Part 14

The abolition of the cess-pool, involving complete house drainage, an abundant supply of water, and the immediate removal by it of all refuse which it is capable of holding in suspension;

Means for the removal of house refuse not capable of suspension in water.

And this is all. And what are the results of these few and simple arrangements?

That the mortality among the inhabitants of these dwellings is less than that of London generally, and far less than that of some of the filthy and neglected localities in London, the Potteries of Kensington for example; while the mortality among children under ten years of age, on an average of three years, is one-half less than that of the nation generally, and four times less than that of the Potteries;

That there has not been a single death from typhus, or any other form of continued fever, among the adults in any of these buildings since their establishment; and that during the two first visitations of epidemic cholera, with the exception of two cases which occurred under peculiar circumstances, there was no attack of cholera in any of these buildings, while from four to six deaths from the pestilence occurred in single houses in the immediate neighbourhood.

Such are the results of the first imperfect attempt at improvement; which, remarkable as they are, are not more striking than the results of neglect. Of the children born in the best part of a town one fifth die before they attain the fifth year of age; of the children born in the worst, one-half die before they attain their fifth year. The inhabitants of the worst localities attain little more than one half of the age of those who live in the best. Of 100,000 children born in Surrey, 75,423 attain the age of ten years; 52,000 live to the age of fifty; and 28,878 live to seventy. In Liverpool, out of 100,000 persons born, only 48,211 live ten years; 25,878 live fifty years; and 8373 live seventy years. The probable duration of life in Surrey is 53 years; in Liverpool it is 26 years. Were the whole of the metropolis as healthy as the Model Dwellings, there would be an annual saving in London of nearly 20,000 lives. But these lives are not saved; this number of persons is allowed to perish every year, and they are as truly and as needlessly sacrificed as if they were taken out on Bethnal-green and shot.

When we bear in mind the suffering which in every case accompanies this waste of life, and the suffering which must inevitably follow it, and remember that it is admitted that these dreadful evils are remediable and preventible, it is difficult to suppress the natural feelings of indignation and of sorrow, that in a country calling itself Christian the application of the known remedies should be so long delayed.

It is right however to acknowledge that something has been done, and is in progress, for the improvement of the sanitary condition of the people. The principle is admitted that it is the duty of the Legislature to deal with this matter, and the first systematic legislative effort to bring about a better state of things has been made.

The Public Health Act is in operation, and the general and proper application by local authorities of the powers it confers would place every part of every town in Great Britain in as good a sanitary condition, at least, as that of the Model Dwellings.

Up to the present time (1855) there are under this Act 196 towns, containing a population of upwards of 2¼ millions. In about 50 of these towns, however, nothing has yet been done.

Eleven towns, with a population of about half a million, have adopted the powers of the Act in subsequent local acts.

Works of drainage and water supply are completed, or are in an advanced state, in 70 towns.

Mortgages have been sanctioned—

For drainage works nearly 1¾ and water supply, millions sterling;

──────────────────────────────────── For private works of about £45,000; drainage and water supply, ──────────────────────────────────── For paving, street about £200,000; improvements, &c.,

Making a total of nearly two millions sterling devoted to sanitary improvement.

Footnote 24:

This has been since greatly increased: see Appendix, p. 129. [ED.]

It is difficult at present to give the average cost of these combined and complete sanitary works; but the total expense for public and private works of drainage and water supply for houses of from £10 to £20 per annual rental, may be taken at 4d. per week per house.

The great obstacle to sanitary progress is the fear of rates, not so much on the part of the poor, who gladly pay for the improvements, but on the part of the owners of small tenements, by whom chiefly opposition is raised to the application of this Act.

In the town of Alnwick, public and private works of sewerage and drainage have been completed. There have been laid down about twenty miles of sewers and drains, and seventeen miles of apparatus for water supply, at a total cost, for the combined works, of 4d. per week per house for the term of thirty years; after the expiration of which period the cost of the works, both principal and interest, will have become liquidated, and the only expense thereafter will be for maintenance.

On inspecting these works, I saw in the tenements occupied by the lowest classes a high degree of cleanliness, wholesomeness, and comfort, and heard from the inhabitants an expression of the greatest satisfaction.

We have as yet no certain knowledge of the extent to which such works are capable of preventing sickness and lengthening life. But the most perfect drainage, combined with the most ample supply of water, will not alone secure for the public health all which it is practicable to accomplish. There must also be provision for the better construction of the houses of the poor; for the prevention of overcrowding; for street ventilation and cleansing, and for the exclusion from the neighbourhood of human dwellings of filth-creating animals and of noxious trades. When all this is done, as it might be done, and as it would be done were there a general perception of the crying evils it would remedy, Epidemics would disappear, the more formidable of them immediately, and all of them, I believe, in the end.

From the whole of these facts and observations we see—

1. That Epidemics are under our own control; we may promote their spread; we may prevent it. We may secure ourselves from them. We have done so. We have banished the most formidable. Those that remain are not so difficult to be conquered as those that have been vanquished. The causes of Typhus are more completely under our control than those of Intermittent. We have banished Intermittent. We may put an end to Typhus. We have actually done so. We have encompassed the Model Dwellings by a barrier which neither typhus, nor even cholera, nor any of the other causes of excessive sickness and premature mortality have been able to pass. To the residents within that barrier the chance of life has been almost doubled; to their children it has been doubled; and compared with some other children of their own class it has been increased fourfold.

2. We see that Epidemics are not made by a Divine law the necessary condition of man’s existence upon earth. The boon of life is not marred with this penalty. The great laws of nature, which are God’s ordinances in their regular course and appointed operation, do form and give off around us, products which are injurious to us; but He has given us senses to perceive them, and reason to devise the means of avoiding them, and epidemics arise and spread because we will not regard the one, nor use the other.

3. We see that there are circumstances which render it doubtful whether civilization has yet attained a point that places it beyond the danger of retrogression. States in some respects of higher civilization than our own have relapsed into barbarism. There is indeed one circumstance which may give us hope; there is one humanizing principle which is now at least recognized and in partial operation, of which there is no trace in any nation of antiquity. I mean the principle of kindness as a governing influence, distinguished from the principle of brute force.

That the whole human race is one family, that the people of every colour, clime, language, government, and faith, are one brotherhood, and that the same law of love which is the bond of the union, strength, and happiness of a single family, is equally binding on the universal family of mankind, are the fundamental and distinguishing principles of our religion; and in proportion to our conformity in our private and public life to the spirit of these divine principles, advancement in civilization is certain; relapse into barbarism is impossible. But as yet there is no such conformity. We neglect the education of the people, quarrelling about the mode, and postponing the thing. We devote to a life of absorbing labour the child and the youth ungrounded in the elements of knowledge, untrained to habits of self-restraint, thereby dooming the man to the blankness and turbulence of ignorance and intemperance. We equally neglect the sanitary condition of the people. We make no provision for securing to the humblest classes, and they can make none for themselves, the conditions that are essential to their physical health, the loss of which to them involves and includes every other. We thus neglect body and mind, and then the disorders and vices which necessarily follow we endeavour to repress by punishments that harden but never reform, neither trusting nor trying the influence of gentleness, which our religion teaches us is stronger than ignorance, stronger than crime, and can master both. It is this state of things that places in danger the ark of civilization.