What the condition of the girls?—The girls, when infants of seven years of age, are turned out into the streets with fruit and all sorts of things; when they arrive at the age of 14, go to stay stitching; then they sit in doors at home with their mother, and so on, until the age of 15 or 16, when they generally become prostitutes. I see it, because I am always amongst them. I have tried to get them to send those girls out to service, when they say, “Mr. Sargeant, what am I to do? my husband earns but little, I am obliged to depend upon what my daughter can do and myself.”
Mr. Rooke, the relieving officer of St. George’s in the East.
I know the poor population of our parish well. I know that a large proportion of the juvenile delinquents in our streets are coal-whippers’ children; I have known some of them to be transported. I know also that the girls, who are coal-whippers’ children, turn out prostitutes; it is seldom that any of them turn out to be good servants. Delirium tremens is a frequent complaint amongst the coal-whippers, and it sometimes extends to madness. There is one girl, for example, Margaret Harley, aged 25, the daughter of a coal-whipper, who, for the last 10 years, has always been either in a prison, in our workhouse, or the lunatic asylum; I do not believe that during that time she has been 10 months out of either of those places. I know a large proportion of the prostitutes in our district who, as the children of these improvident classes, have either been inmates of the house or otherwise chargeable to the public.
[1]. The Commissioners have no money to remunerate physicians; and those named should be distinctly informed that the service will be purely honorary.
[2]. Vide Appendix C.
[3]. See the evidence on this subject taken before the Committee of the House of Commons, on the sewerage of the metropolis; see also the evidence of Mr. Oldfield, an extensive builder, post.
[4]. Vide the evidence of Mr. Dark and Mr. Treble, Appendix.
[5]. Mr. Smith, of Deanston, is of opinion that it would be practicable to distribute such refuse by irrigation without exposure of the surface of the fluid in which it is held in suspension.
[6]. Professor Liebig in his work on the “Chemistry of Agriculture,” refers to various authorities on the practical value of such refuse, who state that “human urine is, if possible, more husbanded by the Chinese than night-soil for manure; every farm or patch of land for cultivation has a tank, where all substances convertible into manure are carefully deposited, the whole made liquid by adding urine in the proportion required, and invariably applied in that state.” This is exactly the process followed in the Netherlands.—See “Outlines of Flemish Husbandry,” p. 22. “The business of collecting urine and night-soil employs an immense number of persons, who deposit tubs in every house in the cities for the reception of the urine of the inmates, which vessels are removed daily with as much care as our farmers remove their honey from the hives. When we consider the immense value of night-soil as a manure, it is quite astounding that so little attention is paid to preserve it. The quantity is immense which is carried down by the drains in London to the river Thames, serving no other purpose than to pollute its waters. A substance which by its putrefaction generates miasmata may, by artificial means, be rendered totally inoffensive, inodorous, and transportable, and yet prejudice prevents these means being resorted to. If,” says the professor, “we admit that the liquid and solid excrements of man amount on an average to 1½ lb. daily (5
4 lb. of urine and ¼ lb. fæces), and that both together contain 3 per cent. of nitrogen; then in one year they will amount to 547 lbs., which contain 16·41 lbs. of nitrogen, a quantity sufficient to yield the nitrogen of 800 lbs. of wheat, rye, oats, or of 900 lbs. of barley.”—(Boussingault) “This is much more than is necessary to add to an acre of land in order to obtain, with the assistance of the nitrogen absorbed from the atmosphere, the richest possible crop every year. Every town and farm might thus supply itself with the manure which, besides containing the most nitrogen, contains also the most phosphates, and if rotation of the crops were adopted, they would be most abundant.”—Edited by Dr. Lyon Playfair.