[48]. The parish doctors in England were often paid only 20l. per annum for attendance in parishes of considerable extent. The payments to medical officers who have their private practice are generally quadrupled, as compared with the parish doctors. The medical arrangements in Glasgow will illustrate the frequent state of the existing arrangements in Scotland. The burgh of Glasgow, exclusive of the suburbs, is divided into 12 districts, to each of which a medical practitioner is appointed, who is paid for his services out of the poor’s rates. Dr. Cowan stated of them in his report,—“The duties of the district surgeons are laborious and dangerous. Nearly all of them take fever, which involves a heavy pecuniary loss. Their salary is less than 21l. per annum, being less than 1s. for the treatment of each case.” For an equivalent district in population under the New Poor Law in England, namely, in Lambeth, there are four out-door medical officers, at salaries of 107l. each, and two in-door medical officers, at salaries of 128l. each. They have in addition their private practice and fees for vaccination, and special cases. The usual rate of medical allowance to the resident medical officers of dispensaries, who are excluded from private practice, has been from 60l. to 70l. per annum.
[49]. After the great fire of London, had the plan of Sir Christopher Wren been adopted for the reconstruction of the City, that circumstance would have saved the great expenses which have lately been incurred in rendering the communications commodious; but no price could now achieve the conveniences and facilities which his plan would have conferred on the inhabitants during the long interval.
[50]. The Nungate is situated along the edge of the mill-pool.
[51]. In dry weather the abrasion of the stones is much less.
[52]. Scotland Yard, Finsbury Circus, and the north side of St. Paul’s Churchyard afford partial illustrations of this arrangement.
[53]. General Average.
[54]. Mr. Terry, who is a very extensive farmer in Cookham, and was present during this inquiry, explained this, and, in corroboration of Mr. Whateley’s evidence on this point, stated that he, as a farmer, could not make any profit by growing pigs beyond a certain size. The only advantage which he had from keeping them was in using them to collect the refuse corn, which would otherwise be trodden under foot at the barn-door and rendered unmarketable; the office of the pig was to gather up this refuse, and convert it into a marketable commodity, pork. To fat the pigs beyond a certain size required more than the refuse of the farm-yard; and, therefore, would not pay the farmer. It was therefore, the practice of the farmers to sell the pigs to the millers, who were enabled to fat them on another description of refuse. Now if the labouring man kept a pig, as he had no farm-yard, and no refuse to feed it with, he must either buy the food or steal it. If he were honest and bought the food, his pork would, as Mr. Whateley has stated, cost much more than he could buy it for. A pig could only be kept on the produce of such a piece of land as a labourer could not well cultivate whilst he attended to his other duties. In this state of things, the temptation to pilfer for the support of the pig was considerable. Other witnesses incidentally corroborated this statement, and I found that with many farmers the circumstance of a labouring man having a pig was an objection to giving him employment. The Rev. Mr. Faithful, of Hatfield, Herts, stated, as the result of his observation, that the keeping of pigs was decidedly not profitable to cottagers; and such was the temptation to steal which their possession of pigs created, that he had known a labourer, who had a pig given to him, to steal from the donor the wood to make its sty, the straw to litter it, and the food to feed it. The farmers ridiculed the prevalent statements as to the small cost at which pigs could be kept,—statements commonly made to the gentry by roguish rustics, who profited by these delusions; a pig was not accommodating enough to fatten on less for the cottager than for the farmer.
A friend, who writes from Wiltshire, observes,—“I cannot make out who it is that does fatten pigs to a profit. I asked a brewer the other day if, with his grains, he did not make it answer; and he told me that, on the contrary, he was always out of pocket, and only kept a pig for the pleasure of eating his own pork. ‘Private individuals,’ he added, ‘feed their pigs with what should rather be called spoilt malt than grains. I cannot afford to do that; I must get out all the goodness for my beer, and then there is not sufficient nutriment left to fatten without the addition of things which I must purchase.’ It is not unlikely that many persons, who fancied they kept pigs to a profit, have fed them on this ‘spoilt malt,’ in ignorance that they were, in fact, giving their swine valuable beer instead of refuse grains.”
A gentleman, speaking of such appendages to labourers’ tenements in a manufacturing district, states,—“Formerly most of our houses had them, but they are terrible things for getting out of repair, and we are pulling them down a good deal, and clearing the ground; for I know, from intelligent, clear-headed workmen, that the manufacturing families cannot grow their pork nearly so cheap as they can buy it. The trade in bacon is quite different to what it was 20 or 30 years ago. Now it is a great business, and the quantity of the improved Irish pigs brought even into smallish cottages is very large. In such villages where yard-room is not very large, swill and manure make a terrible stink. Only such of our people keep pigs as have a fondness for it, and as a sort of hobby, but believing that it does not pay.”
[55]. The plan of Gourlier was simply to divide the receptacle into two parts, an upper compartment and a lower. The contents of the water-closet were discharged into the upper portion, and the water drained into the lower, through holes pierced in the partition. In the barrack plan there was no division in the receptacle, but, instead, a leaden pipe pierced with holes was carried perpendicularly through the midst of it, into which the water filtered from the receptacle, and was conducted anywhere at pleasure. Neither of these systems obviated two principal evils—the necessity to empty the receptacles, and the stagnation of the water, from the night-soil, round the foundations of the houses, from whence it worked its way up into the walls. The annoyance always felt from the removal of night-soil in Paris, and the ineffectual efforts of scientific men, for a long course of years, to discover a remedy, is a sufficient proof of the imperfection of all other methods except sewers. There has never indeed been a question that this last system was incomparably the best. But it has not occurred to men of science at Paris, that there could be any other outlet for the sewers besides the Seine, and the popular apprehension that the water would by this means be polluted, combined with the unwillingness to sacrifice the manure, have been always viewed as fatal objections.—Translator.