In 1847 the eight separate Commissions of Sewers were abolished, and
the whole condensed, by the Government, into _one_ Commission, with
the exception of the City, which seems to supply an exception in most
public matters.
The Act does not fix the number of the Commissioners. To the
Metropolitan Commissioners, five City Commissioners are added (the Lord
Mayor for the year being one _ex officio_); these have a right to act
as members of the Metropolitan Board, but their powers in this capacity
are loosely defined by the Act, and they rarely attend, or perhaps
never attend, unless the business in some way or other affects their
distinct jurisdiction.
The Commissioners (of whom twelve form a quorum) are unpaid, with the
exception of the chairman, Mr. E. Lawes, a barrister, who has 1000_l._
a year. They are appointed for the term of two years, revocable at
pleasure.
The authority of the City Commission, as distinct from the
Metropolitan, for there are two separate Acts, seems to be more
strongly defined than that of the others, but the principle is the same
throughout. The Metropolitan Act bears date September 4, 1848; and the
City Act, September 5, 1848.
The Metropolitan Commissioners have the control over “the sewers,
drains, watercourses, weirs, dams, banks, defences, gratings, pipes,
conduits, culverts, sinks, vaults, cesspools, rivers, reservoirs,
engines, sluices, penstocks, and other works and apparatus for the
collection and discharge of rain-water, surplus land or spring-water,
waste water, or filth, or fluid, or semi-fluid refuse of all
descriptions, and for the protection of land from floods or inundation
within the limits of the Commission.” Ample as these powers seem to be,
the Commissioners’ authority does not extend over the Thames, which is
in the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor and Corporation of the City of
London; and it appears childish to give men control over “rivers,”
and to empower them to take measures “for the protection of land from
floods or inundation,” while over the great metropolitan stream itself,
from Yantlet Creek, below Gravesend, to Oxford, they have no power
whatever.
The Commissioners (City as well as Metropolitan) are empowered to
enforce proper house-drainage wherever needed; to regulate the
building of new houses, in respect of water-closets, cesspools, &c.;
to order any street, staircase, or passage not effectually cleansed
to be effectually cleansed; to remedy all nuisances having insanitary
tendencies; to erect _public_ water-closets and urinals, free from any
charge to the public; to order houses and rooms to be whitewashed; to
erect places for depositing the bodies of poor persons deceased until
interment; and to regulate the cleanliness, ventilation, and even
accommodation of low lodging-houses.
The jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers extends
over “all such places or parts in the counties of Middlesex, Surrey,
Essex, and Kent, or any of them _not more than twelve miles distant in
a straight line from St. Paul’s Cathedral, in the City of London_, but
not being within the City of London or the liberties thereof.”
This, it must be confessed, is an exceedingly broad definition of the
extent of the jurisdiction of the _Metropolitan_ Commission, giving the
Commissioners an extraordinary amount of _latitude_.
In our days there are many Londons. There is the London (or the
metropolitan apportionment of the capital) as defined by the
Registrar-General. This, as we have seen, has an area of 115 square
miles, and therefore may be said to comprise as nearly as possible all
those places which are rather more than _five miles_ distant from the
Post Office.
There is the _Metropolis_ as defined by the Post-Office functionaries,
or the limits assigned to what is termed the “_London_ District Post.”
This London District Post seems, however, to have three different
metropolises:--First, there is the Central Metropolis, throughout
which there is an hourly delivery of letters after mid-day, and which
deliveries are said to be confined to “_London._” Then there is the
six-delivery _Metropolis_, or that throughout which the letters are
despatched and received six times per day; this is said to extend to
such of the “environs” as are included within a circle of _three miles_
from the General Post Office. Then there is the _six-mile Metropolis_
with special privileges. And lastly, the _twelve-mile Metropolis_,
which, being the extreme range of the _London_ District Post, may be
said to constitute the metropolis of the General Post Office.
There is, again, the metropolis of the Metropolitan Commissioners
of Police, before the region of rural police and country and parish
constables is attained; a jurisdiction which covers 96 square
miles, as I have shown at pp. 163-166 of the present volume, and
reaches--generally speaking--to such places as are included within a
circle of _five miles and a half_ from the General Post Office.
There is, moreover, the metropolis, as defined by the Hackney-Carriage
Act, which comprises all such places as are within _five miles_ of the
General Post Office.
And further, there is the Metropolis of the London City Mission, which
extends to _eight miles_ from the Post Office, and the Metropolis,
again, of the London Ragged Schools, which reaches to about _three
miles_ from the Post Office.
This, however, is not all, for there are divers districts for the
registration and exercise of votes, parliamentary, or municipal; there
are ecclesiastical and educational districts; there is a thorough
complication of parochial, extra-parochial, and chartered districts;
there is a world of subdivisions and of sub-subdivisions, so ramified
here and so closely blended there, and often with such preposterous and
arbitrary distinctions, that to describe them would occupy more than a
whole Number.
My present business, however, is the extent of the jurisdiction of
the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, or rather to ascertain
the boundaries of that _metropolis_ over which the Metropolitan
Commissioners are allowed to have sway.
The many discrepancies and differences I have explained make it
difficult to _define_ any district for the London sewerage; and in
the Reports, &c., which are presented to Parliament, or prepared by
public bodies, little or no care seems to be taken to observe any
distinctiveness in this respect.
For instance: The jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Commission of
Sewers, which is said to extend to all such places as are not more than
12 miles distant in a straight line from St. Paul’s Cathedral, in the
City of London, comprises an area of 452 square miles; the metropolis,
that of the Registrar-General, presenting a radius of 6 miles (with
a fractional addition), contains 115 square miles; yet in official
documents 58 square miles, or a circle of about 4-1/2 miles radius, are
given as the extent of the _metropolis_ sewered by the Metropolitan
Commission. By what calculations this 58 miles are arrived at, whether
it has been the _arbitrium_ of the authorities to consider the sewers,
&c., as occupying _the half_ of the area of the Registrar-General’s
metropolis, or what other reason has induced the computation, I am
unable to say.
The boundaries of the several metropolises may be indicated as
follows:--
The _Three-Mile Circle_ includes Camberwell; skirts Peckham; seems to
divide Deptford (irregularly); touches the West India Dock; includes
portions of Limehouse, Stepney, Bromley, Stratford-le-Bow, and about
the half of Victoria-park, Hackney. It likewise comprises a part of
Lower Clapton, Dalston, and a portion of Stoke Newington; and closely
touching upon or containing small portions of Lower Holloway, and
Kentish-town, sweeps through the Regent’s and Hyde parks, includes a
moiety of Chelsea, and crossing the river at the Red-house, Battersea,
completes the circle. This is the six-delivery district of the General
Post Office.
In this three-mile district are chiefly condensed the population,
commerce, and wealth of the greatest and richest city in the world.
The _Six-Mile Circle_ runs from Streatham (on the south); just excludes
Sydenham; contains within its exterior line Lewisham, Greenwich, and
a part of Woolwich; also, wholly or partially, East Ham, Laytonstone,
Walthamstow, Tottenham, Hornsey, Highgate, Hampstead, Kensall-green,
Hammersmith, Fulham, Wandsworth, and Upper Tooting. The portion without
the three-mile circle, and within the six, is the _suburban_ portion
or the immediate environs of the metropolis, and still presents rural
and woodland beauties in different localities. This may be termed the
metropolis of the Registrar-General and Commissioners of Metropolitan
Police.
The _Twelve-Mile Circle_, or the extent of the jurisdiction of the
_Metropolitan_ Commissioners of Sewers, as well as the “_London_
District Post,” includes Croydon, Wickham, Paul’s Cray, Foot’s
Cray, North Cray, and Bexley; crosses the river at the Erith-reach;
proceeds across the Rainham-marshes; comprises Dagenham; skirts
Romford; includes Henhault-forest and the greater portion of
Epping-forest; touches Waltham-abbey and Cheshunt; comprehends Enfield
and Chipping-Barnet; runs through Elstre and Stanmore; comprehends
Harrow-on-the-Hill, Norwood, and Hounslow; embraces Twickenham and
Teddington; seems to divide somewhat equally the domains of Bushey-park
and of Hampton-court Palace; then, crossing the river about midway
between Thames Ditton and Kingston, the boundary line passes between
Cheam and Ewell, and completes the circuit.
Over this large district, then, the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan
Commissioners of Sewers is said to extend, and one of the outlets of
the _London_ sewers has already been spoken of as being situate at
Hampton. The district yielding the amount of sewage which is assumed as
being the gross wet house-refuse of the metropolis is, as we have seen,
taken at 58 square miles, and is comprised within a circle of about
4-1/2 miles radius; this reaches only to Brixton, Dulwich, Greenwich,
East India Docks, Layton, Highgate, Hampstead, Bayswater, Kensington,
Brompton, and Battersea. The actual jurisdiction of the Commissioners
is, then, nearly eight times larger than the portion to which the
estimated amount of the sewage of the metropolis refers.
The metropolitan district is still distinguished by the old divisions
of the Tower Hamlets, Poplar and Blackwall, Holborn and Finsbury,
Westminster, &c.; but many of these divisions are now incorporated into
one district; of which there would appear to be but four at present; or
five, inclusive of the City.