“Inverness is a nice town, situated in a most beautiful country, and with every facility for cleanliness and comfort. The people are, generally speaking, a nice people, but their sufferance of nastiness is past endurance. Contagious fever is seldom or ever absent; but for many years it has seldom been rife in its pestiferous influence. The people owe this more to the kindness of Almighty God than to any means taken or observed for its prevention. There are very few houses in town which can boast of either water-closet or privy, and only two or three public privies in the better part of the place exist for the great bulk of the inhabitants. Hence there is not a street, lane, or approach to it that is not disgustingly defiled at all times, so much so as to render the whole place an absolute nuisance. The midden is the chief object of the humble, and though enough of water for purposes of cleanliness may be had by little trouble, still as the ablutions are seldom, MUCH filth in-doors and out of doors must be their portion. When cholera prevailed in Inverness, it was more fatal than in almost any other town of its population in Britain.”
Such is the absence of civic economy in some of our towns that their condition in respect to cleanliness is almost as bad as that of an encamped horde, or an undisciplined soldiery. Mr. Baker applies to Leeds the observations made by Sir John Pringle in his Treatise on the Diseases of the Army, but they are equally applicable to the districts occupied by the labouring classes wherever this inquiry has been carried:—
“‘The chief cause of dysentery appears to be the foul straw and the privies; for as soon as we had left that ground on which we had been long encamped the sickness visibly abated.’ And again he says, ‘The greatest source of dysenteric affections appears to be the privies.’ And again, speaking of bad air as producing epidemics, he systematizes the mediate agent thus; ‘1st, Marsh effluvia; 2ndly, Encampment near trees; 3rdly, The privies and foul straw of a camp; and 4thly, A pent, corrupt, and vitiated atmosphere.’”
The discipline of the army has advanced beyond the civic economy of the towns. In the standing orders given and enforced by the late General Crauford there are the following from Article 2, on the interior regimental arrangements on arriving in camp or quarters:—
“It must be explained to the men, as a standing order, that when no regular necessaries are made, nor any particular spot pointed out for easing themselves, they are to go to the rear, at least 200 yards, beyond the sentries of the rear guard; all men disobeying this order must be punished.
“The captain of the day and the quarter-master under the commanding officers, are particularly responsible for the cleanliness of the camp of each regiment; and the field officer of the inlying piquet, who is charged with the superintendence of the police, and cleanliness of the camp or quarters of the brigade, will give such orders upon the subject as may be necessary to the captain of the day.”
The towns whose population never change their encampment, have no such care, and whilst the houses, streets, courts, lanes, and streams, are polluted and rendered pestilential, the civic officers have generally contented themselves with the most barbarous expedients, or sit still amidst the pollution, with the resignation of Turkish fatalists, under the supposed destiny of the prevalent ignorance, sloth, and filth.
Whilst such neglects are visited by the scourge of a regularly recurring pestilence and ravages of death more severe than a war, it may be confidently stated that the exercise of attention, care, and industry, directed by science in their removal, will not only be attended by exemptions from the pains of the visitation, but with exemptions from pecuniary burdens, and with promise even of the profits of increased production to the community.
This will appear from an examination of the present mode of removing the refuse from towns, and contrasting it with improved methods; and first with relation to the refuse of the houses:—
It is proved that the present mode of retaining refuse in the house in cesspools and privies is injurious to the health and often extremely dangerous. The process of emptying them by hand labour, and removing the contents by cartage, is very offensive, and often the occasion of serious accidents. But the expense of this mode operates, as the reports from the large towns show, as a complete barrier to all cleanliness in this respect in the dwellings or streets occupied by the labouring classes. The usual cost of cleansing cesspools of a tenement in London is about 1l. each time. With a population generally in debt at the end of the week, and whose rents are collected weekly, such an outlay may be considered as practically impossible, and the inferior landlords delay incurring the expense until the nuisance becomes unbearable. In London the expense and annoyance of the cleansing of such places is avoided for years, until they are in the condition described by Mr. Howell, one of the council of the Society of Civil Engineers, who has acted extensively as a surveyor in the metropolis:—