and where the evidence of injury to health is indirect and uncertain, I
can hardly doubt that a wise legislation would exclude them also from
the circle of the metropolis. Tallow-melting, whalebone-boiling,
gas-making, and various other chemical proceedings, if not absolutely
injurious to life, are nuisances, at least in the ordinary language of
the law, or are apt to become such. It is the common right of the
neighbourhood to breathe an uncontaminated atmosphere; and, with this
common right, such nuisances must, in their several degrees, be
considered to clash. It might be an infraction of personal liberty to
interfere with a proprietor’s right to make offensive smells within the
limits of his own tenement, and for his own separate inhalation; but
surely it is a still greater infraction of personal liberty when the
proprietor, entitled as he is to but the joint use of an atmosphere
which is the common property of his neighbourhood, assumes what is
equivalent to a sole possession of it, and claims the right of diffusing
through it some nauseous effluvium which others, equally with himself,
are thus obliged to inhale. Such, as it appears to me, is the rational
view of this matter; and although I am not prepared to speak of these
trades in the same terms as I applied to slaughtering and its kindred
occupations,--although, that is to say, I cannot speak of them as
injurious to health on any large scale, yet I would respectfully submit
to your Hon. Court that your Act of Parliament empowers you to deal with
such nuisances in respect of their being simply offensive.[20]
[20] City Sewers Act, 1848, § 113.
* * * * *
3. Under the same head, I would likewise beg leave to suggest whether it
might not be practicable for your Hon. Court to regulate the operation
of establishments which evolve large volumes of smoke. The exterior
dirtiness and dinginess of London depend mainly on this cause; and the
same influence, by rendering domestic cleanliness difficult and
expensive, creates an additional impediment to its cultivation. People
naturally despair of cleansing that which a day’s exposure to the
atmosphere blackens again with soot; or they keep their windows shut,
breathing a fusty and unwholesome air, in the hope of excluding the
inconvenience. Now, when it is remembered that all the smoke of London
is but so much wasted fuel, it must surely be felt that the enforcement
of measures for its consumption would be to the interest of all parties;
amply economizing to the manufacturer whatever might be the trifling
expense of appropriate arrangements, while it would relieve the public
of that which, called by the mildest name, is a nuisance and a source of
heavy expense.
INTRAMURAL BURIAL.
IV. The subject of intramural burial is the next on which I have to
report, as affecting the health of the City.
In compliance with an order of the Health Committee, I have examined as
fully as circumstances would allow into the requirements of the City of
London in respect of burial accommodation, and the result of my inquiry
obliges me to express my conviction, that the City can no longer with
safety or propriety be allowed to furnish intramural interment to its
dead.
In all those larger parochial burying-grounds where the maintenance of a
right to bury can be considered important,--in all such, and in most
others, too, the soil is saturated and super-saturated with animal
matter undergoing slow decomposition. There are, indeed, few of the
older burial-grounds of the City where the soil does not rise many feet
above its original level, testifying to the large amount of animal
matter which rots beneath the surface. The vaults beneath churches are,
in many instances, similarly overloaded with materials of putrefaction,
and the atmosphere, which should be kept pure, and without admixture for
the living, is hourly tainted with the fœtid emanations of the dead. For
the most part, houses are seen to rise on all sides in immediate
contiguity to the burial-ground, forbidding the possibility of even such
ventilation as might diminish the evil; and the inhabitants of such
houses complain bitterly, as they well may, of the inconvenience which
they suffer from this confined and noxious atmosphere.
* * * * *
With respect to burial in vaults, which prevails to a very great and
dangerous extent in this City, I may observe that, among persons who are
ill-informed on the subject, there exist erroneous notions as to the
preservation of bodies under these circumstances. They are supposed,
from the complete closure of their coffins, to remain unchanged for
ages, like the embalmed bodies of Egypt and Peru; or at least--if
perhaps they undergo some interior and invisible change (as the
chrysalis within its sheath) that there is no interference with the
general arrangement, no breach in the compactness of the envelope.
Nothing can be less correct than this supposition.
It is unnecessary that I should detail to you the process of decay, as
it occurs within the charnel-house; nor need I inquire for your
information whether indeed it be true, as alleged, that part of the duty
of a sexton consists in tapping the recent coffins, so as to facilitate
the escape of gases which otherwise would detonate from their
confinement. It is sufficient to state, that--whether such be or be not
the duty of the functionary in question, the time certainly comes,
sooner or later, when every corpse buried in the vault of a church
spreads the products of its decomposition through the air as freely as
though no shell had enclosed it. It is matter of the utmost notoriety
that, under all ordinary conditions of vault-sepulture, the wooden case
of the coffin speedily decays and crumbles, while the interior leaden
one, bending with the pressure of whatever mass may be above it (or
often with its own weight) yields, bulges, and bursts, as surely as
would a paper hat-box under the weight of a laden portmanteau.
If the accuracy of this description be doubted, let inquiry be made on a
large scale after the coffins of 40 years back[21]--let it be seen how
many will appear! If, on the contrary, its accuracy be granted, then I
apprehend nothing further need be urged, to establish the importance of
abolishing a system which maintains on so large a scale the open
putrefaction of human remains within places of frequent resort, and in
the midst of populous habitations.
[21] Perhaps the expressions in my text are somewhat too general; not
indeed as to the fact of the coffins _ultimately_ giving vent to their
fœtid contents (which is the real point at issue) but as to the time
within which this occurs. In the dryer and better kept vaults, a
longer period certainly elapses than that suggested; in the worse,
probably a shorter one. The sooner or later is of little practical
importance: but, on re-perusing my Report, I think it right to add
this qualification.--J. S., 1854.
It is a very serious matter for consideration, that close beneath the
feet of those who attend the services of their church, there often lies
an almost solid pile of decomposing human remains, co-extensive with the
area of the building, heaped as high as the vaulting will permit, and
generally (as I have shown) but very partially confined. And if it be
the case, as perhaps it may be, that the frequenters of the place of
worship do not complain of any vitiation of their atmosphere, or perhaps
do not experience it, not the less is it true that such a vitiation
occurs, and--whether to the special detriment of the congregation or
not, contributes to the overladen putrefactiveness of our London
atmosphere.
In respect of such vaults, I do not consider that the mere cessation of
burial in them will be sufficient; seeing that at the present moment
they contain amongst them many thousand coffins, as yet tenanted by the
materials of decomposition; and year after year, if left in their
present state, these will be poisoning the air with successive
instalments of their progressive decay. It seems to me quite
indispensable that some comprehensive measure should be undertaken, for
abolishing at once and for ever all burial within the City of London.
Conjointly with the general application to Parliament, for prohibition
of further intramural sepulture, I would recommend that authority be
obtained by the City for its several parishes to procure the decent
removal to extramural cemeteries of such coffins as already occupy their
vaults; or, failing this measure, I would recommend that all coffins now
lying within vaults, be walled up in their present resting-places with
uniform impermeable masonry. For very obvious reasons, I should prefer
the former plan to the latter.[22]
[22] Probably the most successful attempt at hermetical enclosure of
organic matters would not reach beyond effecting a postponement of
their diffusion through the atmosphere. The true principles for burial
of the dead lie rather in recognising their decomposition as
inevitable, and in providing only lest it be offensive or injurious to
the living. This is best attained by interment in a well-chosen soil,
at a depth proportioned to the qualities of the ground; with no
pretence of everlasting coffins and impenetrable cerements; but with
ample vegetation above, to relieve the upper earth from whatever
products of decay may mount and mingle there; and especially with
thorough drainage below, so that down-currents of air and rainfall may
freely traverse the putrefactive strata, ventilating and washing the
soil, and diffusing its organic contents through deeper levels, till
their oxidation is complete and their new inodorous combinations are
discharged in watery solution.--J. S., 1854.
Intramural burial is an evil, no doubt, that varies in its intensity
according to the numbers interred; becoming appreciable in its effects
on health, so far as the rough measure of statistics can inform us, only
when many interments occur annually, or when ground is disturbed wherein
much animal matter had previously been left to decay. But, be the evil
large or little in any particular case, evil undoubtedly it is in all,
and an unmitigated evil.
The atmosphere in which epidemic and infectious diseases most readily
diffuse their poison and multiply their victims is one, as I have
already often stated, in which organic matters are undergoing
decomposition. Whence these may be derived signifies little. Whether the
matter passing into decay be an accumulation of soaking straw and
cabbage leaves in some miserable cellar, or the garbage of a
slaughter-house, or an overflowing cesspool, or dead dogs floated at
high water into the mouth of a sewer, or stinking fish thrown overboard
in Billingsgate-dock, or the remains of human corpses undergoing their
last chemical changes in consecrated earth, the previous history of the
decomposed material is of no moment whatever. The pathologist knows no
difference of operation between one decaying substance and another; so
soon as he recognises organic matter undergoing decomposition, so soon
he recognises the most fertile soil for the increase of epidemic
diseases; and I may state with certainty, that there are many
churchyards in the City of London where every spadeful of soil turned up
in burial sensibly adds to the amount of animal decomposition which
advances too often inevitably around us.
Nor can I refrain from adding, as a matter claiming attention, that, in
the performance of intramural interment, there constantly occur
disgusting incidents dependent on overcrowdedness of the burial-ground;
incidents which convert the extremest solemnity of religion into an
occasion for sickness or horror; perhaps mingling with the ritual of the
Church some clamour of gravediggers who have mis-calculated their space;
perhaps diffusing amidst the mourners some nauseous evidence and
conviction, that a prior tenant of the tomb has been prematurely
displaced, or that the spade has impatiently anticipated the slower
dismembering of decay. Cases of this nature are fresh in the memory of
the public; cases of extreme nuisance and brutal desecration in place of
decent and solemn interment; and it is unnecessary that I should revive
the record of transactions inconsistent with even the dawn of
civilisation.[23]
[23] It happened that during the few months preceding the presentation
of this Report, there had occurred some of the most flagrant and
disgusting illustrations of the evils adverted to.--J. S., 1854.
* * * * *
From the circumstances which I have mentioned, it can hardly fail to
appear most desirable to you, that the use of some spacious and open
cemetery at a distance from the City should be substituted for the
present system of intramural interment, and the urgency of this
requirement will be demonstrated all the more cogently, when it is
remembered that the annual amount of mortality in the City averages
above 3000, and that under the present arrangements every dead body
buried within our walls receives its accommodation at the expense of
the living, and to their great detriment.
In recommending that consideration be given, at as early a period as
possible, to the means for establishing some sufficient municipal
cemetery (a consideration which, for obvious reasons, must be prior to
any Parliamentary proceedings for the prohibition of intramural
interments) there are three points to which, even now, I think it
advisable to advert, as essential to the admissibility of such a plan. I
would submit, first, that the site of any such cemetery must be
sufficiently remote from the metropolis to obviate any repetition of the
present injury to a resident population; and I hardly know how this
purpose can be attained, without going some distance beyond the
immediate suburbs of London as indicated by the Bills of
Mortality:--secondly, that the space required for the proper inhumation
of the dead of the City of London[24] would be not less than 54 acres;
and, thirdly, I would suggest that the charter of such an establishment
ought to contain provisions against the erection of houses within a
certain distance of the burial-ground, so that this may at all times and
under all circumstances be surrounded, exterior to its wall, by a
considerable belt of land totally devoid of resident population. The
absence of such a provision as the last would very soon lead to the
extramural cemetery becoming _intramuralised_ by the growth of a new
suburb around it, and would again evince, by new and unnecessary
illustrations, how incompatible with each other are the Dead and the
Living as tenants of one locality.
[24] See Special Report on Extramural Interment, page 285.
HOUSES PERMANENTLY UNFIT FOR HABITATION.
V. Under the last heads of my Report I have touched on matters, which
(in so far as they cannot be adjusted without Parliamentary
interference) may be considered to lie beyond the present jurisdiction
of the Commissioners of Sewers; and the topic which I now approach may,
perhaps, be considered equally foreign to the scope of your ordinary
functions.
* * * * *
I have to report that there are houses and localities within the City
which are irremediably bad;--places, which the uninterrupted presence of
epidemic disease has stamped as absolutely unfit for human habitation;
places, where drainage and water-supply, indeed, are defective, but
where the perfection of these necessaries might exist, in all
probability, without giving healthiness to the inhabitants. The
predominant evil in the localities referred to is their thorough
impossibility of ventilation.
While treating of the manner in which noxious emanations are conveyed to
a distance, and are enabled to diffuse their influence over a whole
town, instead of concentrating it in some single slaughter-house or
burial-ground, I indirectly suggested what I have now to illustrate;
that all the evils of all the nuisances in existence acquire their
utmost local intensity of action when the diffusion of their gaseous
products is interfered with, and when, from absence of ventilation,
these are retained in the immediate vicinity of their source.
The inhabitants of open streets can hardly conceive the complicated
turnings, the narrow inlets, the close parallels of houses, and the high
barriers of light and air, which are the common characteristics of our
courts and alleys, and which give an additional noxiousness even to
their cesspools and their filth. There are very few who, without
personal verification, would credit an account that might be given of
the worst of such dwelling-places. Let any one, however, who would do
full justice to this frightful subject, visit the courts about
Bishopsgate, Aldgate, and the upper portion of Cripplegate, which
present some of the worst, though by no means the only instances of
pestilential residence. A man of ordinary dimensions almost hesitates,
lest he should immovably wedge himself, with whomsoever he may meet, in
the low and narrow crevice which is called the entrance to some such
court or alley; and, having passed that ordeal, he finds himself as in a
well, with little light, with less ventilation, amid a dense population
of human beings, with an atmosphere hardly respirable from its closeness
and pollution. The stranger, during his visit, feels his breathing
constrained, as though he were in a diving-bell; and experiences
afterwards a sensible and immediate relief as he emerges again into the
comparatively open street.
Now, I am prepared to show that there are many, very many, courts within
the City, to which the above description accurately applies; courts and
alleys hemmed in on all sides by higher houses; having no possibility of
any current of air; and (worst of all) sometimes so constructed back to
back, as to forbid the advantage of double windows or back doors, and
thus to render the house as perfectly a _cul-de-sac_ out of the court,
as the court is a _cul-de-sac_ out of the next thoroughfare.
* * * * *
It is surely superfluous to observe, that these local conditions are
utterly incompatible with health. Among their dense population, it is
rare to see any other appearance than that of squalid sickness and
misery; and the children, who are reproduced with the fertility of a
rabbit-warren, perish in early infancy. In the worst localities probably
not more than half the children born survive their fifth year, and of
the 3763 deaths registered last year in the City of London generally,
1410 were at or under seven years of age.
The diseases of these localities are well marked. Scrofula more or less
completely blights all that are born: often extinguishing life
prematurely; in childhood, by hydrocephalus; in youth, by pulmonary and
renal affections, which you read of as consumption and dropsy; often
scarring and maiming where it does not kill, and rendering life
miserable by blindness, decrepitude, or deformity; often prolonging
itself as a hereditary curse in the misbegotten offspring of those who,
under such unnatural conditions, attain to maturity and procreation.
Typhus prevails there too, not as an occasional visitor, but as an
habitual pestilence.
It is impossible for me, by numbers, to give you an exact knowledge of
the fatality of such spots; because, in the greater part of the City,
hospitals, dispensaries, and private practice, divide with the
parochial officers the treatment of the sick, and diminish the returns
of sickness which those officers would otherwise have to show. But this
I may tell you, as an illustration of what I mean;--that in the few
houses of Seven-Step-alley and its two offsets, (Amelia-place and
Turner-square,) there occurred last year 163 parochial cases of fever;
in Prince’s-place and Prince’s-square, 176 cases--think, Gentlemen, if
this had occurred in Southampton-place and Russell-square! that behind
the east side of Bishopsgate, in the very small distance from
Widegate-street to New-street, there were 126 cases; that behind the
west side, from Primrose-street to Half-moon-street, there were 245
cases; that the parish of Cripplegate had 354 cases over and above the
number (probably a very large one) treated by private practitioners, by
hospitals, and especially by dispensaries. Similarly, though with less
perfect information, I am enabled to trace fever to a terrible extent in
very many other localities of the City, even on the verge of its better
residences, and close behind its wealthiest thoroughfares; in
Plumtree-court, in Plough-court and place, in Poppin’s-court,
Neville’s-court, Blackhorse-alley, Union-court, Plough-court in Holborn,
Field-lane; in the courts right and left of King-street, Smithfield, in
Hanging-sword-alley and its vicinity, in Peahen-court, in Bell-alley and
its neighbourhood, in Priest’s-alley, in Beer-lane, in Friar’s-alley, in
Bromley’s-buildings, and in the whole large space which stretches from
Ludgate-hill to beside the river.
And in most of these localities, in addition to other sanitary errors,
there predominates that particular one to which I am now inviting your
attention--the absence, namely, of sufficient ventilation.
It was in districts such as these, that in the year 1665, the Great
Plague of London found the readiest facilities for its reception; and it
was by the destruction of such districts that the Great Fire of the
following year rendered the utmost conceivable service to the sanitary
progress of the people, and completed their emancipation from the
horrors of an unparalleled pestilence. Long intervening years have
sufficed to reconstruct these miserable habitations almost after their
first type, and to re-exemplify all the evils which belong to them; so
completely indeed, that if the infection of that same plague should
light again amongst us, I scarcely know why it might not traverse the
City and decimate its population as quickly and as virulently as before.
Meanwhile, however, typhus with its kindred disorders, and the
occasional epidemics of influenza and cholera, maintain their attachment
to the soil, and require no further re-inforcement from the pestilence
of other climates. From these fatal diseases we no longer hope to be
rescued by the recurrence of the former casualty. The almost two
centuries which have elapsed since the period referred to, have taught
men better methods than a general conflagration for remedying such
evils; and it is a satisfaction to believe that the wisdom and humanity
of the Corporation of the City of London will apply those methods with
effect.
As a palliative measure, applicable in many of the least aggravated
instances, I may suggest the removal of unnecessary walls which
intercept the current of air from place to place; the formation of
counter-openings in various blind courts; and, not least, in regard of
many houses thus situated, the admission of light and air by additional
windows. I cannot pass this portion of the subject without recording my
opinion that the operation of the window-tax is in direct opposition to
the sanitary interests of the people; and I must venture to express my
hope that some different method of assessment may presently be adopted,
in place of one which presses on the occupier in proportion to the
healthiness of his tenement.[25] I think it very desirable, indeed
almost indispensable, that your Hon. Court should have the power, under
certain circumstances, to order and enforce the opening of additional
windows in houses occupied by large numbers of persons, when your
Officer of Health may report their ventilation defective; and if it
should seem expedient to you to seek this authority from the
Legislature, it might with the greatest advantage be accompanied by some
concession from her Majesty’s Government, to the effect that the
formation of additional windows, occurring thus under your orders for
the immediate necessities of health and life, should not occasion any
further assessment on the occupiers of the house.
[25] I ought not to pass this page without a grateful mention of Lord
Duncan’s name in connexion with the removal of the Window Tax, at
length happily effected. It remains, however, greatly to be desired,
in respect of certain specifiable houses inhabited by the poorer
classes, that Local Boards of Health should have power to enforce
improvements of ventilation.--J. S., 1854.
* * * * *
But, Gentlemen, within the City of London there exist, to a very large
extent, architectural evils for which no such palliative treatment is
possible; evils against which I would venture to say (borrowing a
metaphor from my profession) that no safety can be found except in
amputation.