Of Clerkenwell it was indeed stated positively that “the shallow-well water of the parish received the drainage water of Highgate cemetery, of numerous burial grounds, and of the innumerable cesspools in the district.”
On the south side of the river the water in most of the shallow wells was tidal—from the Thames, which is a sufficient description of the quality thereof—and where people did not live close enough to the river to draw water from it for their daily wants, they took it from these tidal wells. Vile as it was, it had to be used in default of any better.
Where such wells were not available, the water for all household consumption was taken from tidal ditches which were to all intents and purposes only open sewers. A contemporary report gives a graphic picture of this form of supply[14]:—
“In Jacob’s Island (in Bermondsey) may be seen at any time of the day women dipping water, with pails attached by ropes to the backs of the houses, from a foul, fœtid ditch, its banks coated with a compound of mud and filth, and with offal and carrion—the water to be used for every purpose, culinary ones not excepted.”
An adequate supply of wholesome water has for very long been recognised as of primary sanitary importance to all populations, but with a densely crowded town population the need of care as to the quality of the supplies is peculiarly urgent. And yet, through the indifference of successive Governments, the people of the great metropolis of London were most inadequately supplied with water, and what water was supplied to the great mass of them, or was available for them, was of the foulest and most dangerous description. The inadequacy of supply not alone put a constant premium upon dirt and uncleanliness, both in house and person, but it intensified the evils of the existing sewers and drains, as without water efficient drainage was impossible. And the horrible impurity of the water affected disastrously and continuously the health of the great mass of the people.
Many dire lessons, costing thousands upon thousands of lives, were needed before it was borne in on the Government of the country that the arrangements regarding the supply of water for the people of London required radical amendment.
Much of the health of a city depends upon the width of its thoroughfares, the free circulation of air in its streets and around its buildings, and the sound and sanitary construction of its houses.
In every one of these respects all the central parts of London were remarkably defective. The great metropolis had grown, and had been permitted to grow, mostly at haphazard. Large parks and open spaces there were in the richer and more well-to-do parts, and some handsome thoroughfares; but “there were districts in London through which no great thoroughfares passed, and which were wholly occupied by a dense population composed of the lowest class of persons, who, being entirely secluded from the observation and influence of better educated neighbours, exhibited a state of moral degradation deeply to be deplored.”[15]