receiving night soil, the water closet having replaced dry conservancy in Manchester. Geographic spread The pail system was used throughout Europe, in French cities such as Marseille and Le Havre, and English towns and cities such as Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester, but it was popular in the town of Rochdale, from which the Rochdale system of pail collection took its name. It was widespread in Australia too. Decline and end In Coventry, the number of pail closets in use declined from about 712 in 1907, to 92 in 1912, and only 16 by 1926. Pail toilets with municipal collection persisted in Australia well into the second half of the twentieth century. Brisbane, its third most populous city, relied on "dunny carts" until the 1950s (one source says until the 1970s); because the population was so dispersed, it was difficult to install sewerage. Tar, creosote, and disinfectant kept the smell down. Academic George Seddon claimed that "the typical Australian back yard in the cities and country towns" had, throughout the first half of the twentieth century, "a dunny against the back fence, so that the pan could be collected from the dunny lane through a trap-door". Pail toilets with municipal collection was common in cities such as Colombo and Kandy in Ceylon into the late 1950's and 1960's. See also History of water supply and sanitation Bucket toilet, also known in some countries as a "honey bucket" Composting toilet Gong farmer, a historical term to describe someone who dug out and removed human excrement from privies and cesspits References Footnotes Notes Bibliography Toilet types