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Old 07-26-2017, 06:07 AM
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Joe Wooten Joe Wooten is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by luke strawwalker
I don't get it...

I mean, being from a rural background, I'm quite familiar with the concept of answering "nature's call" out in the open...

It was common practice in most areas to have a "privy" or outhouse even up until about the 1940's or 50's... no great technology is needed, just build a portable wooden shed on runners, dig a hole about four feet deep, take a dump in it til it's full, then dig another hole a few feet away and cover the old one over with the dirt removed once you move the shed over the new hole. No "digging it out" or other handling of the crap... it rots down naturally under the ground... most of it's rotted by the time you cover it up. The same area CAN be used again over time, you just have to "rotate" where you put the thing and give everything time to break down and the soil to settle (a few years) before moving over that spot again.

Now, in built up areas (cities) the problems of disposal of human waste is much more difficult-- it was common practice in even the most cosmopolitan European and US cities, even during the 18th and early 19th centuries, to simply dump one's "chamber pot" out an open window into the street or gutter below. That's one reason why so many "well to do" people had "country estates" in which to live during summertime, when the warmth made the cities stifling and the stench unbearable, compared to winter. At any rate, even the ancient Romans (and some other civilizations) had working public sewers that provided places to relieve oneself and dispose of the household's bodily waste without having to "dump it in the street"...

If her numbers are true, then it seems to me to be much more of a cultural problem than any real lack of technology or capability... it's perfectly acceptable to squat just anywhere and let fly, so why go to any more difficulty than that... Just very backward to me...

Later! OL J R


My maternal granddad believed indoor toilets were unsanitary and refused to put one in his house for decades. They had a 3 holer outhouse about 40 yards from the house tht everyone used. Finally in 1970 when Granny got really sick and could no longer make the trek to it, he relented and he got all the grandsons and the two uncles still living at home and we dug a cesspool laid in the piping and put in a flusher.
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