1. The City.
2. The Tower Hamlets.
3. St. Katherine.
4. Poplar and Blackwall.
5. Holborn and Finsbury.
6. Westminster and part of Middlesex.
7. Surrey and Kent.
8. Greenwich.
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:--
“The _Westminster_ plan is full of unnecessary repetition. It is
deficient in those real general accounts which concentrate the
information most needed by the Commissioners, and it contains
_fictions_ which are very inconsistent with any sound system of
book-keeping.
“The ledger of the Westminster Commission does not give a true account
of the actual receipt and expenditure of each district.
“The _Holborn and Finsbury_ books are still more defective than
those of the Westminster Commission.... There are the same kind of
_fictions_.... But the extraordinary defect in these books consists in
the utter want of system throughout them, by keeping one-sided accounts
only in the ledger, with respect to the different sewers in each
district, showing only the amount _expended_ on each.
“The _Tower Hamlets_ books have been kept on a regular system, though
by no means one conveying much general information.”
“With respect to the _Surrey and Kent_ accounts,” says Mr. Grey,
“the books produced are the most incomplete and unsatisfactory that
ever came under my observation. The ledger is always thought to be a
_sine quâ non_ in book-keeping; but here it has been dispensed with
altogether, for that which is so marked is no ledger at all.”
Under these circumstances, the Report continues, “It cannot be wondered
at that debts should have been incurred, or that they should have
swollen to the amount of 54,000_l._, carrying a yearly interest of
2360_l._, besides annuities granted to the amount of 1125_l._ a year.
“The _Poplar and Greenwich_ accounts (I quote the official Report),
confined as they are to mere cash books, offer no subjects for
remark....
“No books of account have been produced with respect to the _St.
Katherine’s_ Commission.”
On the 16th December, 1847, the new Commissioners ordered all the books
to be sent to the office in Greek-street; but it was not until the 21st
February, 1848, that all the minute-books were produced. There were no
indexes for many years even to the proceedings of the Courts; and the
account-books of one of the local Courts, if they might be so called,
were in such a state that the book called “ledger” had for several
years been cast up in pencil only.
This refers to what may be characterised, with more or less propriety,
as _mismanagement_ or _neglect_; though in such mismanagement it is
hardly possible to escape _one_ inference. I now come to what are
direct imputations of _Jobbery_, and where _that_ is flourishing or
easy, no system can be other than vicious.
In a paper “printed for use of Commissioners” (Sept. 7, 1848),
entitled “Draft Report on the Surrey Accounts,” emanating from a
“General Purposes’ Committee,” I find the following, concerning
the parliamentary expenses of obtaining an Act which it was “found
necessary to repeal.” The cost was, altogether, upwards of 1800_l._,
which of course had to be defrayed out of the taxes.
“This Act,” says the Report, “authorized an almost unlimited borrowing
of money; and _immediately upon its passing_, in July, 1847, notices
were issued for works estimated to amount to 100,000_l._; and others,
we understand, were projected for early execution to the amount of
300,000_l._... Considering the general character of the works executed,
and from them judging of those projected, it may confidently be averred
that the _whole sum_ of 300,000_l._, the progressive expenditure of
which was stayed by the ‘supersedeas’ of the old Commission, would
have been _expended in waste_.” [The _Italics_ are not those of the
Reports.]
The Report continues, “It is to be observed that each of the district
surveyors would have participated in the sum of 15,000_l._ percentage
on the expenditure for the extension of the Surrey works. Thus the
surveyors, with their percentages on the works executed, and the clerk,
by the fees on contracts, &c., had _a direct interest in a large
expenditure_.”
Instances of the same dishonest kind might be multiplied to almost any
extent.
After the above evidences of the incompetency and dishonesty of
the several district Commissions--and the Reports from which they
are copied contain many more examples of a similar and even worse
description--it is not to be wondered at that in the year 1847 the
district courts were, with the exception of the City, superseded by
the authority of the Crown, and formed into one body, the present
Metropolitan Commission of Sewers, of the constitution and powers of
which I shall now proceed to speak.