Of the importance of sewers it is unnecessary to enlarge, that being sufficiently understood.
By water-courses is meant channels for the immediate passage of rainwater from off the streets. They are easily formed, and where the ground is level, the advantage is very great. In streets having a slope or declivity, the water is soon dispersed; but where they are level, it is apt to collect, and there create dampness, which is communicated to the houses, and a favourable nidus for putrefaction, where impurities are permitted to accumulate.
In some parts, principally the suburbs of large towns, and in many of the villages of Scotland, perhaps more especially those along the coasts, inhabited by fishermen, no means being adopted to expedite the removal of rainwater, and there being no natural water-run or course, the rain collects, and animal and vegetable materials mixing therewith, green putrefying ditches are formed, plentifully evolving gaseous products, and supporting a luxuriant vegetation on their surface.
CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES.
So much attention is now paid to health and comfort in the construction of the houses of the wealthy, that it is unnecessary to say a word respecting these points, in connection with the higher classes.
But the circumstances being so very different in relation to the houses of the poor or the labouring class, some notice is required here.
It too often happens that the house of the labouring man in the country is, in almost every respect, little better than a shed, and calculated to produce disease. The walls are frequently the only substantial part of the tenement, the roof of tiles being often pervious to the rain and wind, and there being no other covering either of lath or lime; the door opens directly into the body of the house, and the floor is generally either below or on a level with the ground outside.
When floors of houses are below the level of the ground outside, they must necessarily be damp, and cause the house to be unwholesome.
The floors even of cottages should be situated about a foot or more above the level of the adjacent ground, and the interval between them and the soil should be filled up with small stones, or such materials, and then the houses might possibly be free of damp, and the rain would not run in off the streets, and form ditches before the very fire-place, as it does in many houses in this village.
The necessity of the floors of their houses being at a little distance above the ground is well known to the natives of Manilla. To avoid the dampness and the unwholesome emanations of the soil, the poor natives build their bamboo houses upon a foundation of wooden piles, by which contrivance a considerable space is left to permit the winds to enter, and to dissipate the damp and exhalations. In like manner, the rich inhabitants of Manilla build on piles of brick. Could our working population, or rather their landlords, not take a hint from these less refined people, and form some security against that unwholesomeness inseparable from damp houses?