II. The Causes and the Prevention of Endemic Disease.
According to the method adopted in my [last Annual Report], I now proceed to offer you such observations as another year’s experience may justify, on those physical influences which prevail against life within the City of London, and on such remedial measures as seem aptest to remove them.
Sub-soil Drainage, House-Drainage, and Sewerage.
1. In respect of drainage, I have already adverted to those unwholesome conditions which prevail along the low-lying valley of the ancient Fleet, and have mentioned to you that frequent incursions of the river aggravate whatever mischief is inherent in the soil, by maintaining it as a perpetual swamp, and by favoring in it a constant succession of putrefactive changes. I have likewise illustrated to you the probability that, in some of the higher portions of the City, chiefly in the Out-Wards of Cripplegate and Bishopsgate, there still survive some properties of that old malarious fen, from which these districts were originally reclaimed. Stow seems in his day to have had misgivings on this subject; for after describing the improvements that had been effected there, and the gradual levelling and heightening of the ground, he adds, ‘it seemeth to me that if it be made level with the battlements of the city wall, yet will it be little the dryer, such was then the moorish nature of that ground.’
From a consideration of this former geography of the place, and from observation of the diseases which prevail there, I am led to think it highly probable, that some of its sanitary defects depend less on defective house-drainage than on a still marshy undrained condition of the ground itself, and that these defects would be removed by an efficient application of sub-soil drainage.
I would therefore respectfully recommend to you, under this head, that the state of soil in the specified districts be referred to competent authorities, and that such measures be adopted as inquiry may prove requisite, for relieving those parts where the sub-soil drainage is imperfect, and for protecting the house-foundations, and sewers, and sub-soil adjacent to the river, from being soaked or flooded by the tide.
2. With respect to house-drainage, I have no addition to offer to those remarks which I submitted to you in my [last Report]. Your Hon. Court has fully recognised that immense peril to life which is connected with the presence of cesspools beneath houses, and which depends on their poisonous emanations. At the commencement of the present year, your Surveyor stated that he might take ‘5414, as a fair approximation of the number of cesspools’ then in existence within the square mile of the City of London. This proportion, dangerously large as without doubt it is, presented an important diminution from the number which existed a year previously, when your Commission first obtained from the Legislature authority to enforce their closure; and it may reasonably be anticipated that at the termination of this present year, a still further abatement will be recorded in the magnitude of that destructive nuisance.
3. Notwithstanding the variety of stink-traps to which you have given trial, and notwithstanding the fact (recorded by your Committee of Health on the Surveyor’s authority) that ‘there does not exist within your jurisdiction a single gully which is untrapped,’ there continue to be frequent complaints of offensive exhalations from the sewers.
The mechanical difficulties in this matter of trapping have appeared to be, from the nature of the case, almost insuperable. It may, indeed, easily be conceived, how incompatible are the common uses of a gully-hole with such fineness of adjustment and delicacy of balance as would render the apparatus air-tight from within, and effectually preclude an escape of the gaseous contents of a sewer. Under such circumstances, your Hon. Court has desired that I should express my opinion, how far a different course might be adopted in respect of these exhalations; how far, namely, they might be neutralised within the sewers; how far it might be chemically feasible, and in a sanitary point of view expedient, that a systematic use should be made of deodorising agents; so that any gas escaping from the sewers should at least be divested of its original smell.
On this subject, I would submit to you the following considerations. As respects its feasibility (putting aside as foreign to my province all questions of the expense, and all details of the daily arrangement) a first and obvious objection is this: Granted in the abstract, that sewer-gases can be converted by appropriate agents into inodorous compounds; in the practical application of these agents, you would find impediments with which you are already familiar. Theoretically, there may be no difficulty in providing air-tight traps; practically there is said to be every difficulty. Just as that mechanical problem has defeated you in practice, so would the chemical one; and for the same reason. The fulfilment of either problem is a matter of nice adjustment. In proportion as your gully-hole is exquisitely trapped, it becomes liable to obstruction; it loses its use as an inlet to the sewer, nearly in the same measure as it becomes an effective obstacle to regurgitant gases. Similarly, in proportion as these alleged deodorisers might succeed in completely stifling the characteristic odour of sewage, they would be liable to diffuse perfumes peculiarly their own, and to establish, in the vicinity of gully-holes, the alternation of a new nuisance with the old. To proportion with accuracy the introduction of these chlorinous preparations to the amount of refuse traversing the sewers—an amount varying most considerably at different hours of the day, seems to me quite a visionary hope. Failing such accurate proportions, I am not prepared to say that the result would be useful; and I accordingly consider the scheme as not chemically feasible.
Further—as involving an important sanitary principle, I would say, that the great object which must be aimed at is not the mere chemical neutralisation of certain stinks which arise within your jurisdiction, but the closest possible limitation, and the promptest possible removal of all those materials which are decomposed into fœtid products. Admirable, no doubt, is that arrangement by which Nature, stationing a sense of smell at the inlet of our breath, cautions us by this vigilant sentinel against the inhalation of many poisonous airs; but, in respect of organic decomposition, I am in no degree satisfied that its odorous products are its only, if even its principal, agents of injury; nor have I any reason to suppose that the real detriment to health which arises from breathing the miasms of sewers or marshes, of cesspools, burial-grounds, or slaughter-houses, would in any important degree be lessened by the mere mitigation of fœtor in their effluvia. Offensive as these are, they at least answer the useful purpose of warning us against the other poisons with which they are associated.
Let me likewise take the opportunity of correcting a misapprehension, which, by the use of an inappropriate word, is sometimes shown to exist on this subject. The agents in question are spoken of as dis-infectant. As there is no scientific reason whatever for believing that they in any degree interfere with the spread of epidemic or infectious disease, and as an erroneous opinion on this point may lead to the neglect of measures which are truly precautionary and useful, I think it well to state explicitly, for your information, that I have no evidence of their possessing any other utility, in the respects under consideration, than simply and singly that of removing stink from the atmosphere around them.
For reducing to a minimum the exhalations which arise from sewers and house-drains, it appears to me that the following are the essential principles: First, to render the current through them as rapid as possible; and, above all, by every care for their form, their junctions, their slope, and their material, to provide against the occurrence of obstructions and deposit: Secondly, to employ in their construction, so far as may be possible, such substances as are porous in the least procurable degree; such as consequently will be least apt to imbibe and retain in their interstices any considerable impregnation from the fœtid fluids running over them at intervals; such, too, as will be least likely to permit soakage into the surrounding soil: Thirdly, by reducing the size of drains and sewers to the lowest dimensions compatible with a full performance of their uses, to diminish to the utmost the extent of their interior evaporating surface, and of those large chambers which they now offer for the evolution, retention, and diffusion of gases.
To the application of these principles (together with a sufficient and appropriate distribution of water) far more than to chemical agents, or to the invention of mechanical traps, I believe that you must look for rendering inodorous the vicinity of your numerous gully-holes. I content myself with stating them to you, as a practical deduction from physical laws, without venturing to offer any opinion on the degree in which they are applicable within your jurisdiction, or on the manner in which they should be applied. For although, as principles, they have their foundation in physics, and although their importance to sanitary improvement is beyond measure great, all details relating to their application lie out of my province, and belong to a class of subjects in which your Surveyor’s opinion will, of course, be infinitely more useful to you than mine.
Water-Supply.
During the past year, as in the preceding one, I have given frequent consideration to the subject of water-supply within the City.
I have already endeavoured to convey to you the deep sense which I entertain of its importance, and I have every reason to believe that your Hon. Court recognises, at its full weight, the necessity of providing for the City of London a supply of water which in quantity shall be ample, in quality pure, in distribution constant and accessible.
In my [former Annual Report], and in some remarks subsequently addressed to your Committee of Health, I dwelt especially on such defects of our present system as relate to the quantity and distribution of water; endeavouring to illustrate the insufficiency of its supply to the poorer tenements of the City, and the extreme inconvenience which is entailed on their inmates, sometimes by dependence on a common tap, sometimes by the troublesome, expensive, and unwholesome necessity of storing water.
In reverting to this subject, I may correct a fallacy which is apt to prevail with respect to the abundance of supply. I have no reason whatever to doubt that a very liberal allowance of water is daily pumped into the City—enough, or more than enough, so far as I know, to fulfil all necessary purposes.
But those purposes are not fulfilled by it. A certain large figure is stated as representing the average quantity daily driven through the mains of the City; this quantity is divided by the number of residents within your area, and the inference is drawn that each individual inmate of the City has at his disposal 25 gallons a day; or (after deduction for public purposes and the like) 211⁄4 for his domestic supply. As an arithmetical conclusion from the premises this may be true: nothing can be less accurate as a practical representation of the facts. An average amount of three million gallons per diem may, or may not, be pumped through the mains of the City: but to calculate the available water-supply from this dividend, without previous deduction for the immense escape of un-available water by waste-pipes or otherwise, gives a most fictitious result. The large waste which naturally arises in the system of intermittent supply has been well illustrated by some evidence given by Mr. Lovick before the late Metropolitan Commission of Sewers, in respect of a particular block of nearly 1200 houses.[47] Some of the houses were of the higher, and many of the poorer class, but the average might be stated to be of the middle class, and to present a fair example of an urban population. The drainage of all these houses was discharged through one main sewer. The run of water through this sewer was carefully watched and gauged every hour, during the night as well as the day, on days when the water was on, that is to say, when the intermittent supplies were delivered, and also on the ordinary days, when the consumption of the houses was from butts and cisterns, into which the intermittent supplies were delivered. The gaugings of the discharge of waste water into the sewer were checked by gaugings of the consumption of water from the butts and cisterns, during the interval of the delivery of the supply by the company. It was ascertained that the average quantity discharged per diem through the sewers was 441⁄2 gallons per house; but it appeared that, on the days when the intermittent supplies of water were on, the quantity discharged per diem was 209 gallons per house. The waste in this district from defects in house apparatus of distribution, incident to an intermittent supply of water, was, on the water days, three and three quarter times greater than the consumption on those days.
[47] General Board of Health Report on Supply of Water to the Metropolis, page 120.
No similar gaugings have, I believe, been made within the City; so I am unable to tell you with accuracy what are the proportions of waste and consumption. In an interview with your Committee on Health, when they were collecting information on the subject, Mr. Mylne, the engineer of the New River Company, stated (as a reason against fulfilling some object desired by the Committee) that within the City of London, in connexion with its distributing apparatus, there existed for the escape and waste of water, during the period of supply, ‘at least 10,000 open cocks.’
Assuming the accuracy of this statement, I doubt whether the average available supply of water for domestic purposes within the City can possibly exceed a quarter of its alleged quantity; and I am persuaded that there must be large numbers of persons to whom the enjoyment even of that reduced average is utterly unknown. Your Hon. Court, observing the incalculable waste, and knowing that the cost of water-supply (as of all other commodities) must of necessity vary according to the quantity supplied, can appreciate the consequences of so much fruitless expenditure.
I would beg likewise to observe to you that this unapplied flood of water is in itself not unobjectionable. It would be of questionable advantage if the drainage of the City were so perfect as to carry all away without inundation of the soil; while under opposite circumstances, in every quarter where drainage is absent or faulty, evil must arise from the extensive and habitual infiltration of moisture.
On the extreme inconvenience which attends the storage of water in the poorer habitations of the City, I have already reported to you, and will now only add that increased experience has given much confirmation to my view. Their receptacles are generally such as contribute to the contamination of water, and are constantly so arranged as to invite an admixture of the most varied impurities.
In the large proportion of them, which are open casks, one sees habitually a film of soot floating on the surface; one sees (if indeed one can see so deeply into water which is often turbid and opaque) that filth and rubbish lie at the bottom; one sees the interior of the cask itself dirty and mouldering.
I now merely glance at this part of the subject, because you have already on other occasions allowed me to state my knowledge at greater length. But there is one evil in particular to which I would beg leave to advert. Those works of drainage which are established under your orders depend for their efficiency on a proper supply of water; and in every case where you enforce the construction of house-drains, you order that those drains shall be served efficiently with water. Your wishes on this subject are nominally complied with by those on whom your orders are served, but are often virtually evaded by a filthy and ineffectual contrivance. The butt or cistern of the house—that on which the inmates depend for their supply of fresh and pure drinking-water, is placed in immediate contiguity to the privy, so as to reduce the requisite length of connecting pipe to the fewest possible number of inches; the application of water is not made discretionary on the users of the privy, nor are any of the cheap and common self-acting contrivances introduced; but the waste-pipe of the butt or cistern is conducted into the discharge-pipe of the privy, so that, periodically, with a frequency varying according to the arrangements of the water-company, the arrears of excrement are removed, so far as the overflow of the water-receptacle may have power to dislodge and propel them. Frequent evidence has been before me of the insufficiency of this arrangement: and, in addition to its actual failure (on the reasons of which your Surveyor can speak more competently than I) there is strong reason to object to its prevalence on other grounds. Water, as you probably know, is a very active absorbent of many gaseous materials; and the open butts, which are thus placed in immediate contact and communication with privies, must rapidly become infected by their foulness. I need not explain to you how injurious an addition this is to the other objectionable incidents of water-storage, or how unattractive as a beverage to the poor inhabitants of the City must be this vapid, privy-flavoured stuff.
For this arrangement I can suggest to your Hon. Court no easy alternative or remedy, so long as the distribution of water continues to be on its present intermittent plan: but it is matter for extreme regret that, by circumstances over which you have no control, the success of your sanitary measures should be seriously diminished. By the enforcement or execution of house-drainage, your Hon. Court has conferred great advantages on many districts of the City; but it is my duty to tell you that, in my judgment, the present condition of the water-trade contributes to neutralise those advantages, and constitutes a restriction on your power of doing good.
As respects the evils to which I have just adverted, unquestionably they admit of abatement by devoting separate water-receptacles to the very different uses of diet and drainage. But the expense of additional cisterns in tenements so poor cannot be considered trifling; and I believe that your Hon. Court would hesitate, even if you have the power, to enforce this double burthen on the owners of house-property, at a time when one may reasonably hope that the necessity for cisterns will be superseded.
There can be no doubt on the extreme degree in which it is desirable for the poor of the City of London, that water should be delivered to their houses on the principle of constant supply, and that they should thus be relieved from the expensive and unwholesome necessity of storing it in small quantities and in improper receptacles. That it is desirable is a certainty within my official knowledge and on which therefore I can give an opinion of my own. That it is practicable is not within my official knowledge; for in this part of the question are involved various considerations of hydraulic engineering, on which I am incompetent to offer an opinion. But I cannot ignore the fact, that in many parts of England and Scotland the practicability of a constant supply has been evinced by the very conclusive evidence of its success. To some such instances I alluded in my last [Report], and from the present year I can quote you a striking additional one. At Wolverhampton, in 1849, the system of supply, which had previously been intermittent, was made continuous. Instead of waste ensuing on the change, its immediate effect was a reduction of 22 per cent. on the quantity consumed. So great had been the unpopularity of the intermittent system of supply, that at the time of the change the company had not more than 600 customers. Immediately on the adoption of the new system, their customers increased, and within ten months had risen to 1400. This increase was continuing up to the date of the Report (May 4th, 1850), at which time they were adding to the number of their customers at the rate of 50 each week. The above facts (as is well observed by the resident engineer, Mr. Marten) may be taken as a fair test that the system of continuous supply is one of superior adaptation to the domestic wants of the public.
This case is but an inconsiderable fraction of the evidence which lies before the public on the subject of continuous supply. With such evidence before me, in contrast to what I observe of the distribution of water within the City of London, I cannot refrain from repeating to your Hon. Court my confirmed and deliberate opinion that our method of supply is essentially bad, and that it withholds from the poorer population of the City a large proportion of those sanitary advantages which it is the object of water to confer. No doubt it will occur to you that against evils of this nature—evils arising in the conflictive interests of water-buyer and water-seller, the first principles of commerce imply a resource; and that in this matter, as in others of the sort, a customer holds in his own hands the remedy for his dissatisfaction. But although the supply of water, in the hands of the powerful companies who vend it, is in many respects a common transaction of trade, and as such is in theory open to competition, yet I would beg to point out to your Hon. Court that, in regard of the City under your jurisdiction, no such check and no such stimulus as competition can virtually be said to exist. In every practical sense the sale of water is a monopoly. The individual customer, dwelling in Cripplegate or in Farringdon, who is dissatisfied with his bargain in water, can go to no other market; and however legitimate may be his claim to be supplied with this prime necessary of life at its cheapest rate, in the most efficient manner, and of the best possible quality, your Hon. Court, hitherto, possesses no power to enforce it.
All who have given impartial consideration to the subject seem to concur as to the advantages which result from a control over the supply and distribution of water being possessed by those who are responsible for the drainage and cleanliness of a district. These different duties are in such essential relation to each other that they would seem almost of necessity to require a single direction and control. House-drainage pre-supposes water-supply; water-supply pre-supposes house-drainage; the efficiency of either implies their mutual adaptation; just as the circulation of blood within an animal body implies uninterrupted continuity of arteries and veins, each harmonising with the uses of the other, to ensure the efficiency of the whole. But while the works of drainage executed under your orders lose much of their sanitary usefulness for want of an effectual water-supply, your Hon. Court has no power of interference in the matter, closely associated as it is with the performance of your other functions. These anomalies would be removed, and a most beneficial power over the distribution of water would be vested in the hands of your Commission, if in the renewal of your Act of Parliament you procured authority to represent the citizens in this matter. All the advantages which could possibly be gained by competition, together with many benefits which no competition could ensure, would thus be realised to the population under your charge; if, namely, a clause were inserted in your Bill, empowering you, at your discretion, to contract corporately with any person or any company for the supply of water to the City of London.
In the Public Health Act (passed simultaneously with yours) an enactment of this nature exists, authorising local boards of health to ‘provide their district with such a supply of water as may be proper and sufficient,’ and for this purpose ‘to contract with any person whomsoever to do and execute all such works, matters, and things as shall be necessary and proper, and to require that houses shall be supplied with water,’ and to ‘make and levy water rates upon the premises, at a rate not exceeding twopence per week.’ With a power like this in your hands, you would easily enforce for the City of London whatever method of supply you might deliberately believe to be best; and you would then be enabled and entitled, in the application of other clauses in your Act, to require of landlords acting under your orders, a far completer, though less expensive, improvement of their property than you are yet in a position to obtain.
In submitting to your Hon. Court my views as to the expediency of your having a controlling power over the supply of water, I am glad to find myself supported by the recorded opinion of the present Lord Mayor, himself formerly the Chairman of a Commission of Sewers; and I am induced to believe that such an addition to your functions might not be objectionable to the water companies, as I observe that Sir William Clay, the chairman of two metropolitan companies, has expressed himself strongly on its ‘great and obvious convenience.’
2. Of equal importance with anything which relates to the distribution of water are those momentous questions which relate to its quality, and which tend to determine its fitness for human consumption.
Considering the great share of public attention which these questions at present very properly obtain, the many projects which are broached for improving the quality of our metropolitan supply, and the importance of your being in a position to decide as to the merits of any plan which may affect the City of London, I have thought it desirable in this Report to submit to you some general observations on the subject. During the last few months, I have accordingly been collecting such information as might, in my judgment, be useful for this purpose. In pursuing one portion of my inquiry—that which relates to the chemical constitution of certain waters, I have availed myself of the permission of your Hon. Court to procure a limited amount of assistance from some one more conversant than myself with the practice of analysis. For this purpose I have addressed myself to Mr. Thomas Taylor, lately Lecturer on Chemistry at St. Thomas’s Hospital, a gentleman on whose skill and impartiality I can implicitly trust. His account of the very careful analyses which he has made is subjoined to my Report.[48] Concurrently with the experience of other chemists, it has furnished me with material for many of the conclusions which I am about to lay before you.
[48] See [page 168].
The water which is supplied by the New River and East London companies for the consumption of the City of London is substantially of one kind. The River Lea, on which the East London Company entirely depends, furnishes likewise much of the supply conveyed by the New River.[49] The springs in which the latter originate are of the same chemical kind as those which contribute to the Lea; and the artificial aqueduct runs its forty miles of course through much the same country as the natural river. Chemically, therefore, one description may apply to both; and I the rather speak of them conjointly, as any extension of its resources for our supply which the New River might obtain, would apparently be provided by increasing considerably its present draught from the Lea.
[49] It appears that the New River Company at present derives about two-thirds of its supply from the River Lea, and proposes to draw from this source a still larger proportion. Any chemical difference of quality in the City pipe-water (as between that supplied by the New River and that by the East London Company) would probably not exceed those limits of difference which prevail in respect of waters gathered under varying circumstances from one and the same source.
The pipe-water consumed in the City has for its general chemical character, that it contains a considerable quantity of carbonate of lime, held in solution by an excess of carbonic acid. To this and another salt of lime (the sulphate) the water chiefly owes the property which is complained of under the name of hardness: it is by reason of these salts, namely, that it decomposes a certain large proportion of whatever soap is used with it; preventing the formation of a lather, till those salts are exhausted by a wasted proportion of soap, by boiling or otherwise, and hindering to that extent the several purposes for which soap is employed. You are probably aware that soda is extensively used in the laundry, as an antidote to this objectionable quality of hard waters; and the excess of its employment tends, by corrosion, very observably to hasten the destruction of washed articles of dress. In the same measure as water possesses the property of decomposing soap, its utility as an universal solvent is impaired; it extends to various other substances which one seeks to dissolve in it (especially to many vegetable matters) that same disposition to waste them in the form of insoluble precipitates. Its conveniences for the purposes of cooking and manufacture are pari passu diminished.
Of the actual extent of which these disadvantages are sustained within the City of London, I have no means of forming an exact opinion; but statements are before the public (from the general correctness of which I have no reason to withhold reliance and belief) rating the pecuniary loss to the metropolis, in the two articles of soap and tea, at a very high figure. You will see from Mr. Taylor’s observations the proportion in which waste occurs, as regards one of these articles; namely that, for the production of a lather in washing, the pipe-water of the City of London, used without boiling, consumes from 13 to 19 times as much soap as distilled water would consume.[50]
[50] It has been alleged that, by the use of soft water, the saving in soap would probably be equivalent to the whole of the money at present expended on water-supply; and that in the article of tea, the economy would amount to about one-third of the tea now consumed in the metropolis. It strikes me as possible that, in forming these estimates, the argument may have proceeded too much from a consideration of the hardness of London waters in their unboiled state; and that sufficient allowance may not have been made for the change which boiling produces. If boiling were prolonged for some hours before culinary or detergent use of the water, the results (for tea or soap) would be identical with those produced under the employment of soft water. Notoriously this precaution is not taken: but to avoid disputable ground, I confine myself to the fact of considerable pecuniary loss, arising from the cause in question, and I avoid any attempt to determine its exact amount.
The chemical constitution of these waters occasions another inconvenience. Their carbonate of lime is held in solution (in the chemical form of bicarbonate) by an excess of carbonic acid: under the influence of heat this excess is gradually disengaged and driven off; consequently, as they approach the boiling point, they begin to precipitate the earthy salt which that gas was instrumental in dissolving. Each gallon of water under these circumstances would deposit from ten to fifteen grains of earthy matter on the interior of whatever vessel might contain it, or on the surface of whatever solid—linen or mutton, might be contained in the boiler. Hence arises the well-known furring of vessels in which such waters have habitually been boiled.
I refrain from dwelling on the economical considerations which arise in these points of the subject, as very obvious inferences from the result of chemical analysis; and I pass to other matters more strictly within my own province of observation.
Is water thus constituted in any degree detrimental to the health of those who drink it? It is not in a single word that this question can be fairly answered. Almost insuperable difficulty belongs to it, from the absence of any statistical method by which we might isolate the water-drinking portion of our population, and might compare them, in regard of the diseases to which they are liable, with similar sections of population in soft-water districts and in harder-water districts. Obviously, no other method of comparison can be unobjectionable; and, in arguing the subject from such materials as I have, I can pretend to nothing more than a rational approximation to truth.
Except in the comparatively few instances where active medicinal agents are naturally dissolved in a water, its effects, if injurious, would be so slow as to elude ordinary observation. If, as is exceedingly probable, the same constitution of water as impairs its solvency out of the body, do likewise operate against its being the most eligible menstruum or dissolvent for processes occurring within the body—such processes I mean as attend the act of digestion; if the lime and other hardening ingredients which waste soap in our laundries, and tea in our parlours, do similarly waste within us those organic agencies by which our food is dissolved and converted; any result arising from this source would be of gradual operation, would not easily admit of being traced to its source, and (except in susceptible persons) would rarely produce such symptoms as might immediately draw attention to their cause. The ill effects (whatever they may be) arising from the use of hard waters must be looked for in chronic impairment of digestion, and in those various derangements of nutrition in distant parts (the skin and teeth particularly) which follow as secondary results on such chronic disorder. It would be ridiculous to look for the operation of an ill-chosen water, after its habitual use during two centuries, as though one were inquiring for the symptoms of an acute poison. The signs that are to be ascertained among a population, if such signs exist, are those which would evidence a premature exhaustion of the power of digestion, and would testify that the machine on which we depend for that power had been exposed to unnecessary and avoidable fatigue. This, I believe, is the utmost which Medicine, proceeding from theoretical grounds, would venture to say on the subject.
Perhaps I need not inform you that indigestion, with all that follows from it, is so frequent in the metropolis, in persons after the first strength of youth, that, for large classes of society, a perfect discharge of the natural process of digestion (such a discharge of it as a lecturer would describe to be the exact type and intention of Nature), is exceptional and rare. Unquestionably, in large numbers of cases, wine and beer and spirits, rather than water, have to do with this effect. Unquestionably, other influences of metropolitan life—and, not least, the mental wear and tear which belong to its large excitement, contribute immensely to this chronic derangement of health; but there are reasons likewise for believing, that the quality of water consumed is not a matter of indifference to the result. We cannot but give it an important place among those influences of health or unhealth which we consider local; and we cannot refuse to recognise the fact, that in recommending our patients (as we do often recommend them) to try ‘change of air’ for complaints which baffle us by their obstinacy, so long as the subject of them remains in London, the course on which we rely for success implies ‘change of water,’ equally with that other change to which more popular importance is attached.
In illustration of this view, I may quote to you the experience of two other towns. Dr. Sutherland stated, in evidence before the General Board of Health, that having lived for a number of years at Liverpool (where the water is said to be of about the same degree of hardness as ours), he had long entertained a conviction that ‘the hard water, in a certain class of constitutions, tends to produce visceral obstructions; that it diminishes the natural secretions, produces a constipated or irregular state of the bowels, and consequently deranges the health. He had repeatedly known these complaints to vanish on leaving the town, and to re-appear immediately on returning to it, and it was such repeated occurrences which fixed his attention on the hard selenitic water of the new red sandstone as the probable cause, as he believed it to be, of these affections.’ (Rep. p. 51). And Dr. Leach, of Glasgow, stated before the same Board, as the result in that town of two years’ experience of a substitution of soft for hard drinking-water, that in his opinion, ‘dyspeptic complaints had become diminished in number;’ and that it had ‘been observed, since this change, urinary diseases have become less frequent, especially those attended by the deposition of gravel.’
Inferences useful for ourselves cannot be drawn from statements like the above, on the fullest assumption of their accuracy, without comparing the waters referred to with our own, more completely than is done by the one characteristic of ‘hardness;’ and there may likewise be other qualifications requisite for an application of the analogy. But those disorders of health which are specified by the gentlemen quoted, as produced by the use and diminished by the disuse of hard waters, are such as might very probably stand in the relation of effect to their alleged cause; results, namely, primary and secondary, of disordered digestion.
Practically, I may tell you, that there are many individuals whose stomachs are extremely sensitive to the impression of hard water, who derive immediate inconvenience from its use, and who refuse to drink it without artificial reduction of its objectionable quality. I may likewise inform you that a physician, recently deceased, whose knowledge of indigestion and its chronic effects (especially in relation to the skin and urinary organs) was most profound and accurate, and whose consulting practice in such disorders was for many years almost a monopoly (I mean Dr. Prout) was in the habit of enjoining on his patients the use of distilled water. He evidently considered that the consumption of such waters as are habitually drunk in the metropolis was detrimental, at least to an enfeebled digestion. This is an opinion which, I have reason to believe, is generally entertained by medical practitioners in London.
It may not be irrelevant to mention to you (since the influence of imagination or of artificial habits can have little to do with this result) that horses are liable to be much inconvenienced by hard water, if unaccustomed to its use; and it is, I believe, notorious that grooms in charge of racers habitually take the trouble of conveying with them, to their temporary racing stables, a supply of the accustomed water. Veterinary surgeons say that under the continued use of hard water, which horses will avoid if possible, their coats become rough and staring;—an effect, I may observe, analogous to those skin-disorders of the human subject which are apt to occur from impairment of the digestive functions.
Taking into account all these considerations, together with others of a more technical description; and believing that water is eligible for human consumption in proportion as it is free from the admixture of any material foreign to its simple elementary constitution—exception being made only of so much dissolved air as will render it sparkling and palatable; I entertain no doubt that a water, devoid of considerable hardness, would (cæteris paribus) for the purposes of cooking and drinking, be far preferable to that which the companies now distribute through the City of London.
Hitherto, however, I have spoken of the waters supplied to the City, merely as regards that large impregnation of earthy material which they gather from their source; and I have criticised them only in respect of that admixture. Their essential chemical quality is one native to the soil from which they are derived; and whatever censure thus far belongs to them could only have been avoided by the selection of a different source. Chemistry, in the days of Morrys and Myddleton, was not sufficiently advanced to inform the water-merchants of a city on those different conditions which determine the fitness of a soil to serve as the natural or artificial gathering-ground of a supply; and by which (as they vary in different localities) hardness is imparted to the rain-fall of one district, while softness is preserved for that of another.
But there are other evils belonging to these waters, less appreciable indeed by chemistry, but open to universal observation, and meriting unqualified blame. They are conducted to the metropolis in open channels; they receive in large measure the surface-washing, the drainage, and even the sewage of the country through which they pass; they derive casual impurities from bathers and barges; they are liable to whatever pollutions mischievous or filthy persons may choose to inflict on them; and then on their arrival in the metropolis (after a short subsidence in reservoirs, which themselves are not unobjectionable) are distributed, without filtration, to the public. Whatever chemistry may say on this subject (and I need not remind you of very powerful causes of disease which lie beyond its cognisance), I cannot consider it matter of indifference, that we drink—with whatever dilution, or with whatever imperfect oxidation, the excremental and other impurities which mingle in these sources of our supply. Such admixtures, though in their quantity less, are in their quality identical with those which render Thames-water, as taken at London Bridge, inadmissible for domestic consumption, and which occasion it, when stored for sea-use, to undergo, before it becomes fit to drink, a succession of offensive changes strictly comparable to putrefaction.
In this slovenly method of conveyance and distribution there is a neglect of common precaution for the purity and healthfulness of the supply, which I must report to you as highly objectionable: and this—the method of supply to our great metropolis, strikes one the more with astonishment and disgust, as one reflects on the long experience and admirable models which past centuries in foreign countries have supplied; and especially, as one remembers those colossal works which, more than two thousand years ago, were constructed under the Roman government, for the cool and cleanly conduction of water.
The present imperfections of knowledge forbid me to cite, as definite causes of disease, the contaminations to which I have adverted: I cannot say to you—pointing to our classified list of sickness and mortality, this depends on drinking the diluted drainage of Hertford, that on the contributions of Ware. Indeed I know that, under the influence of the river and the atmosphere, very considerable changes occur in the materials thus furnished, tending eventually to render them inert; and if injury to life occur from their ingestion, it is probably only under peculiar and exceptional conditions, increasing their quantity, or delaying their oxidation. In protesting against their continued distribution as articles of diet, I therefore insist less on inferences deducible from medicine, and shall probably have the concurrence of your Hon. Court in grounding my appeal on the common principles of taste.
On the incidental contaminations to which the pipe-water consumed within the City becomes liable, by reason of its storage in receptacles both foul in themselves and surrounded by causes of foulness, I have already addressed you; and I have shown to you the dependence of this evil on the system of intermittent supply as adapted to the houses of the poor.
Of other sources of water-supply existing within the City of London, there are many of small extent in the form of superficial springs. These are eagerly sought after, sometimes from a distance, on account of their coolness and sparkling condition. In the Appendix[51] you will find an account of one of these waters—that in the vicinity of Bishopsgate church, which is very much drunk in that quarter of the City. Any praise given to it illustrates exceedingly the fallacy of popular judgment on such subjects, and shows how easily those qualities of coolness and freshness, which are absent from stored waters, impose on the palate, and induce a preference to be given to waters which are relatively most objectionable.
[51] See [page 170].
The chemical faults which belong to our London pipe-water are possessed in a far greater degree by this water of Bishopsgate pump, and the latter has moreover some vices which are absent from the former; but the vapidity and fustiness of water which has been stored in cisterns are so repugnant to the taste, that the water chemically preferable is not in practice preferred.
To the use of waters of this description, within a large city, there is always much objection. In addition to extreme hardness, which in London they universally possess, they are liable, in a dangerous degree, to become contaminated by the leakage of drains, and by other sources of impurity; as, for instance, where situated within the immediate vicinity of grave-yards they derive products of animal decomposition from the soil.[52] Very recently, a celebrated pump within the City of London, that adjoining St. Bride’s church-yard, has been abandoned on account of such impregnations. Or perhaps I should rather say (for the difference again illustrates the readiness with which the palate is deceived or corrupted) that it was not abandoned—for till almost the last moment the neighbours adhered to it with fondness; but the parochial authorities—alarmed by the proximity of cholera—caused its handle to be locked.
[52] This is illustrated in the analysis of Bishopsgate pump-water, just alluded to. The very large quantity of nitrates, there referred to that water, must be due to the oxidation of human bodies in the adjoining soil, which serves in part as gathering-ground to the spring. I should fear that, during rain-fall, this oxidation of organic compounds may not always have completed itself, and that materials of decomposition still in progress of decay may thus often be mingled in the water. [I have lately had occasion to recommend that the use of Aldgate pump should be discontinued on account of its water containing, in addition to a large quantity of alkaline nitrate, so much unoxidised organic matters, as were sufficient to give it a foul taste.—J. S., 1854.]
As an available source of supply to the City of London, the use of deep (Artesian) wells has been recommended: the clearness and softness of these waters, together with their freedom from organic matters, having concurred to suggest their employment. I feel bound to express the strongest opinion against the fitness of these waters for the purpose of beverage. They uniformly contain a considerable proportion of medicinal ingredients; they are capable of exerting definite and demonstrable influence over the natural actions of the body; and information is before me of various injury to health, affecting large numbers of persons, arising from the continued dietetic use of such waters.
In addressing your Hon. Court on the subject of water-supply for the City, it is impossible that I should do otherwise than advert to the fact, that, during the last few months, under the auspices of Her Majesty’s government, as represented for sanitary purposes by the General Board of Health, a plan has been gradually maturing itself, for the supply of the entire metropolis with pure soft water. Founding itself on very extensive investigations as to the qualities of water, as to the influence of soils on its chemical composition, as to the relation between streams and rain-fall, as to the hydraulic principles of distribution, and the like, this plan proposes to gather water in certain silicious soils, which can impart to it the least possible admixture of foreign ingredients; to conduct it in closed channels, with every precaution for its perfect purity; and to distribute it throughout the metropolis, at a rate which shall be from 30 to 50 per cent. less than our present water-charges. The proposed area for the collection of this supply is in the extensive range of sandy soil in the south of Surrey, extending around Farnham, about ten miles in each direction. Since the publication of the first Report made on this subject by the General Board of Health, unremitting inquiry has been advancing, under their direction, into all details of the plan; and the Hon. William Napier, who, with others, has been engaged in the investigation of the proposed sources, has advocated an important modification, which promises to reduce very considerably the anticipated expense of the undertaking. The essential and most important principles which governed the Board, in arranging their plan, were, first, to seek their supply in a silicious soil, where little soluble material could exist for its contamination; secondly, to take possession of the water so near to its source that all its original purity might be preserved; and, during conduction, to isolate it from those contaminations which are incidental to the onward passage of a stream through miles of promiscuous country. To fulfil these indications, there were two conceivable courses; and studious local inquiries could alone determine which of them was preferable: on the one hand, if the streams which represent the natural drainage of the country should be found uniformly pure and copious, they might admit of being conducted bodily into the artificial river of supply: on the other hand, it might be requisite to carry the interference of art still further, to absorb the filtering moisture of this large sand-district before it had become confluent into streams, and thus from day to day, by extensively ramified works of artificial sub-drainage, to derive immediately from the soil, the varying contributions of rain-fall and dew. The Board, apparently solicitous for the completer security of their plan, preferred to estimate its cost on the latter very expensive supposition; they allowed apparently for the diffusion of drain-pipes over 150 square miles of country, and for a reservoir which should contain storage of water equivalent to a very long metropolitan consumption. The later examination, made by Mr. Napier and confirmed by others, tends and appears to show, that these large sources of expense may be avoided; that the waters may be collected of unusual purity and softness, where they have united themselves into rivulets of considerable volume; that the gauged and estimated discharge of these rivulets is sufficient day by day for the needs of the metropolis, according to the largest construction of those needs; that capillary drain-pipes and very extensive storage-room may thus be dispensed with; and that under the modification of arrangement suggested by these facts, some very large reduction might be inferred for the total estimate of this comprehensive plan.
Many of these particulars are already before the public; but in a matter of so much importance to the health of the City, as that of participating in a supply of pure water, collected and distributed on the soundest principles, and sold at the cheapest rate, I did not think it would become me, as your Officer of Health, to remain an indolent auditor. I have felt it my duty to inform myself, so far as I could, on the real merits of this scheme, and on its probable relation hereafter to the sanitary condition of the metropolis. I have spent three days on the site of the proposed sources, and many other days in informing myself on all the bearings of the subject. I have likewise collected water from a proposed tributary of the future supply, which has been analysed, and which shows (as my [Appendix] will illustrate to you) a remarkable and rare excellence. On one occasion of visiting the country, I was accompanied by Mr. T. Taylor, and we made on the spot a sufficient number of extemporaneous examinations, to assure us that the essential features, shown in the more elaborate analysis, are (as geological considerations would lead us to believe) the general characters of water throughout the district.
On any other than the sanitary relations of this subject I can have nothing officially to say; but, confining myself to these relations, I may certify to your Hon. Court that the water in question is, in my judgment, of a quality admirably suited for domestic purposes; that its distribution through the City of London would conduce to the health and comfort of the population; and that the principles, proposed by the Board for its collection and conveyance, appear to me such as sanitary science, in its present condition, should counsel for the water-service of the metropolis.
There is, however, one aspect of the subject which must not pass unconsidered. Water that is free from earthy ingredients requires a peculiar distributory apparatus. If conveyed in leaden pipes with access of air, or if stored in leaden cisterns, it corrodes the metal of which they are composed, and is liable to derive from this source an impregnation very hazardous to life. Under certain circumstances, especially under alternations of air and water (such as occur in the intermittent supply), or where organic impurities are held in solution or suspension, or probably where from any cause uncombined carbonic acid is present, even the hardest waters are not free from this risk. Speaking generally, however, it affects soft water chiefly; distilled water most of all: and the Farnham water (in common with all pure water) is decidedly liable to this empoisonment, if used with leaden apparatus of conduction and storage. In my [Appendix] you will find some interesting particulars on this head; and you will observe that with experiments conducted by Mr. Taylor in imitation of the constant supply (i. e. with total submersion of the metal) the formation of carbonate of lead in the Farnham water was exceedingly gradual. This concurs with the alleged experience of Aberdeen, where it is said by Professor Clark to have been found (to my mind, by a somewhat dangerous trial) that pure and soft water, distributed on the principle of constant supply, does not exert on the leaden pipes any action injurious to the health of the population. You will likewise observe, that when hard water, as at present employed in the City, is softened by boiling, it acquires this property of pure water, and becomes capable of acting on lead; and here is an important observation, as it has been proposed by similar artificial means, employed on a very large scale, to soften all the water now distributed in the metropolis.
Obviously, as regards one and all of the many proposals for supplying water destitute of hardening ingredients, any chemical process, or any change of source, which might lead to the distribution of such pure water through the metropolis, could not be considered as a single and separate reform, but must be undertaken conjointly with such alterations in the distributive arrangements as might be requisite for removing from the new plan any chance, however slight or remote, of injuring the population by metallic poison.
What those alterations must be, it would now be premature to decide. The experience of Aberdeen might seem to suggest, that the system of constant supply (on all other accounts so eminently desirable for the metropolis) would in itself, if accompanied by the total disuse and prohibition of leaden cisternage, give sufficient security against the danger in question; or, on the other hand, further inquiry may show it to be quite indispensable for a safe distribution of the new supply, that leaden pipage should be entirely superseded by the use of some non-metallic material, as earthenware or glass. Should this change become necessary, its adoption would no doubt be facilitated by the comparative cheapness of these preferable materials.
Offensive or injurious Trades.
With respect to offensive or injurious trades and occupations pursued within the City of London, you were reminded by your Committee of Health, in their Report of March 26th, ‘that upon your attempting to put in force the powers of your Act of Parliament in reference thereto, it was found that considerable difficulties were opposed to your efforts. Sufficient powers (the Report proceeds to say) are not given by the City of London Sewers Act to meet some of the cases alluded to, while other legal and technical objections presented themselves to the enforcement of the powers in question.’ The Committee concluded their Report by ‘pointing out to you the necessity, when the question of renewing your Act should come into consideration, of procuring additional powers which may enable you effectually to remedy those evils.’
On the grounds thus expressed by your Committee, I avail myself of the present opportunity for bringing the subject again under your notice.
In my [former Report] I spoke particularly of those [trades and occupations] which deal with animal substances liable to decomposition; and in expressing my knowledge of their danger to the health of an urban population, I argued that no occupation which ordinarily leaves a putrid refuse, nor any which consists in the conversion or manufacture of putrescent material, ought, under any circumstances, to be tolerated within a town. To that subject I now revert, only to assure your Hon. Court that the past year has given me no reason to alter my opinion. But the trades to which I wish, on this occasion, more especially to request your attention, are those which are complained of on the ground of their offensiveness, rather than of their injury to health—as nuisances rather than as poisons. During the year, I have received a very considerable number of complaints of this nature; some of them perhaps frivolous, but many well-founded and reasonable.
At the head of this class of evils stands the flagrant nuisance of smoke. Those members of the Court who have visited foreign capitals where other fuel than coal is employed, will remember the contrast between their climate and ours—will remember (for instance even in Paris) the transparence of air, the comparative brightness of all colour, the visibility of distant objects, the cleanliness of faces and buildings, instead of our opaque atmosphere, deadened colours, obscured distance, smutted faces, and black architecture. Those, even, who have never left our metropolis, but who, by early rising or late going to rest, have had opportunities of seeing a London sunrise, can judge, as well as by any foreign comparison, the difference between London as it might be, and London as it is. Viewed at dawn and at noon-day, the appearances contrast as though they were of different cities and in different latitudes. Soon after daybreak, the great factory shafts beside the river begin to discharge immense volumes of smoke; their clouds soon become confluent; the sky is overcast with a dingy veil; the house-chimneys presently add their contributions; and by ten o’clock, as one approaches London from any hill in the suburbs, one may observe the total result of this gigantic nuisance hanging over the City like a pall.
If its consequences were confined to rendering London (in spite of its advantages) the unsightliest metropolis in Europe, to defacing all works of art, and rendering domestic cleanliness expensive, I should have nothing officially to say on the subject; but inasmuch as it renders cleanliness more difficult, and creates a despair of cultivating it with success, people resign themselves to dirt, domestic and personal, which they could remove but so temporarily: or windows are kept shut, in spite of immeasurable fustiness, because the ventilation requisite to health would bring with it showers of soot, occasioning inconvenience and expense. Such is the tendency of many complaints which have reached me, and of their foundation in truth and reason I have thorough conviction and knowledge.
I would submit to your Hon. Court that these evils are not inconsiderable; and that beside the injury to property (with which I have nothing to do) the detriment to health, if only indirect, claims to be removed. Yet, while I am cautious to speak of this latter injury, as though it were only indirect—only by its obstruction of healthy habits, I ought likewise to tell you, that there are valid reasons for supposing that we do not with impunity inhale day by day so much air which leaves a palpable sediment; that many persons of irritable lungs find unquestionable inconvenience from these mechanical impurities of the atmosphere; and (gathering a hint from the pathology of vegetation) that few plants will flourish in the denser districts of London, unless the air which conduces to their nourishment be previously filtered from its dirt.
If the smoke of London were inseparably identified with its commercial greatness, one might willingly resign oneself to the inconvenience. But to every other reason against its continuance must be added as a last one, on the evidence of innumerable competent and disinterested witnesses, that the nuisance, where habitual, is, for the greater part or entirely, voluntary and preventable; that it indicates mismanagement and waste; that the adoption of measures for the universal consumption of smoke, while relieving the metropolis and its population from injury, would conduce to the immediate interest of the individual consumer, as well as to indirect and general economy. For all the smoke that hangs over us is wasted fuel.
The consumption of smoke in private houses is unfortunately a matter to which hitherto little attention has been given; and it would be vain to hope that the reform should begin with those, whose individual contributions to the public stock of nuisance are comparatively trifling. With the progress of knowledge on these subjects, a time will undoubtedly arrive, and at no distant period, when chimneys will cease to convey to the atmosphere their present immense freight of fuel that has not been burnt, and of heat that has not been utilised; when each entire house will be uniformly warmed with less expenditure of material than now suffices to its one kitchen fire; and our successors[53] will wonder at the ludicrous ingenuity with which we have so long managed to diffuse our caloric and waste our coal in the directions where they least conduce to the purposes of comfort and utility.
[53] To the philosophical thinker there would seem to exist no important difficulty which should prevent the collective warming of many houses in a district by the distribution of heat from a central furnace—perhaps even so, that each house might receive its ad libitum share of ventilation with warmed air. Ingenuity and enterprise, in this country, have accomplished far more arduous tasks; and I little doubt that our next successors will have heat-pipes laid on to their houses, with absence of smoke and immense economy of fuel, on some such general organisation as we now enjoy for gas-lighting and water-supply.—J. S., 1854.
But, while the arrangements of private establishments may, perhaps wisely, be left to the operation of this spontaneous reform, I would venture to recommend in regard to furnaces, employed for steam-engines and otherwise for manufactures within the City, that you should endeavour to control the nuisance of smoke.
The members of your Hon. Court are probably cognisant of the great mass of evidence on this subject, collected by two separate committees of the House of Commons, and of the almost unanimous conclusions to which that evidence led; ‘that opaque smoke issuing from steam-engine chimneys may be so abated as no longer to be a public nuisance; that a variety of means are found to exist for the accomplishment of this object, simple in construction, moderate in expense, and applicable to existing furnaces and flues of stationary steam-engines; that a sufficient body of evidence has been adduced, founded upon the experience of practical men, to induce the opinion that a law, making it imperative upon the owners of stationary steam-engines, to abate the issue of opaque smoke is desirable for the benefit of the community;’[54] ‘that the expense attendant on putting up whatever apparatus may be required to prevent smoke arising from furnaces is very trifling, and (as some of the witnesses observed) the outlay may be repaid within the year, by the diminished consumption of fuel; that the means of preventing smoke might also be applied to the furnaces of steam-boats, but such application would be attended with rather more expense than on land, from the occasional want of space, and the setting of boilers in a steam-vessel. No doubt, however, existed, in the opinions of those examined, that the prevention of smoke could be accomplished in steam-vessels.’[55]
[54] Report of Committee, 1845.
[55] Report of Committee, 1849.
In two local improvement Acts (those of Leeds and Manchester) clauses have been introduced in accordance with the sense of these conclusions; and in order to render them as little oppressive as possible to those whose interests might be affected by their operation, the enactments (which apply to every variety of furnace) have been so framed as to enforce penalties for the issuing of smoke only when it should appear (as no doubt it commonly would appear) that the proprietor had refrained from “using the best practicable means for preventing or counteracting such annoyance.”
Surely if such applicable means exist, it is a just and reasonable thing that the public should be defended against offence and injury, arising in the mere indifference or obstinacy of those who inflict them; and I venture to hope that your Hon. Court, in renewing your application to Parliament, may procure the enactment of a clause, giving you control over so much of the nuisance as is wanton and avoidable.
There are still under the present head, some points to which I am anxious to advert. During the two years that your Act has been in operation, various complaints have been made with respect to nuisances arising in particular trades; and with many of the causes of complaint you have been unable effectually to contend. Soap-makers, tallow-melters, gut-spinners, naphtha-distillers, preparers of patent manure, dealers in soot, exposers of stinking hides, wire-makers, dealers in kitchen-stuff, fish-curers, tripe-boilers, type-founders, gold-refiners, slaughterers, varnish-makers, roasters of coffee and chicory, whalebone-boilers, iron and brass-founders, keepers of cattle-sheds, makers of printing-ink, dealers in camphine, cookers of cats’-meat, and manufacturing chemists, have all, at different times and in various degrees, been complained of.
In respect of those of the enumerated trades which deal in the manufacture or sale of organic materials in a putrid or putrescent state, I have already submitted to you my opinion that the City of London, the home of a large and crowded population, is no place for them. With regard to the many other occupations, it would obviously be absurd, in the present state of society, to think of banishing them from the City which their industry has contributed to enrich, and where immemorial custom has given sanction to their continuance, unless you could with certainty affirm of them, that they cause direct and inevitable detriment to their neighbourhood. Every useful purpose, as regards the health of the City, might be fulfilled by the enactment of some moderate restriction.
Manifestly, it is opposed to the spirit of your Act of Parliament, that any trader or manufacturer should possess the right of diffusing in the vicinity of his house, to the detriment and disgust of his neighbours, any product (whether in the form of running fluid, or volatile dust, or vapour, or smoke, or odour) which is either disagreeable to the senses or may be hurtful to the health. Many of the instances which I have enumerated fall within this description, and yet remain unaffected by the restrictive sections of your Act.
I would submit to the consideration of your Hon. Court, whether, in the renewal of your Act, some comprehensive clause might not be introduced, which should deal with these difficulties, as well as with the nuisance of smoke—and deal with them, too, on the same principle: a clause, which (without enumerating all trades which have been, or possibly may become, sources of nuisance in the City, and without specifying too narrowly the nature of the nuisances to be guarded against) should empower your Commission generally, in respect of every trade practised within the City, to require that its operations shall be conducted with the least possible amount of inconvenience to the neighbourhood; and which should enable you to enforce penalties in case of every nuisance arising in such operations, unless it should be distinctly shown on the part of the proprietor, that every practicable measure for abatement of the inconvenience had been constantly and thoroughly employed.[56]
[56] Such a clause was introduced in the Act of 1851 (see [page 193]) and has been worked with considerable advantage.—J. S., 1854.
I would beg to express my conviction that your possession of the authority with which such a clause would invest you, would very largely increase your powers of utility, in respect of many acknowledged grievances hitherto beyond your control; and the influence of your example, in the achievement of this great municipal purpose, would, I doubt not, speedily lead to the adoption of general measures throughout the metropolis, for the total suppression of smoke, and for the mitigation of other nuisances which now exist around your territory no less than within it.[57]
[57] This expectation has recently been fulfilled in the Smoke Prevention Act, for which the metropolis has to thank Lord Palmerston.—J. S., 1854.
Burial-Grounds.
In my [last year’s Report] I had occasion to represent to your Hon. Court the evils of [intramural sepulture]. I testified to that large accumulation of human remains, by which, in numerous parts of the City, the soil of burial-grounds has been raised many feet above its original level; and I advised you of the injury which must accrue to health from the constant organic decomposition thus suffered to proceed in the midst of our crowded population. I likewise invited your attention to the still greater evil of burial in vaults; I explained and endeavoured to remove the misconception which commonly prevails, as to the preservation of bodies under those circumstances; and I showed you how unfailingly, sooner or later after such burial, the products of putrefaction make their way from within the coffin (whatever may have been its construction) and diffuse themselves offensively and injuriously through the air. I concluded by expressing to you my strong conviction of the necessity that some comprehensive measure should be undertaken, for abolishing, at once and for ever, all burial within the City of London.
During the session of Parliament that has intervened between that Report and my present one, an event has occurred, which promises to remove effectually the evils on which I then addressed you. Her Majesty’s government, acting at the instigation of the General Board of Health, carried through Parliament a Bill, enacting that the Queen, by Order in Council, may prohibit further burials within any district of the metropolis, so soon (after the close of this year) as the General Board of Health should have provided the means of extramural interment. The operation of this Act of Parliament is such as, I have every reason to believe, you will welcome within the City of London: and I look forward to the complete cessation of burial within your territory, as a matter for warm congratulation among all who are interested in the cause of sanitary improvement.[58]
[58] The Act of Parliament here referred to never passed into operation, and was repealed in 1852 by a second Metropolitan Burials Act, under which the City Commissioners of Sewers are at present acting as a Burial Board for the City of London. See the last Reports of this Volume, from [page 280] to the end.—J. S., 1854.
From the terms of the Act in question I find that Her Majesty’s Order in Council is to be preceded by a Report from the General Board of Health, stating their opinion of the expediency, that (in any particular case reported on) burial should forthwith be discontinued. Accordingly, in the present state of the law, it will devolve on that Board to initiate whatever measures may be necessary for the prohibition of further interment in the City.
Two clauses of your Act of Parliament, which have hitherto been inoperative, may perhaps come into requisition whenever Her Majesty’s Order in Council closes the burial-grounds of the City; viz., clause 89, which empowers your Commission, if you shall “think fit, to provide fit and proper places, in which the poor, under proper rules and regulations, may be permitted to deposit the bodies of their dead previous to interment;” and the following clause, which authorises your Officer of Health, in case of necessity, and for protection of the living, to cause any dead body to be removed at your expense, to whatever building may have been provided for the reception of the dead, previous to interment. It may hardly be necessary that I should trouble you with any remarks on the subject of these clauses, till such time as they are likely to come into operation.
With respect to the burial-grounds within the City, which will fall into disuse so soon as the new Interment Act becomes operative, I trust that your Hon. Commission will procure the power of regulating and supervising their maintenance, so that they may no longer be hurtful to the health of their vicinity. The arrangement of them, which would be most advantageous to their locality, would be that of planting them with whatever trees or shrubs may be made to flourish in a London atmosphere. The putrefactive changes, which for some years longer must proceed in these saturated soils, will be rendered comparatively harmless and imperceptible, if at the same time there advance in the ground a sufficiency of vegetation, which for its growth would gradually appropriate, as fast as they are evolved, the products of animal decay.
It seems almost superfluous for me to observe, that, from the time when burials are discontinued, no unnecessary disturbance of the soil should be allowed; nor any attempts at levelling or the like, except under the direct sanction of your Hon. Court.
Another point in connexion with these burial-grounds, to which I may here advert (though I must recur to it hereafter) is, that while great advantage may be expected from the discontinuance of their former uses, if their several areas be left open and without building, so as to subserve the ventilation of their neighbourhood, all that advantage would be lost, and a heavier evil inflicted on the neighbourhood than that of which it purports to be relieved, if these spaces were at any time to be covered with houses; and I trust it may be found within the province of your Hon. Court to obtain authority for preventing any encroachment of this nature on the limited breathing-spaces of the City.
Habitations and Social Condition of the Poor.
In my [last Report] (under its [fifth] and [sixth heads]) I particularly solicited the attention of your Hon. Court to certain circumstances connected with the [dwellings] and [habits] of the poor, which, though they then lay apparently out of your jurisdiction, as defined by the Act of Parliament, yet appeared to me of immeasurable weight in the sanitary fluctuations of the City, as tending in their operation constantly to thwart your endeavours for improvement, and to neutralise day by day whatever good you could achieve.
I reported to you that there were sanitary defects, inherent in certain large proportions of your municipal cure, which the most absolute control of drainage and water-supply would do nothing to amend,—constructional defects of houses and of courts, whereby their crowded inhabitants were excluded from a sufficiency of light and air, and were constrained, without remission or change, to breathe an atmosphere fetid with their own stagnant exhalations. I reported to you that, however unexceptionable might be the arrangement of such localities in matters already within your control—however clean their pavements, however pure their water, however effective their drainage, yet fever and the allied disorders could never be absent from their population; while under opposite arrangements, with nuisances around them, with organic poisons rising from the soil or mingling in the water, their mortality would rise to the horrors of pestilence, and might easily renew the most awful precedents in history. I described to you the class of miserable dwellings alluded to—‘Courts and alleys with low, dark, filthy, tenements, hemmed in on all sides by higher buildings, having no possibility of any current of air, and (worst of all) sometimes so constructed, back to back, as to forbid the advantage of double windows or back doors, and thus to render the house as perfect a cul-de-sac out of the court, as the court is a cul-de-sac out of the next thoroughfare:’ I affirmed that ‘this could never be otherwise than a cause of sickness and mortality to those whose necessities allot them such residence;’ and assured you of the ‘incontrovertible fact, that subsistence in closed courts is an unhealthy and short-lived subsistence, in comparison with that of the dwellers in open streets.’
In habitations of this kind the death-rate would of necessity be high, even if the population were distributed thinly in the district. A single pair of persons, with their children, having such a court for their sole occupancy, would hardly be otherwise than unhealthy; the infants would die teething, or would live pallid and scrofulous; or a parent would perish prematurely—the father, perhaps, with typhus, the mother with puerperal fever. Judge then, gentlemen, how the mortality of such courts must swell your aggregate death-rate for the City, when I tell you that their population is in many instances so excessive, as, in itself, and by its mere density, to breed disease.
Statistics can give you no conception of this crowding. If you refer to the results of the last census, you find the average population per house, in the City of London Union to be 7·1; in the East and West London Unions, 8·8; for the construction of these averages, the most dissimilar materials are blended together; and the density of population is apparently reduced by the very large number of business-houses which have no resident inmates, beyond the porter or the housekeeper who has charge of them. If you turn from the deceptions of an average to the exact analysis of detail, you will find many single rooms in the City with a larger number of inmates than you might otherwise ascribe to entire houses. Instances are innumerable, in which a single room is occupied by a whole family—whatever may be its number, and whatever the ages and sexes of the children; where birth and death go on side by side; where the mother in travail, or the child with small-pox, or the corpse waiting interment, has no separation from the rest.
This is evil enough; but worse remains behind. It is no uncommon thing, in a room of twelve feet square or less, to find three or four families styed together (perhaps with infectious disease among them) filling the same space night and day—men, women, and children, in the promiscuous intimacy of cattle.[59] Of these inmates it is nearly superfluous to observe, that in all offices of nature they are gregarious and public; that every instinct of personal or sexual decency is stifled; that every nakedness of life is uncovered there. Such an apartment is commonly hired in the first instance by a single pair, who sub-let a participation in the shelter, probably to as many others as apply. Sometimes a noxious occupation is carried on within the space: thus, I have seen mud-larks (chiffonniers) sitting on the floor with baskets of filth before them, sorting out the occasional bit of coal or bone, from a heterogeneous collection made along the bed of the river, or in the mouths of the sewers; and this in a small room, inhabited night and day by such a population as I have described.
[59] I purposely refrain from any attempt to illustrate all the horrors which are incidental to this method of life; but, as a single exemplification of the text (chosen, not because of its rarity, but because it happens to occur at the moment) I insert an extract from a note, with which I was favoured a fortnight ago, by Mr. Hutchinson, Surgeon to the North District of the West London Union: ‘I was sent for to attend a poor Irish woman in labour, at half-past six o’clock yesterday morning, at 17, Fox and Knot court. There were three families, each consisting of a man and wife and two or more children, in a small room, 15 feet by 8, all lying upon dirty rags on the floor. I found one of the children suffering under small-pox. The adjoining room was occupied by six grown-up persons and two children.’ In the circumstances to which my Report refers, scenes of this description must of necessity be habitual: and it is to their habit, not to their exceptional occurrence, that my remarks apply.
Who can wonder at what becomes, physically or morally, of infants begotten and born in these bestial crowds?
In my [former Report], I drew your attention to this pestilential heaping of human beings, and suggested to you its results; and on many occasions, during the past year, complaints have been before your Hon. Court which have had their real origin in this uncontrolled evil. I revert to it because of its infinite importance. While it maintains physical filth that is indescribable, while it perpetuates fever and the allied disorders, while it creates mortality enough to mask the results of all your sanitary progress, its moral consequences are too dreadful to be detailed. I have to deal with the matter only as it relates to bodily health. Whatever is morally hideous and savage in the scene—whatever contrast it offers to the superficial magnificence of the metropolis—whatever profligacy it implies and continues—whatever recklessness and obscene brutality arise from it—whatever deep injury it inflicts on the community—whatever debasement or abolition of God’s image in men’s hearts is tokened by it—these matters belong not to my office, nor would it become me to dwell on them. Only because of the physical sufferings am I entitled to speak; only because pestilence is for ever within the circle; only because Death so largely comforts these poor orphans of civilisation. To my duty it alone belongs, in such respects, to tell you where disease ravages the people under your charge, and wherefore; but while I lift the curtain to show you this—a curtain which propriety might gladly leave unraised, you cannot but see that side by side with pestilence there stalks a deadlier presence; blighting the moral existence of a rising population; rendering their hearts hopeless, their acts ruffianly and incestuous; and scattering, while society averts her eyes, the retributive seeds of increase for crime, turbulence, and pauperism.
While I refer to these painful topics, I may remind your Hon. Court of the Report of your Committee on Health, in respect of the same heads in my previous communication, and may strengthen myself with their testimony: ‘We feel it due to Mr. Simon to add, from the result of personal investigation, that the statements contained in his Report under this subject, distressing as they are, are not exaggerated:’ and, as regards whatever I may have recapitulated from that Report, I would beg leave to add, that my experience during the past year has confirmed the opinions which I then expressed; assuring me more and more, that the correction of these crying evils must advance simultaneously with the other labours of sanitary reform.
Recently, while having the honour to attend your Committee of Health in their deliberations on your Act of Parliament, I have submitted to them, as my view of what is desirable for legislation on the subject of my present section, substantially the same suggestions as I formerly laid before your Hon. Court. As their recommendations must shortly come before you for consideration, and as I entertain the deepest conviction that the subject is of paramount importance to the cause in which you are interested, I have hoped you would excuse my recurrence to it, and my brief repetition of those suggestions which the incompleteness of your Act of Parliament has hitherto prevented your adopting.
1. There are within the City some blocks of houses which are, I fear, irremediably bad and pestilential from such errors of construction as I have already described; and which, further, are so dilapidated, as to show at a glance their little pecuniary value. In many instances the destruction of such a block of houses would confer a sensible advantage on the population of a considerable district. Of this class I could hardly give you a better illustration than would be seen in the ground-plan of Seven-step alley. There are other instances (frequent in Cripplegate) where the removal of a single house at the extremity of a court or passage would make a material difference to the ventilation of several houses, and to the health of a numerous population.
2. Again, in very many parts of the City, you find illustrations of a constructional error to which I have adverted as in the highest degree pernicious to health. You find a number of courts, probably with very narrow inlets, diverging from the open street in such close succession, that their backs adjoin with no intermediate space whatsoever. Consequently, each row of houses has but a single row of windows, facing into the confined court; and thus there is no possibility of ventilation, either through the court generally, or through the houses which compose it. In the Out-Wards of Cripplegate, Farringdon, and Bishopsgate, examples of this arrangement are both most numerous, and I believe, most removable: but they may likewise be found in considerable numbers in the In-Wards of the City; e.g., in the neighbourhood of Printing-house-square, of Great Bell-alley, of Leadenhall-street, of Aldgate, of Skinner-street, and of St. Martin’s-le-Grand.
In many of these cases, if the management of the property were under a single control, it is possible that effectual relief might be given, by converting any two rows of houses which are back to back, each having windows only on one side, into a single row of houses, with doors and windows both before and behind: and if changes of this nature were accompanied by the removal of an occasional house, or other impediment to the circulation of air, I would guarantee to your Hon. Court that the next year’s register would show a very large diminution in the local amount of preventable sickness and mortality.
3. In other cases, the immediate impediment to ventilation apparently consists in the operation of the window-tax. Your Hon. Court, at various times, has heard how unfortunate for the health of cities is this ill-chosen method of taxation, assessing the amount of rate for houses in proportion to their means of ventilation. You can easily conceive how much it would impede your endeavours to promote health and cleanliness within the City, if an additional direct tax were levied on houses by reason of their drainage; or if the assessor regulated his rate according to the consumption of water for household purposes. The working of the window-tax is on this principle; and although it may be very true that health is the greatest of treasures, and that, on this ground, its means and appliances are eligible for taxation, I cannot but regret that a struggling population should be tempted by the hope of some small saving, to make a sensible diminution in their chances of life, by retrenching within the narrowest measures their inlets of ventilation and light.
In reference to the more important constructional errors which I have described to you, as affecting the courts and alleys of the City, it will be obvious, from the remedies which I have suggested, that no hope of alteration can be expected from landlords. To throw together the adjoining houses of two different courts, or to remove one house for the advantage of certain others, or to destroy a whole block of houses for the sake of its neighbourhood, could evidently be undertaken, as a matter of private enterprise, only where property of very considerable extent, and close juxtaposition, happened to be in the hands of a single individual; and, as regards the City of London, this is rarely or never the case. The only manner, then, it occurs to me, in which the requisite remedies could be applied, would be through the wealth and benevolence of the Corporation. If there were vested in your Hon. Court (or in any other authority of the Corporation) the power to make compulsory purchases of house-property, on the ground of its unfitness for human habitation, it would be easy to correct the extreme errors which exist; and, under a single large landlordship of this nature, it might not improbably be found that measures such as I have described would give to the localities in which they might be effected as much improvement in value as in health. After the necessary alterations, such houses would no longer need to continue under tenure of the Corporation, and the proceeds of their sale might again be applied to the reclamation of similar property in other parts of the City.
In throwing out this suggestion to your Hon. Court, I, of course, do not pretend to offer you any details for its realisation. These can more fitly be supplied by others; nor should I have introduced even this general mention of a plan, but for the vividness with which its practicability and usefulness have struck me. During my period of office, I have seen distinctly that what seems incurable in the dark intricacies of our worst courts and alleys often depends for its difficulty on the number of landlords, and on their mutual independence. The conviction had thus been forced on me, which I have endeavoured briefly to express to you; that the only available cure for such evils would consist in the Corporation assuming to itself (if only for a time, and in gradual succession) the proprietage of such wretched tenements, and fulfilling towards them those large and liberal duties of landlordship, which now remain unperformed through the multiplicity and neediness of petty owners. And, as a precedent for one species of such improvement, I may mention to your Hon. Court, that in such property as I have described to you, situated in other parts of the metropolis, private societies have already effected purchases which have enabled them to convert bad and unwholesome residences into the form of model lodgings for the working classes.
Before leaving the consideration of evils, in which over-density of building and defective ventilation form such important parts, I would avail myself of the opportunity to observe, that it is of incalculable importance to preserve, for the health of the City, every open space which at present exists. The density of buildings within the City of London Union is very great, and in the East and West London Unions, is very considerably greater than in any other part of the metropolis; and not merely are the houses closely packed together, but (as I have already described them) very thickly inhabited. Within the City of London Union, each human being, on an average, has less than an eighth part of the space he would have if residing in the district of Islington; and, small as is this pittance, it is more than double what he would enjoy if he were living in the district of the East and West London Unions. With such density of population, it would, of course, be advantageous if any space now occupied by buildings should hereafter become vacant, so as to increase the breathing-room of the neighbourhood; and your Hon. Court will see the imperative necessity of discountenancing, so far as may be, the erection of additional houses on the few unoccupied spaces which remain. In order to do this effectually, it would be desirable to procure the enactment of a clause, giving you absolute prohibiting power in this respect, whenever, for sanitary reasons, you might think it right to interfere.
With respect to those evils which I have set before you, as arising from the unrestricted accumulation of persons of both sexes, and of all ages, within a single sleeping-room—dreadful as they are, I do not consider them irremediable. In the first place, I would beg you to observe, that the very restricted definition of a ‘lodging-house’ given in your Act of Parliament, has hitherto rendered it impossible, in any degree, to regulate dwellings of the description referred to. An amendment of that definition might bring them within your control, and might enable you, not only in these instances, but in many others, to restrict the numbers of inmates, to compel the removal of persons with infectious disease, and to enforce provisions of decency, cleanliness, and ventilation.
Not, however, alone to restrictive and compulsory measures do I look for the social improvement of numbers, now so destitute and miserable. That our entire industrial population within the City might, in such respects, gain great advantage from an enlightened supervision and guidance, I formerly endeavoured to show. I sought (from other experience) to illustrate the benefits they would derive, not only from your exercising habitual inspection, and possessing a more extensive control, in many matters relative to their dwellings and mode of life; but likewise, from the establishment, under the auspices of the Corporation, of institutions which, raising before them a higher standard of civilisation, would improve their social habits by an indirect educational influence, and would elevate the general tone and character of their class.
On the [subject] of Model Dwellings for the labouring classes, and of Public Baths and Wash-houses, as illustrating this view, I dwelt at some length in my [former Report]; and, deeply convinced of the boon which their establishment would confer on the poor, I explained, to the best of my ability, the nature and the extent of their usefulness.
I now recur to the subject, only that I may repeat my profound conviction of its importance; and that in doing so, I may congratulate your Hon. Court, and may utter my deep thankfulness for the labouring and suffering poor of this great community, that, in compliance with the Standing Orders of Parliament, formal notice has been given on the part of the Corporation of the City of London, of their intention, in the approaching session of the Legislature, to apply for authority which may enable them to achieve, for their dependent fellow-citizens, this almost incalculable good.[60]
[60] The intention of the Corporation, here spoken of, has not hitherto been carried into effect.—J. S., 1854.
I cannot too strongly express the importance I attach to this implied intention of the Corporation, to establish model dwellings for the industrial population of the City. But the first and immediate operation of such an Act will, from the nature of things, hardly reach to those very destitute and degraded classes of which I have spoken. Model lodgings of the ordinary character will become the residence of men, who now pay from two to five shillings a week for such space as they occupy, and who have the habit of sleeping in beds. To them the gain will be very great; and the example of improved domestic habits will be beneficial to their entire class. But among the lowest order which I have described to you, as it subsists in thronged and pestilent heaps within your worst quarters, there is little knowledge of beds. The first hirer of the room may possibly have a pile of rags on which he lies, with his wife and children, in one corner of the tenement; but the majority of his sub-tenants (paying for their family-lodging from sixpence to ten-pence a week) lie on straw, or on the bare boards. It will be obvious to you, that no Model Lodging-house could be reduced to the level of their means. By those restrictions to which I have adverted, something may be done, no doubt, for improving the arrangement of houses so tenanted—something to prevent the more glaring outrages of decency which at present prevail—something to maintain comparative cleanliness, and to check the spread of disease. I fear that no further remedy than this would prove effectual, unless it were universal for the metropolis. Unquestionably, it would be possible, with persons even of the lowest sort above pauperism, to proceed on the same principle as in the establishment of model-lodgings for the working orders; to provide for them, namely, under respectable control and supervision, the best accommodation which their price could purchase, of the kind to which they have been habituated; to give them the means of lying down, free from damp or cold, partitioned from one another, and with isolation of sexes, in a building constructed or arranged for the purpose, where the ventilation and the facilities for cleanliness might be complete. There seems little room to doubt that this might be done, on a very large scale, at a rate considerably less than the poorest now pay for the right of lairage amid vermin, filth, obscenity, and fever; and with such dormitories, obviously, there might be connected other arrangements for giving comfort and cleanliness to the very poor and destitute, at the lowest possible price. Of gratuitous reception I do not speak, because that is already provided, under certain regulations, in all the work-houses of the metropolis. But while I conceive that such a measure, if generally adopted throughout London, would defray its own cost, and would remove evils and miseries horrid to contemplate, I cannot but feel that it would be inadmissible (in its cheapest form) as a local measure. For if the price of reception—for instance, here, were so low as to allure the wretched population in question from their places of present resort within the City, it cannot be doubted that its influence would extend beyond your jurisdiction, and would throng your dormitories with the destitute of other districts. As the evil is metropolitan, so ought the remedy to be; and if there were thus instituted within each Union of the metropolis, a Ragged Dormitory of the nature described, I am persuaded, from my knowledge of the poorest classes, that its establishment would be of infinite advantage in improving the habits, and diminishing the mortality of those who would become its inmates.