The subject I have now to treat--principally as regards street-labour,
but generally in its sanitary, social, and economical bearings--may
really be termed vast. It is of the cleansing of a capital city, with
its thousands of miles of streets and roads _on_ the surface, and its
thousands of miles of sewers and drains _under_ the surface of the
earth. And first let me deal with the subject in a historical point of
view.
Public scavengery or street-cleansing, from the earliest periods of
our history, since municipal authority regulated the internal economy
of our cities, has been an object of some attention. In the records of
all our civic corporations may be found bye-laws, or some equivalent
measure, to enforce the cleansing of the streets. But these regulations
were little enforced. It was ordered that the streets should be swept,
but often enough men were not employed by the authorities to sweep
them; until after the great fire of London, and in many parts for years
after that, the tradesman’s apprentice swept the dirt from the front
of his master’s house, and left it in the street, to be removed at the
leisure of the scavenger. This was in the streets most famous for the
wealth and commercial energy of the inhabitants. The streets inhabited
by the poor, until about the beginning of the present century, were
rarely swept at all. The unevenness of the pavement, the accumulation
of wet and mud in rainy weather, the want of foot-paths, and sometimes
even of grates and kennels, made Cowper, in one of his letters,
describe a perambulation of some of these streets as “going by water.”
Even this state of things was, however, an improvement. In the accounts
of the London street-broils and fights, from the reign of Henry III.,
more especially during the war of the Roses, down to the civil war
which terminated in the beheading of Charles I., mention is more or
less made of the combatants having availed themselves of the shelter
of the rubbish in the streets. These mounds of rubbish were then kinds
of street-barricades, opposing the progress of passengers, like the
piles of overturned omnibuses and other vehicles of the modern French
street-combatants. There is no doubt that in the older times these
mounds were composed, first, of the earth dug out for the foundation of
some building, or the sinking of some well, or (later on) the formation
of some drain; for these works were often long in hand, not only from
the interruptions of civil strife and from want of funds, but from
indifference, owing to the long delay in their completion, and were
often altogether abandoned. After dusk the streets of the capital of
England could not be traversed without lanterns or torches. This was
the case until the last 40 or 50 years in nearly all the smaller towns
of England, but there the darkness was the principal obstacle; in the
inferior parts of “Old London,” however, there were the additional
inconveniences of broken limbs and robbery.
It would be easy to adduce instances from the olden writers in proof of
all the above statements, but it seems idle to cite proofs of what is
known to all.
The care of the streets, however, as regards the removal of the dirt,
or, as the weather might be, the dust and mud, seems never to have
been much of a national consideration. It was left to the corporations
and the parishes. Each of these had its own especial arrangements
for the collection and removal of dirt in its own streets; and as
each parochial or municipal system generally differed in some respect
or other, taken as a whole, there was no one general mode or system
adopted. To all this the street-management of our own days, in the
respect of scavengery, and, as I shall show, of sewerage, presents
a decided improvement. This improvement in street-management is not
attributable to any public agitation--to any public, and, far less,
national manifestation of feeling. It was debated sometimes in courts
of Common Council, in ward and parochial meetings, but the public
generally seem to have taken no express interest in the matter. The
improvement seems to have established itself gradually from the
improved tastes and habits of the people.
Although _generally_ left to the local powers, the subject of
street-cleansing and management, however, has not been _entirely_
overlooked by Parliament. Among parliamentary enactments is the
measure best known as “Michael Angelo Taylor’s Act,” passed early in
the present century, which requires all householders every morning
to remove from the front of their premises any snow which may have
fallen during the night, &c., &c.; the late Police Acts also embrace
subordinately the subject of street-management.
On the other hand the sewers have long been the object of national
care. “The daily great damages and losses which have happened in many
and divers parts of this realm” (I give the spirit of the preamble of
several Acts of Parliament), “as well by the reason of the outrageous
flowings, surges, and course of the river in and upon the marsh
grounds and other low places, heretofore through public wisdom won
and made profitable for the great commonwealth of this realm, as also
by occasion of land waters and other outrageous springs in and upon
meadows, pastures, and other low grounds adjoining to rivers, floods,
and other water-courses,” caused parliamentary attention to be given to
the subject.
Until towards the latter part of the last century, however, the streets
even of the better order were often flooded during heavy and continuous
rains, owing to the sewers and drains having been choked, so that the
sewage forced its way through the gratings into the streets and yards,
flooding all the underground apartments and often the ground floors of
the houses, as well as the public thoroughfares with filth.
It is not many months since the neighbourhood of so modern a locality
as Waterloo-bridge was flooded in this manner, and boats were used
in the Belvidere and York-roads. On the 1st of August, 1846, after a
tremendous storm of thunder, hail, and rain, miles of the capital were
literally under water; hundreds of publicans’ beer-cellars contained
far more water than beer, and the damage done was enormous. These facts
show that though much has been accomplished towards the efficient
sewerage of the metropolis, much remains to be accomplished still.
The first statute on the subject of the public sewerage was as early
as the 9th year of the reign of Henry III. There were enactments,
also, in most of the succeeding reigns, but they were all partial and
conflicting, and related more to local desiderata than to any system
of sewerage for the public benefit, until the reign of Henry VIII.,
when the “Bill of Sewers” was passed (in 1531). This act provided for a
more general system of sewerage in the cities and towns of the kingdom,
requiring the main channels to be of certain depths and dimensions,
according to the localities, situation, &c. In many parts of the
country the sewerage is still carried on according to the provisions in
the act of Henry VIII., but those provisions were modified, altered, or
“explained,” by many subsequent statutes.
Any uniformity which might have arisen from the observance of the
same principles of sewerage was effectually checked by the measures
adopted in London, more especially during the last 100 years. As
the metropolis increased new sewerage became necessary, and new
local bodies were formed for its management. These were known as
the Commissions of Sewers, and the members of those bodies acted
independently one of another, under the authority of their own Acts of
Parliament, each having its own board, engineers, clerks, officers,
and workmen. Each commission was confined to its own district, and
did what was accounted best for its own district with little regard
to any general plan of sewerage, so that London was, and in a great
measure is, sewered upon different principles, as to the size of the
sewers and drains, the rates of inclination, &c. &c. In 1847 there
were eight of these districts and bodies: the City of London, the
Tower Hamlets, Saint Katherine’s, Poplar and Blackwall, Holborn and
Finsbury, Westminster and part of Middlesex, Surrey and Kent, and
Greenwich. In 1848 these several bodies were concentrated by act of
parliament, and entitled the “Metropolitan Commission of Sewers;” but
the City of London, as appears to be the case with every parliamentary
measure affecting the metropolis, presents an exception, as it retains
a separate jurisdiction, and is not under the control of the general
commissioners, to whom parliament has given authority over such matters.
The management of the metropolitan scavengery and sewerage, therefore,
differs in this respect. The scavengery is committed to the care of
the several parishes, each making its own contract; the sewerage is
consigned by Parliament to a body of commissioners. In both instances,
however, the expenses are paid out of local rates.
I shall now proceed to treat of each of these subjects separately,
beginning with the cleansing of the streets.