FOOTNOTES:
[109] See the date of the letter on a landslip near Giagnano (vol. i. p. 302).
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," December 28, 1871.]
THE STREETS OF LONDON.
To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."
Sir: I have been every day on the point of writing to you since your notice, on the 18th,[110] of the dirty state of the London streets, to ask whether any of your readers would care to know how such matters are managed in my neighborhood. I was obliged, a few years ago, for the benefit of my health, to take a small house in one of the country towns of Utopia; and though I was at first disappointed in the climate, which indeed is no better than our own (except that there is no foul marsh air), I found my cheerfulness and ability for work greatly increased by the mere power of getting exercise pleasantly close to my door, even in the worst of the winter, when, though I have a little garden at the back of my house, I dislike going into it, because the things look all so dead; and find my walk on the whole pleasanter in the streets, these being always perfectly clean, and the wood-carving of the houses prettier than much of our indoor furniture. But it was about the streets I wanted to tell you. The Utopians have the oddest way of carrying out things, when once they begin, as far as they can go; and it occurred to them one dirty December long since, when they, like us, had only crossing-sweepers, that they might just as well sweep the whole of the street as the crossings of it, so that they might cross anywhere. Of course that meant more work for the sweepers; but the Utopians have always hands enough for whatever work is to be done in the open air;—they appointed a due number of brooms-men to every quarter of the town; and since then, at any time of the year, it is in our little town as in great Rotterdam when Doctor Brown saw it on his journey from Norwich to Colen in 1668, "the women go about in white slippers," which is pretty to see.[111] Now, Sir, it would, of course, be more difficult to manage anything like this in London, because, for one thing, in our town we have a rivulet running down every street that slopes to the river; and besides, because you have coal-dust and smoke and what not to deal with; and the habit of spitting, which is worst of all—in Utopia, a man would as soon vomit as spit in the street (or anywhere else, indeed, if he could help it). But still it is certain we can at least anywhere do as much for the whole street, as we have done for the crossing; and to show that we can, I mean, on 1st January next, to take three street-sweepers into constant service; they will be the first workpeople I employ with the interest of the St. George's fund, of which I shall get my first dividend this January; and, whenever I can get leave from the police and inhabitants, I will keep my three sweepers steadily at work for eight hours a day; and I hope soon to show you a bit of our London streets kept as clean as the deck of a ship of the line.[112]
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
John Ruskin.
December 27, 1871.