The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1899-01-27
Utilizing Refuse.
Mr.. Ed1tOr:-
For tho beneft Of your patrons

For the benefit Of your patrons
who are Interested In the running Of Out
city on the principles Of economy and low
or taxation, l clip an article from the Re-
cord that was published In the Toronto
Globe. which has proved 30 successful, that
the great city OF London is going to adopt
1t. Why can't we DO here in Wilmington
what they do In Londonp Our crema.ory
Is run at an enormous expense in consum-
ing the garbage while the plants In Lon
don are runiat large profit.
About year ago the Shoreditch parish
Of London entered upon the novel enter
prise Of supplying electricity for lighting
tho streets. dwellings and public buildings
by using tho street sweepings for fuel. Up
to that date the parish had paid about $50,
600 per year for csrtinR the refuse to II
barge On the River Thames and towing 1t
to dumping placein the sen, and about
$4,000 annually for gas to light tho streets
and parish buildings. About $50 ono. or
$4,000 moro than these annual charges,
were met by taxing tho people, was invest
ed In electric light plant.
A staff correspondent Of Tho Chicago
Record describes the plant, which has
since BEEN running twenty-four hours
day for sig days IN the week and 10 hours
on Sunday, furnishing electrical power for
small manufactures during the day and
for Illuminating purposes at night. The
street sweepings have furnished all the
fuel necessary. The cost Of the coal In
addition was only s432 The total expen.-
diturss for the first year were $1,000 for
wages, stores. supplies, insurance. repairs
and other purposes. The interest, sinking
fund. rents and the ordinary allowance
for the depreciation Of tho property was
$1O,2O5 making a total Of $29,275. The
gross receipts for the sale Of light md
power including a credit equal to the
average charge for street lighting by gas,
were S45, EOS. thus leaving not profit of
$15, $50 for the benefit Of the parish treas.
ury which will DO used in enlarging the
plant.
Arrangements are now being made to
use the escaping steam to ;ieat tho water
of the public bath instead Of allowing 1t
to 60 to waste. Furnaces have been nd
ded for burning the garbage collected from
the dwellings which could not be used for
fuel and this extra expense. which was
however compa atlvely trifling was more
than Offset by saving the cost Of hauling
the garbage to tho bargea. The expert
Inent has been SO successful that other
London parishes are planning to adopt
the same method, and 1t Is confidently
predicted that In few years the entire
city will be lighted by electricity furnished
by the sweepings from the city streets.
London is paved with wooden blocks
and small boys are employed with brooms
and dust pans at frequent intervals from
daylight till dark. to keep them clean.
The pans are dumped into large sheet
iron reptacles. which are emptisd twice q
day iuto carts. In Shoteditch parish each
dwelling Is supplied by the vestry with
two sheet.iron buckets. one for kitchen
slops and the other for paper, dust and O.
ther oombustible waste from the household
The buckets are smptisd once a day into
garbage carts. Hitherto a small tax has
been collected for this service, bnt hsrsaf-
teri will be performed free Of COST
This shows that we are scarcely begin
ming to!apprecfate tho advantages Of col.
lective effort through municipal control