Plumbing

I've been reading C Hodding Carter's Flushed : How the Plumber Saved Civilization, which gives a general overview of plumbing (mainly toilets and sewage) and a history of plumbing in the US. Actually, the book has been in the loo, and I've been reading chunks on each visit, so it has taken a while to finish it. The reason for the interest is of course that one of William's trades was plumbing, so I'm trying to get a handle on what plumbing might have involved in the second half of the nineteenth century. I'm not all that much wiser really - more questions raised than answered. What exactly was the state of domestic sanitation in Wellington 1841? And did Sarah perhaps have a slightly better deal, being married to a plumber, or was she like most tradesmen's wives, living in a series of unfinished projects? Did William install the latest state-of-the-art facilities (whatever they might have been) at home? Did they have an earth-closet or a cess-pit, and whatever it was, did they have to trek halfway down the back yard in full view of the neighbours to use it? Did a chamber-pot lurk under the marital bed? What about loo paper? I think it had been invented by then, but would it have been available in a primitive town at the uncivilised end of the world? And if it was available, was it affordable? Was it something you wanted to spend money on? Or was the newspaper carefully ripped into squares and rationed economically - the local paper at the time only came out twice a week, and it wasn't very big, so would it have gone far enough? Or perhaps both local papers were purchased, to ensure wide coverage of local politics as well as sufficient sanitary coverage?

And am I completely and utterly twisted for wanting to know about my great-great-grandparents' toilet habits?