filter through the sand, or evaporate in the sun, leaving a most offensive paste at the sides of the streets, and in the passages through the houses. This is the more to be regretted, that the beautiful state of cleanliness of the new part of Ayr, shows with how little labour it might be obviated with the aid of our absorbent soil and free atmosphere. There are some streets, the main street of Newton in particular, which have such inequalities in the causewayed footpaths, and such want of escape by the gutters, that it is impossible to find one's way through them in a dark night, without many a plunge into the filth. There is everywhere sufficient slope toward the river to render drainage perfectly effectual, if properly executed."

Mr. Forrest, the surgeon, in his account of Stirling, states that— "The drains or sewers, called in Stirling 'sivers,' are all open and sloping. On the public streets they are, in general, well constructed, but in the closes their construction is so very bad that scarcely any of them run well. The only supply of water, so far as I know, which they receive, is from the heavens. The inhabitants of Stirling, during many months of the year, do not obtain water sufficient for their domestic wants, and they cannot, therefore, have any to spare for their sewers. There is a regularly appointed service of scavengers, but it is inefficient. A few old men sweep the public streets from time to time, and the sweepings thus collected are removed in a cart, without any apparent attention to time or order. Sometimes the sweepings remain on the streets for many days. To show how matters of medical police are neglected, I shall state a few facts which are known to every person in Stirling. 1st. The filth of the gaol, containing on an average 65 prisoners, is floated down the public streets every second or third day, and emits, during the whole of its progress down Broad-street, Bow, Baker-street, and King-street, the principal streets in the town, the most offensive and disgusting odour. 2nd. The slaughter-house is situated near the top of the town, and the blood from it is allowed to flow down the public streets. 3rd. The lower part of a dwelling-house, not more than three or four yards from the town-house and gaol, is used as a 'midding,' and pigsty, the filth being thrown into it by the window and door. 4th. There are no public necessaries; and the common stairs and closes, and even the public streets, are used habitually as such, by certain classes of the community. 5th. Two drains from the castle, convey the whole filth of it into an open field, where it spreads itself over the surface, and pollutes the atmosphere to a very great extent. 6th. A dwelling-house in the Castle-hill, the greater part of which is inhabited, is used by a butcher as a slaughter-house; and some of the butchers kill sheep and lambs in their back shops, situated under dwelling-houses. 7th. The closes where the poor dwell, and where accumulations of filth most abound, are, I may safely say, utterly neglected by the scavengers. In some situations, the ventilation around the residences is good, but in many others, and especially in the closes, it is very bad, and in my opinion, quite irremediable."

Before quitting this class of instances, it may here be necessary to guard against the conclusion that neglect of drainage is confined to towns, or to numerous and crowded habitations. Similar instances may be presented, even of single and isolated houses,

external to the Residences.-Town Drainage.

35

and of small groups of rural cottages, in almost every district. Of this last class of cases I give only one instance, supplied by the evidence of Mr. J. Thomson, of Clitheroe :

"Have you not had amongst your own people an instance of pestilence occasioned by the neglect of removable causes of disease?-In the summer of 1839 some remarkable cases of fever occurred in my immediate neighbourhood amongst the inhabitants in my employment, of a small cluster of houses called Littlemoor. The situation of this little spot has always been considered, and justly, as remarkably healthy and agreeable, the soil around it being dry, and not marshy, as the name would seem to imply. It is situated on gently sloping ground, about a mile from the town of Clitheroe, and freely exposed on all sides to the wind. It contained six houses and 21 inhabitants at the time of the fever. The houses are built in three distinct groups, round an irregular area of from 50 to 60 feet square. A single, inadequate, and half-choked-up drain, originally constructed more than 40 years ago, for the only cottager, then existing on the spot, was the only under-ground outlet for the filth, and sink, and surplus water of these habitations; the rest was carried off by a deep and open ditch filled with grass and weeds; this ditch spread out, about 100 yards to the north, into a shallow stagnant pool, in summer green and fœtid; from which was conveyed all the water that could flow during that season past and amongst the cottages at Littlemoor. Into the centre of the open area or yard was poured all the filth of the houses in open channels, and thence, by the above-mentioned under-ground drain, conveyed away. This state of things was bad enough, but was rendered still worse by the erection recently of a pig-sty, the litter and filth of which not only obstructed the drain, but occasioned a pool of abomination of the most perilous and disgusting nature. At the time I saw it the commencement of the fever-it was overflowing into the foundation of the principal habitation, and had infected the whole house with its stench, and was making its way by innumerable black and fœtid streams through a small shrubbery, the area of which it wholly covered, into the deep and open ditch. Believing this to be the source of the pestilence, I had the sty instantly pulled down, the filth removed, and a large drain brought up to the centre of the yard, terminating in small covered troughs to each habitation. This was in the middle of August, and from the hour of the removal of the filth no fresh case of fever occurred. The first case was on the 12th of May, and was followed by another in the same house on the 27th. In June there were three cases; and in July six; in August four; in all, 15; of which nine were the resident inhabitants, in a population of 21; and the remaining six, nurses and attendants on the sick, obtained from the immediate neighbourhood. No fever prevailed at the time in Clitheroe. One case was fatal, and the health of a most valuable member of that small community was so seriously affected by the fever as to cause his death in a short time. A visitor and attendant on the funeral of the person deceased at Littlemoor, and who took the fever, died also. This spot has remained, and I doubt not will continue, healthy ever since.

"The medical gentleman, Mr. Garstang, of Clitheroe, who attended the preceding case, has communicated to me the equally striking and instructive statement I subjoin:-At Chatburn, a village to the north of

Clitheroe, he was called to attend a patient in fever, in the month of May of the same year 1839. The first object that struck his eye on approaching the house was a long pole, with a bunch at the end, black and filthy from its recent use in forcing a choked-up and inaccessible drain, which passed between and under the gable-ends of two closely contiguous houses, only a few inches apart, one of which contained his patient. From this single case and house Mr. G. ascertained that 11 cases arose, by which means the fever was spread through the country, where it prevailed with great severity, and terminated, in many instances, fatally. There was no fever but what could be traced to this, and no other discoverable source.'

Street and Road Cleansing: Road Pavements.

The local arrangements for the cleansing and drainage of towns, &c., generally present only instances of varieties of grievous defects from incompleteness and from the want of science or combination of means for the attainment of the requisite ends. Thus the local reports abound with instances of expensive main-drains, which from ignorant construction as to the levels, do not perform their office, and do accumulate pestilential refuse; others, which have proper levels, but from the want of proper supplies of water do not act; others, which act only partially or by surface drainage, in consequence of the neglect of communication from the houses to the drains; others, where there are drains communicating from the houses, but where the house-drains do not act, or only act in spreading the surface of the matter from cess-pools, and increasing the foetid exhalations from it in consequence of the want of supplies of water; others again, as in some of the best quarters of the metropolis, where the supplies of water are adequate, and where the drains act in the removal of refuse from the house, but where from want of moderate scientific knowledge or care in their construction, each drain acts like the neck of a large retort, and serves to introduce into the house the subtle gas which spreads disease from the accumulations in the sewers.* Other districts there are where their structural arrangements may be completed, and water supplied, and the under drainage in action, and yet pestilential accumulations be found spread before the doors of the population in consequence of the defective construction, and the neglect of the surface-cleansing of the streets and roads. Recently a remonstrance was made to an able and active member of a Commission of Sewers, for taking no steps to extend the drainage in a wretched district of the metropolis. The reply was, a statement, that a drain had been cut through a portion of it, but that it had done no good; and the remonstrant was invited to inspect the district himself, and judge whether, with

See the evidence on this subject taken before the Committee of the House of Commons, on the sewerage of the metropolis; see also the evidence of Mr. Oldfield, an extensive builder, post.

Street and Road Cleansing.-Parements.

37

streets that were unpaved and uncleansed, wet and miry, with deep holes full of refuse, it were possible by any under drainage to remove the evil complained of. Other districts there are in which the Road Commissioners or the Paving Board appears to have done their duty; but the benefit is prevented, and the road is kept continually out of repair by the neglect of the service of

scavengers.

All these local defects again are referred back to the defective construction of the Acts of Parliament,-which generally either presume that no science, no skill is requisite for the attainment of the objects, or presume both to be universal,-which in some instances actually prohibit the only effectual mode of drainage, namely, that from the houses into the main-drains; and in others, prescribe cleansing by house-drains without supplies of water; or prescribe the construction of roads independently of drains, and direct the execution of only part of the necessary means, leaving other essential parts to the discretion of individuals.

Between a town population similarly situated in general condition, one part inhabiting streets which are unpaved, and another inhabiting streets that are paved, a general difference of health is observed. The town of Portsmouth is built upon a low portion of the marshy island of Portsea. It was formerly subjected to intermittent fever, but since the town was paved, in 1769, it was noticed by Sir Gilbert Blane, that this disorder no longer prevailed; whilst Kilsea and the other parts of the island retained the aguish disposition until 1793, when a drainage was made which subdued its force.

Such strongly marked effects on the health of the population have followed in many places the complete cleansing of the streets, as are stated by Mr. Bland, medical officer of the Macclesfield Union :

"To show the value of police regulations in removing any improper accumulations of foul and putrid matter, where a deadly poison is generated, I have a distinct recollection that, when the cholera appeared in Macclesfield, not only was that fatal disease arrested somewhat in its progress by the active vigilance exercised by the gentlemen in seeing that in their several districts all offending deposits were removed, and all pest-houses cleansed, that for several months after the town had undergone this salutary inspection, and the people made alive to the pernicious effects of the dunghill, fever of the worst or contagious form scarcely appeared in the usual localities, although it was at the autumnal season of the year. I likewise noticed in spring-time following, when the filth had begun to accumulate on the surface in certain parts of the town, a severe return of contagious diseases, fever in all its stages, and a very fatal epidemic small-pox."

Similar cases were frequently noticed in the reports from Scotland; but when the alarm passed away, the habitual neglect of this description of cleanliness returned.

In the consideration of the evidence about to be submitted as

to the condition of the streets on the external condition of the residences of the labouring classes, it should be borne in mind that the external condition of the dwelling powerfully and immediately affects its internal cleanliness and general economy.

The description of a large proportion of the streets inhabited by the working classes in Manchester by Dr. Baron Howard, and those of Leeds by Mr. Baker, those of Liverpool by Dr. Duncan, might be extended to Glasgow and other places. Dr. Howard

states:

"That the filthy and disgraceful state of many of the streets in these densely populated and neglected parts of the town where the indigent poor chiefly reside cannot fail to exercise a most baneful influence over their health is an inference which experience has fully proved to be well founded; and no fact is better established than that a large proportion of the causes of fever which occur in Manchester originate in these situations. Of the 182 patients admitted into the temporary fever hospital in Balloon-street, 135 at least came from unpaved or otherwise filthy streets, or from confined and dirty courts and alleys. Many of the streets in which cases of fever are common are so deep in mire, or so full of hollows and heaps of refuse that the vehicle used for conveying the patients to the House of Recovery often cannot be driven along them, and the patients are obliged to be carried to it from considerable distances. Whole streets in these quarters are unpaved and without drains or main-sewers, are worn into deep ruts and holes, in which water constantly stagnates, and are so covered with refuse and excrementitious matter as to be almost impassable from depth of mud, and intolerable from stench. In the narrow lanes, confined courts and alleys, leading from these, similar nuisances exist, if possible, to a still greater extent; and as ventilation is here more obstructed, their effects are still more pernicious. In many of these places are to be seen privies in the most disgusting state of filth, open cesspools, obstructed drains, ditches full of stagnant water, dunghills, pigsties, &c., from which the most abominable odours are emitted. But dwellings perhaps are still more insalubrious in those cottages situated at the backs of the houses fronting the street, the only entrance to which is through some nameless narrow passage, converted generally, as if by common consent, into a receptacle for ordure and the most offensive kinds of filth. The doors of these hovels very commonly open upon the uncovered cesspool, which receives the contents of the privy belonging to the front house, and all the refuse cast out from it, as if it had been designedly contrived to render them as loathsome and unhealthy as possible. Surrounded on all sides by high walls, no current of air can gain access to disperse or dilute the noxious effluvia, or disturb the reeking atmosphere of these areas. Where there happens to be less crowding, and any ground remains unbuilt upon, it is generally undrained, contains pools of stagnant water, and is made a depôt for dunghills and all kinds of filth."

Of 687 streets, inspected by a voluntary association in that town, 248 were reported as being unpaved, 112 il ventilated, 352 as containing stagnant pools, heaps of refuse, ordure, &c.