Many a time, we take things for granted. I am inclined into thinking that we are not used to counting our blessings and naming them one by one as the inspired songwriter gave.
I came across one of the things the Statute Law Revision Commissioner removed from our criminal laws as punishment to convicts. Carrying of “night soil” and it got me thinking of how far we have come.
Did you know that this was the job some people, though not convicts, did to put food on their tables? About 30 years ago, I knew of a couple of such people who you usually see in the daytime booking assignments to be completed at the night. One thing was clear from the manner they were always seen at night performing their functions. Not one was ever seen not drunk whenever they carried the human excreta.
What I have vividly on my mind is the day one of them poured the “night soil” in front of our house. The place that was slopy became worse with the slippery nature of the excreta. We could not hold our laughter anytime someone slipped and fell in it. It was our source of entertainment for almost a week till it dried up amidst the stench. This is something I will not encourage today.
It was a common thing in those days to find those who did that job to pour the waste in front of people’s house especially when they mocked them or they pick a quarrel with them. In our case, as described above, one cannot tell if it was deliberate since they were mostly drunk.
The issue that brought this whole thing is how we have lived with inhuman practices as a country not long ago. One of the things I hated growing up was getting wet from water that dripped from leaking buckets as part of the household chores one had to do. Can you imagine a leaking pot with “night soil” on the head of a grown-up man all in the name of working to put food on the table?
To realize that convicts did not deserve to be used to carry “night soil” was a great contribution to the administration of our criminal procedures but to think of it as the duty one had to do to survive makes me cry as a citizen.
Have we failed as a nation to help our citizens survive over the years?
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