Look at it in another light, as depriving the poor man of the ability to toil. Health is the working man’s all—his capital—his stock-in-trade. Deprived of it, his means of subsistence are gone—his independence is destroyed. His sole possessions are his skill and industry. It is considered unjust to deprive him of free markets and fair play. Is it not cruel to surround him by such circumstances as greatly increase the chances of sickness? Have we never known a sober, industrious man stricken down by an attack of fever, and rising from his bed of sickness to look upon a prospect of poverty and want? His means have become exhausted—he has run into debt, and that debt clogs his future energies. Perhaps the fever leaves him in broken health and infirmity. He struggles awhile with all these adverse circumstances; seeks parish relief, and declines into pauper habits. The workman has a right, by every law divine and human, to eat his daily bread by his daily toil. Is it not a mockery to allow him this, if the conditions of health are withheld? Is it not worse? Is it not injustice to leave him in a condition inferior to the criminal? The man who has offended the laws can enjoy all the luxuries of good air, good water, and live in a palace, as compared with the wretched hovels in which thousands of our working men, with their wives and families, are placed. Are we always to go on discussing plans of prison discipline, and the efficacy of various kinds of treatment for paupers? Are we never to learn that the true philosophy is to inquire by what means we can prevent those who are not yet paupers or criminals from becoming so? Sanitary reform is only one means, but it is one of primary importance. How can we expect to cultivate habits of temperance and industry—how can we hope to diffuse the blessings of education, so indispensable to the elevation of the people in morals and happiness, so long as they are left physically degraded and wretched? The soil is unfavourable to the reception of religious counsel and consolation. This lesson must be learnt before we can hope to legislate wisely. All practical remedies must begin by a due care for the material wants of the population.
It is not possible, in the compass of a tract, to enter into detail on all the evils of our present condition. They are too general to have escaped the attention of any careful observer. With regard to drainage and sewerage, every town in the kingdom is defective. Nearly all are equally so with regard to supplies of water; and the overcrowding in wretchedly constructed dwellings has become matter of universal complaint. The people have no control over the construction of their dwellings, little or none over the selection, as they must be near their place of work. They have to pay a high price for the most wretched accommodation. The state of living is utterly at variance with cleanliness, order, or the cultivation of decent habits. Labouring under these disadvantages, they have a right to demand of the higher classes a complete system of drainage and sewerage, an efficient water supply, and a thorough cleansing of streets—no penny wise and pound foolish policy ought to stand in the way. They have a right to demand such reforms as will make their homes the abode of comfort to their families. It is injustice, it is cruelty to withhold them. How is it that, in the active discussion of public and private rights, at present going on, there are so few to vindicate the poor man’s claims to pure air and good water?
I would remind those who are in affluence and comfort of the duties of their station. Many of them can go away from the crowded streets, and spend the greater part of their time in a suburban residence; not so the poor man. The rich man can command many comforts beyond the reach of the poor man. He has to work, perhaps, in a heated, crowded workshop, and to retire to a room wretchedly small, and unwholesome. Need we wonder that he should sometimes prefer the gin-shop, or the beer-house, to his own dim, close, and dirty apartment? I make no apology for his excesses. I do not wish to excuse his faults. But I ask whether many of the errors, so conspicuous in the character of the poorer population, may not have arisen from the neglect of those who had the power to stimulate them to higher and better things? Before we reproach them with the neglect of their duties, let us see that our own are faithfully discharged. If we want to raise them up, we must begin by doing them justice. Remove the acknowledged evils that press so heavily upon their condition, and the assurance awaits us that the Almighty, who rewards all cheerful and honest labour, will bless the effort to the good of those who give and to those who may receive.
All delay is dangerous, and not only so, it is criminal. The evils of which we complain have been allowed to remain from a general ignorance of the laws of health. Up to a recent period, there was a want of knowledge amongst even the educated classes on these vital subjects. We cannot offer that plea now, to excuse our indifference or neglect. The evils have been fully explored, and most clearly exposed. The connexion between filth and disease—the suffering and vice flowing from them, have been exhibited in so striking a manner as to leave no room for mistake or misapprehension. The knowledge creates a solemn responsibility, and makes us really chargeable with the consequences. The knowledge gives us the power to arrest the progress of a class of diseases which strike down so many of our fellow-creatures in the years of their strength and usefulness. Every day of supineness is so much opportunity wasted. Every delay carries death to thousands. The admonition now read to us must not be suffered to pass with our usual heedlessness, or we may perchance be aroused by still more fearful means.
The poor man is now sufficiently instructed to feel that many of the evils of which he complains admit of removal, and that the wealthier classes have the power to effect a change that would surround his condition with many comforts. Is there no danger in leaving such a feeling to grow and develop itself among the working classes? The security of the State depends upon the feelings of the people at large. What hold can there be upon their sympathies or affections, if they are left to themselves; to all the misery of their present lot, and with the knowledge, too, that those who have the power to help, though witnesses of their suffering and sorrow, like the priest and the Levite, turn away, and pass on the other side. We can expect no other fruit than alienation and disaffection. We shall see it manifested in contempt of the laws; in bitterness of feeling to the property classes; in an increasing disregard to the invitations of religion; in still greater recklessness of conduct, and still more irregular habits. Have the revolutions of 1848 been read to us in vain? What was there behind these mighty convulsions? Simply this:—The people had been little regarded; their appeals had met with no attention; their wants were neglected; their wrongs were left unredressed; government did not seem to secure or care for their prosperity and happiness. Tumult and disorder were the inevitable results. It is a law of God that men shall reap as they have sown. In this land we have, under Providence, secured some of the blessings of good government, and in consequence a hardy and industrious race has sprung up. It is in the power of the richer classes to gather round the institutions of the country the affections of the people at large. They may do much to banish the grim forms of disease and want which now threaten the poor man’s home. They can carry light to his darkened abode, and dispense comfort and joy upon his gloomy hearth. By timely effort they may raise up a young generation, who will cherish the home attachments, pay ready obedience to the laws, and, by habits of sobriety and cheerful industry, give strength and stability to the State. They may, by a proper discharge of the duties of their stewardship, in a few years, cover the land with smiling homes and a contented population. And then, again, there is the converse of this. They may, by neglect and indifference, by leaving the people in their present condition, prepare the way for a state of things that every generous mind would tremble to contemplate. Who is there so blind as not to see in one course security and happiness; in the other, wretchedness and peril? I hope there is no need to urge the propriety, the necessity of the former course. I trust that all classes will unite to secure the true glory of England—that of raising up a healthy and happy population. Science can have no higher aim; government no loftier purpose; philanthropy no holier pursuit. It is not less our interest than a duty enjoined upon us by the principles of our holy religion, to administer to the necessities of the lowly and distressed. Let us, while it is yet day, “break off our sins by righteousness, and our iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, if it may be a lengthening of our tranquillity.”
Note.—The following extract is from the Report of Mr. Phillips, Surveyor Metropolitan Sewers Commission:—“At the last census, in 1841, there were 270,859 houses in the metropolis. It is known that there is scarcely a house without a cesspool under it, and that a large number have two, three, four, and more under them, so that the number of such receptacles in the metropolis may be taken at 300,000. The exposed surface of each cesspool measures, on an average, 9 feet, and the mean depth of the whole is about 6½ feet; so that each contains 58½ cubic feet of fermenting filth, of the most poisonous, noisome, and disgusting nature. The exhaling surface of all the cesspools (300,000 × 9) = 2,700,000 feet, or equal to 62 acres nearly: and the total quantity of foul matter contained within them (300,000 × 58½) = 17,550,000 cubic feet, or equal to one enormous elongated stagnant cesspool, 50 feet in width, 6 feet 6 in. in depth, and extending through London, from the Broadway at Hammersmith to Bow-bridge, a length of ten miles.”
“This,” say the Metropolitan Sanitary Commissioners, “there is reason to believe, is an under estimate. The cesspool, however, in general, forms but one-fourth of the evaporating surface—the house-drain forms half or two-fourths, and the sewer one; but, connected as the sewers and house drains mutually are, and acted upon by the winds and barometric conditions, the miasma from the house-drains and sewers of one district may be carried up to another.”