“I once called the surveyor before a Board of about twenty Trustees, to draw attention to a pool of stagnant water lying in front of or betwixt two rows of cottages about 60 feet apart from each other, and about 150 feet long, covering nearly the whole of this vacant space of around from one to two feet deep; dead dogs, kittens, and other impurities in the height of summer were floating in it, yet I was unable to obtain an order for the surveyor to expend a few pounds in draining it off, or to compel the owner to do it, although situate in the centre of a very populous district; and it continued in the same state till built over by cottages the following year.”
The nuisances which favoured the introduction and spread of the cholera were for the most part evils within the cognizance of the Leets, and could not have existed had their powers been properly exercised, yet so complete was the desuetude of the machinery of these Courts that it appeared nowhere to be thought of as applicable, and the new and special machinery of the Boards of Health were created for the purpose of meeting the pestilence. There are no funds provided by which the common remedy by indictment could now be prosecuted: and since the most offensive and injurious nuisances are those supported by large capital, redress for the private injury is practically available only to persons who can afford to risk large sums in litigation. In one instance in Scotland, where the stream which supplied a village was discoloured and rendered disagreeable to the taste by some dye-works, a gentleman who took up the defence of the villagers, who were mostly his tenants, stated to me that the litigation incurred by an obstinate defence involved an expenditure of no less a sum than 4,000l., the whole of which he did not recover, and that from his own experience he was clearly of opinion no one who had not most inflexible determination, as well as ample means, would be warranted in entering upon such a contest. Powerful influence was used to induce him to stay the suit, and he was by persons of his own class regarded as the persecutor of the author of the nuisance.
The complication of various nuisances in some of the larger manufacturing districts has frequently become so great as to put them beyond any existing legal remedy, whether private or public, by placing out of the apparent possibility of distinct technical proof any injury or particular effect arising from any one. An instance of this is stated by Messrs. Paris and Fonblanque, where two indictments were preferred; the one preferred against the proprietor of a Prussian-blue manufactory; the other against a black-ash manufacturer; both of these works were situated in Seward-street, Goswell-street, London. The counsel for the defendant, in his cross-examination of the witnesses for the prosecution of the Prussian-blue maker, drew from them an account of the noisome vapours of the black-ash manufactury; while in the latter trial the same barrister made the witnesses declare the extreme stench of the Prussian-blue manufactory; so that in both cases the defendants obtained a verdict, because in neither case could the witnesses for the Crown unequivocally prove from which of the manufactories the nuisance complained of arose.
State of the Local Executive Authorities for the Erection and Maintenance of Drains and other Works for the Protection of the Public Health.
Having shown the state of the existing local authority for reclaiming the execution of the law, for causing that to be done “which the common good requires,” and those things not to be done which tend “to the annoyance of all the king’s subjects,” I proceed to describe the general state of the executive authority, charged with the doing of so much of these things as is comprehended in town and road drainage; the sewerage for house and street drainage, and the provisions for the surface cleansing of streets.
The extent of the areas to be drained determines arbitrarily the extent of the operations of drainage, whether public or private, which shall combine efficiency and economy. If these areas are occupied by different parties, they cannot be cleared separately at an expense proportioned to the extent cleared. In general they are only to be won by agreement amongst the parties holding the property, to place the operations under the guidance of science; these labours will then be rewarded by production, whilst disease and pestilence, as well as sterility, are the effects of the ignorance and selfish rapacity which impede such union for the common advantage. The early history of the attempts of the separate owners of portions of the tract of country included in the Bedford Level to drain their property separately, is a history of expensive failures, of attempts to get rid of the surplus water only by flooding the lands of neighbours, and scenes of wretched animosities. These continued until the whole tract was put under one strong authority and scientific guidance, when productiveness and health arose as described in the account of the sanitary condition of the Isle of Ely. Had the natural district formed by the geological basin of that level been subdivided for drainage operations into districts co-extensive with districts for municipal, ecclesiastical, or parochial and civil administrative purposes; or had it been divided into districts according to property or occupation; had the commissions charged with the drainage of these subdivisions acted independently by ill-paid and ill-qualified officers, without any competent control, instead of acting on one comprehensive plan in subordination to an engineer of science adequate to its design and execution, vast sums of money might have been spent, and the land would still have remained a pestilential marsh occupied by a miserable population.
The amount of surface-water on those lands made the expediency of enlarged operations obvious, and their necessity pressing. Besides the towns and tracts of country oppressed with surface-water, as described in such evidence as that cited from the sanitary reports from populous districts, the extent of country which is unhealthy as well as comparatively unproductive, from the want of systematic under-drainage, appears to be extensive and immense beyond any conception that could be formed à priori, from the more conspicuous instances of enterprize, intelligence, and science manifest amongst the population. What the tract of country belonging to the Bedford Level, so subdivided and inefficiently and expensively managed once was, large urban and rural districts are now found to be in degree. The circumstances which govern what is called the private drainage will illustrate the nature of the administrative obstacles to efficient public drainage, and it is necessary to consider them in connexion, for they are inseparably connected by nature.
Although the larger share of the land-drainage redounds to the pecuniary profit of private individuals, yet it is proved so far to affect, the public health beneficially, and contribute to the productive employment of the labouring classes, and to other general public advantages, that such works fairly come within the description of publicum in privato, and as such entitled to collective and legislative care. Drainage appears to be the primary, and in many cases the principal, operation for the efficient construction and economical maintenance of roads. But an efficient system of sewerage, and general town and road-drainage, has an additional value as removing serious impediments to the general land drainage. The following portion of the evidence of Mr. Roe affords an exemplification of the extent to which the private land-drainage is commonly affected by such operations:
“Have you found the sewerage produce any effect in the drainage of the surrounding land?—Yes, we have found it lower the water in the wells, often at great distances. For instance, in forming a sewer in the City-road, we found that it lowered by four feet a well nearly a quarter of a mile distance. The only remedy we could advise to the parties was to lower the well: they did so. We afterwards had occasion to lower the same sewer three feet, when the well was lowered again in proportion; so that the construction of the sewer, in this instance, drained an area of 40 or 50 acres on that side, and perhaps further. The water is sometimes in such quantities, and so strong in the land-springs, as to require openings to be left in the side of the sewer for its passages.”
The first obstacles to the general land-drainage have already been adverted to in the small occupancies. To these must be added the want of capital. The legislature has recently given to the owners of life estates the power of charging the inheritance with the contributions to the cost of permanent improvements by drainage. This power does not meet the case of the smaller holdings; and drainage operations to be effectual must, in general, be on a scale too large to be within the habits of thought or action of small owners or occupiers, of varying interests, and wanting confidence in each other to combine, make, or manage immediate outlays for such purposes. But above all these is to be added the circumstance of the power which the possession of a small part of a district gives to one individual, to thwart those operations of the majority which are for the common advantage, and consequently the temptation which the possession of such power gives and almost ensures, of its use to exact unjust and exorbitant conditions. When expressing to a gentleman who has actively promoted improvements in agricultural production in Scotland, my surprise at the large extent of marshy district allowed to continue in a state of comparative sterility, sources of rheumatism, and fevers and other diseases, he directed my attention to the following among other exemplifications:—