In many ways, then, the sanitary evolution of the great city was developing satisfactorily, though by no means so rapidly as was to be desired, or as it might have developed if local governing authorities had done their duty.
“The war of the community against individuals for the public good,” which had now lasted for over thirty years, and the war against disease in its most dangerous forms, was being waged with good effect; and though an immensity remained to be done, a great deal had been accomplished. Larger numbers of all classes were beginning to grasp the idea and to realise that the necessity of securing and guarding the public health was not a craze or form of mental aberration, but was of absolutely vital consequence, not merely to certain classes but to the great community of the metropolis and to the nation itself, and that the future welfare and power, even the very existence, of the nation are dependent upon it.
Larger numbers, too, were beginning to see who really were responsible for the widely prevalent evils, and who really were obstructing progress towards a higher standard of public health, and how little claim they had to consideration, either from the hands of the Legislature or of local administrators.
The reports of the Medical Officers of Health of the latter part of this decade were distinctly more hopeful in tone, and recorded more progress than ever before.
The catalogue of things in which improvement had taken place had lengthened—sewerage, water supply, the removal of refuse, paving, the regulation of offensive businesses, of cowhouses, dairies, and bakehouses, the provision of open spaces, the better disinfection of houses and of infected articles, the erection of hospitals for the isolation of cases of infectious diseases—all of which things were elemental necessaries if the public health was to be assured.
In some parishes, in place of the smaller class of houses, great blocks of artizans’ dwellings had been erected. In others great blocks of flats.
With the increased wealth of the population finer buildings had been erected in many districts. London had grown enormously in wealth, and the wealth showed itself in finer public buildings and private houses. The District Board of Westminster, for instance, said in their report for 1885–6:—
“Whether viewed as to its character, its statistics, its topography, or its sanitary condition, the change which Westminster has undergone in thirty years can only be described as a complete transformation.”
“In the St. Margaret’s portion, whole streets of fine houses which were occupied by the nobility and the wealthy for residential purposes are now let out in offices for the transaction of legal, scientific, or mechanical business, while narrow streets, wretched courts, and melancholy homes of squalid poverty and misery have been replaced by ‘mansions,’ ‘flats,’ &c.; and on the other hand by huge blocks of artizans’ dwellings, comprising upwards of 1,200 homes.”