Volume 2

Second report.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on the State of Large Towns.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second report. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    34/332 (page 22)
    essential a part. The situation of Sunderland, shelving towards the river, would seem to render it a town which might be kept clean without dif- ficulty.” The deficiency of appropriate dust-bins was everywhere a cause of great annoyance among the dwellings of the working classes, and no circumstance appeared to me more fruitful of nuisance and disease than the attempt to accumulate the refuse of such privies and dust-bins as there were, for the purpose of selling it to the neighbouring farmers. For the small remuneration which the tenants thereby receive, a constant scene of filth and offence was maintained throughout the year. The landlords and farmers were led to encourage undue accumulations, and the local authorities were too often prevented from exercising their power in such cases as came under their jurisdiction, from the feeling that they were depriving the poor of a valuable source of income ; for- getting the much larger expense of disease and death which too often resulted from such causes. If there was one point more than another on which all parties were universally agreed, it was the absolute neces- sity of appropriating all ordinary refuse in towns as^ublic property, and enacting regulations accordingly, applicable to all cases, and subject to such modifications as the drainage and sewerage required might render necessary. In one or two isolated cases, opinions are still maintained as to there being little or no danger from offensive emanations; but these were few and far between, and, in every place it may be stated, that there was a lull and increasing conviction among the great majority of those who had given any attention to the subject, that disease, particularly fever, was the necessary, and almost certain consequence, of such accu- mulations as have been adverted to. So far as I could trace any excep- tions to this rule, which led those who brought them forward to make them the subject of discussion, it appeared to me that the individuals who escaped from fever owed their immunity to a high and powerful state of health, induced by constant, but not excessive, Irndily exercise in the open air, to a plentiful and generous diet, and sometimes to the nature of the materials which they used in the manufacturing operations in which they were engaged ; but, wherever the constitution had been broken down by disease, poverty, dissipation, or the injurious influence of an oppressive atmosphere, there it became too often the prey of noxious exhalations; and the general languor, as well as the appearance of the countenance, unequivocally demonstrated the effect which had been produced. A circumstance requires to be mentioned here which appears to exert some influence in sustaining such defective arrangements as are now iti force for cleansing, sewerage, and drainage, viz., the extent to which it is considered that the ordinary refuse of dwelling-houses may be lendered of inferior value for agricultural purposes, if conveyed to a distance, under circumstances that would prevent its economical appli- cation. I his opinion was also associated with a desire to preserve the waters in the vicinity as free as possible from any injurious contamina- tion. 1 hough many questions on this point were pressed on mv attention, in no place did they appear to have been so much an object of consideration as at Carlisle. There, however, the drainage and sewerage is at present in as defective a condition as in any place°almost