Sometimes, the simple pleasures in life are the ones we most often take for granted. Take for example, toilet paper – which you certainly don’t won’t think of unless you have need for it! What was life like before toilet paper?

the title of yg’s post says it all: what we used to wipe our backside:

in those night-soil carriers days, we had not started using toilet paper that came in a roll. we cut old newspapers into square or rectangle pieces and use them to do the job. they were held together by a length of wire that was pierced through one corner of the stack. when we had to do a quick job, we did not even bother to get the ready-cut ones, we just grabbed some old papers and headed for the latrine. sometimes we collected the soft tissue-like papers that were used for wrapping fruit and used them for the same purpose. one advantage of using old newspaper was that you had something to read while engaged in your business.

If you are wondering what night-soil is, you can read some of our previous posts mentioning it here and here.