Municipal Work in Paris.
Page 18
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Steam Wagon, with Interchangeable Dust Van and Watering Tank.
British municipalities are not alone in the use of inechani. cal power for sanitary purposes, and we should derive benefit from a reminder that Continental cities are fully alive to the -advantages of such applications. The De Dion Bouton steam vehicle which we illustrate is the latest addition to the means of maintaining the health of our French neighbours. This machine is used during dry weather to water the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne and the Place de l'Etoile. The tank carries eleven hundred gallons of water and is fitted with a distributor which yields a very fine spray. At other times the motor is employed in the collection of dust and irefuse, the change of body occupying about fifteen minutes in all. The engine is of 30b.h.p., and it will be observed that there is no chimney. A neat appearance is secured, by using two down-take tubes which convey the fire gases round the fire box to the discharge orifices. Forced draught is applied by means of fans. It is found that the watering pays better than any other form of work, owing to the speed .and large volume. The vehicle is capable of reaching a speed of ten miles an hour and of maintaining an average of -six, so that it in no way impedes the ordinary lines of traffic while laying the dust. The perforated pipe at the back of the vehicle is in two sections, which are sus pended if t. gin. above the ground, and the actual discharge is effected by a pump worked off the back axle, in order to maintain an even pressure and, large range. When the vehicle stops suddenly there is -consequently no flooding of the street at that point, and the amount of water delivered is always proportional to the ground passed .over. No less a width than lift, is covered by each of the two jets, and this without any splashing or undue violence, so that a road soft, across is disposed of by a single trip along it. The size of the holes in the distributor can be regulated at will, and the two sections are arranged so that the watei from one does not cross that from the other, and the width of each watered strip can be varied between 25ft. and 3ft. The use of a (Jump is regarded as being superior to airpressure or mechanical paddles.
Motor. vehicles for municipal purposes are making only slow headway in France, and a number of large towns are now moving in this direction. In Great Britain we have to-day upwards of 30 of the most important public health authorities which have found economy to result from their use. Street watering has proved to be the field where most work can be done, because the loads pull horses to pieces, especially where it is hilly-. Next to street watering comes the cartage of stores and materials, whilst the use of motor lorries or wagons to take about gangs of workmen with their tools and other equipment is giving very satisfactory results by reason of the delays that are avoided. It is in dust and refuse removal that the horse holds its own, as the periods of waiting and the frequent stoppages are more suited to the peculiar advantages of animal power. Various English towns have experimented in this matter of house-to-house collection, Liverpool and Chelsea having made the most tenacious efforts to organise a system that should prove efficacious and cheap in operation. In neither case has it been possible to do more than ascertain that equal results are to be obtained, from the point of view of cost per cubic yard collected, and tipped or taken to the destructor, and that equality has been arrived at only after the concentration of labour upon each motor van, so as to keep it on the move. Figures which have come to hand from Paris point to the same experience; in fact, the greater cheap-. ness of horse hire in the French capital, and in French towns generally, shows that any wide extension of motor propulsion for "dusting " purposes is improbable. When the use of mechanical power becomes limited to watering alone, the want of regular work is the difficulty, and the inter
changeable body solves the problem. To use a body such as is shown in the first of the illustrations does not provide the best solution. An arrangement by the Health Department to work in harmony with, say, the Gas Department, and the fitting of a removable or tipping body to convey coal from the station, has in several eases furnished a means of escape. Provision to lift or sling the bodies is easily made, and the seasons lor which each is necessarily busy arc complementary to one another. French experience, though smaller than that in England, tends to demonstrate the same truth— that mechanical power is not universally applicable for heavy work, and that the horse has still a good chance to survive for many purposes of haulage.