Because they would dump the waste off the left side of the boat, and get drinking water from the right.
This was a general problem more connected to cleanliness as a whole in 19th century America. Read a history of old New York, and realize that it took multiple plagues before they even started discussing not having livestock roaming the city.
I’ve been on those canal boats before, they are very, very slow.
Of course they were slow. They were an efficient method of moving a lot of cargo. Each boat moved slowly, but the total cargo moved was a lot more than they could often be moved by other means. Think of it as high latency and high bandwith.
They had orphans walk on the side of the boat and guide the donkey (ass) that pulled it.
In general 19th century attitudes towards child labor weren’t great. But what does this have to do with the canal system itself? Compared to many jobs they could have, this would have been a pretty good one. And this isn’t at all connected to using orphans; it isn’t like the canals were Powered by the souls of forsaken children. They were simply the form of cheap labor used during that time period for many purposes.
They also took a long time to build, and didn’t last that long.
The first point isn’t relevant unless you are trying to make a detailed economic estimate of whether they paid for themselves. The second is simply because they weren’t maintained after a few years once many of them were made obsolete by rail lines. If the rails had not come in, the canals would have lasted much longer.
This was a general problem more connected to cleanliness as a whole in 19th century America. Read a history of old New York, and realize that it took multiple plagues before they even started discussing not having livestock roaming the city.
Of course they were slow. They were an efficient method of moving a lot of cargo. Each boat moved slowly, but the total cargo moved was a lot more than they could often be moved by other means. Think of it as high latency and high bandwith.
In general 19th century attitudes towards child labor weren’t great. But what does this have to do with the canal system itself? Compared to many jobs they could have, this would have been a pretty good one. And this isn’t at all connected to using orphans; it isn’t like the canals were Powered by the souls of forsaken children. They were simply the form of cheap labor used during that time period for many purposes.
The first point isn’t relevant unless you are trying to make a detailed economic estimate of whether they paid for themselves. The second is simply because they weren’t maintained after a few years once many of them were made obsolete by rail lines. If the rails had not come in, the canals would have lasted much longer.