VII.—RECOGNISED PRINCIPLES OF LEGISLATION AND STATE OF THE EXISTING LAW FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH. (continued 2)

“You conceive yourself on the other side to derive some benefit from these waters, because they cleanse and scour your sewers down?—Yes, as far as the direct run goes they do, but beyond that they do an injury that is incalculable; in this way the water runs right a-head, and an immense quantity is brought in, it fills it, and the collateral sewers cannot bear up against it, they are driven back and the sediment is deposited, and when it falls that is left behind.”

It need scarcely be pointed out that this municipal division had, until they chose to drain, operated as a barrier to all the water described, which was kept back to the injury of the county; to the injury indeed of the health of those merchants and traders, clerks and men of business, the population whose private residences are in the county, and beyond their residences to the injury of the city, in so far as their obstructions to drainage injured the pasturage and land cultivated for the supply of the city.

But a considerable portion of the city was itself imperfectly drained. The chairman was asked,—

311“539. Do you conceive there is any large portion of the City left without deriving direct advantage from the sewerage,—meaning, by direct advantage, some underground communication with the sewers so as to carry off the soil of the house?—There is a large part of the City of London in that state.”

It was stated, as an example, that Cheapside had no sewer. This was accounted for from the circumstance, that the

“whole form of that part of the city is like a tortoise’s back. Cheapside and Leadenhall-street are the back-bone; and that accounts for Cheapside, being the highest ground, never having had occasion for a sewer for the surface drainage; the water all flows northward and southward, so that accounts for the apparent contradiction of Cheapside, a main street, having no sewer in it.

“As far as surface drainage is concerned?—Yes; the inhabitants of Cheapside, generally speaking, have got cesspools: they perforated the yellow clay or loam and got into the gravel, and whatever is thrown into the cesspool mixes with the water and the earth: that is for the benefit of the water-drinkers!”

Thirty old streets in Westminster had no sewers. Other considerable and ancient streets were also without sewers, although the inhabitants contributed to the rates.

Nor does there appear to be any conception as to the objects of the service; and illegal fees, that must operate as exclusions to the poorer inhabitants from the advantages which it is most desirable to confer, were allowed to be exacted by the officers. Thus the chairman of the City Commission was asked,—

“574. Your clerks at the office take no fees?—I cannot say that they take no fees; there is an ancient fee allowed, that any person who communicates with the sewer shall pay a guinea; that is divided among the clerks, the surveyor, and inspector, who see that the communication is properly made: they pay a guinea for that purpose.

“575. Are your clerks paid by those fees?—No, by fixed salary; the fees are very trifling, for till lately they did not amount to 100l. a-year.

“576. The aggregate of the fees?—Yes, nor to 50l. a-year: if a party applies to communicate with a sewer, and the Commissioners have no objection, they call upon him to pay the estimate of the surveyor, and the charges are made at the contract price, and in addition to that they pay one guinea as a fee.”

In another Commission the surveyor’s fee for the privilege is stated to be one guinea.

Before the Committee Mr. James Peake, the surveyor of the Commissioners for the Tower Hamlets, states (Committee on Health of Towns), “that in making a communication to the common sewers, the parties who have to make the drain, besides doing it at their own expense, have to pay 17s. 6d. for the first three feet of sewer. And they,” the Commissioners of Sewers, “do that for this reason:—if they were not to resort to that measure, the sewers would be destroyed. Every one would make a hole in the sewer,” i. e., every one would use the sewer.

312Mr. Samuel Byles, another witness examined before the same Committee, was asked—

“193. You state that a great deal of disease is generated by the want of ventilation and sewerage; is there any power in the Sewer Commissioners to oblige the parties inhabiting the district to communicate with the sewer if they made one?—No; and there is unfortunately a paradox; there is a penalty on any person communicating from his house into the common sewer.

“194. If they are assessed to it that is not the case, is it?—Yes; it appears to be a complete paradox; if privies are known to empty themselves into the common sewer, the person is liable to a penalty.”

No arrangements are made to bring the effects of the absence of drainage to the knowledge of those bodies for their guidance in the performance of their duties, nor does it appear to enter into their conception that the protection of the public health forms any part of the objects of their service. Mr. James Peake, the surveyor of the Commissioners of the Tower Hamlets, was questioned on this point—

“2012. It is stated to the Committee, that ‘in a direct line from Virginia-row to Shoreditch, a mile in extent, all the lanes, courts, and alleys in the neighbourhood pour their contents into the centre of the main street, where they stagnate and putrefy;’ is that the case?—I perceive by an inspection of the plan that there is no sewer about Virginia-row; there is none nearer to it than Princes-street.

“2013. It is stated that in some or other of those houses fever is always prevalent; do you know the district so as to be aware whether that is the case?—I cannot speak as to the state of the inhabitants; I know it is very wretched. The whole of this land was excavated for brick-making, and has been reduced to an unnatural level, so that the sewers are hardly available. I believe many of those houses have ditches round their gardens, and flowers and roots and stems are thrown into the ditches, where they remain and stagnate; we are working up, and shall be able to get the sewer in some parts five feet lower than it was.

“2014. It is stated to the Commissioners that in Whitechapel parish, Essex-street and its numerous courts, as Martin’s-court, Moor’s-court, Essex-court, Elgar-square, George-yard, and New-court, Crown-court, Wentworth-street, and many parts of that street, there is no sewer passes up?—There is none.

“2015. Are the people very much in want of some mode of cleansing in consequence?—It is the filthiest place which can be imagined.

“2316. Is it thickly inhabited?—Yes, very densely populated.

“2028. Do you not think that the want of such provision is very injurious to the health of the inhabitants?—I do not think that sewers have the effect which is attributed to them.

“2029. You disagree with the medical men who think that the neglect of this underground drainage is prejudicial to the health of the community?—I cannot see how, if they have a good surface drainage, they can be improved by an underground drainage, in nine cases out of ten.

“2064. Do you consider it your duty to alter a sewer, or carry up a sewer, with reference to the health of the inhabitants?—Certainly not.

313“2065. Any alteration in the form of the sewerage, or any change respecting it, is with reference to property, not with reference to the health of the inhabitants?- Certainly.”

Mr. Unwin, the clerk to the Commissioners of Sewers for the Tower Hamlets, was thus examined before the Committee:—

“1433. Do you know Hare-street-fields?—I do; that is not very densely populated: there are a number of houses, but very few persons living in them.

“1434. Do you know that in wet weather a large portion of that neighbourhood is completely inundated; that in all the houses forming the square, and in the neighbouring streets, fever is constantly breaking out, and that the character of the fever in the neighbourhood has lately been very malignant?—I never heard that before.

“1435. Then if that has occurred in the midst of your district, it is a matter you never heard of?—Just so.

“1436. Do you know Baker’s-Arms-alley?—That is in the parish of Hackney; that is in our district; but it is a very open place.

“1437. If it is the fact that there is a narrow court with a dead wall about two yards from the houses, as high as the houses; that the principal court is intersected by other courts extremely narrow, in which it is scarcely possible for air to penetrate close to the dead wall; that between the wall and the houses there is a gutter, in which is always present a quantity of stagnant fluid full of all sorts of putrefying matter, the effluvia from which are most offensive, and the sense of closeness extreme; that all the houses are dark, gloomy, and extremely filthy; that at the top of the innermost courts are the privies, which are open and uncovered, the soil of which is seldom removed, and the stench of which is abominable; you have not heard of that?—No, I have not heard of any of those circumstances; I have heard of very few complaints of fever in the Tower Hamlets.

“1440. Do you not recollect that there are most fearful accounts of fever prevailing in that district?—No, I had a report sent to me, which I understood came from Dr. Southwood Smith, and there was a communication I think from the Secretary of State upon it.”

At the very time that this witness had heard of few complaints of fever in the Tower Hamlets, the Board found themselves compelled, on account of the appalling prevalence of fever amongst the poor resident in that district, to direct the special inquiry by Dr. Arnott, Dr. Kay, and Dr. Southwood Smith, as to the causes of the fever which led to the present extended inquiry. The description given in the question of the narrow court, with the dead wall about two yards from the houses was taken from one of those reports. That self-same court was the Bakers’-Arms alley, named in the preceding question; but instead of being situate, as described by the witness, in the parish of Hackney, two or three miles from the office of the Commissioners of Sewers, it is in Rosemary-lane, distant from that office only the length of a street, and that not a very long one—Leman-street.

On the subject of the escapes of gas from the sewers there is no one point on which medical men are so clearly agreed, as on 314the connexion of exposure of persons to the miasma from sewers, and of fever as a consequence. It appears that the evils of these escapes, on which several medical men to whose testimony we have alluded gave evidence before the Committee of 1834, may be prevented, and one of them prepared a plan for this purpose. He states that the Commissioners having expressed their doubts as to whether they were justified in trying the experiment at the public expense, he said—

“Very well, gentlemen, I suppose you are quite right there; I will enter into an undertaking with you to do it at my own expense, to a limited extent, in any part that the surveyor of the sewers will say he thinks it will fail; at the worst part that he can point out I will try it; and moreover, in that undertaking I engaged to replace the things in statu quo if they failed. I entered into that understanding, and, as I was given to understand, the parish sent their bond, with a copy of the request, to the Commissioners. Some time elapsed and I heard nothing of it, and in fact I thought the thing was so simple, and as I heard nothing to the contrary, I began to make inquiries as to getting these traps cast, when one morning the parish surveyor brought me the model back, with a verbal message, which was, that ‘whether it would answer or not, it should not be tried;’ the Commissioners had made up their minds that the stink should not be kept down.”

The reply made to this before the Committee on behalf of the Commissioners, by one of the officers, was, “The sewers must have vent somewhere; if you stop the vent in the street, it will penetrate into the houses; also the danger from the gas-explosions are continually taking place, and our people are frequently sent to the hospital. Our surveyor can show a specimen of an entire new skin to his hand, and he had an entire new skin to his face, and laid up in a very dangerous state. This was from an explosion in the sewers. This is a danger the Commissioners must of necessity look to.” “The gas always ascends from its lightness. If the air-trap was put at the upper end of the gully-drain, that would be the place where the gas would lodge, and any candle brought near to this outlet into the upper part would occasion an explosion.”

Now it is precisely because “the gas always ascends from its lightness” that men of competent science declare, without reference to the particular plan proposed in this instance, that by means of a shaft or chimney properly placed, private houses as well as the workmen may be relieved from the dangers of the escapes of this gas, which is becoming more deleterious from the increasing drainage from private houses as well as from the escapes of gas from the gas-pipes, into the sewers of which very strong instances are stated in the evidence.

In the map of Leeds, where the cholera track is pourtrayed, it will be observed that it followed closely the fever track; and were such maps so far improved as to show at a view the condition of a 315district in respect to dwelling and drainage, the marks to denote sites where the drainage was imperfect would at the same time denote the seats of epidemic disease. This had been so far observed by medical men that there was, perhaps, no point on which they were more anxious and urgent than that increased sewerage and cleansing should be adopted as preventives of the cholera. Yet in one extensive densely populated district, the Commissioners, because they had observed no effects on their own men, who were accustomed to the sewers, took upon themselves to disregard all the precautions advised by persons of complete knowledge. “At the time of the cholera the arching over the sewers was very much applied for” in the Ravensbourne Commission; “but,” says the officer of the commission, “I do not think there was anything done on account of the cholera, because the court held a different feeling on that point. Out of all the men employed by the Commissioners of Sewers, and who were constantly in those sewers, there was not one of those attacked by the cholera.”

All this incompleteness as to the extent of the districts drained, and the imperfection in the mode of executing the works, appears from the complaints and evidence given before the Committee to be accompanied by disproportionate and oppressive assessments and extravagant expenditure.

The rates were complained of as levied on property which was undrained, and derived no benefit from them; and by equal assessments on houses which derive benefit by direct communications with the sewers, and on houses which have no communication with them, and only derive benefit from the surface drainage, and in some cases on houses which were unoccupied. These unequal charges, sometimes for long periods, and for large and permanent works, fell upon a fluctuating tenancy. “We should claim,” says one witness, “20 years’ rate from the incoming tenant (122), or we might have sold the premises” (129).

In respect to the existing expenditure, very strong statements of mismanagement were made in the majority of the town districts; but I prefer referring on this topic to the evidence taken before the Committee of the House of Commons. One marked character of the expenditure is the greater amount paid to the clerk of the Board, and for office expenses, than for any skill or science in the superintendence of the work. Thus in the district where the Commissioners, on the example of their own workmen, adjudged that the applications for arching over the sewers on the ground that they created a predisposition to the spread of the epidemic were unfounded, the payments to the clerk of the Board for his salary and office was 750l., assistant-clerk 100l., and three surveyors were paid each 50l. (besides commission on works executed, and a fee of a guinea for communicating with the drain.) In another subdivision the expenses of the clerks, messengers, &c., exclusive of collection, were 15,737l. for 20 years, while for the 316same period the expense of surveyors, inspectors, and clerks of the works was 14,928l. In another division the tavern expenses for 20 years were 7,935l. In one district the cost of the commission, compared with the beneficial outlay on the works, appeared to be 200 per cent. In regard to another level, it is stated that there was laid out on works the sum of 17,455l. 18s. 10d.; and—

£. s. d.

In working the commission 9,003 18 7

Commission on collection 1,635 10 9½

Total £10,639 9 4½

======= == ==

The proportion of the cost of management to the expenditure on work appears to have been similar in others of these administrative bodies. The Committee stated as a principal defect of these bodies—“The want of publicity and responsibility systematically enforced.” There were several of the trusts in which the Courts have not been open to the public, the right of the ratepayers to inspect the accounts not admitted, and “where consequently a real responsibility in money matters can hardly be said to exist.”

Mr. W. Fowler, a Commissioner, says—

“If they are to go from year’s end to year’s end without being subject to any control, I feel the money will be expended as I believe it now is, and dribbled away, not expended fairly in carrying the ostensible works into execution.”

Another defect resulting from the capricious constitution of these trusts, on which the Committee reported, was the want of uniformity.

“There are no two districts in which the law does not vary, or where, if the law be the same, the commissioners do not interpret some parts of in a different manner.

“Thus, a man having property in Finsbury and in Westminster, or in the City and in the Tower Hamlets, may find himself placed under different systems, and may be led by his knowledge of the regulations of the one district to violate the regulations of the other.”

Such being the unfavourable constitution of these bodies as described in the Parliamentary Reports, and the evidence taken before the Committees, the accounts given of the qualifications of many of the officers of these trusts for the execution of any work of magnitude requiring scientific attainments are equally unfavourable. The following general account of them is given by an architect of eminence, who has conducted large works in the metropolis and in various parts of the country, and is corroborated by several other engineers of extensive practice.

“In the rural districts, the men appointed as surveyors by the local Commissioners are very little better than common labourers, men with no idea of construction or of management; that is the description of men I have met with in the country places: they are commonly a sort of foremen of the labourers who are called ‘ditch casters.’ In the towns 317the men appointed are frequently decayed builders, or tradesmen whose knowledge is limited to common artificers’ work, such as bricklayers’ and carpenters’ work. Some may be capable of drawing: only a few. They have neither education, nor salary, nor station, to place them above bribery, and the consequences are notoriously such as might be expected of public services performed by such an agency. In some instances there are very good exceptions; that is, where the remuneration is adequate to ensure the service of a respectable persons, and where, as occasionally happens, a person of respectability has the local influence to obtain the appointment. The district surveyors in the metropolis are in general respectable and well-qualified public officers. In local matters no thought is ever had of combining duties. The chief concern of the Commissioner of sewers, where he holds property of his own, is to drain his own property.”

Another description of the persons usually appointed as surveyors is given in the following terms by a gentleman who is himself a surveyor of extensive practice:—

“As regards the appointment of surveyors to the Commissioners of Sewers, I would observe that, in my opinion, very few of them are properly qualified by education or otherwise to perform the important duties entrusted to them in an effective and proper manner. A man to be a good surveyor of sewers should be a practical civil engineer, in which science is comprehended levelling in all its branches, and other matters requisite and necessary in the construction of drains and sewers: in proof of this, an instance recently occurred in one of the divisions (which I need not particularize) in the construction of a sewer, that after it had proceeded for a considerable distance, from an error in taking the levels, was found to be below the level of the outlet, and was in consequence obliged to be all destroyed, and another sewer constructed upon a proper level. This error was so clearly traced to the want of practical knowledge on the part of the surveyor, or the application of it, that he was amerced in the greater part of the cost.”

A builder of extensive experience in the wealthy districts of the metropolis states, that in making drains and executing works which communicate with the sewers on which large sums have been expended, he has not found one main sewer in three properly made; and the strongest statements of the extravagant nature of the expenditure was made by witnesses who had themselves acted as members of the bodies directing it.

The office business of two of the commissions appeared to me to be very respectably conducted. But in the structural arrangements, in only one commission do any of the works executed approach the existing state of science. In that one, the Holborn and Finsbury trust, they happened to obtain a surveyor, having science and practical experience as an engineer, whose advice was acted upon, and that officer effected the only considerable improvements of a scientific character that have been made in the sewerage of the metropolis. These improvements for preventing the accumulations of deposits in the sewers, and the generation of 318malaria, and at the same time reducing the expenses of cleansing more than one-half, must be considered improvements of a very high order. But though they are demonstrated, and in full and successful action, they appear to have been imitated only in one other adjacent district. In the others they go on constructing sewers which are the latent sources of pestilence and death. This officer was asked the following questions:—

“If the public, who may be ignorant of the science of sewerage and of what it may accomplish, make no complaints, and do not call for the adoption of any improved system, in how long a time do you think the improvements demonstrated in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions would reach the other ends of the metropolis by the force of imitation and voluntary adoption?—From the apathy shown and prejudice against anything new, however valuable it may be as an improvement, and the various interests affected, such as the contractors for cleansing, I do not expect that they would become general in the metropolis during my life-time. The public are passive, and the adverse interests are active.

“You know the description of persons engaged as surveyors of various descriptions in the rural districts and in the smaller towns?—Yes, I do.

“Unless care be taken, is it to be apprehended that any new expenditure will be made on imperfect and unwholesome drains with flat bottoms and on false principles at a disproportionate expense?—Undoubtedly, except they have to act on rule, it will certainly be so throughout the country. The drainage that I have seen in the country districts is worse than in the metropolis.”

The consideration of these circumstances, in respect to the past expenditure in this branch of local administration, appears to be necessary for meeting the objections and opposition to any future expenditure, and especially of any apparent increase required for the successful removal of the physical causes of bodily suffering, and the moral degradation of the labouring classes. In the towns and districts where the chief evils in question are admitted, but where anything wearing the appearance of a new expenditure for any purpose is unpopular, and will be thwarted or yielded unwillingly, the objections when examined are found to consist mainly of a rooted distrust of the money being equally levied, or carefully and efficiently expended for the attainment of the professed objects of public advantage. From such evidence as that already adduced from the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons, but presented in greater extent and strength in the course of the present inquiry—of instances of disease and death occasioned by miasma from badly made and sluggish or stagnant drains that pervade whole towns, it will be seen that it cannot fairly be said that the distrust is not well founded.

A due examination, however, of the experience even of voluntary and private expenditure on the wealthy districts where water is laid on, and the main drainage is complete for the removal of refuse, appears to establish the conclusion that only a part of the work is then attained, and that for the economical attainment of 319the general objects of protecting the least protected classes, that which is generally deemed the private and subordinate work, namely, the house drainage, must form part of the same general system, and be executed under the same general superintendence.

It appears to be partly a defect in legislation, and partly a defect in the constitution of the existing authorities for the direction of public drainage, that their agency is never thought of for the superintendence even of work which can seldom be cheaply and efficiently executed by private individuals, and that can only be so executed and kept in order by the systematic application of science and skill. An order, that the landlords of all houses which have no drains communicating with the main drains shall make them, is an order, when viewed in its operation in a street or district where there are 50 or 100 different owners, that those 50 or 100 persons shall separately get plans possibly from as many different builders, and enter into contracts with them, and procure capital which, to poor owners, will be a serious amount of several hundred pounds in the aggregate, to be applied as a permanent investment on property in which a large proportion of them will only have various transitory interests. Viewed in its aggregate operation on all places requiring amendment, the simple compulsory enactment for house drainage, and without any previous care as to the means, would be, in effect, an order for the expenditure of several millions of money in the manner described by Mr. Charles Oldfield, a practical witness of great experience, whose evidence (corroborated by the testimony of other witnesses of extensive experience) has already been referred to on this important topic:—

“Have you as a builder had much experience in the drainage of houses?—Very considerable experience, and I pay particular attention to it; there is no part of a building to which I pay more attention than to the drainage. I seldom allow the drains to be covered in without seeing to them myself.

“Do you think it desirable that legislative provision should be made for the drainage of the tenements of the labouring classes?—I think it most necessary; but merely ordering the drains to be made will not do. Drains made for the tenements of the working classes, if left to the parties, are almost sure to be badly constructed, and badly constructed drains might merely carry away the soil; they might not do that; and they would probably let in as great an evil, namely, the foul air from the sewer. In general, unless care be taken, what is called making drains will be opening conduits for the escape of foul air from the sewers into the houses. This is frequently so with the houses of the better classes of persons, where the drains are not made perfectly air-tight, and are not properly trapped at all the apertures. I am frequently called upon to examine houses where they say they are oppressed by unpleasant smells. Some time ago I was called upon to examine a house in one of the principal streets in London, belonging to a gentleman of distinction, who was about to abandon it in consequence of the unpleasant smells which were continually arising. He was particularly annoyed that this smell 320arose in the greatest strength whenever he had parties; the drains had been opened, and there was no lodgement of soil in them. People commonly imagine that when they get rid of the soil they have got rid of the stench; they do not see and do not conceive the effect of the foul air, which is so much lighter than atmospheric air that it escapes where the atmospheric air would not. On examining the drains at his house, I found that they were imperfect, and that the foul air filtered through them. Whenever he had a party there was a stronger fire in the kitchen, and stronger fires in other parts of the house, and the windows and the external doors being shut, and a greater draught created, larger quantities of the foul air from the sewers rose up. These stenches arise in the greatest strength in the private houses when the doors and windows are closed, the fire and column of light air in the chimney being at work. So it would be with drains made from the house to the sewer, or from the sewer to the house of the poor man, unless care were taken in the construction of the drains. When the door was shut, and he sat down to enjoy his fireside, he would have a stench. This would be the effect of merely ordering the drains to be made by the owners of such tenements, who would get the work done in the way they thought to be the least expensive. You would have them made in a row of tenements with every difference in faults,—different forms, different sizes, different falls, bad materials, without traps at the apertures, and not air-tight; therefore constantly conducting a stream of polluted air from the sewers into the houses; and there will be faults which an inspector will not easily remedy when work is done in this manner.

“In what way, then, would you recommend them to be done, for efficiency?—They should be done entirely by the persons in charge of the sewers, or under the control of officers of competent skill, who should have power to enter upon the premises, and see that the whole of the work was properly done. Neither should private persons have power to make any alteration without giving notice, and making the alteration according to well-tried and approved plans. I confine my observations, however, to tenements of certain size,—to those for the labouring man, who has no power to protect himself, and who stands in need of protection. It might be deemed objectionable to exercise any control over the higher class of tenements, and the wealthier people are able to protect themselves; but all those things that are out of sight are done in the worst manner in the smaller tenements.

“If such an authority were to contract for the drainage of a whole street, how much more cheaply do you conceive the work might be done under one contract than if the labour were to be done separately, by perhaps as many different occupiers or owners as there are houses, each employing his own bricklayer?—At the least, from 10 to 15 per cent. difference. Serving a notice in writing on a poor occupier, perhaps a shifting one, that he is to get a drain made, would be of no use. Proceeding by serving notices on the owners of such tenements, is a course beset with difficulties. Many of the small owners are not readily to be found; the ownership to some of the poorest plots are in dispute. Then, when the owners are found, every owner has to seek and bargain with a bricklayer for what he does unwillingly, and whom he tells to do the work in the cheapest way he can. The owner does not usually know what instructions to give; and in nine cases out of ten the work will be badly, and at the same time expensively done. It is with the greatest difficulty 321that I can get the drains to my own houses properly done. Frequent complaints are made of the state of the sewers by occupants in some districts, but when they are examined it is found, in many cases, that the cause of complaint arises from their own drain not being properly made. The poorer or reluctant owner would seek a cheap or needy bricklayer, and will get an expensive one. Everything ordered of this kind may be made a job of; the bricklayer may do more than is wanted, or may make larger drains than necessary, and thereby incur useless expense. If it be done by the public authorities, leaving to the private parties to do it if they please within a limited period, under the inspection of a proper officer, it can hardly fail to be much less expensively done for the private individual himself, and it is very sure to be better done for the poor owner. The certain obstacles to any mere general enactments to have the work done by a multitude of persons will be immense, and the work will certainly be badly done, whilst, if it is well done, it will be of the greatest public advantage.”

Mr. Roe, the engineer, was asked, with reference to house drainage—

“Have you found the system of cleansing the large drains by flushing with proper supplies of water equally applicable to small drains?—Yes, equally applicable. A gentleman has tried it on a private drain of 18–inch capacity, and 1200 feet length, and it answers equally well. It is cleansed by the collection of refuse water from 30 or 40 houses.

“Might not the drains from private houses be also cleansed in the same mode?—Yes, they might have a small and cheap apparatus for carrying away all ordinary refuse. If in the small drain a brick fell in, it could not be removed by the force of the small quantity of water which could be obtained in such a situation. In our large sewers the heads of water are in some cases strong enough to sweep away loose bricks.

“Would it not be of advantage to the occupier if the private drains were under the same general superintendence?—I conceive it would in management. They are frequently put to great expense by getting persons to attend to them who really do not understand them. They are often now obliged to have recourse to the contractor’s men. Private property is often drained through other private property, and when the drains are choked, if the parties are not on good terms, they will not allow each other facilities for cleansing. Under the Finsbury Local Act there is a power to enforce the cleansing of private drains, and by way of appeal that power is sometimes resorted to by private individuals.

“May we not presume that the same principles of hydraulics, as to the advantages of a flow over a semicircular bottom, are as applicable to small drains as to large ones?—More so from the flow of water being smaller; the greater necessity for keeping it in a body to enable it to carry away the common deposit.

“Then there is a proportionate loss in having the private drainage made with flat-bottomed bricks or boards?—Yes, there is proportionate loss from the extra cost of cleansing. Semicircular drains of tiles would be better, and cheaper than brick for private houses.”

Supposing that only one-third of the existing tenements require drainage, the saving of 15 per cent. on the expenditure by the execution of the work by contract under the superintendence of a 322responsible engineer would be more than 1,500,000l. sterling on the outlay, independently of the difference in efficiency.

The necessity has previously been suggested of spreading the immediate cost over a number of years to make the charge coincident with the benefit. Were it left to the option of individuals to repay the cost at intervals of 20 or 30 years, and charge their tenants, as described in a supposed form of notice to them, which I have appended to illustrate the practical working of such a provision, (allowing them either to defray the whole cost at once, or execute the work themselves, under proper superintendence; if they thought they could execute it cheaper,) the immediate advantages of such improvements would then have some chance of being fairly estimated as against the immediate cost and inconveniences of a change, and resistance from latent motives of hostility would be obviated.

But however the charge may be diffused, and to whatever extent opposition on the part of the smaller owners may be obviated by care, it cannot safely be overlooked that in the poorest districts where it is most important that the works should be well executed, the superior direction of such expenditure will, in the ordinary course, fall into the hands of the owners of the worst-conditioned tenements, who have the greatest dread of immediate expenses, and who are under the strongest influence of petty jealousies; for in such districts it is precisely the class of persons who cannot agree to profitable measures of private drainage, who are the owners of the worst tenements, who, having leisure during the intervals of their weekly collections, and from other causes, are most frequently found in honorary offices for the direction of local expenditure. One officer, when asked how it was that in a district where fever had been rife nothing had been done under the authority of the law, which authorized its being cleansed? replied, that the Board had made precisely the same objections that were made when the cholera appeared; when it was proposed to cleanse the district, the answer made at the Board was, that “they did not believe it would do any good:” and those of the officers who were landlords of the weekly tenements said, “Why should we disturb and drive away our tenants?” and those who were shopkeepers said, “Why should we frighten away our customers by representing the neighbourhood as unhealthy?” consequently nothing was done.

The legislature, in making demands for such honorary services, has usually proceeded on the theory which views all those who may be called upon to render them, as persons qualified to understand the whole subject intuitively, and having no other interest or views than to perform the services zealously for the common weal; whereas, in the locality they are viewed in a totally different light, not as public officers, but in their private capacities, as owners or tradesmen, competitors for advantages of various kinds. However 323unjust this impression may frequently be, it is the impression that commonly prevails; and since all of one class cannot have a share in the administration of such funds, others of the same class, whether owners or tradesmen, view the persons exercising the power as rivals, and distrust their administration accordingly. As an owner, one member of a local Board is strongly indisposed to any line of operations that will apparently improve the property of another; and as an owner, too, he is under the strongest jealousy if he proposes or does anything which may appear to benefit his own property at the public expense.

Neither is such distrust as to trustworthiness from skill and adverse private interests confined to the administration of the public works of sewerage and drainage; it is fortified by the example of the local administration of the works of road construction and repair, a branch of administration so inseparably connected with drainage operations, as to justify and require a joint consideration with them.

Witnesses of the most extensive practical experience lay the greatest stress on the necessity of lifting these important branches of administration out of the influence of petty and sinister interests, and of doing so by securing the appointment of officers of superior scientific attainments, who (subject to a proper local as well as general control) may be made responsible for directing any new expenditure on a scale of efficiency as well as of economy. A competent, scientific, and efficient management, let it be applied to what part of these works it may, can scarcely fail to be immediately as well as ultimately the most economical management. But it will be found on examination that the consolidation of all the structural arrangements, comprising under-drainage and surface-drainage, road structure and repair, under one service, is most required for the sake of efficiency. Division of labour in the arts derives its efficiency from combination, adaptation, and subordination to direction to one end; but that which appears to be a division of labour in local administration is, in fact, an insubordinate separation, weakening the means of procuring adequate skill and power, occasioning obstructions and defective execution, and enhancing expense. Were pins or machines made as sewers and roads are constructed; shafts of pins would be made without reference to heads,—in machines screws would be made without sockets, and, it may be confidently stated, there would not be a safe or perfect and well-working machine in the whole country.

Mr. Telford, in a report on the Holyhead road, makes the following observations:—

“Perfect management must be guided by rules and regulations, and these must be carried into effect by the unceasing attention of a judicious and faithful surveyor who has by actual experience and attention acquired 324a thorough knowledge of all that is required, and applicable to the general and local state of particular districts, as regards soil, materials, and climate; likewise the sort of wear to which the surface is liable. A person possessed of all these requisites, and otherwise properly qualified to level and set out new lines, &c., where necessary, must receive the remuneration such a character merits, and may always obtain, in this active and industrious country. But however convinced and well-disposed trustees maybe to give this remuneration, the tolls of five or six miles do not afford the means of giving it. The consequence is that the Shifnal Trust (four miles) has hitherto been under the management of a person so little acquainted with proper road business, that it becomes a serious consideration whether it will be prudent to suffer the extensive improvement at Priors Leigh to be entrusted to his care. Until the Parliamentary Commissioners interfered and showed a practical example, the Wellington Trust (seven miles) was managed almost wholly by the clerk; he had a sort of foreman, who appeared to be only partly employed on the road. And on the Shrewsbury Trust (seven miles), as has already been stated, the surveyor and contractor were united in the same person. All these managers proceeded, without regard to any rules and regulations whatever, receiving only occasional directions from some of the most active of the trustees, whose varying opinions served more to distract than benefit the practical operations of the workmen. I must beg leave to add that these observations are applicable to all trusts of similar extent, and are evidences of the propriety of establishing districts of a magnitude to justify a more perfect arrangement, and the employing of a properly qualified surveyor, whose sole occupation should be the road under his care, and who should also be enabled to keep constantly employed a set of workmen thoroughly conversant with road observations, and working chiefly by contract.”—First Annual Report on the Holyhead Road, May 4, 1824. p. 25.

It need scarcely be necessary to observe that in the sense of that great engineer, care of the road implied the greatest care in respect to the drainage. In consequence of the limited areas of management, although great expense is incurred, the appointments of the surveyors to superintend works which are never well executed by any other than an experienced engineer, are inferior even to the appointments of the paid officers to superintend the sewerage. Sir Henry Parnell in his work, “On the Formation and Management of the Public Roads,” thus compendiously describes the composition of the chief bodies by whom these officers are chosen and directed:—

“According to the provisions of every Turnpike Act, a great number of persons are named as trustees; the practice is to make almost every one a trustee, residing in the vicinity of a road, who is an opulent farmer or tradesman, as well as all the nobility and persons of large landed properly: so that a trust seldom consists of fewer than 100 persons, even it the length of the road to be maintained by them does not exceed a few miles. The result of this practice is, that in every set of trustees there are to be found persons who do not possess a single 325qualification for the office, persons who conceive they are raised by the title of a road trustee to a station of some importance, and who too often seek to show it by opposing their superiors in ability and integrity when valuable improvements are under consideration, taking care, too frequently, to turn their authority to account, by so directing the spending of the road money as may best promote the interests of themselves or their connexions.

“It sometimes happens that if one trustee, more intelligent and more public-spirited than the rest, attempts to take a lead, and proposes a measure in every way right and proper to be adopted, his ability to give advice is questioned, his presumption condemned, his motives suspected; and as every such measure will, almost always, have the effect of defeating some private object, it is commonly met either by direct rejection or some indirect contrivance for getting rid of it. In this way intelligent and public-spirited trustees become disgusted, and cease to attend meetings; for, besides frequently experiencing opposition and defeat at the hands of the least worthy of their associates, they are annoyed by the noise and language with which the discussions are carried on, and feel themselves placed in a situation in which they are exposed to insult and ill-usage.”

He observes, that “Although this turnpike system has led to the making of many new roads, and to the changing of many old ones into what may be called good roads in comparison with what they formerly were, this system has been carried into execution under such erroneous regulations, and the persons who have been entrusted with the administration of them have uniformly been either so negligent or so little acquainted with the business of making or repairing roads, that at this moment it may be stated with the utmost correctness that there is not a road in England, except those recently made by some eminent civil engineers, which is not extremely defective in the most essential qualities of a perfect road.” To the varying extent of these defects the public are forced to ascend unnecessary heights, travel unnecessary distances, employ more horse-labour than would be necessary in travelling over roads that are kept hard, dry, and level, instead of wet, soft, and rugged. From the Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the subject, it appears that for every 200 miles of turnpike road there are, on an average, ten surveyors: whereas, if the highways and turnpike trusts were consolidated, one properly qualified surveyor might perform much better the service with which the ten are charged. There are, it appears, 1,116 turnpike trusts, comprehending about 22,000 miles. The officers employed consist of 1,120 treasurers, 1,135 clerks, and 1,300 surveyors: total, 3,555. The annual cost of the repair of the turnpike roads is 51l. per mile: total expenditure of 1,122,000l. per annum. The debts amounted to upwards of 9,000,000l. and they appeared to be rapidly increasing. The average expense of the management of the highway and the turnpike roads is estimated at 10l. per mile per annum; but it is calculated that if the management 326of the turnpikes and highways were consolidated, they might be better managed at an expense of from 30s. to 2l. per mile per annum. On comparing the actual expense of the repairs of roads under a scientific management of the highways with the common cost, it appears probable that by management on an extended and appropriate scale, upwards of 500,000l. per annum may be saved on that branch of administration alone.

The Committee of the House of Commons, which sat in 1834, examined some of the most able engineers in the country, and a Commission subsequently appointed, at the head of which were the Duke of Richmond and the Marquis of Salisbury, coincided in recommending the adoption of the principle of consolidation as the only means of retrieving that branch of administration.

I venture humbly to submit the grounds for the opinion in which I believe their Lordships would concur, that the principle of consolidation may be carried still further, and include all public works within the locality, as the best means of obtaining for each or for all, at the least expense, the most efficient scientific direction.

It has been shown, in respect to drainage as well as road construction, that the economy and efficiency of the works will be according to the qualifications, the powers, and responsibilities of the officers appointed to execute them, secured by legislative means, and that new labour on the old condition, without skill, will be executed in the old manner, extravagantly and inefficiently. But engineers or properly qualified officers having the science of civil engineering could not be procured for every separate purpose in every part of the country, as is generally assumed in Acts of Parliament for effecting particular objects. When such connected work is divided and separated, the remuneration necessary to obtain properly qualified officers to attend to the fragment of service is too high; the separation, therefore, in most places, amounts to the exclusion of science from public work, or, in other words, to its degradation. It will be found, when the works of draining and road making and maintenance are examined, that the common practice of making sewers on plans independently of the construction of roads, and roads independently of the arrangements for cleansing and keeping them dry, is always to the disadvantage of the work and to the public. The same surface levels and surveys serve for drainage and for road construction. The construction of the drains for roads and streets, and the maintenance of them, are the primary and most important works; the construction and maintenance of the surface of the road is a connected work, subsequent in order, and can be best superintended by the same officer. In every part of the country inconveniences and losses are experienced from the separation of such work on almost every occasion where repair or new construction is needed. In the towns a road is broken up by the bursting of a sewer or the necessity of cleansing 327or repairing it; the sewer is repaired, but the road is left broken, because the road surveyor and his separate set of workmen are engaged in some other work. In the metropolis, the breaches left in the roads by the delay and want of concert amongst the various officers are a source not only of great obstruction but of frequent accidents. In replacing the pavements the water and the gas-pipes are not unfrequently put out of order, and these again occasion another opening and another expense to the public, for repairs. In the rural districts a road is out of repair, but the first remedy is drainage; the road surveyor cannot proceed because the sewers’ surveyor has his men elsewhere occupied. In various other particulars the consolidation of the same work under the same officer, acting with a combined staff of foremen and workmen, is attended with advantages in efficiency and economy to which it were unnecessary to advert, if the opposite arrangements were not the most frequent. In the few instances that have taken place of a combination of duties, the experience of the advantages of the combination would occasion a proposal for separating them to be viewed as an increase of trouble and expense, and a hinderance to the proper execution of the work.

In the districts where the greatest defects prevail, we find such an array of officers for the superintendence of public structures as would lead to the à priori conclusion of a high degree of perfection in the work from the apparent subdivision of labour in which it is distributed. In the same petty districts we have surveyors of sewers appointed by the commissioners of sewers, surveyors of turnpike-roads appointed by the trustees of the turnpike trusts, surveyors of highways appointed by the inhabitants in vestry, or by district boards under the Highway Act; paid district surveyors appointed by the justices, surveyors of paving under local Acts, surveyors of building under the Building Act, surveyors of county bridges, &c.

The qualifications of a civil engineer involve the knowledge of the prices of the materials and labour used in construction, and also the preparation of surveys, and the general qualifications for valuations, which are usually enhanced by the extent of the range of different descriptions of property with which the valuator is conversant. The public demands for the services of such officers as valuators are often as mischievously separated and distributed as the services for the construction and maintenance of public works. Thus we have often, within the same districts, one set of persons appointed for the execution of valuations and surveys for the levy of the poor’s rates; another set for the surveys and valuations for the assessed taxes; another for the land tax; another for the highway rates; another for the sewers’ rates; another for the borough rates; another for the church rates; another for the county rates, where parishes neglect to pay, or are unequally assessed, and for extra-parochial places; another for tithe commutation. 328And these services are generally badly rendered separately at an undue expense.

It is in the ordinary course that local bodies would have the power of appointing surveyors for seeing to the execution of provisions for the regulation of buildings, on the precedent of the Metropolitan Building Act; and these officers are paid by fees varying from 1l. to 3l. 10s. each building. In the towns, it is rare that one-story houses are erected where the ground is of much value; and it will be a low average to take all the new houses as of two stories, that, is, fourth-rate houses, for which a fee of 2l. has been proposed to be paid. Before the building surveyor can proceed, the sewers’ surveyor must have seen that the drains are properly laid, and the builder have obtained a certificate from him to that effect. The labour of the budding surveyor, if properly performed, may require as much as an hour for the inspection of each new building. But the amount of the proposed fee would in general more than pay, in ordinary cases, for the construction of an efficient drain for such a tenement. Any speculating builder who is building a fourth-rate street of fifty houses, would, by removing out of the limits of the jurisdiction, save by the removal the means of erecting an additional house or drains for the whole of them.

No past or proposed legislative measures prescribe any securities for appropriate skill, or trustworthiness for the performance of such services. It is matter of complaint in one extensive district in the metropolis, that the duty of examining the premises is performed by young men, junior clerks to the district surveyor.

In proportion as science is securely allied to local administration is its respectability enhanced and the attainment of its objects ensured. It is dangerous to legislate in detail, for the information is not usually available for legislative preparation against all existing local difficulties, still less all future important contingencies. Where detailed regulations are prescribed arbitrarily, the danger is incurred of creating an obstacle to the work intended to be forwarded. For example, it has been proposed that Parliament shall not only provide “That every outer wall of every building shall be built of good, sound, well-burnt, bricks, or good sound stone, and set in good mortar,” but shall direct and instruct the builders, and fix, against any alteration or improvement, the mode in which good mortar shall be made, viz., “And the mortar and cement shall be well compounded in the proportion of one part of good fresh-burnt lime or cement, and three parts of clean sharp sand;” there, however, are large tracts of country where neither clean sand, nor sharp sand, nor sand of any sort is to be had, and where they use smiths’ ashes for the purpose. But the use of this material is thenceforward illegal, and no new discovery can be adopted without the sanction of an Act of Parliament. In one large parish it was lately desired to try a pavement of wood, when it was discovered that the local Act prescribed the use of granite for pavement. In the impracticability 329of carrying out all such detail, or from default of defining the ends and prescribing the attainment instead of the means, or stating the means generally, as that a wall shall be built “of incombustible materials,” it is in the usual course to require that important work shall be done in such manner as “shall be satisfactory to the surveyor who shall inspect the same,” or “according to the directions of the surveyor of the district;” e. g., that no chimney shall be built more than six feet high, “unless the same shall be secured by sufficient iron stays of such strength and dimensions, and to be fixed in such manner as shall be approved of by the surveyor who shall inspect the building.” The objections entertained by builders of respectability to the granting of such large powers, is founded on the certainty as to the character of the appointments of surveyors to be hereafter made if no other securities than mere general directions be taken in respect to them for the public protection. It may be a rival builder who is appointed, and it is very certain to be generally a person in trade by whom the power is exercised, whose dissatisfaction with work really fair and good may be governed by sinister considerations against which a fair builder will feel he has no defence; but the greater danger is to the public, that no dissatisfaction may be expressed with work that is cheap but unsound. The building covers bad drains, and hides rotten walls, and the effects in the calamities of spreading fires and falling houses, and calamities of sufferings, and deaths, occur in after years, when the original defect may not be detected by the closest examination, and when all concerned may have departed.

If the services of men of independent position, with the science and qualifications of engineers, were secured, their inspection of works would often be invited, and the notice they could not fail to take of unintentional and profitless errors, such as wrong levels, which detract from the convenience and value of tenements, would be of much value and be received cordially, and the exercise of discretionary authority in such hands would meet with comparatively respectful obedience.

No one can have had occasion to examine much of the business of local administration, without being aware of other evils entailed by the multiplication of badly appointed officer’s in addition to the evils of excessive cost and bad quality of the service to the ratepayers. One of the evils is the fuel they add to the flames of local parties, by which both parties are generally losers. Where special and scientific qualifications are not defined, or, if defined, not secured—where the most fatal errors, as in this instance, are shrouded by the nature of the work from detection—all the idle dependents of election committees who have time to spare, because they have failed in their own business for want of steady application, and because their time is worthless, are let in as candidates, and in 330proportion to the absence of security for qualifications is the extent of expectation created and disappointment ensured. The dreadful state of the labouring classes in the most important towns,—the entire neglect of existing sanitary regulations,—the apathy to repeated remonstrances that have been made by eminent medical practitioners, as by Dr. Ferrier in Manchester and by Dr. Currie of Liverpool,—the entire neglect of recommendations made by them, which, if carried out, would have protected those communities from immense burdens, from pestilence and slaughters worse than many wars, and from an enfeebled, diseased, and, by physical causes, a degraded generation of workpeople,—the resistance made from no other manifest cause than a blind jealousy of interference, to the exercise of powers that can have no other object than to prevent the like evils for the future,—all indicate the conclusion as to the nature of the arrangements to be expected from those who have by familiarity become insensible to the means of preventing the evils which fall with the greatest weight on the least protected classes.

Supposing population and new buildings for their accommodation to proceed at the rate at which they have hitherto done in the boroughs, and supposing all the new houses to be only fourth rate, the expense, at the ordinary rate of payment of surveyors’ fees, would be about 30,000l. per annum for the new houses alone. Fees of half the amount required for every new building are allowed for every alteration of an old one, and the total expense of such structures would probably be near 50,000l. in the towns alone—an expense equal to the pay of the whole corps of Royal Engineers, or 240 men of science, for Great Britain and Ireland.^[43]

But at the rate of increase of the population, of Great Britain, which is 230,000 per annum, (i. e. equal in population to the annual addition of a new county, such as Worcester or the North Riding of Yorkshire,^[44] and to accommodate them 59,000 new 331tenements are required, or a number equal to that of two new towns annually such as Manchester proper, which has 32,310 houses, and Birmingham, which has 27,268 houses,) affording, if all that have equal need receive equal care, fees to the amount of no less than from 80,000l. to 100,000l. per annum. This would afford payment equal to that of the whole corps of sappers and miners, or nearly 1000 trained men, in addition to the corps of engineers.

From a consideration of the science and skill now obtained for the public from these two corps for general service, some conception may be formed of the science and skill that might be obtained in appointments for local service, by pre-appointed securities for the possession of the like qualifications, but which are now thrown away in separate appointments at an enormous expense, where qualifications are entirely neglected.

The officers of the engineer corps have the execution and care of structural works, docks and dock-yards, fortifications, military roads, and barracks, in addition to the ordinary military duties. One captain of engineers fills the office of hydraulic engineer to the Admiralty, and to his superintendence is intrusted the construction and repairs of all the docks, buildings, and other public works.

The officers of the engineers have been distinguished for their services on some of the most important civil commissions. As collateral services which they have rendered to the public, may be mentioned the trigonometrical survey of Ireland, and that now in progress for England under the Board of Ordnance, and also the geological survey. The levelling, however, and the whole of the detail of the trigonometrical survey in England, is taken by the privates, corporals, and sergeants of the corps of sappers and miners, who have been instructed in geometry, drawing, and 332mensuration at the school at Chatham. The triangulation for the detail of this work is executed by the engineer officers under the direction of the superintendent of the survey, Colonel Colby. The great majority of the surveys obtained under the Parochial Survey and Valuation Act from private surveyors have been inferior to the surveys executed under superintendence by the privates and non-commissioned officers of the sappers and miners serving at a pay of from 1s. 2d. to 3s., per diem. Out of 1700 first-class maps received under the Parochial Assessment and Tithe Acts, not more than one-half displayed qualifications for the execution of public surveys without superintendence. Amongst the most satisfactory maps of the first class of parochial surveys were those executed by a retired sergeant of sappers and miners. The Commissioners for the colonization of South Australia found it difficult to proceed satisfactorily with persons of the ordinary qualifications of surveyors or civil engineers for that country; and deemed it requisite to obtain the services of an engineer officer, with a suitable number of trained men, sappers and miners, under his command.

But for the construction and care of local works, sewers, roads, and drains and houses, no qualification whatsoever is usually conceived to be requisite. The chairman of the Holborn and Finsbury Commission of Sewers, where a change of management so beneficial to the health, and so economical of the funds of the ratepayers, was obtained by placing the work under the direction of an engineer, informed me that when that commission advertised for a person to act as surveyor to the works who understood the use of the spirit level, the candidates, who were nearly all common housebuilders, were greatly surprised at the novel demand, and several of them began to learn the use of that instrument in order to qualify them for the appointment. In the canvassing letters which I have seen for parochial or local surveyorships, I never observed qualifications for skill or science even adverted to; and where a special qualification happens to be prescribed by statute, it is not regarded. For example, the Act of the 5 and 6 Wm. IV. enables the parochial vestries to appoint as surveyor a person of “skill and experience” to serve the office of surveyor of such parish. As an example of this description of appointments, I may mention one where, in an important district, the person appointed was an illiterate tinman, a leading speaker at parish meetings, who, for a service occupying a part of his time, receives a salary of 150l. per annum, i. e., as much as a lieutenant of engineers and a private, or as much as three sergeants of sappers and miners, whose whole time is devoted to the public service.

The mode in which such emoluments are at present wasted in the course of administration under the Building Acts, and the extent of science and skill that might be obtained for all purposes 333by the same amount of money, may be seen by the rate of surveyors’ emoluments for a single town. I submit, for example, the town of Leeds. There the average rate of increase of houses having been 855 per annum, and of families 940, it may be assumed that they will continue to increase at the same rate, that is, of two new houses and three-tenths per diem, which, if they were only fourth-rate houses, would be required to pay in fees 4l. 12s. per diem for two or three hours’ service at the ordinary rate of payment to private surveyors. If we bear in mind the evidence as to the character of the past appointments, and of the works themselves, and consider that, where no securities are taken for qualifications, none will be found except by accident, the contrast with the payment for the services of men of superior qualifications will be clearly perceived. Such an amount of emolument would defray the expense of a whole Board of superior officers at the rate of pay to the officers of the corps of engineers:—

Board of Officers.

£. s. d.

1 Colonel 1 6 3

1 Lieutenant-colonel 0 18 1

2 Captains, at 11s. 1d. 1 2 2

2 First lieutenants, at 6s. 10d. 0 13 8

2 Second ditto, at 5s. 7d. 0 11 2

4 11 4

Or if unity of direction and execution were required, the staff of officers and men at the rate of pay for general service from the public would be as follows. The rate of pay therein stated is subsistence pay: the half-fees for every alteration made in a building would in most cases suffice for the extra pay given to officers and men in active service:—

£. s. d.

1 Captain 0 11 1

2 First lieutenants 0 13 8

3 Second ditto 0 16 9

1 Colour-sergeant 0 3 0½

3 Sergeants, at 2s. 6½d. 0 7 7½

6 Corporals, at 2s. 2½d. 0 13 3

22 Privates, at 1s. 2½d. 1 6 7

4 12 0

The high rates of remuneration ordinarily given for fragments of practically irresponsible service, would not only serve to defray the expense of direction by scientific officers, but of execution by trained subordinate officers.

The following return will afford a display of the comparative 334rate of emoluments in other towns from fees on the ordinary scale of surveyors’ fees:—

Rate of Increase of Families per Annum. Rate of Increase of Houses per Annum. No. of New Houses per Diem. Rate of Surveyors’ Fees per Diem for Fourthclass Houses.

£. s. d.

Liverpool 1205 638 17 10 3 8 0

Leeds 940 855 23 10 4 12 0

Manchester 590 589 16 10 3 4 0

Birmingham 561 474 13 10 2 12 0

For the construction of efficient works for drainage, it is shown that science is indispensable. If scientific officers be chosen for this one purpose, if the objectionable mode of remuneration by fees be preserved, since they are required to inspect the foundations of houses for the purpose of drainage, they might for one-fourth of the proposed fee be required to give inspection to the remainder of the work, and the process of double certificates and divided responsibility be saved. Even if the amount of work were in particular places too great to be performed by one person, it would be better, and less expensive, that it should be performed by him through an assistant, for whose defaults he should be responsible. A reduction of the accustomed fees to one-fourth, or of the aggregate emoluments obtainable under a general Building Act to 15,000l. or 20,000l. per annum would still entail the loss of so much money that might serve to secure superior scientific service; whilst in the less populous districts the payment for the separate duty of verifying the fact of compliance with the provisions of the Act would be too small to ensure the service of competent and responsible officers.

Besides the evils inherent in narrow districts, and the splitting of connected functions which prevent the application of science by preventing the appointment of scientific officers, there are other evils attendant on such small jurisdictions and separation of functions, namely, in the mode in which the money for such expenditure is levied. The popular jealousy is excited by the further multiplication of unnecessary offices, as of clerks and collectors, but real annoyance is given by the consequent increased expense of separate collections. The prevalent repugnance to direct taxation in any shape has hitherto been greatly owing to the cause of grievances experienced in the number and oppressiveness of the collections incidental to the ordinary local taxation. Those collections confuse and obstruct the rate payers’ economy. Where there are a number of rates collected at different periods, some are forgotten and not provided for; and when demanded, they fall with the inconvenience and create the irritation of a new tax. The householder may 335have paid the collector of his poor’s rates, then the collector of his assessed taxes, then the collector of the land tax, then the collector of the watch rates, then the collector of his paving rates, then his lighting rates, then his water rates, and then he thinks he has done, when a collector calls to demand the payment of the church rates; he may have paid him, when another collector appears to demand the payment of a sewers’ rate for two years, probably for the period of a former tenant, and for which the tenant on whom the demand is levied receives no apparent advantage. A witness says^[45] (2231), “In Limehouse there had not been a sewer built for 100 and odd years, and there are 2000 houses, and not a sewer to them.” Another states (2066), “In one case a sewer rate of 6d. in the pound was levied for 10 years, without even surface drainage;” and in that case the party paid another rate to a trust for paving, lighting, and making drainage. “We could claim six years,” says another witness (860); “three years’ rates in arrear, as against former occupiers, were levied on the incoming tenants” (1798).

In a house receiving no benefit, the occupier, having refused to pay the rate ten years, and having paid it but once in 1827, the commissioners, when he left (1834) the house, “distrained on the new comer, and tore down the corn-bin,” &c. His solicitor previously wrote to them that the occupier was out of town, and wished them to abstain from taking any violent measures, at the same time offering on his part to refer the matter to any competent person (2328). In another case of aggravated proceeding, Mr. William Baker, who was clerk to a like commission, complained of the state of the sewerage, and of the rates in another commission. He did not resist the rate, “for he knew very well what the powers of the commissioners are, and it was not worth his while to resist so strong a body.” The assessments of sewers’ rates are seldom strictly legal.

Such rates, being small in amount, they are levied at long intervals, for the collection at once of a sum sufficient to defray the expense of collection; and because they are collected at long intervals, the irritation and resistance and trouble is great, and an additional sum is paid by the public for the collector’s share of the trouble of the collection. For the collection of the assessed taxes 3d. in the pound is paid; for the collection of the sewers’ rates from 6d. to 1s. in the pound is usually paid. I venture to state, that by a consolidation of the collection of such charges, enough may be saved of money (independently of the saving of oppression and irritation) from the collection of the one local tax, the sewers’ rate, to pay the expense of the services of scientific officers throughout the country. At present the high constable collects the county rate from every parish, and carries it to the county treasurer, in the county town, and charges for the expense of a journey. By an 336easy alteration, by payment by cheques from the union treasurer to the county treasurer, in one county (Kent) 1000l. per annum might be saved, or enough to defray the immediate expense of constructing permanent drains for upwards of 500 tenements. What might be gained on this head for immediate expenditure, in most towns, will be shown in the following extract, from the evidence of Mr. Simkiss, the auditor of the Wolverhampton union:—

What are the amounts of the chief local rates collected, in round numbers?—The poor’s rates are about 4000l., the highway rates about 2000l., and there are rates levied by commissioners under a local Act for lighting, watching, and improving the town, amounting to about 3000l. in round numbers.

On his admission of the practicability of combining with advantage the superintendence of all this expenditure by one Board in such a town, a combination of which there are several examples, he observes:—

The greatest public advantage in having those duties united would be the collection of the whole of the rates in one sum by the same individual, and payment afterwards to the several purposes.

What are the present disadvantages of a separate collection of these rates?—First, that there are three collectors to pay instead of one. 1s. in the pound is paid to the collector of the highway rates, which is supposed to produce 100l. per annum. The collector of the poor’s rates is paid by a fixed salary of 150l. per annum. The collector of the commissioners’ rates is paid 8d. in the pound, and he gets upwards of 100l. per annum. If the collection of the rates were consolidated, they might be collected for 200l. per annum, and upwards of 150l. per annum might be saved in salaries alone; but a much larger sum might be saved by a more efficient collection of the smaller rates. The surveyor’s rates and the commissioners’ rates not being sufficient to occupy the whole time of separate individuals, they attend to other things, and consequently much money is lost by the delay in the operation. Parties remove, or die, or leave the town. Three times the amount has been lost in Wolverhampton on the collection of the highway rate as compared with the poor’s rates. The highway rate and the commissioners’ rates, each being made for twelve months, the collectors usually collect from the large rate payers first; considerable time elapses before the smaller payers are called upon, consequently much is lost by the delay. I have known it that the highway rate has not been demanded in some parts of the town for seven or eight months after it has been granted. The surveyors of highways, and the commissioners of improvements, not taking so much care in obtaining securities for the smaller rates, run greater risks of defalcation. I do not advert to the collectors of the smaller rates in our town, but the collectors of the smaller rates, being tradesmen, usually use the public money in their trades, and there is frequently much peculation. The accounts of the collection and expenditure of the smaller rates are generally badly kept.

What I have already submitted will, I hope, suffice to sustain the recommendation, that at the least nothing should be done to 337aggravate the existing state of complication and waste, by new divisions of service and the unnecessary additions of new and unqualified officers, and that everything should be done to guard against the continued reproduction of the evils in question in districts where there is clear ground. It would, I apprehend, be practicable in the old districts to superadd the appointments of officers, with proper qualifications, without any diminution of the emoluments of the existing paid officers or any material disturbance of them.

When the great importance of the general land drainage to the health of those who labour upon it and to their most productive employment is fully considered, it will, I conceive, be found entitled to all collateral aid, to which an additional title would be conferred by equal contribution of the owners and occupiers to the expenses of public drainage. If officers of proper qualifications and responsibilities were appointed, the works for sewerage branching from the towns, and the road drainage, could not fail to aid, as indeed I conceive it should be directed to aid, the private land drainage. The same surface levels and sewerage, if made on the scale proposed by the Poor Law and Tithe Commissioners (namely, of three chains to an inch) would serve for all civil purposes, whether of towns or general land drainage, or road drainage, for determining the descent of streams, for the application of the water of which it is desirable to rid the upland wastes, and would frequently be most beneficially applied for the use of the towns, and for the use of the poorer districts.

The appointment of persons having the scientific qualifications and position of civil engineers might serve to supply a want which is generally found to be the chief impediment to the drainage of land subdivided amongst numerous small holders, namely, the means of reference or appeal to some authority deriving confidence from skill and impartiality to determine on the need of works, and the mode of executing them, or to arbitrate; and on the compensation due from damage arising from them. Given such an authority, and in those small, but, from their great number, most important cases, where the expense of an application to Parliament is out of the question, it might, be safe to say, by a general provision, that the inhabitants of a town may procure springs of water, and make, deepen, and scour drains through the circumjacent district; that regulations may be made for arching over or covering the sewers to proper distances from the towns; for the purchase of ground, and for the erection of works for rendering the refuse of the towns available for agricultural purposes: power might also be given to lay pipes in the highways, to put plugs for the supplies of water against fires, and for watering the roads.

On referring to the experience of the efforts made in Ireland for the drainage and reclaiming of bog lands, by which large 338tracts would be obtained, it appears that the working of legislative measures for those purposes have extensively failed, because the landowners had not sufficient security that the work would be properly planned and executed.^[46]

I would here beg leave to guard myself from an apparent inconsistency. In 1838, I was examined before a committee of the House of Commons on their resolution, “That it is expedient that the parishes, townships, and extra-parochial places should be united in districts for the repair of the highways throughout England and Wales.” On that occasion I adverted to the evil of the unnecessary multiplication of new establishments as well as new officers, to their inevitable inefficiency and to the expense and obstruction to improvement which they created; and I submitted these, amongst other grounds, for proposing that the new duties should devolve on the boards of guardians of the new unions, as such duties had been in various instances combined under local Acts. The committee recommended the proposal for adoption. On the premises then placed before me, as to the expediency of establishing a new administrative body with new clerks and officers for the collection and management of the fund for repairs of the highways alone, and in small districts for which even the areas of unions were thought large, I should still adhere to the same conclusion.^[47]

339The present inquiry, however, has shown the general primary importance of the works of sewerage and drainage throughout the country. The execution of those works would properly devolve upon the commissioners of sewers already in existence in the towns, or in the marsh districts, or upon commissions of sewers which it will be found necessary to issue to places where there has been no need of surface drainage, but which stand in need of under-drainage. These being the primary works for making the ground clear and keeping it clear for all other works, would necessarily require the highest science and skill, and the strongest establishment; and it would be only carrying farther the principle of consolidation, as the only means of obtaining the most efficient service, the most conveniently and at the lowest cost, now to recommend that the care of the roads should, of all structural works, be made to devolve upon that body which has the best means of executing them, namely, the commissions of sewers, revised as to jurisdiction, and amended and strengthened as to power and responsibility. What Colonel J. F. Burgoyne, the experienced chairman of the Board of Works in Ireland, stated in his evidence before the committee of the House Commons in 1836, (question 35,) on the consolidation of the turnpike trusts, may be applied to the consolidation of other local works:—“One office and account will then do for the whole; a superior superintendent could then be employed, and more perfect machinery; the means will be more generally available, and can be concentrated where required, by which the works will be carried on with more advantage, and a system of regular and rigid maintenance can be established so much more economical and beneficial than that of occasional and periodical repairs.”

It is due to state that in petitions from ratepayers much dissatisfaction is expressed with the proceedings of the commissions of sewers, and their objectionable working is assigned to their irresponsibility, and a favourite remedy proposed is to make them elective; but if the administration of expenditure by elective vestries be examined, it is found to be no better; and of entirely open vestries, even worse; and the practical responsibility for injustice done to individuals, or to any one who cannot get up a party, still less. It may, however, be submitted for consideration, whether the commissions for sewers might not be so far modified as to admit some infusion of the representative principle in their composition, by including, as ex-officio members of the commission, the chairman and vice-chairmen for the time being of the Boards 340of Guardians of the poor law unions included within the jurisdiction of the commission. These officers are elected by the elected representatives of the ratepayers—the guardians. It will be seen that much of the evil which the preventive measures within the province of the commission of sewers must provide against, is presented, in the first instance, to the Board of Guardians, in the shape of claims to relief on the ground of destitution occasioned by sickness. The chairman or the vice-chairman, before whom the cases are thus brought, would form an efficient medium of communication. The measures of drainage and structural improvement are permanent improvements of the greatest importance to the labouring men, in common with other classes; but it is matter of fact that such improvements are the least supported by those who have the least permanent interest—the smaller occupiers; or by those who have the least means and have the greatest dread of immediate expenses—the smaller owners. The chairmen and the vice-chairmen of the unions in the rural districts are, however, the chief landed proprietors, who are elected by the guardians for the interest they take in the improvement of local administration. The most important improvements in the residences of the labouring classes that have been brought to view by this inquiry have arisen from the spontaneous benevolence of the larger proprietors; and so much improvement must depend upon their voluntary exertion, that, for the sake of the labouring classes, it recommends itself as an important arrangement, that those who, as chairmen of the Boards, have the distribution of relief to the destitution attendant on sickness, should be placed in a position to represent the need of the means of prevention, and urge forward their execution.

When the extent of the removable causes of sickness and mortality are more clearly and extensively understood, as they will be, the Board of Guardians will of necessity occupy much of the position of the Leet, as a body fitted to act on complaints made, and to reclaim the execution of the law against omissions and infractions which occasion illness or injury to the most helpless classes.

Boards of Health, or Public Officers for the Prevention of Disease.

In reports and communications, the institution of district Boards of Health is frequently recommended, but in general terms, and they nowhere specify what shall be their powers, how they shall seek out information or receive it, and how act upon it. The recommendation is also sanctioned by the committee which sat to inquire into the health of large towns; and the committee state that “the principal duty and object of these boards of health 341would be precautionary and preventive, to turn the public attention to the causes of illness, and to suggest means by which the sources of contagion might be removed.” “Such boards would probably have a clerk, paid for his services, whose duty it would be to make minutes of the proceedings, and give such returns in a short tabular form as might be useful for reference, and important, as affording easy information on a subject of such vital interest to the people.”

I would submit that it is shown by the evidence collected in the present inquiry, that the great preventives—drainage, street and house cleansing by means of supplies of water and improved sewerage, and especially the introduction of cheaper and more efficient modes of removing all noxious refuse from the towns—are operations for which aid must be sought from the science of the civil engineer, not from the physician, who has done his work when he has pointed out the disease that results from the neglect of proper administrative measures, and has alleviated the sufferings of the victims. After the cholera had passed, several of the local boards of health that were appointed on its appearance continued their meetings and made representations; but the alarm had passed, and although the evils represented were often much greater than the cholera, the representations produced no effect, and the boards broke up. In Paris a Board of Health has been in operation during several years, but if their operations, as displayed in their reports, be considered, it will be evident that, although they have examined many important questions and have made representations, recommending for practical application some of the principles developed in the course of the present inquiry; still as they had no executive power, their representations have produced no effect, and the labouring population of Paris is shown to be, with all the advantages of climate, in a sanitary condition even worse than the labouring population of London. In the Appendix I have submitted a translation of a report descriptive of the labours of the Conseil de Salubrité, in Paris. From this report it will be seen that they have few or no initiative functions, and that they are chiefly called into action by references made to them by the public authorities to examine and give their opinion on medical questions that may arise in the course of public administration as to what manufacturing or other operations are or are not injurious to the public health.

The action of a board of health upon such evils as those in question must depend upon the arrangements for bringing under its notice the evils to be remedied. A body of gentlemen sitting in a room will soon find themselves with few means of action if there be no agency to bring the subject matters before them; and an inquiring agency to seek out the evils from house to house, wherever those evils may be found, to follow on the footsteps of the private practitioner 342would be apparently attended with much practical difficulty.

The statements of the condition of considerable proportions of the labouring population of the towns into which the present inquiries have been carried have been received with surprise by persons of the wealthier classes living in the immediate vicinity, to whom the facts were as strange as if they related to foreigners or the natives of an unknown country. When Dr. Arnott with myself and others were examining the abodes of the poorest classes in Glasgow and Edinburgh, we were regarded with astonishment; and it was frequently declared by the inmates, that they had never for many years witnessed the approach or the presence of persons of that condition near them. We have found that the inhabitants of the front houses in many of the main streets of those towns and of the metropolis, have never entered the adjoining courts, or seen the interior of any of the tenements, situate at the backs of their own houses, in which their own workpeople or dependents reside.

The duty of visiting loathsome abodes, amidst close atmospheres compounded of smoke and offensive odours, and everything to revolt the senses, is a duty which can only be expected to be regularly performed under much stronger motives than can commonly be imposed on honorary officers, and cannot be depended upon even from paid officers where they are not subjected to strong checks. The examination of loathsome prisons has gained one individual a national and European celebrity. Yet we have seen that there are whole streets of houses, composing some of the wynds of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and great numbers of the courts in London, and the older towns in England, in which the condition of every inhabited room, and the physical condition of the inmates, is even more horrible than the worst of the dungeons that Howard ever visited. In Ireland provisions for the appointment of Boards of Health have been made, but they appear to have failed entirely. One of the medical practitioners examined before the Committee of the House of Commons was asked, in respect to the operation of these provisions:—

“3297. But in ordinary times, when the fever is not of very great intensity, and is confined to the dwellings of the humbler classes, there is no such provision put into force?—No, but then there is another provision which may be put into force; this Act provides, that ‘whenever in any city, town, or district, any fever or contagious distemper shall prevail, or be known to exist, it shall and may be lawful for any one or more magistrates, upon the requisition of five respectable householders, to convene a meeting of the magistrates and householders of such city, town, or district, and of the medical practitioners within the same, in order to examine into the circumstances attending such fever or contagious distemper.’ There is another Act of 59 Geo. III., c. 41, 343which enables the parishes to appoint officers of health; that is, a permanent power. Those officers have very considerable authority; they can assess a rate.

“3298. Are they appointed?—They are appointed, I think, in all the parishes in Dublin except two; but they are inoperative: they are unpaid, and it is a very disgusting duty. They can be made to serve, but there is no control as to the amount of service they perform; so that the provision is quite inoperative, unless an alarm exists.

“3299. Do you not think the appointment of some such officers, properly appointed, properly paid, and having reasonable power, for the purpose of suggesting and enforcing such measures as shall be beneficial, would be highly valuable?—I am sure it would, and it would save an amazing quantity of expenditure to the country.”