is a valuable possession, for all plumbing apparatus is liable to derangements, more or less serious, at frequent intervals.

The horrors of sewer-gas have been sounded in the ears of the public for many years with so much energy, not to say exaggeration, that every one has some idea of the ways in which it is kept out of a house, and can speak with reasonable intelligence of waste-pipes, traps, soil-pipes and drains, sewers and cesspools, and knows something also, probably, of the system of supply-pipes by which water is brought into the house, and distributed to the various fixtures.

Of the two main divisions of the science of plumbing, that which concerns the drainage system should first be considered, including the sewer or cesspool which forms the termination of the system. Fortunately for the inhabitants of cities, sewers do not often give the housekeeper any concern, except as they may occasionally overflow during high tides, or after heavy showers, or furnish a passage for rats into the basement. As rats are good swimmers, they find little difficulty in ascending the sewers and house-drains, diving through the traps, and coming up into the house through the bowl of a basement water-closet; and if a sewer overflows, or is obstructed, it is by the same path that the water will find its way into the house. There seems to be no way of keeping out either the rats or the water, if they are disposed to come in; but the overflowing of a modern sewer into the houses which drain into it is a rare occurrence.

Sewer-gas.

Drainage system.

A cesspool, on the contrary, is frequently a source of trouble, and the reasons for the trouble, and the methods of preventing it, deserve to be studied by all who have the care of country houses. The ordinary cesspool is a circular pit, usually from six to eight feet in diameter, and eight or ten feet deep, lined with a rough stone or brick wall, laid without mortar, so that the liquid in the cesspool can soak away through the interstices into the ground outside. The top of the lining wall is usually drawn in to form a rough dome, leaving a manhole in the centre, which is, or should be, covered with an iron plate, so that the cesspool can be frequently inspected. In practice, however, country masons commonly put a flat stone over the opening in the dome, and grade the earth over the whole, the result of which is that extensive excavations have to be made to find it, later, when the drainage system begins to give trouble.

Sewers.

Rats.

Cesspools.

Covers.

The drain-pipe from the house is entered into the cesspool as near the top as is consistent with a proper fall from the house, so as to keep as much capacity below it as possible; and the liquid brought by it pours into the pit, and is, for a time, absorbed by the earth at the sides and bottom. After a period varying, according to the nature of the soil in which the cesspool is dug, from a few days to many weeks, or even years, the grease and slime brought by the drain coat over the absorbent surface of the earth around the pit, so that the water no longer soaks away freely, and it begins to accumulate, first in the cesspool, and then in the drain-pipe entering it. If the cesspool is so much lower than the house that the surface of the ground over it is below the basement floor of the house, the water, when the cesspool is full, will overflow upon the ground, causing a certain amount of annoyance to the inhabitants of the house and their neighbors, but probably not exposing them to any real danger. If, however, the basement floor is below the ground over the cesspool, the effect of emptying a bath-tub, or the laundry wash-trays, in the house, after the cesspool is full, will be to cause the foul water from the cesspool to overflow back into the house, usually through a basement water-closet, this being the lowest fixture connected with the drain.

Clogging of cesspools.

The overflow of the cesspool liquids into the basement of the house, although not, perhaps, so dangerous a catastrophe as some enthusiasts would have us believe, is a very annoying matter. The use of all the plumbing fixtures in the building must be suspended, often for several days, until the cesspool can be cleaned out; and the basement must be cleared of the foul sewage, the stench of which permeates the house. After the pores of the ground have once become clogged with slime, the cesspool fills up much more rapidly, and, if it has been dug in clayey ground, this experience may recur every few weeks; and the cost of frequent cleaning of the cesspool, for which the licensed contractors often demand extortionate prices, is likely to make a considerable inroad into modest incomes.

As a cesspool, the walls of which have once become coated with slime, can only be restored to moderate efficiency by a prolonged period of disuse, during which the slime decomposes, or dries and falls off, the usual course, where a house cesspool in constant use fills up, is to make another near by, so as to expose a fresh surface of earth, and lay an overflow-pipe from the old one to the new one. This affords relief until the sides of the new cesspool also become coated with slime, when the process must be repeated.

Overflow of drain.

The remedy for overflowing cesspools.

As each cesspool saturates the ground about it with decomposing filth, the multiplication of them is more or less prejudicial to the health of the people who have to live near them, and other ways of preventing them from overflowing into the house are to be preferred. The simplest and most efficient of these, where circumstances admit, is to select a site for the cesspool on lower ground, so that the overflow will run out on the surface, instead of backing up into the house; or, if the cesspool is already built, to carry an overflow-pipe from it, with an outlet at the surface of some neighboring low ground. Then, to prevent the formation of a permanent little rivulet of sewage from the overflow, a pump, such as can be bought for a few dollars from dealers in hardware or plumbing goods, should be fixed in the cover of the cesspool, with a suction-pipe reaching nearly to the bottom; and, on the appearance of overflowing sewage on the surface, the contents of the cesspool should be pumped out, and used to water the lawn or garden. The liquid in the cesspool will be found to consist, as it flows from the pump, simply of milky water, mixed, when the cesspool is nearly pumped out, with portions of brown scum, and small white lumps of grease. The watery portion, when thrown upon grassland or garden soil, is immediately absorbed, all odor disappearing in a few minutes; but the scum and grease may, for the sake of neatness, require raking over, to incorporate them with the earth.