They can be
emptied into pig-sty or cow-yard, where they do their part
in making fertilizing material (but this should never be
done except when the yard or sty is cleaned regularly and
frequently), or they can be thrown upon the ground at a safe
distance from the house (this, again, should never be done
wThen a house stands in close neighborhood to other houses),
or, and this, probably, is the best way, they can be emptied
into a hole dug in the ground as far from the house as
possible, and boarded over, the cover being lifted only when
the slops are emptied. By emptying occasionally a little
dry earth into the hole, and once or twice a year filling it
up entiiely and digging a fresh hole, the slops of a large
ON HABITS AND MANNERS. I :
house may be disposed of with ease and safety. Kitchen
slops and swill should all be carefully kept for pig feed, for
if the family do not keep a pig, some neighbor can always
be found who will take away swill for the sake of having it,
and to wraste such material is one of the common forms of
extravagance which keeps poor people poor forever.
After the drainage of a house and the cleanliness of a
yard and outhouses have been carefully provided for, I
believe that next in order comes the question of the water
supply, and while a few of you, as residents of large cities.,
are not obliged to think much about the matter, being sup-
plied by the city, or by companies, yet I suppose a majority
of my readers are dependent solely upon wells or springs,
and can therefore drink pure or impure waters according as
they themselves are intelligent and energetic or ignorant and
lazy. It is not, 1 confess, always easy for an uneducated
person to detect the impurity of water, because while pure
water is always clear and tasteless, water which is clear and
tasteless is not always pure ; but there are a few simple
rules which he who runs may read, and which will, in
most cases, afford effectual protection. For example, it is ev-
ident to any one that to use water from a river below a point
where the refuse of a factory or the drainage of a town
empties into it, must be harmful; that, again, it must be
equally so to use water from a stagnant pond, or from a
ON HABITS AND MANNERS.
brook which drains marshy ]and rich in decomposing
vegetation, and yet it is but^too common to find whole
communities using such water and dying like sheep with
dysenteries and fevers, merely because they are too thought-
less or too lazy to make the effort to obtain a pure water
supply.
Page 54
Presented as published in 1888. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
They can be emptied into pig-sty or cow-yard, where they do their part in making fertilizing material (but this should never be done except when the yard or sty is cleaned regularly and frequently), or they can be thrown upon the ground at a safe distance from the house (this, again, should never be done wThen a house stands in close neighborhood to other houses), or, and this, probably, is the best way, they can be emptied into a hole dug in the ground as far from the house as possible, and boarded over, the cover being lifted only when the slops are emptied. By emptying occasionally a little dry earth into the hole, and once or twice a year filling it up entirely and digging a fresh hole, the slops of a large
house may be disposed of with ease and safety. Kitchen slops and swill should all be carefully kept for pig feed, for if the family do not keep a pig, some neighbor can always be found who will take away swill for the sake of having it, and to waste such material is one of the common forms of extravagance which keeps poor people poor forever.
After the drainage of a house and the cleanliness of a yard and outhouses have been carefully provided for, I believe that next in order comes the question of the water supply, and while a few of you, as residents of large cities., are not obliged to think much about the matter, being supplied by the city, or by companies, yet I suppose a majority of my readers are dependent solely upon wells or springs, and can therefore drink pure or impure waters according as they themselves are intelligent and energetic or ignorant and lazy. It is not, 1 confess, always easy for an uneducated person to detect the impurity of water, because while pure water is always clear and tasteless, water which is clear and tasteless is not always pure ; but there are a few simple rules which he who runs may read, and which will, in most cases, afford effectual protection. For example, it is evident to any one that to use water from a river below a point where the refuse of a factory or the drainage of a town empties into it, must be harmful; that, again, it must be equally so to use water from a stagnant pond, or from a
brook which drains marshy ]and rich in decomposing vegetation, and yet it is but too common to find whole communities using such water and dying like sheep with dysenteries and fevers, merely because they are too thoughtless or too lazy to make the effort to obtain a pure water supply.