London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 2

by Henry Mayhew

I am informed, on good authority, both as regards the City and Metropolitan Commissions, that the average distance of the gully-grates is thirty yards one from another, including both sides of the way. Their number does not depend upon population, but simply on the local characteristics of the highways; for of course the rain falls into all the streets in proportion to their size, whether populous or half-empty localities. As, however, the more distant roads have not such an approximation of grates, and the law which requires their formation is by no means—and perhaps, without unnecessary interference, cannot be—very definite, I am informed that it may fairly be represented, that, of the 1760 miles of London public ways, more than two-thirds, “or” remarked one informant, “say 1200 miles, are grated on each side of the street or road, at distances of sixty yards.” This would give 59 gully-holes in every one of the 1200 miles of street said to be so supplied. Hence the total number throughout the metropolis will be 70,800.

The gully-drain, which is the street-drain, always presents now a sloping curve, describing, more or less, part of a circle. This drain starts, so to speak, from the side of the street, while its course to the sewer, in order to economize space, is made by any most appropriate curve, to include the reception of as great a quantity of wet street-refuse as possible; for if the gully-drains were formed in a direct, or even a not-very-indirect line, from the street sides to the sewers, they would not only be more costly, more numerous, but would, in fact, as I was told, “choke the under-ground” of London, for now the subterranean capital is so complicated with gas, water, and drain-pipes, that such a system as will allow room for each is indispensable. The new system is, moreover, more economical. In the City the gully-drains are nearly all of nine-inch diameter in tubular pipeage. In the metropolitan jurisdiction they are the same, but not to the same extent, some being only six inches.

Fifty, or even thirty years ago, the old street channels for gully drainage were costly constructions, for they were made so as to suit sewers which were cleansed by the street being taken “up,” and the offensive deposit, thick and even indurated as it often was in those days, drawn to the surface. Some few were three and even four feet square; some two feet six inches wide, and three or four feet high; all of brick. I am assured that of the extent or cost of these old contrivances no accounts have been preserved, but that they were more than twice as costly as the present method.

In all the reports I have seen, metropolitan or city—the statements of the flushermen being to the same purport—there are complaints as to the uses to which the gully-holes are put in many parts, every kind of refuse admissible through the bars of the grate being stealthily emptied down them. The paviours, if they have an opportunity, sweep their surplus grout into the gullies, and so do the scavagers with their refuse occasionally, though this is generally done in the less-frequented parts, to get rid of the “slop,” which is valueless.

In a report, published in 1851, Mr. Haywood points out the prevalence of the practice of using the gully-gratings as dustbins! A sewer under Billingsgate accumulated in a few months many cart-loads, composed almost wholly of fish-shells; and 114 cart-loads of fish-shells, cinders, and rubbish were removed from the sewers in the vicinity of Middlesex-street (Petticoat-lane); these had accumulated in about twelve months. “Reconstructing the gullies,” he says, “so as to intercept improper substances (which has been recently done at Billingsgate), might prevent this material reaching the sewers, but it would still have to be removed from the gullies, and would thus still cause perpetual expense. Indeed, I feel convinced that nothing but making public example by convicting and punishing some offenders, under clause 69 of ‘The City of London Sewers’ Act,’ will stop the practice, so universal in the poorer localities, of using the gullies as dustbins.”

The Gully-holes are now trapped—with very few exceptions, one report states, while another report intimates that gully-trapping has no exception at all. The trap is resorted to so that the effluvium from a gully-drain may not infect the air of the public ways; but among engineers and medical sanitary inquirers, there is much difference of opinion as to whether the system of trapping is desirable or not. The general opinion seems to be, however, that all gullies should be trapped.

Of the City gully-traps, Mr. Haywood, in a report for the year 1851, says, as regards the period of their introduction:—

“About seventeen years ago your then surveyor (Mr. Kelsey) applied the first traps to sewer gullies, and from that date to the present the trapping of gullies has been adopted as a principle, and the city of London is still, I believe, the only metropolitan area in which the gullies are all trapped. The traps first constructed have since been (as all first inventions or adaptations ever have or will be) improved upon, and are rapidly being displaced by those of more improved construction.

“Now, of the incompatible conditions required of gully-traps, of the difficulty of obtaining such mechanical appliances so effective and perfect as can theoretically be devised, but yet of the extreme desirability of obtaining them as perfect as modern science could produce, your honourable court has, at least, for as long as I have had the honour of holding office under you, been fully alive to; no prejudice has opposed impediment to the introduction of novelties; your court has been always open to inventors, and, at the present time, there are sixteen different traps or modes of trapping gullies under trial within your jurisdiction.

“Nor has the provision of the means of excluding effluvium from the atmosphere been your only care; but the cleanliness of the sewers, and the prevention of accumulation of decomposing refuse, both by regulated cleansings, and by constructing the sewage upon the most improved principles, have also been your aim and that of your officers; and I do not hesitate to assert, that the offensiveness of the escape from the gullies has been of late years much diminished by the care bestowed upon the condition of the sewers.