Of the Management of the Sewers and the late Commissions.

The Corporation of the City of London may be regarded as the first Commission of Sewers in the exercise of authority over such places as regards the removal of the filth of towns. In time, but at what time there is no account, the business was consigned to the management of a committee, as are now the markets of the City (Markets Committee), and even what may be called the management of the Thames (Navigation Committee). It is not at all necessary that the members of these committees should understand anything about the matters upon which they have to determine. A staff of officers, clerks, secretaries, solicitors, and surveyors, save the members the trouble of thought or inquiry; they have merely to vote and determine. It was stated in evidence before a Select Committee of the House of Commons on the subject of the Thames steamers, that at that period the Chairman of the Navigation Committee was a bread and biscuit baker, but “a very-firm-minded man.” In time, but again I can find no note of the precise date, the Committee became a Court of Sewers, and so it remains to the present time. Commissions of sewers have been issued by the Crown since the 25th year of the reign of Henry VIII., except during the era of the Commonwealth, when there seems to have been no attention paid to the matter.

As the metropolis increased rapidly in size since the close of the last century, the public sewers of course increased in proportion, and so did Commissions of Sewers in the newly-built districts. Up to 1847 these Commissions or Court of Sewers were eight in number, the metropolis being divided into that number of districts.

The districts were as follows:—

Each of these eight Commissions had its own Act of Parliament; its own distinct, often irregular and generally uncontrolled plan of management; each had its own officers; and each had its own patronage. Each district court—with almost unlimited powers of taxation—pursued its own plans of sewerage, little regardful of the plans of its neighbour Commission. This wretched system—the great recommendation of which, to its promoters and supporters, seems to have been patronage—has given us a sewerage unconnected and varying to the present day in almost every district; varying in the dimensions, form, and inclination of the structures.

The eight commission districts, I may observe, had each their sub-districts, though the general control was in the hands of the particular Court or Board of Commissioners for the entire locality. These subdivisions were chiefly for the facilities of rate-collecting, and were usually “western,” “eastern,” and “central.”

The consequence of this immethodical system has been that, until the surveys and works now in progress are completed, the precise character, and even the precise length, of the sewers must be unknown, though a sufficient approximation may be deduced in the interim.

To show the conflicting character of the sewerage, I may here observe that in some of the old sewers have been found walls and arches crumbling to pieces. Some old sewers were found to be not only of ample proportions, but to contain subterranean chambers, not to say halls, filled with filth, into which no man could venture. While in a sewer in the newly-built district of St. John’s-wood, Mr. Morton, the Clerk of Works, could only advance stooping half double, could not turn round when he had completed his examination, but had most painfully—for a long time feeling the effects—to back out along the sewer, stooping, or doubled up, as he entered it. Why the sewer was constructed in this manner is not stated, but the work appears, inferentially, to have been scamped, which, had there been a proper supervision, could hardly have been done with a modern public sewer, down a thoroughfare of some length (the Woronzow-road).

But the conflicting and disjointed system of sewerage was not the sole evil of the various Commissions. The mismanagement and jobbery, not to say peculation, of the public moneys, appear to have been enormous. For instance, in the “Accountant’s Report” (February, 1848), prepared by Mr. W. H. Grey, 48, Lincoln’s-inn-fields, I find the following statements relative to the Book-keeping of the several Commissions:—