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I read an article, Digging up a bit of city history, which talks about an archaeological excavation going on in Columbus (Ohio?). They mention the “privy”:
The brick-lined privy the county exposed probably holds interesting items but no bones. "Indoor plumbing came into Columbus around 1890-1900," Sewell said. "You didn't have Rumpke, and you had these nice big holes in your backyard to fill, so you tossed everything into it."
It sounds like a primitive garbage hole. Right? Or was it more like a latrine?
They probably didnt diferientiat between sewage waste and trash, dig a hole and throw it all in. Besides did they call it a privy or did the author of the article call it a privy?
I guess it then begs the question why they'd be throwing garbage in there as well.
Often items that were wanting a private disposal would end here rather than in a more public trash bin. Anything of a personal nature would find it's way to the privy; bottle collectors are very interested in locations like this.Cheers,Wally
Are we talking about a “one-holer” or a “two-holer”?When privy's were in common se in the South the most common site for a Black Widow bite was the buttocks. The spiders liked the dark areas under the seats. I had a high school friend who suffed this indignity :-[ :-[ :-[
Are we talking about a "one-holer" or a "two-holer"?
Either I suppose... privacy would be the key, don't take a friend if you're dropping off something important ;).
When privy's were in common se in the South the most common site for a Black Widow bite was the buttocks. The spiders liked the dark areas under the seats. I had a high school friend who suffed this indignity :-[ :-[ :-[
This was/is the case today as well for the home made types, I'm sure :o.
I would imagine that these types of toilets would have attracted other creatures as well that one would have to beware of before going in. Because of this, I would think that people would have developed some sort of system for temporarily clearing the spiders and other things away, such as dropping a match into the bucket or what not. The Wikipedia article on Outhouseprivy/outhouse [/wiki] didn't say what was done to clear it out. It did refer to it also as a "kybo" and gave a possible explanation of the half moon carved into the door for the purpose of Muslim soldiers who needed a focus. This seems a bit of a stretch to me, though, and that explanation is somewhat unclear to me.
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