 Section 71 of London Labour and the London Poor Volume 2 by Henry Mayhew. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Gillian Henry. Of the sewer men and night men of London. We now come to the consideration of the last of the several classes of labourers engaged in the removal of the species of refuse from the metropolis. I have before said that the public refuse of a town consists of two kinds. One, the street refuse, two, the house refuse. Of each of these kinds there are two species. A, the dry, B, the wet. The dry street refuse consists, as we have seen, of the refuse earth, bricks, mortar, oyster shells, pot shards and pan shards. And the dry house refuse of the soot and ashes of our fires. The wet street refuse consists, on the other hand, of the mud, slop and surface water of our public thoroughfares. And the wet house refuse of what is familiarly known as the slops of our residences. And the liquid refuse of our factories and slaughterhouses. We have already collected the facts in connection with the three first of these subjects. We have ascertained the total amount of each of these species of refuse which have to be annually removed from the capital. We have set forth the aggregate number of labourers who are engaged in the removal of it as well as the gross sum that is paid for so doing. Showing the individual earnings of each of the workmen and arriving as near as possible at the profits of their employers as well as the condition of the employed. This has been done, it is believed, for the first time in this country. And if the subject has led us into longer discussions than usual, the importance of the matter, considered in a sanitary point of view, is such that a moment's reflection will convince us of the value of the inquiry, especially in connection with a work which aspires to embrace the whole of the offices performed by the labourers of the capital of the British Empire. It now but remains for us to complete this novel and vast inquiry, by settling the condition and earnings of the men engaged in the removal of the last species of public refuse. I shall consider first the aggregate quantity of wet house refuse that has to be annually removed. Secondly, the means adopted for the removal of it. Thirdly, the cost of so doing. And lastly, the number of men engaged in this kind of work, as well as the wages paid to them, and the physical, intellectual and moral condition in which they exist, or more properly speaking, are allowed to remain. Of the Wet House Refuse of London All house refuse of a liquid or semi-liquid character is wet refuse. It may be called semi-liquid when it has become mingled with any solid substance, though not so fully as to have lost its property of fluidity, its natural power to flow along a suitable inclination. Wet House Refuse consists of the slops of a household. It consists indeed of all waste water, whether from the supply of the water companies or from the rainfall collected on the roofs or yards of the houses. Of the sants of the washer women and the water used in every department of scouring, cleansing or cooking. It consists moreover of the refuse proceeds from the several factories, die houses and so on. Of the blood and other refuse, not devoted to Prussian blue manufacture or sugar refining from the butcher's slaughterhouses and the knackers or slaughterers' yards. As well as the refuse fluid from all chemical processes. Quantities of chemically impregnated water, for example, being pumped as soon as exhausted from the tan pits of Bermondsey into the drains and sewers. From the Great Hat Manufactories, chiefly also in Bermondsey and other parts of the borough, there is a constant flow of water mixed with dyes and other substances to add to the wet refuse of London. It is evident then that all the water consumed or wasted in the metropolis must form a portion of the total sum of the wet refuse. There is however the exception of what is used for the watering of gardens, which is absorbed at once by the soil and its vegetable products. We must also exclude such portion of water as is applied to the laying of the road and street dust on dry summer days and which forms a part of the street mud or mack of the scavenger's cart rather than off the sewerage. And we must further deduct the water derived from the street plugs for the supply of the fire engines, which is consumed or absorbed in the extinction of the flames. As well as the water required for the victualing of ships on the eve of a voyage when such supply is not derived immediately from the Thames. The quantity of water required for the diet or beverage or general use of the population, the quantity consumed by the maltsters, distillers, brewers, ginger beer and soda water makers and manufacturing chemists, for the making of tea, coffee or cocoa and for drinking at meals, which is often derived from pumps and not from the supplies of the water companies. The water which is thus consumed in a prepared or in a simple state passes into the wet refuse of the metropolis in another form. Now, according to reports submitted to parliament, when an improved system of water supply was under consideration, the daily supply of water to the metropolis is as follows. From the water companies, 44,383,329 gallons. From Artesian wells, 8 million gallons. From land spring pumps, 3 million gallons. Total, 55,383,329 gallons. The yearly rainfall throughout the area of the metropolis is 172,053,477 tons. Or 33,589,972,120 gallons. Two feet deep of rain falling on every square inch of London in the court of the year. The yearly total of the water pumped or falling into the metropolis is as follows. Yearly mechanical supply, 19,215 million gallons. Yearly natural supply, 38,539,972,122 gallons. Total, 57,754,972,122 gallons. The reader will find the details of this subject at page 203 of the present volume. I recapitulate the results here to save the trouble of reference, and briefly to present the question under one head. Of course, the rain which ultimately forms a portion of the gross wet refuse of London can be only such as falls on that part of the metropolitan area which is occupied by buildings or streets. What falls upon fields, gardens and all open ground is absorbed by the soil. But a large proportion of the rain falling upon the streets is either absorbed by the dry dust or retained in the form of mud. Hence that only which falls on the housetops and yards can be said to contribute largely to the gross quantity of wet refuse poured into the sewers. The streets of London appear to occupy one tenth of the entire metropolitan area and the houses estimating 300,000 as occupying upon an average 100 square yards each, another tithe of the surface. Note, in East and West London there are rather more than 32 houses to the acre which gives an average of 151 square yards to each dwelling so that allowing the streets here to occupy one third of the area we have 100 square yards for the space covered by each house. In Lewisham, Hampstead and Wandsworth there is not one house to the acre. The average number of houses per acre throughout London is four. End note. The remaining 92 square miles out of the 115 now included in the Registrar General's Limits which extend it should be remembered to Wandsworth, Lewisham, Bow and Hampstead may be said to be made up of suburban gardens, fields, parks and so on where the rainwater would soak into the earth. We have then only two tenths of the gross rainfall or 7,700 million gallons that could possibly appear in the sewers and calculating one third of this to be observed by the mud and dust of the streets we come to the conclusion that the total quantity of rainwater entering the sewers is in round numbers 5,000 million gallons per annum. Reckoning therefore 5,000 million gallons to be derived from the annual rainfall it appears that the yearly supply of water from all sources to be accounted for among the wet house refuse is in round numbers 24,000 million gallons. The refuse water from the factories need not be calculated separately as its supply is included in the water mechanically supplied and the loss from evaporation in boiling and so on would be perfectly insignificant if deducted from the vast annual supply but 350 million gallons have been allowed for this and other losses. There is still another source of the supply of wet house refuse connected either with the rainfall or the mechanical supply of water I mean such proportion of the blood or other refuse from the butchers and knackers premises as is washed into the sewers. Official returns show that the yearly quantity of animals sold in Smithfield is Horned cattle 224,000, sheep 1,550,000, calves 27,300, pigs 40,000, total 1,841,300. The blood flowing from a slaughtered bullock whether killed according to the Christian or the Jewish fashion amounts on an average to 20 quarts from a sheep to six or seven quarts from a pig five quarts and the same quantity from a calf. The blood from a horse slaughtered in a knackers yard is about the same as that from a bullock. This blood used to bring far higher prices to the butcher than can now be realised. In the evidence taken by a select committee of the House of Commons in 1849 concerning Smithfield market Mr Wilde of the Fox and Notchyard Smithfield stated that he slaughtered about 180 cattle weekly. We have a sort of well made in the slaughterhouse, he said, which receives the blood. I receive about one pound a week for it. It goes twice a day to Mr Tons at Bow Common. We used to receive a good deal more for it. Even the market for blood at Mr Tons is I am informed now done away with. He was a manufacturer of artificial manure, a preparation of night soil, blood and so on, baked in what may be called cakes and exported chiefly to our sugar growing colonies for manure. His manure yard has been suppressed. I am assured on the authority of experienced butchers that at the present time fully three fourths of the blood from the animals slaughtered in London becomes a component part of the wet refuse I treat off being washed into the sewers. The more wholesale slaughterers, now that blood is of little value, nine gallons in Whitechapel Market, the blood of two beasts, less by a gallon, can be bought for thruppings. Send this animal refuse down the drains of their premises in far greater quantities than was formerly their custom. Now reckoning only three fourths of the blood from the cattle slaughtered in the metropolis to find its way into the sewers, we have according to the numbers above given the following yearly supply. From horned cattle, 840,000 gallons. From sheep, 1,743,000 gallons. From pigs, 37,500 gallons. From calves, 25,590 gallons. Total 2,646,090 gallons. This is merely the blood from the animals sold in Smithfield Market, the lambs not being included in the return. While a great many pigs and calves are slaughtered by the London tradesmen without their having been shown in Smithfield, the order from a slaughtered bullock is on an average from a half to three quarters hundred weight. Many beasts yield 100 weight and cows killed full of grass as much as 200 weight. Of this excrementious matter I am informed about a fourth part is washed into the sewers. In sheep, calves and pigs however, there is very little order when slaughtered, only three or four pounds in each as an average. Of the number of horses killed, there's no official or published account. One man familiar with the subject calculated it at 100 weekly. All the blood from the knackers yard is I am told washed into the sewers. Consequently, its yearly amount will be 26,000 gallons. But even this is not the whole of the wet house refuse of London. There are in addition, the excreta of the inhabitants of the houses. These are said to average a quarter pound daily per head, including men, women and children. It is estimated by Pusingol and confirmed by Liebig that each individual produces a quarter pound of solid excrement and one and a quarter pounds of liquid excrement per day, making one and a half pounds each, or 150 pounds per 100 individuals, of semi-liquid refuse from the water closet. But, says the surveyor of the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers, there is other refuse resulting from culinary operations to be conveyed through the drains and the whole may be about 250 pounds for 100 persons. The more fluid part of this refuse, however, is included in the quantity of water before given, so that there remains only the more solid excrementitious matter to add to the previous total. This then is a quarter pound daily and individually, or from the metropolitan population of nearly two and a half million, a daily supply of 600,000 pounds, rather more than 267 tons, and a yearly aggregate for the whole metropolis of 219 million pounds, or very nearly about 100,000 tons. From the foregoing account then, the following is shown to be the gross quantity of the wet house refuse of the metropolis. Slops and unabsorbed rainwater, 24,000 million gallons, equalling 240,000 million pounds. Blood of beasts, 2,646,000 gallons, equal to 26,460,000 pounds. Blood of horses, 26,000 gallons, equal to 260,000 pounds. Excreta, 219 million pounds. Dung of slaughtered cattle, 17,400,000 pounds. Total, 24,002,657,000 gallons, equal to 240,263,120,000 pounds. Hence we may conclude that the more fluid portion of the wet house refuse of London amounts to 24,000 million gallons per annum, and that altogether it weighs in round numbers about 240,000 million pounds, or 100 million tons. As these refuse products are not so much matters of trade or sale as other commodities, of course less attention has been given to them in the commercial attributes of weight and ad measurement. I will endeavour however to present a uniform table of the whole great mass of metropolitan wet house refuse in cubic inches. The imperial standard gallon is of the capacity 277.274 cubic inches, and estimating the solid experiment spoken of as the ordinary weight of earth, or of the soil of the land, at 18 cubic feet the ton. We have the following result, calculating in round numbers. Wet house refuse of the metropolis. Liquid, 24,000 million gallons, equal to 6,600,000,000 cubic inches. Solid, 100,000 tons, equal to 3,110,400,000 cubic inches. Thus by this process of ad measurement we find the wet house refuse of London equals 6,603,110,400,000 cubic inches, or 3,820,000,000 cubic feet. Figures best show the extent of this refuse inexpressible to common appreciation by numbers that have name. Of the means of removing the wet house refuse, whether this mass of filth be zymotically the cause of cholera, or whether it be as cannot be questioned, a means of agricultural fertility and therefore of national wealth, it must be removed. I need not dilate in explaining a necessity which is obvious to every man with uncorrupted physical senses and with the common moral sense of decency. Dr. Paley, it is said in a recent report to the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers, gave to Burkart and other travellers a set of instructions as to points of observation of the manners and conditions of the populations amongst whom they travelled. One of the leading instructions was to observe how they disposed of their excreta for what they did with that showed him what men were. He also inquired what structure they had to answer the purpose of a privy and what were their habits in respect to it. This information Dr. Paley desired not for popular use, but for himself for he was accustomed to say that the facts connected with that topic give him more information as to the real condition and civilisation of a population than most persons would be aware of. It would inform him of their real habits of cleanliness, of real decency, self-respect and connected moral habits of high social importance. It would inform him of the real state of police and of local administration and much of the general government. The human order which defiles the churches, the basis of public edifices and works of art in Rome and Naples and the Italian cities gives more sure indications of the real moral and social position of the Italian population than any impressions derived from the edifices and works of art themselves. The subject in relation to which the Jewish lawgiver gave most particular directions is one in which the serious attention and labour of public administrators may be claimed. The next question is how is the wet house refuse to be removed? There are two ways. One, one is to transport it to a river or some powerfully current stream by a series of ducts. Two, the other is to dig a hole in the neighbourhood of the house. There collect the wet refuse of the household and when the hole or pit becomes full remove the contents to some other part. In London the most obvious means of getting rid of a nuisance is to convey it into the Thames nor has this been done in London only. In Paris the same is the receptacle of the sewage but comparatively to a much smaller extent than in London. The fecal deposits accumulated in the houses of the French capital are drained into fixed and movable cesspools. The contents of both these descriptions of cesspools of which I shall give an account when I treat of the cesspool system are removed periodically under the direction of the government to large receptacles called Wari at Mont-Façon and the Forest of Bondy where such refuse is made into portable manure. The evils of this system are not a few but the river is spared the greater pollution of the Thames. Neither is the Sain swayed by the tide as is the Thames for in London the very sewers are affected by the tidal influence and are not to be entered until sometime before or after high water. I need not do more for my present enquiry than allude to the Liffey, the Clyde, the Humber and others of the rivers of the United Kingdom being used for purposes of sewage as channels to carry off that of which the law prohibits the retention. Of the folly, not to say wickedness of this principle, there can be no doubt the vegetation which gives demands food. The grass will wither without its fitting nutriment of manure as the sheep would perish without the pastureage of the grass. Nature in temperate and moist climates is, so to speak, her own manure her own restorer. The sheep which are as wild and active as goats, manure the Cumberland fells in which they feed. In the more cultivated sheep walks or indeed in the general pastureage of the northern and some of the midland counties women with a wooden implement may be continually seen in the later autumn or earlier and milder winter distributing the stercoratious treasure as Cooper calls it which the animals to use the north Yorkshire word have dropped. As well as any extraneous manure which may have been spread for the purpose. As population and the demand for bread increase the need of extraneous manures also increases and nature in her beneficence has provided that the greater the consumption of food the greater shall be the promoters of its reproduction by what is loathsome to man but demanded by vegetation. Liby, as I shall afterwards show more fully, contends that many an arid and desolate region in the east brown and burnt with barrenness became a desolation because men understood not the restoration which all nature demands for the land. He declares that the now desolate regions of the east had been made desolate because the inhabitants did not understand the art of restoring exhausted soil. It would be hopeless now to form or attempt to form the hanging gardens and display the rich fluorescence round about Babylon to be seen when Alexander the Great died in that city. The Tigris and Euphrates before and after their junction Liby maintains half carried and to a circumscribed degree still carry into the sea a sufficient amount of manure for the reproduction of food for millions of human beings. It is said that could that matter only be arrested in its progress as it was made into bread and wine, fruit and beef, mutton and wool, linen and cotton. Then cities might flourish once more in the desert where men are now digging for the relics of primitive civilisation and discovering the symbols of luxury and ease beneath the barren sand and the sunburnt clay. This is one great evil but in our metropolis there is a greater, a far greater beyond all in degree the same abuse exists elsewhere. What society with one consent pronounces filth. The evacuations of the human body is not only washed into the Thames and the land so deprived of a vast amount of nutriment but the tide washes these evacuations back again with other abominations. The water we use is derived almost entirely from the Thames and therefore the water in which we boil our vegetables and our meat, the water for our coffee and tea, the water brewed for our consumption comes to us and is imbibed by us impregnated over and over again with our own animal awful. We import guano and drink a solution of our own feces a manure which might be made far more valuable than the foreign guano. Such are a few of the evils of making a common sewer of the neighbouring river. The other mode of removal is to convey the wet house refuse by drains to a hole near the house where it is produced and empty it periodically when full. The house drainage throughout London has two characteristics by one system all excrement issues and slop refuse generally is carried usually along brick drains from the water closets privies, sinks, lavatories and so on into the cesspools where it accumulates until its removal by manual labour becomes necessary which is not as an average more than once in two years. By the other and the newer system all the house refuse is drained into the public sewer the cesspool system being thereby abolished. All the houses built or rebuilt since 1848 are constructed on the last mentioned drainage. The first of these modes is cesspoolage the second is sewerage I shall first deal with the sewerage of the metropolis of the quantity of metropolitan sewerage having estimated the gross quantity of wet house refuse produced throughout London in the course of the year and explained the two modes of removing it from the immediate vicinity of the house I will now proceed to set forth the quantity of wet house refuse matter which it has been ascertained is removed with contents of London sewers. An experiment was made on the average discharge of sewage from the outlets of Church Lane and Smith Street Chelsea King Scholars Pond Grosvenor Wharf Horsferry Road Wood Street Northumberland Street Durham Yard The four last mentioned places running from the stand The experiments were made under ordinary and extraordinary circumstances in the months of May June and July 1844 but the system is still the same so that the result and the investigation as to the sewage of the year 1844 may be taken as a near criterion of the present as regards the localities specified and the general quantity. The surface is drained into the outlets before enumerated covers in its total area about 7000 acres of which nearly 3500 may be classed as urban. The observations more over were made generally during fine weather. I cannot do better by way of showing the reader the minuteness with which these observations were made than by quoting the two following results being those of the fullest and smallest discharges of 12 issues into the river. I must premise that these experiments were made on 7 occasions from May 4th to July 12th inclusive and made at different times but generally about 8 hours after high water. In the Northumberland Street Sewer from which was the largest issue the width of the sewer at the outlet was 5 feet in the King Street Sewer the smallest discharge as given in the second table the width of the sewer was 4 feet. The width however does not affect the question as there was a greater issue from the Norfolk Street Sewer of 2 feet than from the King Street Sewer of 4 feet in width. Northumberland Street May 4th Velocity 4.6 feet per second Quantity discharged 10.511 cubic feet per second May 9th Velocity 4.0 feet per second Quantity discharged 6.8 cubic feet per second June 5th Velocity 4.0 feet per second Quantity discharged 6.8 cubic feet per second June 10th Velocity 4.6 feet per second Quantity discharged 10.35 cubic feet per second June 11th Velocity 4.92 feet per second Quantity discharged 12.3 cubic feet per second 3.3 cubic feet per second, June 16th velocity 3.6 feet per second, quantity discharged 5.94 cubic feet per second, July 12th velocity 2.76 feet per second, quantity discharged 3.3948 cubic feet per second, total quantity discharged 56.0958 cubic feet per second, being mean discharge per second 8.013685 cubic feet, total per 24 hours 692,382 cubic feet, King Street May 4th, velocity 0.147 feet per second, quantity discharged 0.021756 cubic feet per second, May 9th velocity 0.333 feet per second, quantity discharged 0.07992 cubic feet per second, June 5th velocity 0.170 feet per second, quantity discharged 0.0204 cubic feet per second, June 10th velocity 0.311 feet per second, quantity discharged 0.064688 cubic feet per second, June 11th velocity 0.3 feet per second, quantity discharged 0.048 cubic feet per second, June 16th velocity 0.101 feet per second, quantity discharged 0.00404 cubic feet per second, July 12th velocity 0.103 feet per second, quantity discharged 0.00824 cubic feet per second, total quantity discharged 0.247044 cubic feet per second, mean discharge per second 0.035292 cubic feet, Ditto per 24 hours 3049 cubic feet. Here we find that the mean discharge per second was from the Northumberland Street sewer 692,382 cubic feet per 24 hours and from the King Street sewer 3049 cubic feet per 24 hours. The discharge from the principal outlets in the Westminster district being the mean of seven observations taking during the summer was 1,798,094 cubic feet in 24 hours. The number of acres drained was 7,006. The mean discharge per acre in the course of 24 hours was found to be about 256 cubic feet comprising the urban and suburban parts. The sewage from the discharge of which this calculation was derived and the dryness of the weather must not be lost sight of, may be fairly assumed as derived in a dry season almost entirely from artificial sources or house drainage as there was no rainfall or but little. Supposing therefore, the report states, the entire surface to be urban, we have 540 cubic feet as the mean daily discharge per acre. If however, the average be taken of the first eight outlets, namely from Essex Street to Grosvenor Wharf Inc., which drain a surface wholly urban, the result is 1,260 cubic feet per acre in the 24 hours. This excess may be attributed to the number of manufactories and the densely populated nature of the locality drained, but as indicative of the general amount of sewage due to ordinary urban districts, the former ought perhaps to be considered the fairer average. It is then assumed, I may say officially, that the average discharge of the urban and suburban sewage from the several districts included within an area of 58 square miles is equal to 256 cubic feet per acre. The extent of the jurisdiction included within this area is on the north side of the Thames 43 square miles and on the Surrey and Kent side 15 square miles. The ordinary daily amount of sewage discharged into the river on the north side is therefore 7,045,120 cubic feet and on the south side 2,457,600 cubic feet making a total of 9,502,720 cubic feet or a quantity equivalent to a surface of more than 36 acres in extent and 6 feet in depth. This mass of sewage it must be borne in mind is but the daily product of the sewage of the more populous part of the districts included within the jurisdiction of the two commissions of sewage. The foregoing observations, calculations and deductions have supplied the basis of many scientific and commercial speculations but it must be remembered that they were taken between 7 and 8 years ago. The observations were made more over during fine summer weather generally, while the greatest discharge is during rainy weather. There has been also an increase of sewers in the metropolis because an increase of streets and inhabited houses. The approximate proportion of the increase of sewers and there is no precise account of it is pretty nearly that of the streets linearly. Another matter has two of late years added to the amount of sewage, the abolition of cesspoolage in a considerable degree owing to the late building and sanitary acts so that fecal and culinary matters which were drained into the cesspool to be removed by the nightmare are now drained into the sewer. Altogether I am assured on good authority the daily discharge of the sewers extending over 58 square miles of the metropolis may be now put at 10 million cubic feet instead of rather more than 9 and a half millions and this gives as the annual amount of discharge from the sewers 3650 million cubic feet. The total amount of wet house refuse according to the calculation before given is 3820 million cubic feet hence there remains 170 million cubic feet. Now it will be seen that the total area from which this amount of sewage is said to be drained is 58 square miles but the area of London according to the registrar general's limits is 115 square miles so that the 3650 million cubic feet of sewage annually removed from 58 square miles of the metropolis refer to only one half of the entire area of the true metropolis but it referred at the same time to that part of London which is the most crowded with houses and since in the suburbs the buildings average about two to the acre and in the densest parts of London about 30 it is but fair to assume that the refuse would be at least in the same proportion and that is very nearly the fact for if we suppose the 58 miles of the suburban districts to yield 20 times less sewage than the 58 miles of the urban districts we shall have 182,500,000 cubic feet to add to the 3650 million cubic feet before given or 3832,500,000 for the sewage of the entire metropolis it does not appear that the sewage has ever been weighed so as to give any definite result but calculating from the weight of water a gallon or 10 pounds of water comprising 277.274 cubic inches and one ton of liquid comprising 36 cubic feet the total from the returns of the investigation in 1844 would be quantity of sewage daily emptied into the Thames 278,000 tons ditto annually 101,390,000 tons in September 1849 mr. Banfield at one time a commissioner of sewers put the yearly quantity of sewage discharged into the Thames at 45 million tons but this is widely at variance with the returns as to quantity of ancient sewers the traverser of the London streets rarely thinks perhaps of the far extended subterranean architecture below his feet yet such is indeed the case for the sewers of London with all their imperfections irregularities and even absurdities are still a great work certainly not equal in all respects to what once must have existed in Rome but second perhaps only to the giant works of sewage in the eternal city the origin of these Roman sewers seems to be wrapped in as great a mystery as the foundation of the city itself the statement of the Roman historians is that these sewers were the works of the elder Tarquin the fifth apocryphal king of Rome Tarquin's dominions from the same accounts did not in any direction extend above 16 miles and his subjects could be but Banditi foragers and shepherds one conjecture is that Rome stands on the site of a more ancient city and that to its earlier possessors may be attributed the work of the sewers to attribute them to the rudeness and small population of Tarquin's day it is contended is as feasible as it would be to attribute the ruins of ancient Jerusalem or any others in Asia Minor to the Turks or the ruins of Palmyra to the Arabs because these people enjoy the privilege of possession the main sewer of Rome the cloca maxima is said to have been lofty and wide enough for a wagon load of hay to pass clear along it another and more probable account however states that it was proposed to enlarge the great sewer to these dimensions but it does not appear to have been so enlarged indeed when Augustus made Rome marble it was one of his great works also under the direction of Agrippa to reconstruct improve and enlarge the sewers it was a project in the days of Rome's greatness to turn seven navigable rivers into vast subterranean passages larger sewers along which barges might pass carrying on the traffic of imperial Rome in one year the cost of cleansing renewing and repairing the sewers is stated to have been 1000 talents of gold or upwards of 192 000 pounds of the average yearly cost we have no information some accounts represent these sewers as having been rebuilt after the eruption of the Gauls in Livy's time they were pronounced not to be accommodated to the plan of Rome some portions of these ancient structures are still extant but they seem to have attracted small notice even from professed antiquarians their subterranean character however renders such notice little possible in two places they are still kept in repair and for their original purpose to carry off the filth of the city but only to a small extent our legislative enactments on the subject of sewers are ancient and numerous the oldest is that of nine Henry the third and the principal is that of 23 Henry the eighth commonly called the statute of sewers these and many subsequent statutes however relate only to water courses and are silent as regards my present topic the refuse of London it is remarkable how little is said in the london historians of the sewers in the two folio volumes of the most searching and indefatigable of all the antiquarians who have described the old metropolis john stole the tailor there is no account of what we now consider sewers enclosed and subterranean channels for the conveyance of the refuse filth of the metropolis to its destination the Thames had covered sewers being known or at any rate been at all common in Stowe's day and he died full of years in 1604 and had one of them presented but a crumbling stone with some heraldic or apparently heraldic device at its outlet Stowe's industry would certainly have ferretied out some details such however is not the case this absence of information I hold to be owing to the fact that no such sewers then existed our present system of sewerage like our present system of street lighting is a modern work but it is not like our gas lamps and original english work we have but followed as regards our arched and subterranean sewerage in the wake of Rome as I have said the early laws of sewers relate to water courses navigable communications dams ditches and such like there is no doubt however that in the heart of the great towns the filth of the houses was by rude contrivances in the way of drainage or natural fall emptied into such places even in the accounts of the sewers of ancient Rome historians have stated that it is not easy and sometimes not possible to distinguish between the sewers and the aqueducts and Dr Lemon in his English etymology speaks of sewers as a species of aqueducts so in some of our earlier acts of parliament it is hardly possible to distinguish whether the provisions to be applied to the management of a sewer relate to a ditch to which house filth was carried to a channel of water for general purposes or to an open channel being a receptacle of filth and a navigable stream at the same time that the ditches were not sewers for the conveyance of the filth from the houses to any very great or rather any very general extent may very well be concluded because as I have shown in my account of the early scavengers the excrementious matter was deposited during the night in the street and removed by the proper functionaries in the morning or as soon as suited their convenience though this was the case generally it is evident that the filth or a portion of it from the houses which were built on the banks of the Fleet River as it was then called as well as the Fleet Ditch and on the banks of the other brooks drained into the current stream the corporation accounts contain very frequent mention of the cleansing purifying and thorough cleansing of the Fleet Ditch the old burn Hoburn Brook the wallbrook and so on of all these streams the most remarkable was Fleet Ditch which was perhaps the first main sewer of London I give from Stowe the following curious account of its origin it is now open but only for a short distance offending the air of Clarkinwell at one period it was to afford a defense to the city as the tower moat was a defense to the tower and fortress the ditch which partly now remaineth and compass the wall of the city was begun to be made by the Londoners in the year 1211 and finished 1213 the 15th of King John this ditch being then made of 200 foot broad caused no small hindrance to the cannons of the Holy Trinity whose church stood near Ealdgate for that the said ditch passed through their ground from the tower into Bishop's Gate the first occasion of making a ditch about the city seems to have been this William Bishop of Ealy Chancellor of England in the reign of King Richard the first made a great ditch round about the tower for the better defense of it against John the King's brother the king being then out of the realm then did the city also begin a ditch to encompass and strengthen their walls note which happened between the years 1190 and 1193 and note so the book Dunthorn yet the register of Bermond's E writes that the ditch was begun October 15th 1213 which was in the reign of King John that succeeded to Richard this ditch being originally made for the defense of the city was also a long time together carefully cleansed and maintained as need required but now of late neglected and forced either to a very narrow and the same a filthy channel in the year of Christ 1354 28 Edward III the ditch of the city flowing over the bank into the tower ditch the king commanded the said ditch of the city to be cleansed and so ordered that the overflowing thereof should not force any filth into the tower ditch Anno 1379 John Philpot mayor of London caused this ditch to be cleansed and every household to pay five pence which was a day's work towards the charges thereof Ralph Jocelyn mayor 1477 caused the whole ditch to be cast and cleansed in 1519 the 10th of Henry the 8th for cleansing and scouring the common ditch between Aldgate and the postern next the tower ditch the chief ditcher had by the day seven pence the second ditcher six pence the other ditchers five pence and every vagabond for so they were then termed a penny the day meet and drink at the charges of the city some 95 pounds three shillings four pence fleet ditch was again cleansed in the year 1549 still continues Henry Ancoates being mayor at the charges of the companies and again 1569 the 11th of Queen Elizabeth for cleansing the same ditch between Aldgate and the postern and making a new sewer and wharf of timber from the head of the postern into the tower ditch 814 pounds 15 shillings eight pence was dispersed before the which time the said ditch lay open without either wall or pole having therein great store of very good fish of diverse sorts as many men yet living who have taken and tasted them can well witness but now no such matter the charge of cleansing is spared and great profit made by letting out the banks with the spoil of the whole ditch the above information appeared but I am unable to specify the year for Stowe's works went through several additions though it is to be feared he died very poor between 1582 and 1590 so did the following at this day there be no ditches or bogs in the city except the said fleet ditch but instead thereof large common drains and sewers made to carry away the water from the postern gate between the two tower hills to fleet bridge without mudgate great indeed is the change in the character of the capital of England from the times when the fleet ditch was a defense to the city which was then the entire capital and from the later era when great store of very good fish of diverse sorts rewarded the skill or the patience of the anglers or netters but this it is evident was in the parts near the river the tower postern and so on and at that time or about that time there was salmon fishing in the Thames at least as far up as hungerford wharf the fleet ditch seems always to have had a suary character it was described in 1728 as the king of dykes than whom no sluice of mud with deeper sable blots the silver flood the silver flood being in queen annes and the first george's days the london thames this silver has been much alloyed since that time until within these 40 or 50 years open sewer ditches into which drains were emptied and orger and refuse thrown were frequent especially in the remote or parts of lambeth and newington and some exist to this day one especially open for a considerable distance flowing along the back of the houses in the west minster road on the right hand side towards the bridge into which the neighbouring houses are drained the black ditch a filthy sewer until lately was open near the broad wall and other vicinities of the black fryer's road the open ditch sewers of norwood and onesworth have often been spoken off in sanitary reports indeed some of our present sewers in addition to fleet river and wall are merely ditches rudely arched over the first covered and continuous street sewer was erected in london i think without doubt when ren rebuilt the capital after the great fire of 1666 perhaps there is no direct evidence of the fact for although the statutes and privy council and municipal enactments consequent on the rebuilding of the capital required more or less peremptorily fair sewers and drains and water courses it is not defined in these enactments what was meant by a sewer nor where they carried out i may mention as a further proof that open ditches often enough stagnant ditches also were the first london sewers that after 1666 a plan originally projected it appears by Sir Leonard Halliday mayor 60 years previously and strenuously supported at that time by nick leet a worthy and grave citizen was revived and reconsidered this project for which sir Leonard and nick leet laboured much for a river to be brought on the north side of the city into it for the cleansing the sewers and ditches and for the better keeping london wholesome sweet and clean an admirable intention and it is not impossible nor improbable that in less than two centuries hence we of the present sanitary era may be accounted for our sanitary measures as senseless as we now account good sir Leonard Halliday and the worthy and grave nick leet these gentlemen cared not to brook filth in their houses nor to be annoyed by it in the nightly pollution of the streets but they advocated to its injection into running water and into water often running slowly and difficultly and continually under the eyes and noses of the citizens we i apprehend go a little further we drink and use for the preparation of our meals the befouled water which they did not for more than seven eighths of our water supply from the companies is drawn from the Thames the main sewer of the greatest city in the world ancient or modern into which millions of tons of every description of refuse are swept yearly end of section 71 section 72 of london labour and the london poor volume two by henry mayhew this liberal recording is in the public domain recording by jillian henry of the kinds and characteristics of sewers the sewers of london may be arranged into two distinct groups according to the side of the Thames on which they are situated now the essential difference between these two classes of sewers lies in the elevation of the several localities whence the sewers carry the refuse to the Thames the chief difference in the circumstances of the people north and south of the river are shown in the annex table from the registered generals returns elevation of the ground in feet above trinity high water mark london 39 north side of the river 51 south side of the river 5 density or number of persons to an acre 1849 london 30 north side of the river 52 south side of the river 14 deaths from cholera to 10 000 persons living in 60 weeks ending november 24th 1849 london 66 north side of the river 44 south side of the river 127 deaths from all causes annually to 10 000 persons 5000 males 5000 females living during the seven years 1838 to 1844 london 252 north side of the river 251 south side of the river 257 here it will be seen that while the houses on the north side of the river stand on an average 51 feet above the high water mark of the Thames those on the south side are only five feet above it the effect of this is shown most particularly in the deaths from cholera in 1849 which were nearly three times as many on the south as on the north side of the Thames it is said officially that of the 15 square miles of the urban district on the south side of the river Thames three miles are from six to seven feet below high water mark so that the locality may be said to be drained only for four hours out of the 12 and during these four hours very imperfectly when the tide rises above the orifices of the sewers the whole drainage of the district is stopped until the tide recedes again rendering the whole system of sewers in Kent and Surrey only an articulation of cesspools that this is but a fact the following table of the elevation and feet above the Trinity high water mark as regards the several districts on the Surrey side of the Thames may be cited as evidence lewisham elevation 28 onesworth 22 Greenwich 8 Camberwell 4 Lambeth 3 St. Saviour Sutherk 2 St. Olive 2 Bermondsey 0 Rutherith 0 St. George's Sutherk 0 Newington 2 below high water from these returns made by captain Dawson R.E the difficulty to use no stronger word attending the sewerage of the Surrey district is shown at once there is no flow to be had or the word more generally used no run for the sewerage in parts of the north of England it used to be a general and still is a partial saying among country people who are figuratively describing what the account impossible I when when water runs up bank this is a homely expression of the difficulties attending the Surrey sewerage there is as regards these Surrey more than the Kent sewers another evil which promotes the articulation of cesspools some of these sewers have dead ends like places which in the streets a parallel case enough are known as no thoroughfare and in these sewers it is seldom in any state of the tide that flushing can be resorted to consequently these cesspool like sewers remain uncleansed or have to be cleansed by manual labour the matter being drawn up into the street or road the refuse conduits of the metropolis are of two kinds one sewers two drains these two classes of refuse charts are often confounded even in some official papers the sewer being there designated the main drain all sewerage is undoubtedly drainage but there is a manifest distinction between a sewer and a drain the first class sewers which are generally termed main sewers and run along the centres of the first class streets alike from the extent or populousness of such streets may be looked upon as underground rivers of refuse to which the drains are tributary revolts no sewer exists unconnected with the drains from the streets and houses but many house drains are constructed apart from the sewers communicating only with the cesspools even where houses are built in close contiguity to a public sewer and built after the new mode without cesspools there is always a drain to the sewer no house so situated can get rid of its refuse except by means of a drain unless indeed the house be not drained at all and its filth be flung down a gully hoe or gut rid of in some other way these drains all with a like determination differ only in their forms they are barrel shaped made of rounded bricks or earthenware pipeage and of an interior between a round and an oval with a diameter of from two to six inches although only a few private houses comparatively are so drained the barrel drain of larger dimensions is used in the newer public buildings and larger public mansions when it represents a sort of house or interior sewer as well as a house main drain for smaller drains find their issue into the barrel drain there is the barrel drain in the new houses of parliament and in large places which cover the site off and are required for the purposes of several houses or offices the tubular drain is simply piping of which I have spoken fully in my account of the present compulsory mode of house drainage the third drain one more used to carry refuse to the cesspool and the sewer but still carrying such refuse to the sewers is the old-fashioned brick drain generally nine inches square I shall first deal with the sewerage and then with the house and street drainage the sewer is a two-fold receptacle of refuse into it are conveyed the wet refuse not only of many of the houses but of all the streets the slop or surface water of the streets is conveyed to the sewer by means of smaller sewers or street drains running from the kennel or channel to the larger sewers in the streets at such uncertain distances as the traffic and circumstances of the locality may require are gully holes these are openings into the sewer and were formerly called as they were simply greatings a sort of iron trap doors of grated bars clumsily made and placed almost at random on each side of the street was even into the present century a very formidable channel or kennel as it was formerly written into which in heavy rains the badly scavenged street dirt was swept often demanding a good leap from one who wished to cross in a hurry these kennels emptied themselves into the greatings which were not unfrequently choked up and the kennel was then an utter nuisance at the present time the channel is simply a series of stonework at the edge of the footpaths blocks of granite being sloped to meet more or less at right angles and the flow from the inclination from the center of the street to the channel is carried along without impediment or nuisance into the gully hole the gully hole opens into a drain running with a rapid slope into the sewer and so the wet refuse of the streets finds its vent in many courts alleys lanes and so on inhabited by the poor where there is imperfect or no drainage to the houses all the slopes from the houses are thrown down the gully holes and frequently enough blood and awful are poured from butchers premises which might choke the house drain there have indeed been instances of worthless street dirt slop collected into a scavenger's vehicle being shot down a gully hole the sewers as distinct from the drains are to be divided principally into three classes all devoted to the same purpose the conveyance of the underground filth of the capital to the Thames and all connected by a series of drains afterwards to be described with the dwelling houses the first class sewers are found in the main streets and flow at their outlets into the river the second class sewers run along the second class streets discharging their contents into a first class sewer and the third class sewers are for the reception of the sewage from the smaller streets and always communicate for the avoidance of their contents with a sewer of the second or first description as regards the destination of the sewers there is no difference between the middle sex and surrey portions of the metropolis the sewage is all floated into the river the first class sewers of the modern build rarely exceed 50 inches by 30 in internal dimensions the second class 40 inches by 24 the third 30 inches by 18 smaller class or branch sewers from number four to number eight inclusive also form part of the great subterranean filth channels of the metropolis it is only however the three first mentioned classes which can be described as in any way principal sewers the others are in the capacity of branch sewers the ramifications being in many places very extensive while pipes are often used the dimensions of these smaller sewers when pipes are not used are number four 20 inches by 12 number five 17 and a half inches by 10 and a half number six 15 inches by nine number seven 12 inches by seven and a half and number eight nine inches by six these branch sewers may from their circumscribed dimensions be looked upon as mere channels of connection with the larger descriptions but they present as I have intimated an important part of the general system this may be shown by the fact that in the estimates for building sewers for the improvement of the drainage of the city of Westminster a plan however not carried out the estimated or indeed surveyed run of the first class was to be 8118 feet of the second class 4524 feet of the third but 2086 feet while of the number five and number six description it was respectively 18709 and 53284 feet the branch sewers may perhaps be represented in many instances as public drains connecting the sewer of the street with the issue from the houses but I give the appellation I find in the reports the dimensions I have cited are not to be taken as an average size of the existing sewers of the metropolis on either side of the Thames for no average size and no uniformity of shape can be adduced as there has been no uniformity observed the sewers are of all sizes and shapes and of all depths from the surface of the streets I was informed by an engineering authority that he had often seen it asserted that the naval authorities of the kingdom could not build a war steamer and it might very well be said that the sanitary authorities of the metropolis could not build a sewer as none of the present sewers could be cited as in all respects properly fulfilling all the functions required but it must be remembered that the present engineers have to contend with great difficulties the whole matter being so complicated by the blunderings and mismanagement of the past the dimensions I have cited because they appear officially exceed the medium size of the newer sewerage the average height of the first class being in such sewers about three feet nine inches of the width of the sewers as of the height no precise average can be drawn perhaps that of the new palace main or first class sewer three feet six inches may be nearest the average while the smaller classes diminish in their width in the proportions I have shown the sewers of the older constructions nearly all widen and deepen as they near the outlet and this at no definite distance from the river but from a quarter of a mile or somewhat less to a mile and more some such sewers are then 14 feet in width some 20 feet and no doubt of proportionate height but I do not find that the height has been ascertained for flushing purposes there are recesses of greater or less width according to the capacity of the sewer where sluice gates and so on can be fixed and water accumulated under the head of subterranean survey of the sewers will be found some account of the different dimensions of the sewers the form of the interior of the sewers as shown in the illustrations I have given is irregularly elliptical they are arched at the summits and more or less hollowed or curved internally at the bottom the bottom of the sewer is called the invert from a general resemblance in the construction to an inverted arch the best form of invert is a matter which has attracted great engineering attention it is indeed the important part of the sewer as the part along which there is the flow of the sewage and the superior or inferior formation of the invert of course facilitates or retards the transmission of the contents a few years back the building of egg shaped or oviform sewers was strongly advocated it was urged that the flow of the sewage and the sewer water was accelerated by the invert especially being oviform as the matter was more condensed when such was the shape adopted while the more the matter was diffused as in some of the inverts of the more usual form of sewers the less rapid was its flow and consequently the greater its deposit what extent of egg shaped sewers are now so to speak at work I could not ascertain one informant thought it might be somewhere about 50 miles the following interesting account of the velocities of streams with a relativeness to sewers is extracted from the evidence of mr. Phillips quote the area of surface that a sewer will drain and the quantity of water that it will discharge in a given time will be greater or less in proportion as the channel is inclined from a horizontal to a vertical position the ordinary or common run of water in each sewer due from house drainage alone and irrespective of rain should have sufficient velocity to prevent the usual matter discharged into the sewer from depositing for this purpose it is necessary that there should be in each sewer a constant velocity of current equal to two and a half feet per second or one and three quarter miles per hour end quote mr. Phillips then states that the inclinations of all rivulets and so on diminish as they progress to their outfalls if the force of the waters of the river rune he has said we're not absorbed by the operation of some constant retardation in its course the stream would have shot into the Bay of Marseille with a tremendous velocity of 164 miles every hour even if the Thames met with no system of impediments in its course the stream would have rushed into the sea with a velocity of 80 feet per second or 54 and a half miles in an hour the inclinations of the sewers of a natural district should be made to diminish from their heads to their outfalls in a corresponding ratio of progression so that as the body of water is increased at each confluence one at the same velocity and force of current may be kept up throughout the whole of them mr. Phillips advocates a tubular system of sewerage and drainage the main sewer which has lately called forth the most public attention and professional controversy is that connected with the new houses of parliament or as they are called in diverse reports and correspondence the new palace at Westminster the workmanship in the building of the sewers is of every quality the material of which some of the older sewers are constructed is a porous sort of brick which is often found crumbling and broken and saturated with damp and rottenness from the exhalations and contact of their contents the sewers erected however within the last 20 or more especially within the last 10 years are sometimes of granite but generally off the best brick with an interior coating of enduring cement and generally with concrete on their exterior to protect them from the dampness and decaying qualities of the super incumbent or lateral soil the depth of the sewers i mean from the top of the sewer to the surface of the street seems to vary as everything else varies about them some are found 40 feet below the street some two feet some almost level these however are exceptions and the average depth of the sewers on the middle sex side is from 12 to 14 feet on the surrey side from 6 to 8 feet the reason is that the north shores of the metropolis are above the tide level the south shores are below it an authority on the subject has said the surrey sewers are bad owing principally to the land being below tide level they were the most expensively constructed because perhaps in that commission the surveyors were paid by percentage on the cost of works when it was proposed in the west minister commission to effect a reduction of four fifths in the cost it was like a proposition to return the officer's salaries to that extent if they had been paid in that way the reader may have observed that the official intelligence i have given all or nearly all refers to the west minister and part of middle sex commission and to that of the surrey and kent this is easily accounted for in the metropolitan districts up to 1847 the only commission which published its papers was the west minister of which mr lc hertslitt had the charge as clark when the commissions were consolidated in 1847 he printed the west minister and surrey only the others being of minor importance i may observe that one of the engineers in showing the difficulty or impossibility of giving any description of a system of surrey as two points of agreement or difference represents the whole mass as but a detached parcel of sewers the course of the sewers is in no direct or uniform line with the exception of one characteristic all their bearings are towards the river as regards the main sewers first class and all the bearings of the second class sewers are towards the main sewers in the main streets the smaller classes of sewers fill up the great area of london sewerage with a perfect network of intersection and connection and even this network is increased manyfold by its connection with the house trains there is no map of the general sewerage of the metropolis merely sections and plans of improvements making or suggested in the reports of the surveyors and so on to the commissioners but did a map of subterranean london exist with its lines of every class of sewerage and of the drainage which feeds the sewers with its course more over of gas pipes and water pipes with their connection with the houses the streets the courts and so on it would be the most curious and skeleton like map in the world of the subterranean character of the sewers in my inquiries among that curious body of men the sewer hunters i find them make light of any danger their principal fear being from the attacks of rats in case they become isolated from the gang with whom they searched in common while they represented the odor as a mere nothing in the way of unpleasantness but these men pursued only known and by them beaten tracks at low water avoiding any deviation and so becoming but partially acquainted with the character and direction of the sewers and had it been otherwise they are not a class competent to describe what they saw however keen eyed after silver spoons the following account is derived chiefly from official sources i may premise that where the deposit is found the greatest the sewer is in the worst state this deposit i find it repeatedly stated is of a most miscellaneous character some of the sewers indeed are represented as the dustbins and dung hills of the immediate neighborhood the deposit has been found to comprise all the ingredients from the breweries the gas works and the several chemical and mineral manufacturers dead dogs cats kittens and rats awful from slaughterhouses sometimes even including the entrails of the animals street pavement dirt of every variety vegetable refuse stable dumb the refuse of pigsties night soil ashes tin kettles and pans pan shirts broken stoneware as jars pictures flower pots and so on bricks pieces of wood rotten mortar and rubbish of different kinds and even rags our criminal annals of the previous century show that often enough the bodies of murdered men were thrown into the fleet and other ditches then the open sewers of the metropolis and if found washed into the Thames they were so stained and disfigured by the foulness of the contents of these ditches that recognition was often impossible so that there could be but one verdict returned found drowned clothes stripped from a murdered person have been it was authenticated on several occasions in old Bailey evidence thrown into the open sewer ditches when torn and defaced so that they might not supply evidence of identity so close is the connection between physical filthiness in public matters and moral wickedness the following particulars show the characteristics of the underground London of the sewers the subterranean surveys were made after the commissions were consolidated quote an old sewer running between Great Smith Street and St Anne Street Westminster is a curiosity among sewers although it is probably only one instance out of many similar constructions that will be discovered in the court of the subterranean survey the bottom is formed of planks laid upon transverse timbers six inches by six inches about three feet apart the size of the sewer varies in width from two to six feet and from four to five feet in height the inclination of the bottom is very irregular there are jumps up at two or three places and it contains a deposit of filth averaging nine inches in depth the sickening smell from which escapes into the houses and yards that drain into it in many places the side walls have given way for lengths of 10 and 15 feet across this sewer timbers have been laid upon which the external wall of a workshop has been built the timbers are in a decaying state and should they give way the wall will fall into the sewer end quote from the further accounts of this survey i find that a sewer from the west minister workhouse which was of all shapes and sizes was in so retchard a condition that the leveller could scarcely work for the thick scum that covered the glasses of the spirit level in a few minutes after being wiped at the outfall into the dean street sewer it is three feet six inches by two feet eight inches for a short length from the end of this a wide sewer branches in each direction at right angles five feet eight inches by five feet five inches proceeding to the eastward about 30 feet a chamber is reached about 30 feet in length from the roof of which hangings of putrid matter like stalactites descend three feet in length at the end of this chamber the sewer passes under the public privies the ceilings of which can be seen from it beyond this it is not possible to go in the lucas street sewer where a portion of new work begins and the old terminates a space of about 10 feet has been covered with boards which having broken a dangerous chasm has been caused immediately under the road the west street sewer had one foot of deposit it was flushed while the levelling party was at work there and the stream was so rapid that it nearly washed them away instrument and all there are further accounts of deposit or of stagnant filth in other sewers varying from six to 14 inches but that is insignificant compared to what follows the foregoing then is the pith of the first authentic account which has appeared in print of the actually surveyed condition of the subterranean ways over which the superterranean tides of traffic are daily flowing the account I have just given relates to the former Westminster and part of Middlesex district on the north bank of the Thames as ascertained under the Metropolitan Commission I now give some extracts concerning a similar survey on the south bank in different and distant directions in the district once the Surrey and Kent the Westminster and so on survey took place in 1848 the Kent and Surrey in 1849 in the one case 72 miles of sewers were surveyed in the other 69 and a third miles the surveyors in the Surrey and Kent sewers find great difficulty in levelling the sewers of this district I give the words of the report for in the first place the deposit is usually about two feet in depth and in some cases it amounts to nearly five feet of putrid matter the smell is usually of the most horrible description the air being so foul that explosion and choke damp are very frequent on the 12th of January we were very nearly losing a whole party by choke damp the last man being dragged out on his back through two feet of black fitted deposits in a state of insensibility two men of one party had also an arrow escape from drowning in the al scott road sewer Rotherath the sewers on the Surrey side are very irregular even where they are inverted they frequently have a number of steps and inclinations the reverse way causing the deposit to accumulate in elongated cesspools it must be considered very fortunate that the subterranean parties did not first commence on the Surrey side for if such had been the case we should most undoubtedly have broken down when compared with Westminster the sewers are smaller and more full of deposit and bad as the smell is in the sewers in Westminster it is infinitely worse on the Surrey side several details are then given but they are only particulars of the general facts I have stated the following however are distinct facts concerning this branch of the subject in my inquiries among the working scavengers I often heard of their emptying street slop into sewers and the following extract shows that I was not misinformed quote the detritus from the macadamia's roads frequently forms a kind of grouting in the sewers so hard that it cannot be removed without hand labour one of the sewers in Whitehall and another in spring gardens have from three to four feet of this sort of deposit and another in Eaton Square was found filled up within a few inches of this soffit but it is supposed that the scavengers scavengers emptied the road swoopings down the gully grate in this instance end quote and in other instances too there is no doubt especially at Charing Cross and the Regent Circus Piccadilly concerning the sewerage of the most aristocratic part of the city of Westminster and of the fashionable squares and so on to the north of Oxford Street I glean the following particulars reported in 1849 they show at any rate that the patrician quarters have not been unduly favoured that there has been no partiality in the construction of the sewerage in the bell grave and Eaton Square districts there are many faulty places in the sewers which abound with noxious matter in many instances stopping up the house drains and smelling horribly it is much the same in the grovener Hanover and Berkeley Square localities the houses in the squares themselves included also in the neighborhood of Covent Garden Claire Market Soho and Fitzroy squares while north of Oxford Street in and about Cavendish Rhinestone Manchester and Portman squares there is so much rottenness and decay that there is no security for the sewers standing from day to day and to flush them for the removal of their most loathsome deposit might be to bring some of them down altogether one of the accounts of a subterranean survey concludes with the following rather curious statement quote throughout the new Paddington District the neighborhood of Hyde Park Gardens and the costly squares and streets adjacent the sewers abound with the foulest deposit from which the most disgusting effluvium arises indeed amidst the whole of the Westminster district of sewers the only little spot which can be mentioned as being in at all a satisfactory state is the seven dials end quote i may point out also that these very curious and authenticated accounts by no means bear out the zymotic doctrine of the board of health as to the cause of cholera for where the zymotic influences from the sewers were the worst in the petition squares of what has been called belgravia and tyburnia the cholera was the least destructive this however is no reason whatever why the stench should not be stifled off the house drainage of the metropolis as connected with the sewers every house built or rebuilt since the passing of the metropolitan sewers act in 1848 must be drained with an exception which i shall specify into a sewer the law indeed divested of its technicalities is this the owner of a newly erected house must drain it to a sewer without the intervention of a cesspool if there be a sewer within 100 feet of the site of the house and if necessary in places but partially built over such owner must continue the sewer along the premises and make the necessary drain into it all being done under the approval of the proper officer under the commissioners if there be however an established sewer along the side front or back of any house a covered drain must be made into that at the cost of the owner of the premises to be drained where a sewer says the 46th section of the act shall already be made and a drain only shall be required the party is to have a contribution towards the original expense of the sewer if it shall have been made within 35 years before the 4th of september 1848 the contribution to be paid to the builder of the sewer in cases where there shall be no sewer into which a drain could be made the party must make a covered drain to lead into a cesspool or other place not under a house as the commissioners may direct if the parties infringe this rule the commissioners may do the work and throw the cost on them in the nature of an improvement rate or as charges for default and levy the amount by distress i mentioned these circumstances more particularly to show the extent and the far continued ramification of the subterranean metropolis i'm assured by one of the largest builders in the western district of the capital that the new regulations as to the dispensing with cesspools are readily complied with as it is a recommendation which a house agent or anyone letting new premises is never slow to advance and when it's the truth he said they do it with a better grace that there will be in the course of occupancy no annoyance and no expense incurred in the clearing away of cesspoolage i shall at present describe only the house drainage which is connected with the public sewerage the old mode of draining a house separately into the cesspool of the premises will of course be described under the head of cesspoolage and that old system is still very prevalent at the times of passing both general and local acts concerning buildings town improvements and extensions the erection of new streets and the removal of old much has been said and written concerning better systems of ventilating warming and draining dwelling houses but until after the first outbreak of cholera in england in 1832 little public attention was given to the great drainage of all the sewers however on the passing of the building and sanitary acts generally the authorities made many experiments not so much to improve the system of sewerage as of house drainage so as to make the dwelling houses more wholesome and sweet to effect this the great object was the abolition of the cesspool system under which filth must accumulate and where from scamped buildings or other causes evaporation took place the effects of the system were found to be vile and offensive and have been pronounced me as matic having just alluded to these matters i proceed to describe the modernly adopted connection of house drainage and street sewerage experiments as i have said were set on foot under the auspices of public bodies and the opinions of eminent engineers architects and surveyors were also taken their opinions seem really to be concentrated in the advocacy of one remedy improved house drainage and they appear to have agreed that the system which is at present adopted is under the circumstances the best that can be adopted i was told also by an eminent practical builder perfectly unconnected with any official or public body and indeed often at issue with surveyors and so on that the new system was unquestionably a great improvement in every respect and that some years before its adoption as at present he had abetted such a system and had carried it into effect when he could properly do so i will first show the mode and then the cost of the new system i find it designated back front tubular and pipe house drainage and all with the object of carrying off all feces soil water cesspool matter and so on before it has had time to accumulate it is not by brick or other drains of masonry that the system is carried out or is recommended to be carried out but by means of tubular earthenware pipes and for any efficient carrying out of the projected improvement a system of constant and not as at present intermittent supply of water from the several companies would be best these pipes communicate with the nearest sewer the pipes in the tubular drainage are of red earthenware or stoneware pot the use of earthenware clay or pot pipes for the conveyance of liquids is very ancient mr. stewart a bleacher in paisley in a statement to the board of health mentioned that clay pipes were used in ancient times king hezekiah second book of kings chapter 20 and second book of chronicles chapter 32 brought in water from Jerusalem his pool and conduit said mr. stewart are still to be seen the conduit is three feet square inside built of freestone strongly cemented the stone 15 inches thick evidently intended to sustain a considerable pressure and i have seen pipes of clay taken by a friend from a house in the ruins of the ancient city of one inch bore and about seven inches in diameter proving evidently to my mind that ancient Jerusalem was supplied with water on the principle of gravitation the pools or reservoirs are also at this day in tolerably good order one of them still filled with water the other broken down in the center no doubt by some besieging enemy to cut off the supply to the city the new system to supply the place of the cesspools is a combined while the old is principally a separate system of house drainage but the new system is equally available for such separate drainage as regards the success of this system the reports say experiments have been tried in so large a number of houses under such varied and in many cases disadvantageous circumstances that no doubts whatsoever can remain in the minds of competent and disinterested persons as to the efficient self-cleansing action of well-adjusted tubular drains and sewers even without any additional supplies of water mr. Loveick says quote a great number of small four inch tubular drains have been laid down in the several districts some for considerable periods they have been found to keep themselves clear by the ordinary soil and drainage waters of the houses i have no doubt that pipes of this kind will keep themselves clear by the ordinary discharge of house drainage assuming of course a supply of water pipes of good form and materials properly laid and with fair usage one of the earliest illustrations of the tubular system it is stated in a report of the board of health was given in the improved drainage of a block of houses in the cloisters of Westminster which had been the seat of a severe epidemic fever the cesspools and the old drains were filled up and an entire system of tubular drainage and sewerage substituted for the service of that block of houses the dean of Westminster in a letter on the state of this drainage says i beg to report to the commissioners that the success of the entire new pipe drainage laid down in st peters college during the last 12 months has been complete i consider this experiment on drainage and sewage of about 15 houses to afford a triumphant proof of the efficacy of draining by pipes and of the facility of dispensing entirely with cesspools and brick sewers up to this time they have acted and continue to act perfectly mr morris a surveyor attached to the metropolitan sewers commission gives the following account of the action of trial works of improved house drainage quote i have introduced the new four inch tubular house drains into some houses for the trustees of the parish of poplar with water closets and have received no just cause of complaint in every instance where i have applied it i found the system answer extremely well if a sufficient quantity of water has been used the answer of the householders as to the effect of the new drainage has invariably been that they and their families have been better in health that they were formerly annoyed with smells and effluvia from which they are now quite free since the new drainage has been laid down there has been only occasion to go on the ground to examine it once for the whole year and that was from the inefficiency of the water service it was found that rags had been thrown down and had got into the pipe and further that very little water had been used so that the stoppage was the fault of the tenant not of the system mr gotto the engineer having stated that in a plan for the improvement of golston street white chapel not only was the removal of all cesspools contemplated but also the substitution of water closet apparatus gave the following estimate of the cost provided the pipes were made and the work done by contract under the commissioners of sewers water closet apparatus and so on emptying and so on cesspool 12 shillings digging and so on for eight feet pipe drain at four pins two shillings eight pins making good to walls and floor of water closet over drain at thruppins two shillings eight feet run of four inch pipes at thruppins two shillings laying ditto at tuppence one shilling four pins extra for junction four pins fixing ditto tuppence water closet apparatus with stool cock ten shillings fixing ditto two shillings contingencies ten percent three shilling six pins the yard sink and drain would cost 11 shillings tuppence kitchen sink and drain 15 shillings seven pins apnae so that the cost of back draining one house including water closet would be three pounds two shillings nine pins apnae the front tubular drainage of a similar house with 15 yards of carriageway to be paved would cost six pounds two shillings seven pins apnae or the drainage would cost according to the old system 11 pounds 13 shillings 11 pins the engineering witnesses who have given their special attention to the subject state the board of health in commenting on the information i have just cited affirm that upon the improved system of combined works the expense of the apparatus in substitution of cesspools would not greatly exceed one half the expense of cleaning the cesspools the engineers have calculated stating the difficulty of coming to a nice calculation that the present system of cesspools entailed an average expenditure for cleansing and repairs of four pence a week on each householder and that by the new system it would be but a penny and three farlings the board of health calculations however are i regret to say always dubious the subjoint scale of the difference in cost was prepared at the instance of the board mr grant took four blocks of houses for examination and the results are given as a guide to what would be the general expenditure if the change took place in one block of 44 houses the length of drains by back drainage was 1544 feet cost exclusive of pans traps and water in both cases of back drainage 83 pounds 12 shillings or one pound 18 shillings per house cost of separate tubular drainage 467 pounds nine shillings six pence or 10 pounds 12 shillings six pence per house cost of separate brick drains 910 pounds 19 shillings or 20 pounds 14 shillings and a penny per house in another block of 23 houses the length of back drains was 783 feet of separate drains 1437 feet the cost of back tubular drains 45 pounds 12 shillings six pence or one pound 19 shillings eight pence per house of separate tubular drains 131 pounds 13 shillings six pence or five pounds 14 shillings six pence per house of separate brick drains 305 pounds seven shillings or 13 pounds five shillings six pence per house in another block of 46 houses the length of back drainage 1143 feet ditto by separate ditto 1892 feet the cost of back tubular drainage 66 pounds five shillings tuppence or one pound eight shillings nine pence three fardings per house ditto of separate ditto ditto 178 pounds 19 shillings eight pence or three pounds 17 shillings 10 pence per house ditto of separate brick ditto 390 pounds four shillings or eight pounds nine shillings eight pence per house in a fourth block of 46 houses the length of back drains 985 feet ditto of separate ditto 2913 feet cost of back tubular drainage 66 pounds eight shillings tuppence or one pound eight shillings 10 pence hypney per house ditto of separate ditto ditto 262 pounds 11 shillings seven pence or five pounds 14 shillings tuppence per house ditto of separate brick ditto 614 pounds 16 shillings thruppence or 13 pounds seven shillings thruppence and three fardings per house i have mentioned the diversity of opinion as to the best form and even material for a sewer and there is the same diversity as to the material and so on for house and gully or street drainage more especially in the pipes of the larger volume the pipe drainage of any description is far less in favor than it was one reason is that it does not promote subsoil drainage another is the difficulty of repairs if the joints or fittings of pipes require mending and then the combination of the noxious gases is most offensive in its exhalations and difficult to overcome i was informed by a nightmare used to the cleansing of drains and tonight work generally that when there was any escape from one of the tubular pipes the stench was more intense than any he had ever before experienced from any drains on the old system end of section 72