10
39. As, I regret to say, is usual in India though the subject is one which,
in the construction of buildings, always first of all engages the attention of
Engineers at home no proper arrangement has been made to convey away the rain
falling on the roofs, the wastage water from sergeant's bathing rooms and the
liquid filth from the men's urinals on the upper story of the barracks, or the
water from the cookrooms, ablution rooms, and outhouses, &c. and the most rude
and unscientific contrivances have been adopted for some of these places. In the
first place the rain simply drips off the roofs and either falls on to the foundation
or is blown by the wind into the verandahs. Rain roof gutters and pipes are the
remedy. A urine tub is placed at night on the open top of the projection at
each end of the building, but the men make water not only into it but on to the
stone pavement. The place is washed down daily and was lime whited, but the
arrangement is exceedingly objectionable. A glazed stoneware urinal trough
should be erected along the length of the outside wall. This should be well
washed out in the early morning with water, and the fluid should be conveyed
through a glazed stone ware pipe attached to the outer wall, to a drain, and
applied to a garden in the rear.
40. Below the sergeants' quarters is placed a semicircular iron receptacle
furnished with a lid through which the pipe from the bathroom is led. The
consequence being that any gases generated below are conveyed up the pipe into
the bath room. This arrangement is dangerous and expensive. The water has
to be lifted out of the iron receptacle and carried away. It would be far better
to make it remove itself through a 3-inch glazed stoneware pipe for utilization in
a garden, and the same remark applies to the ablution room water and with the
greatest force to the cookroom water, in the iron receptacle of which the filthy water
containin much organic matter rapidly decomposes, and the gases are carried
back into thecookroom and taint the food. This can be obviated at once by cut
- t i n g o f f t h e e n d o f t h e p i p e o n e f o o t a b o v e t h e i r o n r e c e p t a c l e , i n t h e c e n t r e o f
the lid of which, an open iron funnel one foot square should be fixed, so that the
pipe above could discharge its contents into the funnel, and thus the foul air
generated below would find a ready access into the external air and not pass back
through the pipe, but this action should not prevent the laying of glazed stone-
ware pipes and the conveyance of all this fertilizing material to gardens in the rear.
41. I must particularly notice the kitchens ; they are much too dark as it
is difficult to see the sink ; and there should be no dark corners in a kitchen. It
would be easy to provide windows. The smoke also does not pass readily up the
chimney but blackens the roof and walls, which consequently present a very dirty
appearance. This can easily be obviated by fitting at a height of 6 feet from the
ground a projecting iron funnel such as is commonly used in a chemical labora
- t o r y o v e r t h e p l a c e w h e r e t h e c o o k s s t a n d i n f r o n t o f t h e f i r e p l a c e . A l l t h e
smoke would then pass up the chimney. The ash boxes of the kitchen are not
good. They ought to consist of a moveable iron not wooden box which should be
emptied into an iron filth cart. I must also condemn the system of water supply
to the barracks and kitchens. In the latter it is stored in a wooden cask into
which the dirty hand and dirty vessel is dipped. The water should be kept in
an iron tank in one corner of which a filter ought to be fitted and the water should
be drawn off through a brass cock. The barracks are not provided with Macna
- m a r a ' s f i l t e r s w h i c h h a v e b e e n s o s u c c e s s f u l l y i n t r o d u c e d i n t o B e n g a l a n d t h e o l d
bad arrangement of three gurrahs in which coarse charcoal and sand are supposed
to be kept is the only system of filtration adopted. A Macnamara or Silicated
Carbon filter which might stand in a large porous earthenware vessel should be
procured for each barrack room at once. The privies were remarkably clean, free
from smell and were evidently carefully inspected, but the filth cart is kept
in their rear which is objectionably near and in full view of the public road.