Health.
This, amongst all sublunary blessings, is undoubtedly the one of paramount importance, and, seeing how things now stand with us, it is imperative that it should be the question to receive earliest attention.
I think it is the Rev. Harry Jones who, in one of his warm-hearted essays, liken as rotten, worn-out, filthy habitation to a lump of putrid carrion, exhaling poison all around, and which should be as remorselessly cut out from amongst the dwellings of human beings as a fly-blown spot is cut out from a carcass. This simile, perhaps, is not a very savoury one, but it possesses a much greater merit, that of being absolutely true—slightly vulgar, but astonishingly correct. I could illustrate its verity by many pertinent instances which have come within my own experience, but I feel that this is not the place to do so. What then is the remedy? Obviously to re-enact the present “Artizans’ Dwellings Improvement Act” as a compulsory statute, and not as an optional one. Let the squalid, crazy, tumble-down rookeries which exist in every town in the kingdom be ruthlessly demolished, care, of course, being taken that suitable dwellings are cotemporaneously built on better sanitary principles for those whom it will be necessary to evict in order to carry out such improvements. And I would suggest, as a branch of the pervading idea which forms the centre and core of my suggestions (of which more anon), that the Municipal Corporations of our cities and towns should be themselves in their official capacity the landlords of such new and improved dwellings, and should employ their own tradesmen to build them. And, furthermore, that in the erection of whatever new cottages may be found necessary for the purpose indicated, the latter-day style of running them up all alike, as uniform as so many squares of glass in a sash, should be abandoned, and a little variety of style, if only in trifling particulars, introduced. Human nature, even the human nature of the uneducated poor, rebels against this painful monotony, and grows intensely weary of over-much regularity, which, if a virtue at all, is one of so starched and rigid a character, that it takes a considerable amount of resolution, and a far higher degree of culture than we can lay claim to, to enable us to fall in love with it. To our uninstructed eyes, diversity of form is much more pleasing than undeviating rectangularity.
Again, the most painstaking care must be taken that these substituted domiciles be properly and thoroughly drained. Unhappily, although this is a truism and a self-evident proposition, it is, through carelessness or indifference, frequently neglected—a fact too sadly attested by the ravages of fever from time to time in our outlying districts, where, twenty years ago, the bricklayer and hodman had not arrived upon the scene. To obviate this it is absolutely necessary that the most skilled science should be employed, and the most searching local legislation strictly enforced, to secure the carrying out of approved sewerage and drainage systems.
Furthermore, I would suggest that no horse or cattle slaughterer, tallow-melter, manure-merchant, tanner, or other person plying any of the trades known as noisome or offensive, should be allowed to continue such trades without a special licence, and that by the terms of such licence they should be prohibited, under heavy penalties, from carrying on their businesses outside the limits of a certain area to be expressly set aside for that purpose, at such a distance from the centre of every town as may be judged desirable by the sanitary authorities. Within this area pig-styes and fowl-houses should be erected, and no swine, ducks, or geese be permitted to be kept outside its boundary. An inspector should be appointed specially for this quarter of the town, who should direct all his energies to seeing that the best principles of ventilation, smoke-consumption, drainage, use of disinfectants, &c. &c., are adopted throughout his domain; and all ill-conditioned recusants against the decrees of the local senate should be mulcted in heavy damages. On the part of the senate itself there must be no apathy, no supineness, no dilettanteism, but a stern, vigorous determination stringently and impartially to enforce prompt obedience to its edicts.
No doubt this would be somewhat of a hardship upon certain individuals, on the score of inconvenience and increased cost of production; but I doubt not they would take care to indemnify themselves. Even were it otherwise, however, the aggregate gain in so important a matter as the public health must swamp all minor considerations. Private interests must inevitably be sacrificed in the advancement of the general weal. All the Mrs. Partingtons that ever existed, with all their mops (whether such mops are called monopolies, vested rights, or what not), must perforce recede before the rising tide of the ocean of civilization.
Having well drained our streets and habitations, and consecrated a quartier for the purposes last mentioned, the next step must be to increase the number of our iron hospitals; and, disregarding sentimentality, immediately to isolate and put in quarantine all persons suffering from infectious diseases. Firmly grasp this nettle the moment it crops up, and without a shadow of doubt you will reduce to a minimum the high rate of mortality at present existing in our overcrowded cities through a total neglect of proper precaution. All textile fabrics, bedding, books, &c., which have come in contact with the patient, to be consumed by fire. Even Vandalism is excusable, nay, commendable, in certain circumstances.
Finally, on this branch of the subject, I submit for the consideration of municipalities the following recommendations:—
1. Preserve or procure open spaces, sufficient to form recreation grounds for your communities—say an acre for every thousand inhabitants. Regard this to be quite as imperative a necessity as the acquisition of further land to add to the cemeteries in which you inter the bodies of those who have “gone over to the majority.” Let the quick share your care and attention on equal terms with the dead in the matter of requisite space and accommodation.
2. Cause your common lodging-houses and your still worse haunts to be under the most vigilant supervision; and that constantly, and not fitfully and spasmodically. The more severe and restrictive your regulations are with reference to these matters the better it will be for all decent, quiet citizens.
3. Provide every householder within your jurisdiction with a filter, to insure to him and his the opportunity of enjoying water free from organic and other impurities.
4. Furnish him also with two boxes, varying in size according to the dimensions of his domicile: one to form a receptacle for dust, cinders, old rags, broken bottles, and what is generically known as “dry dirt;” and the other for decayed vegetables, the entrails of fish, and that kind of refuse that we rather uneuphoniously call “muck.” Such boxes to be taken away once a week and empty ones left in their stead. As a corollary to this, forbid him, under penalties, to continue his present practice of pitching derelicts into the street, as the readiest means of being quit of them; and make him responsible for the cleanliness of his doorsteps and the pavement in front of his dwelling.
5. Send round carts of chloride of lime, at short intervals during warm or “muggy” weather, and direct a bucketful to be delivered to every housewife, to remove stenches from sinks, water-closets, &c.
6. Erect a furnace in some convenient locality, to serve the same purpose as that known as the “Queen’s tobacco-pipe” at the London Docks does or did—i.e., to reduce to ashes all infected or condemned articles.
The foregoing list of recommendations might be extended indefinitely; but perhaps the above will be sufficient to begin with.
There are, no doubt, two objections at least which may be raised against the adoption of any scheme founded on these hints: first, one on the score of increased expenditure; secondly, one condemning increased centralization. With regard to the former, my answer is that health, especially the health of the aggregate mass of the body politic, cannot possibly be bought too dear; and that nothing really is so costly to any community as pestilence and death. As to the latter, I have no other defence to urge than my firm conviction that, much as it is railed against, centralization is as nearly an unmixed good as it is possible for anything in this sublunary (and marvellously complex) sphere to be. Everybody knows how inadequate the very best isolated efforts are to exterminate any widespread evil; and even organizations which are independent of, and do not radiate from or gravitate to, a common centre, frequently cross each other’s paths, and to some extent defeat each other’s purposes; occasioning a great waste of wholesome energy, which, well directed, might achieve marvellous results. As cosmos is greater than chaos—as a well-spliced rope is stronger than its separate strands—so is centralization and cohesion greater and stronger than individualism and segregation.