Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: tuning in. Uh you know sometimes you started a question,
Speaker 1: what's the crappiest job you ever had? So I'm I'm Ben.
Speaker 1: We've got our super producer, Casey Pagram here on the
Speaker 1: digital ones and twos, and we have our returning guest host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, a k a. The Quister, but not the
Speaker 1: Quister today, not even gonna do the fake out that
Speaker 1: we did for the last episode. Again, thank you, absolutely Yeah,
Speaker 1: the crappy jobs, man, I'm so glad you thought of
Speaker 1: me when this. When this topic came around, you thought,
Speaker 1: who can talk about taking the poop away? I know
Speaker 1: it's Jonathan's drinkling those stuff. Yeah yeah, yeah, we're talking
Speaker 1: about uh what we what is was was referred to
Speaker 1: as a euphemism about night soil. Yes, And I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you, I had never heard the phrase night soil
Speaker 1: until I was in Uh. I was traveling in East
Speaker 1: Asia somewhere, and I had it was in this conversation
Speaker 1: about agriculture and farming techniques and traditional techniques which involved
Speaker 1: using what people called night soil. It took me a
Speaker 1: second because of the language barrier to figure out that
Speaker 1: was poop. Yeah. Yeah, So so this is interesting. This
Speaker 1: is a problem that arose largely because of urbanization, right,
Speaker 1: So you can think of this as something that was
Speaker 1: linked to really big events in the world, like the
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution, where you suddenly had the capacity for people
Speaker 1: to leave behind the agrarian society and move to more
Speaker 1: urban environments. But that comes with it its own set
Speaker 1: of challenges. You know, any humans are social animals, but
Speaker 1: you get enough of us together and sometimes stuff starts
Speaker 1: to pile up like poop, especially before you invent things
Speaker 1: like sewers, right, right, and sanitation is a huge issue.
Speaker 1: It has always been a huge issue through this species,
Speaker 1: especially as people start to urbanize. And when we say urbanized,
Speaker 1: yes we hit a fever pitch in the Industrial Revolution,
Speaker 1: but it's been leading up for a while before that,
Speaker 1: and it was already becoming an issue because again this
Speaker 1: was before far before most places had any kind of
Speaker 1: sewage system. There were a few outliers like I could
Speaker 1: I could name Scara Bray in Scotland, scott Brain, Scotland,
Speaker 1: This ancient village that was built right on the coastline
Speaker 1: of Scotland, and they were very clever and that they
Speaker 1: dug what amount to be small trenches or canals that
Speaker 1: went underneath the houses and directly under their what would
Speaker 1: be a water closet or you know, essentially a poop
Speaker 1: hole is what it really. But it meant that the
Speaker 1: actual tides of the ocean would take waste away. But
Speaker 1: they had that luxury because they were right there on
Speaker 1: the coast. If you are not right there on the coast,
Speaker 1: you have a city that's not uh next to something
Speaker 1: that can by nature take away waste. That waste accumulates
Speaker 1: and you have to figure out what do you do
Speaker 1: with it? And um, you know it. It is a
Speaker 1: a problem no one wants to deal with. You want
Speaker 1: to talk about crap jobs. This This is a crap job,
Speaker 1: both literally and figuratively. Yeah, yeah, honestly it's also it's
Speaker 1: one of those jobs where if I've met someone who
Speaker 1: is just excited to do it, like to the point
Speaker 1: where I didn't think they were in it for the money,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't trust them. I wouldn't trust them. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I made my fortunate Poop is not a great Yeah,
Speaker 1: starting conversation for the entrepreneur shark take. Maybe it's my
Speaker 1: hang up. I don't want I don't want to give
Speaker 1: my poop to someone who wants it too. It's not
Speaker 1: your hang up. It's called night soil because everyone demanded
Speaker 1: that they do their work at night, right exactly. So
Speaker 1: we you know, we said poop was always a problem,
Speaker 1: big issue, and Jonathan, you're absolutely correct that there were
Speaker 1: some outliers in the world of toilet technology. Right, if
Speaker 1: you were the point zero one percent of Roman society,
Speaker 1: you might even have a private bathroom that sort of flushes.
Speaker 1: But that's like space age, that's like owning a spaceship
Speaker 1: at that time. And we know there's a debate about
Speaker 1: where the first flushing toilet was invented, because a lot
Speaker 1: of people, like your excellent example in Scotland, they just
Speaker 1: came up with local, regional kind of solution. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was sort of a a self flushing toilet system
Speaker 1: people sometimes referred to as the first flush toilet. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't like it was something where you would pull
Speaker 1: off a rope or or push a lever. It was
Speaker 1: literally because of the tides and um, a lot of
Speaker 1: these ancient toilets were akin to that like built along
Speaker 1: awqua duct systems that were feeding out into the ocean,
Speaker 1: so that uh, you know, no one hopefully downstream would
Speaker 1: be encountering uh waste filled water. But yeah, that was
Speaker 1: the exception, not the rule. In fact, I would say,
Speaker 1: like in the medieval period you here, there was a
Speaker 1: phrase called guardy lou. Guardy leu is what someone would
Speaker 1: cry out before they would empty a chamber pot out
Speaker 1: of a window to the street, because they had the
Speaker 1: street was bisected by essentially a ditch where people through
Speaker 1: trash right yep, And so you would yell guardy loo,
Speaker 1: which was warning saying, watch out, gross stuff is about
Speaker 1: to rain down upon the street. And then after that,
Speaker 1: once you got to a point where the density was
Speaker 1: so great that you couldn't like even that is too much, Uh,
Speaker 1: they started to build cesspools in in areas in Europe
Speaker 1: particularly and cesspools this also would be true in the
Speaker 1: case of the United States, before we had sewer systems here,
Speaker 1: cesspools would be pits, usually dug as far away from
Speaker 1: the living quarters as possible because of the stench, although
Speaker 1: sometimes it would be located like in the basement of
Speaker 1: a building. Uh. And they would typically be several feet deep,
Speaker 1: maybe as much as six feet deep, several feet wide,
Speaker 1: lined with brick. And this is where all the waste
Speaker 1: would end up going, even at the point where people
Speaker 1: started making flush toilets, because again you could flush the toilet,
Speaker 1: but there was no sewer system for it to go into.
Speaker 1: So it's just going into a very very primitive version
Speaker 1: of what we in the US would now refer to
Speaker 1: as a septic tank. Right, But there was no tank.
Speaker 1: It was just a pit. And eventually, just like a tank,
Speaker 1: those pits get fully. Um, I don't want to lose
Speaker 1: something you pointed out earlier. So these people had the
Speaker 1: job to cart away human waste. Yes, they were called
Speaker 1: night soil man because they had to work at night.
Speaker 1: Because this is perhaps the most ridiculous part of this story,
Speaker 1: and it's it's ridiculous because this hang up that polite
Speaker 1: society has continues in the modern day for thousands of years. People,
Speaker 1: especially well off people, have have done their level best
Speaker 1: to pretend that they just sort of don't poop, like
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen, just don't go in that room. Uh,
Speaker 1: And we come up with all these euphemisms for it,
Speaker 1: like the water closet. Yeah. Well, and and there there
Speaker 1: becomes this weird stigma attached to the people who would
Speaker 1: do the job of arting away the waste. You know,
Speaker 1: they would be called into empty assess pool. For example,
Speaker 1: they'd have to do it at night because no one
Speaker 1: wanted to see that being done. It had to be
Speaker 1: done outside of the view of polite society. Also, keep
Speaker 1: in mind that when they're doing this at night, it's
Speaker 1: at a time where there are no real street lights
Speaker 1: or anything. There's no like this is before gaslights. This
Speaker 1: is although it did go into the gaslight era, before
Speaker 1: electrical grids, So you're literally doing this under cover of
Speaker 1: darkness because no one wants to see it happen. It's
Speaker 1: it's like it's like society as a whole had all
Speaker 1: agreed that this is something that's necessary and it's also necessary,
Speaker 1: we never ever acknowledge that it happens. It's like omerta,
Speaker 1: it's toilet amerta. Yeah, and it's really weird. It's a
Speaker 1: weird hang up that we humans have. Right, there's idea
Speaker 1: we all know everyone does it, and we all know
Speaker 1: we have to do it, and we all know that
Speaker 1: you have to do something with it, but it gets
Speaker 1: to the point where the people who are in charge
Speaker 1: of actually taking care of that we end up looking
Speaker 1: down upon, even though they are fulfilling a a vital role.
Speaker 1: If you're looking at any chance of having a social
Speaker 1: center of significant density, right, you gotta have that. And
Speaker 1: to this day you have people who are servicing things
Speaker 1: like septic tanks and you think, oh man, they couldn't
Speaker 1: land a better job. And you're thinking, well, this is
Speaker 1: I literally need this to happen, and very well, yeah,
Speaker 1: even back in the day it paid pretty well. It
Speaker 1: was now granted it was a job that not you know,
Speaker 1: a whole lot of people were lining up to do
Speaker 1: because it was an incredibly it still is to this day,
Speaker 1: incredibly unpleasant job. Right, you're in, especially back in the
Speaker 1: day when you had to do it at night, you
Speaker 1: were in dark conditions. You were having to lower yourself
Speaker 1: down to get to where you could start scooping out
Speaker 1: filth from in a six foot deep cess pit full
Speaker 1: of waste. It could be your grave because no one
Speaker 1: is going to go in there and help you. Then
Speaker 1: ugly way to go. So let's look at the numbers,
Speaker 1: just to give people a sense of scale. Now, we're
Speaker 1: going to travel in our minds to New York City,
Speaker 1: and I think we'll go back to Europe for a second,
Speaker 1: specifically to Manhattan in New York City. Yes, specifically to Manhattan.
Speaker 1: So if you are a person who has never visited
Speaker 1: New York City, um, please do. It's a wonderful thing,
Speaker 1: you know. Jonathan Casey and I have been all been there. Um,
Speaker 1: New York City to this day is dirty. Sure, it's
Speaker 1: it's a dirty city. It's a very dense city filled
Speaker 1: with millions of people, right, so it's it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to keep something like that clean. And this was true
Speaker 1: even back in the eighteen hundreds. In eighteen forty four,
Speaker 1: according to Atlas Obscure, uh, Manhattan alone produced about eight
Speaker 1: hundred thousand cubic feet of east. Yeah, that's that's an
Speaker 1: enormous volume of of waste. It's almost as much waste
Speaker 1: as what Broadway can produce in a typical season. Harsh
Speaker 1: harsh theater criticism from Jonathan's chicklin I love Broadway by
Speaker 1: the way, yea man, turn off the dark? Yeah, just
Speaker 1: sign me up and tell you what botto No, and
Speaker 1: snide jokes aside that you sit there and think about that,
Speaker 1: all right. It's this is before there was a sewer
Speaker 1: in New York, eight hundred thousand cubic feet of waste
Speaker 1: that had to be taken care of. You had to
Speaker 1: deal with that in some way, and you know, you
Speaker 1: couldn't just let that pile up. Pretty soon you would
Speaker 1: have piles larger than the buildings around it, and it
Speaker 1: would be truly an unlivable situation. You would have you
Speaker 1: would have caused breeding ground for disease. You would be
Speaker 1: let alone the fact that's just intensely unpleasant. So this
Speaker 1: again was a vital role. Like the cities needed to
Speaker 1: have teams going around to take care of this stuff.
Speaker 1: So you often found cities that would elect or sometimes
Speaker 1: cajole people into taking on the role of night soil men,
Speaker 1: right right, Like in New York it's a little bit different,
Speaker 1: or some professional night soil men, but or thousands. But
Speaker 1: you know, back in old London town this was sometimes
Speaker 1: seen as like a street kid job, especially when look,
Speaker 1: we're talking about poop, we're talking about the human stuff,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the horse stuff toocause remember there aren't
Speaker 1: you know now New York is filled with automobiles and
Speaker 1: taxi drivers who who drive as though they have made
Speaker 1: their peace with God. Yes, you know, yes, yeah, they
Speaker 1: they just leave it into the hands of fate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: driving cars into into spaces that no car could physically
Speaker 1: fit into, and yet somehow they do. It's like the
Speaker 1: Hogwarts bus, that that double decker bus and the Harry
Speaker 1: Potter films. Yeah. No, back in the day, it was
Speaker 1: all horsepower and horses like people. Hope, if I hope
Speaker 1: you don't have any illusions about this. They poop what
Speaker 1: they do poop. You're not a horse doctor, I am not.
Speaker 1: Where do you get off You don't have the authority,
Speaker 1: I'm no, I'm no, I'm no horse terion or anything
Speaker 1: like that. I'm not. I'm not an equestrian expert, but
Speaker 1: I have it on good authority and firsthand accounts. The
Speaker 1: horses do, in fact poop a lot. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: you had to deal with waste from multiple factors. I
Speaker 1: mean there were other things that were going on, even
Speaker 1: from the medieval age where you had tanners and things
Speaker 1: like that. Whole areas of town that were known for
Speaker 1: being foul smelling, and they had the same issues where
Speaker 1: you had to find ways who disposed this waste. Typically
Speaker 1: it would involve teams of these these night soil men.
Speaker 1: Typically there were men going out to these places, and
Speaker 1: in fact, in like New York, it was often immigrants
Speaker 1: and African Americans who were taking on these jobs. You know,
Speaker 1: this was an effort for them to make money and
Speaker 1: it was work that they could do. They would go
Speaker 1: in teams of four. Typically you would have one person
Speaker 1: whose job it was to scoop out the stuff out
Speaker 1: of the cess pool. I like this like a heist.
Speaker 1: Each have specialties, all right, yeah, and they would uh
Speaker 1: often they would have like a long scooper, like I
Speaker 1: have a pooper scooper if you will, Yeah, where it
Speaker 1: would be like I think of it like a big
Speaker 1: a big long pot with a very long handle, and
Speaker 1: use that to scoop filth out dump it into a
Speaker 1: bucket which would then be lifted out of the cesspool
Speaker 1: by two other men who would then bring that over
Speaker 1: to the tub that was in the back of a
Speaker 1: cart that the fourth man was was keeping an eye
Speaker 1: on and uh, you know, looking after the horses for
Speaker 1: the cart as well, before they would move on to
Speaker 1: the next cess pool. So this this would take hours
Speaker 1: and of course, they could only do it at night,
Speaker 1: and then they would take all that filth and they
Speaker 1: would take it out beyond typically city limits and they
Speaker 1: would either use it so that they could just pilot
Speaker 1: onto a place that was designated as this is where
Speaker 1: the poop Mountain was going to go, or they would
Speaker 1: use it for agricultural purposes, right right, Okay, going back
Speaker 1: to that conversation I have with those vas using feces
Speaker 1: as fertilizers mutual practice. Okay, so I want to make
Speaker 1: sure I get our poop, heyst crew, correct, there's the
Speaker 1: scoop I've Benna call him the scoop Ist, yeah, the bucketman, yeah.
Speaker 1: And then the getaway drive right, the tub thumper, the
Speaker 1: tub thumper. Yes. I don't have any demolitions expert or
Speaker 1: wild card in this particular group, but Oceans four is
Speaker 1: a very letic group. You know, Casey, Noel and I
Speaker 1: have in the past spend time on this show talking
Speaker 1: about different heist positions and careers. And you and I
Speaker 1: years ago when I was going when we were doing
Speaker 1: brain stuff videos on YouTube. I'm sure you remember when
Speaker 1: I when I got I went through my heist phase
Speaker 1: and I was trying to figure out who. I was
Speaker 1: constantly thank you for putting up with this, by the way,
Speaker 1: I was constantly trying to figure out who would do
Speaker 1: which job, who plays what role in the group, the
Speaker 1: Oceans eight group. Now I'm gonna go ahead and say it.
Speaker 1: I know, I know my pale Noel would probably if
Speaker 1: he had to choose one, he would want to be
Speaker 1: a bucket man, because it's always been his dream to
Speaker 1: be the bagman in the heist. Ye say he's the
Speaker 1: one holding the poop. Uh, well, he would just I
Speaker 1: think you would just want the bucket I mean, clearly,
Speaker 1: clearly the best job is to get a way driving. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you'd think that. But here's the other thing is
Speaker 1: that because these night soil men were looked down upon society,
Speaker 1: they were often the target of derision and sometimes even violence.
Speaker 1: Do you had that they found themselves sometimes uh, having
Speaker 1: to chase people off from trying to harm their horses
Speaker 1: or steal their horses. They were in danger of being
Speaker 1: jumped occasionally just because they were looked so looked down upon.
Speaker 1: And you know, you're already thinking like they literally have
Speaker 1: a crap job, and on top of that, you're making
Speaker 1: life even worse by you know, harassing them while they're
Speaker 1: doing something that no one else wants to do. Very
Speaker 1: not to get cynical. That's a very human kind of
Speaker 1: thing to see. Yeah, and it's it's a shame because
Speaker 1: you know, as you said, they're they're providing a vital service,
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't judge people by their professions. But we
Speaker 1: do know, yeah, absolutely, I mean, we we have comedies
Speaker 1: based on that, right, Like you have comedies where you
Speaker 1: have the the typically it's a dull in the United States,
Speaker 1: would be like a dull, uh, someone who's viewed at
Speaker 1: least as being dull and a redneck whose job it
Speaker 1: is to empty outseptic tanks or or do like a
Speaker 1: rotor router kind of thing. That's that's frequently frame that way,
Speaker 1: and to this day there are folks who will, you know,
Speaker 1: judge someone based upon their occupation like that, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that if they found themselves in a situation where
Speaker 1: they needed that person, they would be in desperation trying
Speaker 1: to get hold of them to come out and and
Speaker 1: take care of the problem that they themselves could not
Speaker 1: take care of. So yeah, it's this is one of
Speaker 1: those ironic things about being human, right it's and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm certainly not putting myself on a pedestal. I know
Speaker 1: that I'm I'm sure I've made jokes at that kind
Speaker 1: of direction in the past. I'd like to think that
Speaker 1: I'm a little more egalitarian now I can acknowledge that
Speaker 1: I do, in fact poop, and I do sometimes I
Speaker 1: do sometimes need someone to take care of things for me.
Speaker 1: This is a big moment. I'm glad to know it's. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had a big moment earlier too, But that one,
Speaker 1: Oh man, yeah, what no, I was just I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, well, let's let's move on. Let's let's
Speaker 1: just move on. Fair. So there is one good thing
Speaker 1: about this, which we alluded to earlier, and it's this
Speaker 1: The job paid well, and you could usually treat it
Speaker 1: as a part time gig because you could only do
Speaker 1: it at night, right, right, So there were hundreds of
Speaker 1: people employed in various cities. As you said, often are
Speaker 1: people who because of the systemic discrimination, at least here
Speaker 1: in the US, they were people who couldn't get other
Speaker 1: jobs that they were qualified for. So it was literally
Speaker 1: the way that they made money in order to provide
Speaker 1: for their families. Because while they might have been able
Speaker 1: to do other jobs they were not allowed to or
Speaker 1: they or they just they just maybe it wasn't like
Speaker 1: a formal thing, you're not allowed to do this, but
Speaker 1: but practically that's how it played out. And here's here's
Speaker 1: the crazy thing. I like to mention the front lines before,
Speaker 1: because these people very much are on the front lines
Speaker 1: of saving these pre sewage system cities. In eighteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: James D. McCabe, it was was describing life we we
Speaker 1: by the way we've we've skipped over some pretty gnarly
Speaker 1: descriptions of how streets in New York used to be,
Speaker 1: or or how the hems turned out in the eighteen
Speaker 1: fifties after absorbing an inordinate amount of waste and became
Speaker 1: the Great Stink, the Great Stink. Yes, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: while we talked about like poop going to like it
Speaker 1: designated almost like a landfill type area or being used
Speaker 1: for agriculture, let's not shy away from it. A lot
Speaker 1: of that stuff got dumped into rivers. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a reason why people had stories about the Hudson and
Speaker 1: part of that is because it dates back to that
Speaker 1: being where night soilman would sometimes dump human waste right
Speaker 1: into the river and hope for that to carry it
Speaker 1: all away, just to just make it some other person's problem.
Speaker 1: It works, okay if it's a small Scottish village on
Speaker 1: the outskirts of the country. Not so great when you're
Speaker 1: talking about millions of people and eight hundred thousand cubic
Speaker 1: feet of waste. Yes, yeah, yeah, which is enough to
Speaker 1: We had some weird stat that I quite enjoyed. Eight
Speaker 1: hundred thousand cubic feet of human waste is around about it.
Speaker 1: It's about enough to fill fifty three thousand midsize cars.
Speaker 1: So if you've ever if you've ever been to that dealership,
Speaker 1: let us know, let us know, a terrible dealership. Don't
Speaker 1: go back, right, But how do they still have four
Speaker 1: stars on y'all? I don't know. I mean, my guess
Speaker 1: is that's one of those places where they don't let
Speaker 1: you leave until they see you leave the review. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Or or you have to donate, uh, donate poop. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: not all these jokes. You're gonna work. So but here's
Speaker 1: the thing, here's the thing, the serious part. If these
Speaker 1: people were not constantly working, especially in New York and
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds. Then the roads would become unnavigable. Uh.
Speaker 1: There there would be so much sewage that boats would
Speaker 1: not be able to dock at the harbor. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is nuts. Yeah. Well, and you and you think about
Speaker 1: just the health concerns to like you'd have cholera out
Speaker 1: brakes like crazy. And in fact that we've seen in history,
Speaker 1: We've seen Colorado breaks due to contaminated water. And if
Speaker 1: it weren't for people who actually would remove the waste,
Speaker 1: that would have been a much more common occurrence because
Speaker 1: you know, trying to keep your well water clean when
Speaker 1: you have cesspools overflowing, is is That's not an easy
Speaker 1: thing to do. Yeah, and this hit upon a profound
Speaker 1: point here. Sanitation remains an enormous issue in the world today,
Speaker 1: and uh, we can save millions, maybe a billion lives
Speaker 1: just by instituting uh water treatment, hygiene, fighting dysentery. It's
Speaker 1: it's a strange issue, but toilets could actually, in a
Speaker 1: very real way, uh, save the world. Well, they could
Speaker 1: save lives that that like you see. Um, so you know,
Speaker 1: I I host text stuff on the people I've talked
Speaker 1: about and tech stuff quite a bit. As Dean Cayman,
Speaker 1: famous for invade the segue, but he also has invented
Speaker 1: water purification systems that are meant to be deployed in
Speaker 1: areas that otherwise do not have access to clean drinking water.
Speaker 1: And it goes hand in hand with this, right, It's
Speaker 1: it's the dual issues of access to clean water and
Speaker 1: access to sanitation like to sanitary waste disposal. Uh, these
Speaker 1: are big, big problems. And while we in the United
Speaker 1: States are largely past that, there are large, enormous areas
Speaker 1: of the world that are still affected by this. So
Speaker 1: it's definitely an ongoing thing, an ongoing challenge, and it
Speaker 1: always will be. Whenever we get lots of people together,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're gonna have a lot of waste, which
Speaker 1: means that there are still, uh, there are still people
Speaker 1: doing the job of night soilman out there in the
Speaker 1: wide world. You don't see it as much here in
Speaker 1: the US because health concerns and the sewage system eventually
Speaker 1: brought this to a close. We learned so much as
Speaker 1: a species of the mid to late nineteenth century about
Speaker 1: the relationship between disease and human waste, and so we
Speaker 1: started to say, Okay, we've gotta we've gotta crack down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we gotta create we gotta create rules so that we
Speaker 1: can we can make sure that people remain safe, but
Speaker 1: they remain healthy. And so you started seeing sewer systems
Speaker 1: being implemented in the United States. The first city to
Speaker 1: get one with Chicago, and New York would follow behind that. Then,
Speaker 1: you know, in rural areas like I grew up in
Speaker 1: rural Georgia, we did not have a sewer system. In
Speaker 1: rural Georgia, you guys had a tank. We had septic tanks.
Speaker 1: So and about every five years you would have to
Speaker 1: have someone come out and empty your septic tanks. So
Speaker 1: again that was essentially like a cesspool, except it's a
Speaker 1: contained thing and it's buried under the ground, and you
Speaker 1: would have some someone come out with a back hoe.
Speaker 1: They dig up dirt with the back hoe, revealing the
Speaker 1: the entry point for the tank, put a hose down,
Speaker 1: pump it out. It was a terrible smell, and then
Speaker 1: they would put the dirt back on top, and then
Speaker 1: you would have to lay sod down because everything was
Speaker 1: torn up. So this is still something that happens just
Speaker 1: on a here in the United States. It still happens,
Speaker 1: but it's just on a different like it's a different process, right,
Speaker 1: but it's the same basic idea is that you eventually
Speaker 1: do have to have that service. I mean, there's nowhere
Speaker 1: else for the waist to go inside the septic tank
Speaker 1: except for it to the tank to get over overfilled
Speaker 1: and then you that's a terrible problem you don't want
Speaker 1: to have, trust me. Yeah, well I trust you on
Speaker 1: that one. Yeah, I will take your words. Growing up
Speaker 1: in World Georgia, saw it happened. Not not great, not great.
Speaker 1: And it's weird too when you think about it, because
Speaker 1: it is the best solution unless you use it for farming,
Speaker 1: but that still has health concerns. Oh yeah, absolutely, And
Speaker 1: you can't just like it's not like you can just
Speaker 1: grab buckets of the stuff just dump it on the
Speaker 1: ground and walk away. I mean that's not typically we're
Speaker 1: doing some processing too. Yeah, that's my bad. How many
Speaker 1: times do I have to apologize everybody in there every
Speaker 1: road trip, every road trip, as we're going past a
Speaker 1: farm bend's like, hang on, I need to help out
Speaker 1: the little guy, and it just jumps out and drops troal.
Speaker 1: It is embarrassing, you know, it's um My heart's in
Speaker 1: the right place. Yeah, your heart is other organs. I'm
Speaker 1: getting real concerned about. So there is a fascinating technological
Speaker 1: aspect to this, and I love seeing this kind of innovation.
Speaker 1: One thing that we tend to do very well and
Speaker 1: humans is when we when we see a good idea,
Speaker 1: we can weirdly get on board with it, like we're
Speaker 1: we're actually we're terrible at a lot of stuff, but
Speaker 1: we're not that bad at admitting in there's a superior technology.
Speaker 1: And that's why. Uh, just just a few years after
Speaker 1: they've or a few decades after they've implemented sewers, Chicago
Speaker 1: and New York have what five miles of sewers that Chicago,
Speaker 1: eighty four from New York, and then other cities joined
Speaker 1: the mix, Philadelphia and so on. With these sewers, we
Speaker 1: we see that night men night soil men are less
Speaker 1: and less in demand, but the job doesn't immediately disappear
Speaker 1: because there are still a lot of old buildings at
Speaker 1: the time that aren't on the sewage system. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you still had flush toilets that would empty out into
Speaker 1: a sesspit. Guardi guardi lu guardy lou. Yeah, well, you know,
Speaker 1: and and it COEs back to also the garter robe,
Speaker 1: and you know the garter robe and a castle that
Speaker 1: was that was poop chamber. Essentially, you would position it
Speaker 1: so that you had a hole in a tower that
Speaker 1: was typically would drop down just to the outside of
Speaker 1: the gates or outside the walls of the building you
Speaker 1: were in. So when you go into your business, you're
Speaker 1: pooping out a window. Essentially, this is a window that's
Speaker 1: that's built into a seat goes down the tower. Uh,
Speaker 1: they would hang clothes in the garter robe because turned
Speaker 1: out moths didn't want to go in where the poop
Speaker 1: smell was. So if you wanted to hang your fine
Speaker 1: things in the poop room, you didn't have to worry
Speaker 1: about them getting eaten up by moths. Just maybe an odor, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there might be a bit of an odor. But everyone's
Speaker 1: stunk back then. Nobody. Nobody was really pleasantly fragrant back
Speaker 1: in those days. And I think the concept of taking
Speaker 1: a bath was ritualized, like it was something you would
Speaker 1: do before you were nighted. Yeah, yeah, I mean you
Speaker 1: know who had time for that? Like, you know, you
Speaker 1: were you're working all day, unless if you were super noble,
Speaker 1: you might not be working working. You'd be hunting or something,
Speaker 1: but you'd be working all day and then nighttime came
Speaker 1: and it was too dark to do anything else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, it's not like we we always try to
Speaker 1: hit this when when we're in these sorts of conversations.
Speaker 1: It's not like the people who existed hundreds or thousands
Speaker 1: of years ago were fundamentally different. They weren't dumb. No,
Speaker 1: they weren't like, you know what's awesome, smelling like garbage.
Speaker 1: They had other things that they had to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you had a list of priorities, and hygiene was not
Speaker 1: high among them. And yeah, I mean you're again like
Speaker 1: I started this out by talking about the Industrial Revolution
Speaker 1: and how that led to an unprecedented era of urbanization.
Speaker 1: Like urbanization had already been a thing, but that really
Speaker 1: ramped up during the Industrial Revolution era. Well, the Industrial
Speaker 1: Revolution also is what would lead to us being able
Speaker 1: to have stuff like spare time. Fair time wasn't a
Speaker 1: thing really before the Industrial Revolution. You were working from
Speaker 1: sunrise to sunset just so that you could stay alive, right,
Speaker 1: so like a dissipated aristocrat. But you were still also
Speaker 1: very busy because you had to do a bunch of
Speaker 1: social obligations or or you yeah, you might be you
Speaker 1: might be doing all sorts of different things. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't until we had a point where we had developed
Speaker 1: machinery and systems to offload a lot of work for
Speaker 1: us to actually have the time to devote to things
Speaker 1: where we suddenly realized, Hey, these other things that are
Speaker 1: important but weren't important enough to make our top priorities.
Speaker 1: Now we can attend to those. And that's where we
Speaker 1: started seeing revolutions and things like sanitation and uh. And
Speaker 1: we started to see things like the sciences flourish and
Speaker 1: medicine flourish, largely because a lot of that time had
Speaker 1: been freed up so people could pursue these things. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's again like like you say, ben, Uh,
Speaker 1: the people in the past, we don't wish to cast
Speaker 1: them in a in that light of look at how
Speaker 1: how enlightened we are and how primitive they are. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of parallels we can still
Speaker 1: draw today and say, honestly, we're still pretty much the
Speaker 1: same as human beings. It's just we have access to
Speaker 1: technologies that they didn't. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's way
Speaker 1: to sum it up. We we also have to point out,
Speaker 1: by the way, there is a bit of a's a
Speaker 1: mystery of foot, a bit of speculation about the danger
Speaker 1: of night soil. Yeah yeah, yeah, night soil may have
Speaker 1: been what killed President William Henry Harrison jere Belly Harry, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: his friends. Washington d C, as you know, is built
Speaker 1: on a swamp, and back in the day, one of
Speaker 1: the city's dumping grounds for waste cesspool areas was this
Speaker 1: yield that was near the White House. And so much
Speaker 1: commentary is coming to mind right now, I know, man,
Speaker 1: and uh, some historians thinking it might have played a
Speaker 1: role in President Harrison's death, in one that perhaps the
Speaker 1: water that he was accessing was contaminated and that that
Speaker 1: may have led to him growing ill as a result,
Speaker 1: or at least exacerbating something that was already a problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's not great. It's I mean, you definitely can
Speaker 1: see where where phrases like drain the swamp really come
Speaker 1: into play, right Yeah, well, Washing d C is again
Speaker 1: built on the swamp. Yeah, it literally is. It's it's
Speaker 1: not figurative, it's literal. It's it's such a weird thing. Now,
Speaker 1: there is maybe a pattern to other presidents. James K.
Speaker 1: Polk and Zachary Taylor also had severe gastro into ritis
Speaker 1: during their time at the White House. So you can
Speaker 1: see where historians would argue that maybe maybe the lack
Speaker 1: of sanitation played a role there. But this is such
Speaker 1: a bizarre story to me. Okay, I gotta tell you, man,
Speaker 1: you know I've been I'm in and out of the
Speaker 1: different cities and countries pretty frequently, and you travel pretty frequently,
Speaker 1: more so than I would like to, yes, more so
Speaker 1: that you like um travel pretty frequently. And when we
Speaker 1: were looking into today's episode, I started thinking about all
Speaker 1: the weird toilets seen around the world, especially in places
Speaker 1: older than the US. You know, the squat toilet is
Speaker 1: the standard, right, it's the bog standard standard. And uh,
Speaker 1: on the other extreme, a lot of the toilets in
Speaker 1: say Japan, are amazing. I feel like this is what
Speaker 1: those Roman aristocrats must have felt like. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It seats, you know, the noises to cover
Speaker 1: up whatever terrible unnatural sounds you're producing in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: which is fantastic. I would love if there were more
Speaker 1: of those here in the US. It's like we're barbarians
Speaker 1: were the majority of stalled doors have these weird uh
Speaker 1: these weird clearances, these gaps and where people just walk
Speaker 1: by and you just get an eyeball looking in Japanese
Speaker 1: horror movie style right as you are, as you are
Speaker 1: attending to your shame, and and you go you go
Speaker 1: into like a Japanese bathroom, and the door closed. The
Speaker 1: door when it closes, it actually does close and close.
Speaker 1: You you're in a room. And then you look at
Speaker 1: this incredibly sophisticated contraption, and you know, I'll confess the
Speaker 1: first time in my life I ever walked in the
Speaker 1: room and I looked at something's figuring out. Okay, I've
Speaker 1: got the basic gist. It's really important for me to
Speaker 1: understand which button does what? Right right, I was like,
Speaker 1: based on my years of previous experience using restrooms, I
Speaker 1: know the bay six. There are a lot of buttons
Speaker 1: on this thing. And eventually I had to say, is
Speaker 1: this toilet smarter than me? That's is that? What? Usually
Speaker 1: most toilets we come into contact with ben have have one,
Speaker 1: maybe two buttons or levers on them, like you know,
Speaker 1: you occasionally see one where it's the low flow button
Speaker 1: and then the you know, industrial let's wash away all
Speaker 1: the terrible things you've done to this toilet button. But
Speaker 1: otherwise that's it. You're not gonna encounter. Maybe someone's got
Speaker 1: a bi day maybe, but yeah, the Japanese ones are
Speaker 1: are are super sophisticated to the point of intimidation. I agree,
Speaker 1: I honestly I want a Western version, you know, because
Speaker 1: there's lots of ones where all play like the sound
Speaker 1: of flowing water or something to cover up any other noises. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can be sacks would be good. Yeah, cany sack
Speaker 1: would be good. But no, I was thinking of just, uh,
Speaker 1: maybe Ed O'Neill screaming I'm pooping over and over and
Speaker 1: over again. Because everyone knows what's going on in there.
Speaker 1: You just don't want able to hear you making any
Speaker 1: noise while you do it. But if you have someone
Speaker 1: like O'Neil just screaming I'm pooping, one you're acknowledging what
Speaker 1: the act is, and two it's covering up all those
Speaker 1: sounds you're making. So what about hang on? What about this? Uh?
Speaker 1: What about that guy you case? You know we're talking
Speaker 1: about off air the cocktail lounge, So that just up
Speaker 1: playing playing a lounge song of the to cover it up.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I'm down with it. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of different things we could have. We
Speaker 1: could have a thing about it's gonna be a stink
Speaker 1: sound and down with the night soil, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking of that song. Oh gosh, you wrote
Speaker 1: that night Moves. Yeah, yeah, I was thinking. I was
Speaker 1: trying to come up with a night Moves to me too,
Speaker 1: That's why I went with a That's why I went
Speaker 1: with a night shift instead with night Moves. I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: it's the song that plays over the action montage of
Speaker 1: the poop Heist crew. The Night Moves is a perfect song.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can totally see an Edgar Wright movie
Speaker 1: with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as two of the
Speaker 1: night Soil man, can't you. Yeah, but the night Moves
Speaker 1: are poop. Yeah, I thought this through. Yeah anyway, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's it's um. I am actually amazed at how few
Speaker 1: toilet jokes we made in this episode, because we were
Speaker 1: both afraid that that's all it was going to be. Yes,
Speaker 1: all the way through, we have conducted ourselves in a
Speaker 1: commodious fashion. In fact, we have I am flushed with excitement.
Speaker 1: So I have to ask Casey real quick. You have
Speaker 1: you've traveled pretty extensively in Europe without get two in
Speaker 1: the weeds there. What's your take? What's the lay of
Speaker 1: the land toilet wise in in Europe? Like, would you
Speaker 1: say the bathrooms are generally better, generally worse? Same same, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's pretty similar. I would say at this point a
Speaker 1: lot of the Western European countries have kind of adopted
Speaker 1: the same basic toilet infrastructure as we're used to here
Speaker 1: in the States. Germany slightly different style. Oh, they've got
Speaker 1: the shelf. They've got the shelf, which is that's a
Speaker 1: weird one for for people who are not used to it. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't really know what to say about that one.
Speaker 1: It's not my favorite, but it's memorable. Yeah, that's I'm
Speaker 1: so glad you brought that up. I was also surprised
Speaker 1: by the shelf. You know what we're talking. Yes, I've
Speaker 1: been to Germany. Yes, yeah, yeah, it's the common thing,
Speaker 1: they're right. Yeah, Yeah, it's one of those again. It's
Speaker 1: one of those things where when you are accustomed to
Speaker 1: something that is a mundane piece of everyday furniture, if
Speaker 1: you will, or or just appliance, however you want to
Speaker 1: refer to a toilet. When you encounter something that that
Speaker 1: goes away from what you are used to, it can
Speaker 1: become something of a small existential crisis, particularly in a
Speaker 1: moment of necessity and vulnerability, because you're sitting there wondering,
Speaker 1: am I doing this? There's somewhere else I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: be doing this, and you're literally caught with your pants right.
Speaker 1: It's like the fear of not knowing that a bid
Speaker 1: day is a bid day, making use of it the
Speaker 1: wrong way, or um you know, or like the scene
Speaker 1: in the I T. Crowd where Roy is in the
Speaker 1: bathroom and he's pulling on what he thinks is the
Speaker 1: pull chain for the toilet, but it actually turns out
Speaker 1: to be an alarm for someone who has a disability
Speaker 1: and they're pulling on it for for help, and he's
Speaker 1: been tugging on it thinking that and wondering why the
Speaker 1: toilet is not flushing. It's those moments, is when you
Speaker 1: encounter those those things that are outside your normal experience.
Speaker 1: And again this gets back to something else we were
Speaker 1: just talking about earlier in the episode, because we have
Speaker 1: these hang ups about this activity that everyone does, no
Speaker 1: one wants to acknowledge when we find ourselves in those situations,
Speaker 1: I think more often than not, we we we find
Speaker 1: ourselves too embarrassed to ask anybody any questions. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't for one, it acknowledges that you do this
Speaker 1: thing that we all do, but we none of us
Speaker 1: want to acknowledge. And then on top of that, you
Speaker 1: have the added embarrassment of having to admit you don't
Speaker 1: know something. And a lot of us, myself included, can
Speaker 1: encounter a lot of resistance. You know, we don't want
Speaker 1: to admit we don't know how to do something, especially
Speaker 1: something so common and mundane that everyone does. So it's
Speaker 1: that that double whammy, right, like saying I don't know this,
Speaker 1: So it's the whole I don't want to stop and
Speaker 1: ask for directions because it's admitting that I don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. Uh, And it's also I don't want
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that I have to do the same thing
Speaker 1: that everybody else on the plant does. I'm telling you, man,
Speaker 1: we need all I'm calling it all restrooms definitely, public
Speaker 1: restroom shared spaces should have soundtrack options. Casey, I I
Speaker 1: don't know what's too it's too weird of a question,
Speaker 1: but uh, we can't wait for this one. What what's
Speaker 1: what's the ideal noise do you think for for for
Speaker 1: a commode a public restroom, you know, I mean white
Speaker 1: noise is great, or or just a well insulated door,
Speaker 1: you know, floor to ceiling rather than open. I hate
Speaker 1: it when when they design bathrooms and like the opening
Speaker 1: is so big you can actually kind of see out
Speaker 1: or in. Yeah, why do they do that? That's that's
Speaker 1: it's a mystery. But um, we're we're blessed in our
Speaker 1: current Yeah, because we have like floor to ceiling doors
Speaker 1: that full coverage, full full deniability. You know who's in,
Speaker 1: who's out. If you if you do find yourself without
Speaker 1: access to toilet paper, it is a terrible, terrible experience, however,
Speaker 1: because there is no way to have anyone hand it
Speaker 1: to you over or there's no over or under. These
Speaker 1: are stalls that go floor to ceiling, so it means
Speaker 1: you have to open the door. You always have an
Speaker 1: exit strategy. Always always check that there's t P before
Speaker 1: you jump jump in there. Um, not that I know
Speaker 1: that from a personal experience that totally happened to me. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm still gonna rule that a casey on the case,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna say, you know, well, of course I
Speaker 1: respect the judgment of the court. There. I I'm having
Speaker 1: a great time thinking about like the worst songs to
Speaker 1: play when someone is using a rest room, Like what
Speaker 1: if in the saying these are all bad songs, but
Speaker 1: like what if every time you used the rest room
Speaker 1: jump by Van Halen and it was the like it
Speaker 1: was like a law or something like all the masks. Definitely,
Speaker 1: it's definitely bad advice, typically right when you're when you're
Speaker 1: on a on a toilet. I was thinking, I was
Speaker 1: thinking hail to the Chief, but I was afraid that
Speaker 1: we get way too political. So what about um oh
Speaker 1: now I'm thinking, well, yeah, I know right, like their
Speaker 1: brain just starts like call me. Maybe that would be
Speaker 1: a really bad wonder wall uh thingest stuff like a
Speaker 1: good case. Well, we want to hear your suggestion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the best song and or noise to play over
Speaker 1: the sound of humans dealing with their waste problem in
Speaker 1: the bathroom? Probably like white noiser nature thing. But I'm
Speaker 1: in love with the idea what's the worst one? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I love with the idea of like what's the
Speaker 1: what's the worst song? You know, man, there's so many great,
Speaker 1: many great yeah dance this mess around, yeah man, so uh,
Speaker 1: let us know we want to hear from you. We
Speaker 1: also want to doff our figurative caps to the hard
Speaker 1: work of the night soilman, both those of the past
Speaker 1: and those of the present day. Yes, you make a
Speaker 1: valuable contribution to making sure society can continue to function. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for keeping us less dirty, less filthy. We're just
Speaker 1: a filthy thing that we're always going to need help
Speaker 1: with that as we appreciate every help we get. And
Speaker 1: where can you? Hey, guys, I know the best slash
Speaker 1: worst song to regularly play when people use the toilet?
Speaker 1: Where can I tell you and my fellow listeners about it?
Speaker 1: Excellent question. You can find us on Facebook. You can
Speaker 1: find us on Instagram. You can find us on Twitter.
Speaker 1: We especially like to recommend our our Facebook page Ridiculous Historians,
Speaker 1: where you can you can share your opinions about the Again,
Speaker 1: the question the worst song to play while people are pooping?
Speaker 1: I cannot wait for that thread because you know people
Speaker 1: are going to link to YouTube videos so that you
Speaker 1: can actually go through and listen to submissions. It's going
Speaker 1: to be amazing. It will be amazing to hear them
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna encounter songs I've never heard before, specifically
Speaker 1: in the context of it covering up the sounds of
Speaker 1: me pooping. And I cannot eight for that experience. Yes,
Speaker 1: and Uh. While you are waiting for that experience, we're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out which song best suits you. Why
Speaker 1: not learn more about the past, present, and future of
Speaker 1: all things tech Jonathan. In addition to being our are
Speaker 1: long running nemesis as the Twister. Uh, you are also
Speaker 1: a bedroom podcaster and you have, as we mentioned a
Speaker 1: previous episode, one of the longest running podcasts in our network, Yes,
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff, that's been running since two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: I actually do have an episode about the history of
Speaker 1: toilets Josh Clark of Stuff you should Know. Join me
Speaker 1: for that episode. So Josh and I sat down in
Speaker 1: the studio about ten feet away from where we're sitting
Speaker 1: right now, and we talked about toilets for an hour.
Speaker 1: So if you want to hear more about toilets, including
Speaker 1: the story about Scarra Bray. And since that episode, I
Speaker 1: visited Scara Bray in person and got to see the
Speaker 1: uh well, the the remnants of what was their their
Speaker 1: sewer system. Wait, did you go to Scotland just for that? No?
Speaker 1: I went to Scotland for many reasons, Okay, but I
Speaker 1: went to scar A Brave just for that. Okay, I
Speaker 1: did go to that part of Scotland just for that. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that whole episode is up there, along with approximately
Speaker 1: one thousand others, so you can learn all about all
Speaker 1: things technological, whether it's a company, a person in tech,
Speaker 1: a specific technology trends. It's all there and you can
Speaker 1: also find us on Twitter. I'm at Bembole and h
Speaker 1: s W. I'm on Instagram at Bemboland. I am at
Speaker 1: John Strickland. That's j O. N. Strickland, so check me
Speaker 1: out there. I get very lonely on Twitter. I look
Speaker 1: forward to seeing all your tweets. Yess and not takes
Speaker 1: a plenty, Yes, of course, thank you so much to
Speaker 1: our super producer Casey Pegram. Thanks to my writer or
Speaker 1: Die Noel Brown, who is on the road but we'll
Speaker 1: be returning soon. He's currently writing, Yes, he's currently writing,
Speaker 1: not dying uh and thinks of course. Our research associate
Speaker 1: gave Christophersotis Eve's Jeff Coche, the night Soilman around the World,
Speaker 1: Night Soiled Professionals, and of course Jonathan, thank you for
Speaker 1: coming on the show. Now I understand that this is
Speaker 1: just a bit of an armistice. Yes, we we have
Speaker 1: a temporary peace treaty in place. The next time you
Speaker 1: hear from me, I will likely be plaguing you once
Speaker 1: again with with various scenarios, and you and no will
Speaker 1: have to suss out which are true and which are false.
Speaker 1: But for now, thank you Ben for having me on
Speaker 1: the show, and thank you listeners. I never get to
Speaker 1: say that part We'll see you again real soon, which
Speaker 1: is also we keep this in, which is also a
Speaker 1: lied I lifted from Yes That's that's a tech stup line.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.