From - Fri Aug 27 14:00:17 1999 X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 Message-ID: <37C699F0.E3FC8C71@libdems.force9.co.uk> Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 15:00:16 +0000 From: Jonathan Graham Harston Reply-To: jgh@arcade.demon.co.uk Organization: Sheffield Liberal Democrats X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.usage.english Subject: Re: I want to shit/piss References: <7pd4d8$p0k$1@news.mch.sbs.de> <37bc5a7a.40179450@goodnews.nildram.co.uk> <7pi2lt$2625$1@nntprelay.berkeley.edu> <37bda844.39579610@goodnews.nildram.co.uk> <37c2895a.13533463@goodnews.nildram.co.uk> <37C2F24C.771C@lafn.org> <$Y$YEbAdUHx3Ewb$@raptor1.demon.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -- wrote: > >Evan Kirshenbaum wrote: > >famous for their delicacy. When Louis XIV built Versailles, > >hardly a medieval fortress, he was exasperated to find that his > >lords and ladies continued to deposit their wastes in any handy, > >out-of-the-way corner of his shiny new chateau. > > > This beggars belief, really. I know it's not right to judge other ages > by the mores of our own, but. Thank heavens for Thomas Crapper! > Alan ...bearing in mind that Thomas Crapper didn't /invent/ the water flush toilet; he was a plumbing engineer and salesman who popularised them and is generally associated with water closets as he manufactured, sold and fitted a lot of them. Water closets have been around for a long time, usually flushed by throwing a bucket of water down them. The first /syphonic/ water flush closet that fed from a storage tank was used around about 1650-ish. It was forgotten losts of times, and then Joseph Adams(?) perfected an automatic self-flushing water closet in about the 1790s(?) 1800s(?) when the new Water Corporations were worrying that consumers would just leave a tap running over their toilet, rather than keep a bucket handy to fill up. The descendant of this system is still in use in urinals where they flush themselves at set intervals. I was interviewed for a TV documentary on urban public toilets about a month ago - it may even end up being broadcast. 8) -- Cllr Jonathan Harston http://www.libdems.force9.co.uk/usr/jgh/ Office IT Administrator Member: Housing & Direct Services (covers public toilets!) Councillor for Walkley Ward, Sheffield City Council