Chapter I: London From the Sanitary Point of View (2)

The first of these is the fact that some of our hygienic measures have tended to produce overcrowding of houses, which is infinitely the greatest of all sanitary evils. Formerly the sanitary arrangements of houses were such that without some garden or back premises they would have been uninhabitable, and a reference to Aggas’s map, or Norden’s map, or Newcourt’s map, will show that in Old London a large proportion of the houses had gardens or back premises large enough to be shown on a map. These maps also show that in Charles II.’s time, just before the plague, the overcrowding of houses in London was much more marked than in the days of Elizabeth. When every drop of water and all the fuel used had to be carried to the upper storeys by hand, there were practical inconveniences attending upon very high houses which prevented them from being built to any great extent. Now all is changed. Our system of sewerage has made it possible to build houses with no curtilage whatever, and with no outlet but a hole, and the possession of a high pressure of water (the result of steam power) and the modern system of gas has made it possible to have houses of any height, without any great inconvenience to the occupants. “Five hundred rooms, passenger and luggage lifts to every floor, 1,000 electric lights, hot and cold water laid on to every room, bath-rooms on every floor,” is the kind of advertisement put forward by an eight-storeyed hotel without an inch of curtilage. Without steam power, without water under pressure, and without water-carried sewage, such Yankee monstrosities were not possible, whereas nowadays the loftier the hotel so much the greater is the profit, because extra storeys do not increase the ground-rent.

On the other hand, the fact that houses can be and are allowed to be built without curtilage has given an altogether fictitious value to land, the price of which varies in this country (according to situation) from about £200,000 to £10 per acre. It is not surprising that the bias of landlords and builders is very much in favour of our present system of Sanitation. Sanitary authorities are also in favour of it because, having borrowed enormous sums of money, which have to be paid out of the rates, they are naturally quite regardless of hygiene if they can increase the rateable value of the district, and so make the burden of rate-collection lighter. “Black care (in the form of rates) sits behind the councillor.” Everywhere throughout the metropolitan area houses are being pulled down and replaced by others twice as high; extra storeys are being added to old houses, and back-yards and gardens are fetching enormous prices for building purposes, so that the buildings in the centre of London have doubled their height and have lost all their curtilage.

Huge thoroughfares have been driven through London in all directions, but as the ultimate increase in the height of the buildings has been proportionately greater than the increase in the width of the street, locomotion has become more difficult, our traffic has become more in need of police regulations, and it has become an acknowledged rule in the City that if you want to keep an appointment it is dangerous to take a cab, because one can thread one’s way with more certainty on foot.

And yet the overcrowding in London does not appear in official documents. Thus the City of London, on an area of 668 acres, in 1871 had 9,415 inhabited houses, and 3,222 uninhabited, and a population just short of 76,000; whereas in 1881 the inhabited houses had fallen to 6,562, the uninhabited had risen to 4,770, and the population had fallen to 51,439. Some historian of the future may draw the conclusion that the decay of London set in acutely about the year 1871, unless he should perchance discover that within the same period the rateable value had risen from £2,500,000 to £3,500,000; that the day population had risen from 170,000 to 260,000, and that the number of persons entering the City daily for business had risen from 657,000 to 739,000. This population is one mainly of adult males, and since, if they get ill in the City they don’t die in it, the death-rate keeps down, and we like to think it is a wholesome place for a young man to work in. The 50,000 people who have to live night and day on this square mile of ground have not a very cheerful time in this wealthy city, where nature has been most effectually obliterated by the brute force of the almighty dollar. What chance have they of any fresh air with a radius of houses extending to five miles all round them? At one time the Thames served as a recreation ground, but that was in the days before the tide rolled in charged with the excrements of 4,000,000 people, and when it was possible to fish and boat, and perhaps catch a salmon, without the danger of being sunk by some headlong steam-tug. Until a few years ago there was a little green spot called Drapers’ Gardens, but now Drapers’ Gardens is occupied by Throgmorton Avenue, where dwell 322 different firms of stockbrokers and others, and the nearest recreation ground is St. James’s Park, three miles off.

I have lately seen a young man, aged 21, with signs of incipient consumption. He is a fine young fellow, and three years ago entered one of the large City warehouses connected with the drapery trade, in the centre of the City. At first he was employed mainly in the basement, where gas was burning all day. During times of extra pressure he often worked from eight in the morning to past midnight, and when he retired to rest he had to share a bedroom with other men, the windows being shut. I believe this is no uncommon case, and I commend it most heartily to the attention of the “Sweating Committee.” Occasionally on a Saturday afternoon he got a game of football, his very slender resources being severely taxed to pay the railway fare to the spot where the games are contested.

What has occurred in the City has occurred elsewhere in London.

I need hardly say that the crowding of houses means loss of liberty, and increases competition--that competition is the cause of “sweating” and other miseries. Having wilfully produced these evils, I for one do not believe that they are to be removed even by the best intentioned efforts of city missionaries, nor by young men’s Christian associations, nor even by music halls, though tea be the beverage and hymn tunes the melodies.

We have to bear in mind the fact that all writers on sanitary matters are agreed that of all dangers to health, overcrowding is the greatest, and that the death-rate rises in proportion to the density of population. When, therefore, we allow building to go practically unchecked, and move the poor out of two-storeyed dwellings into six-storeyed barracks, we must remember the possible drawbacks of such a system.

The death-rate of Paris is higher than that of London (it was nearly 26 per 1,000 in 1881), but the density of population in Paris is twice that of London, being 117 to the acre, as against 50 in London. Some parts of Paris are very much more crowded than any parts of London, and no parts of it have a density of population so slight as Fulham, Hampstead, Wandsworth, Woolwich, or Lewisham. The effect of overcrowding on death-rate is seen very markedly in the city of New York, which has a population of 1,337,000, which has an almost unlimited water-supply, and the sewage of which is discharged direct into the sea. According to the writer in the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” there is an excessive crowding of the inhabitants into tenement houses, and the houses are to a great extent without back entrances. As a consequence, the death-rate was 26·47 in 1880, 31·08 in 1881, and 29·64 in 1882.

In overcrowded places the danger is great when contagious disease makes its appearance. The spread of such diseases as typhus, measles, and whooping-cough is very much favoured by overcrowding.

I have prepared a table, taken from the Registrar-General’s decennial abstract, which shows this fact very clearly with regard to London. I have arranged the various registration districts of London according to the density of population, and in another column I have given the death-rate per 100,000 from whooping-cough and measles, two diseases which are rarely treated in hospitals, and which are very prone to follow each other in epidemics, so that when we have not measles with us we have whooping-cough, and _vice versâ_.

ANNUAL DEATH-RATE PER 100,000 LIVING OF CHILDREN UNDER 5 YEARS OF
AGE FROM WHOOPING-COUGH AND MEASLES DURING THE 10 YEARS 1871-80.

Death-rate per
District. Persons to 100,000 from
an acre. Measles and
Whooping-cough.
Westminster 250 1089
St. Giles 200 1152
Holborn 200 1229
Shoreditch 200 1099
Whitechapel 200 1020
St. George’s, E. 200 1327
Bethnal Green 166 1113
Mile End 143 982
St. Saviour’s, Southwark 143 1150
Stepney 125 1220
St. Olave, Southwark 111 1091
Marylebone 100 1145
Strand 100 987
City 100 963
Chelsea 91 856
St. George’s, Hanover Square 83 974
Pancras 83 1046
Islington 77 965
Kensington 66 992
Poplar 59 985
Lambeth 59 960
London as a whole 50 967
Hackney 40 698
Camberwell 35 879
Greenwich 35 778
Fulham 23 850
Hampstead 17 701
Wandsworth 15 701
Woolwich 12 794
Lewisham 6 546
County of Dorset 3 352

The above figures show the effects of overcrowding, on the mortality from two important diseases, very conclusively; and it is interesting to note how very far the mortality from these two diseases in Dorsetshire is below that of even the best parts of London.

Among other diseases which are very common in London are the tubercular and respiratory diseases. Thus the mortality from scrofula, tabes mesenterica, phthisis, and hydrocephalus in London, during the ten years 1871-80, was (collectively) 349 per 100,000 (no correction being made for abnormal age distribution), as against 224 in Dorsetshire, and the death-rate from respiratory disease was 460, as against 315 in Dorsetshire. During the fifteen years 1872-1886 I find that 34,254 in-patients have been treated in University College Hospital. Of these, 3,798 were cases of respiratory disease, and 2,453 were cases of disease of bones and joints, a very large proportion of which, according to recent investigations, are tubercular. Thus we have 6,251 cases of disease (or more than 18 per cent. of the whole) in which tubercle plays an important part.

There were also 459 cases of enteric fever, 276 cases of diphtheria, and 1,020 cases of rheumatic fever. These, taken together, amount to 1,755, or about 5 per cent. of the whole. Rheumatic fever is one of the common diseases of London, which attacks young adults, and very often cripples them for life. It is a disease of great importance, and appears from the last report of the Registrar-General to have been on the increase since 1858.

Besides the greater liability to premature death which is caused by overcrowding, there are other drawbacks which are scarcely less important. One of these, with which we are well acquainted in London, is an increase in the dirtiness and smokiness of the air, which is mainly due to private fireplaces. When huge piles of offices are run up in the City or elsewhere, we like to imagine that, because most of them are tenantless at night, they cause no inconvenience, forgetting that each office has its fireplace, which helps to foul the air, and that each office supplies its quota of sewage to help to foul the river. The state of the air in London is such that the most beautiful of all arts, gardening, has become impracticable from the fact that comparatively few flowers or shrubs will flourish. This absence of green plants entails a great loss of nascent oxygen or ozone, which gives to air its peculiar quality of freshness. It is hardly conceivable that a high level of health can be maintained in a spot where vegetable life languishes, animal life and vegetable life being complementary to each other.

The overcrowding in London has, of late years, been mitigated by the conversion of old grave-yards into gardens, thanks to the society over which the Earl of Meath so ably presides. If cremation as a means of disposing of the dead should become general, and spacious cemeteries be replaced by furnaces, it is clear that these spaces bequeathed us by the dead will not be available for “lungs” in the London of the future, and that cremation, unless it be counteracted by suitable legislation, is certain to intensify our state of overcrowding.

The moral side of overcrowding must not be forgotten, but it is not necessary to dwell upon it, as the Whitechapel horrors are still fresh in the memory, and the difficulty of detecting crime in a labyrinth of hiding-places has been demonstrated. The first aim of a sanitary authority should be to prevent overcrowding, and its most important duty is to control building operations, a duty which is never performed because buildings help to pay the rates.

THE LOOSE END OF OUR SANITATION.

Another reason why it is not possible to regard the present sanitary condition of London with much complacency arises from the fact that our sanitarians have failed to “make both ends meet,” but have left a terrible loose end to their measures, which is a constant menace and an increasing danger.

This “loose end” consists of a daily allowance of 150,000,000 gallons of sewage, which our new councillors have inherited from the late Board, and which is the result of probably the greatest sanitary blunder ever committed in the history of the world. The proper destination of organic refuse is the soil. Nobody doubts this. Why, therefore, in a moment of weakness, did we construct six millions’ worth of machinery to throw it in the water? The great glory of London, time out of mind, has been the Thames, but now certainly our glory has departed. Having adopted a method of sanitation which is based on an utterly wrong principle, the condition of the Thames must get progressively worse as long as that method is pursued.

Some persons talk of a sewage farm as a remedy, but at least 50,000 acres of land would be necessary, and, to say the least of it, that is not a cheerful outlook for the ratepayer in these days of agricultural depression.

At present we are spending £50,000 a year on chemical abominations to mix with the other abominations, but it is very hard to see how that can improve matters. The chemicals will certainly not help the fishing industry, and if added in sufficient quantity they must absolutely destroy the very small manurial value possessed by the sewage or its sludge. My own belief is that the sewage problem in its present form is insoluble. To deal with and filter slop-water, as is done in Paris, is comparatively easy, but here in London the problem is of a wholly different kind, and my firm conviction is that our present system of “water-carriage” must lead us deeper and deeper into the mire.

Until the problem of “What to do with our sewage?” is settled, clearly, we ought to do our best to stop the growth of the evil. Our present system of sewers ought to be closed as far as permission to connect fresh houses is concerned. As it is, the new Council, like the old Board, will have an uncertain quantity of sewage to deal with, for old houses are being everywhere pulled down, and houses of greatly increased capacity erected, and this of course means a proportionate increase in the sewage to be disposed of. In the City there are but 50,000 inhabitants in the official sense, but there are by this time fully 300,000 daily workers and over 700,000 daily visitors to the City, so that, in spite of an official decrease in population, the increase of sewage from that particular spot must be enormous. The same class of facts applies to other districts in the metropolis, so that the evil at the outfall is not only not improving, but is increasing daily. It seems to me quite impossible to make any arrangement for adequately dealing with the sewage of a district, unless you are able to say beforehand what is the maximum quantity which will have to be dealt with. There being no adequate control of building in London, and no relation between the cubic contents of a building and the area it occupies (witness Queen Anne’s Mansions, the huge pile with which we are threatened at Knightsbridge, and the equally large pile projected in the Strand, which is to be 135 feet high, according to the newspapers), it is evident that the volume of sewage to be dealt with may be doubled or trebled without any increase of the area drained by the sewers. Under such conditions as these the sewage problem may well be insoluble. The first and main duty of any sanitary authority should be to exercise a wise control over building. If every house were compelled in the future to have a curtilage bearing a definite proportion to the cubic contents, there would be an end of these towers of Babel, which shut out from us the light and air of heaven; the price of building land would fall; it would be possible to make some calculations as to sewage; and the excessive overcrowding of a city would be prevented. Without such a regulation great sewage schemes must in the end make the sanitary condition of a city worse rather than better.

What to do with our sewage is a very difficult problem--an insoluble problem, I believe, on the present lines. At present the Metropolitan Board is shipping some of the solid matter to be dropped into the sea at the mouth of the Thames. When the Thames Conservancy see this fine ship, “built in th’ eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,” bound on its mission of blocking the port of London, what can they think? They think it worth while, apparently, to have a man fined for throwing a basket of rubbish over one of the bridges.

Again, the House of Commons passed a stringent Act to prevent the pollution of rivers, but when, a year or so since, their own sewage arrangements were at fault, they merely constructed an ingenious apparatus to thoroughly suck the sewage out of their own premises and pass it on more effectually than before to pollute the river on whose bank their stately palace stands. What is the good of legislation without example? If the House of Commons, at some sacrifice (more fancied than real) of personal convenience, had adopted measures in accordance with the spirit of their legislation, I believe we should have been within a measurable distance of seeing the Thames once more meriting the name of silvery. A good example is better than any amount of legislation, and a good example set in high places is much needed in this matter, to which there is undoubtedly a moral side.

How to alter the present arrangements in London now the houses have been almost uniformly deprived of their curtilage is very difficult. Under such circumstances “returning were as tedious as go o’er,” but I am myself inclined to think that the best solution of London’s sewage difficulty lies in the direction of cremation--certainly in the direction of decentralisation.

I believe also that at the outskirts much might be accomplished by an equitable adjustment of sanitary rates, and by encouraging householders to do for themselves what no public authority can do so satisfactorily for them. But as I have dealt with this subject very fully in a paper on “The Shortcomings of Modern Sanitary Methods,” I shall say no more at present.

London gets more than half its water from the Thames, and this is another reason why the sanitary outlook is not satisfactory. The system of water-carried sewage is now almost universal, the sewage ultimately taking its course along the track of the watershed. Wherever water-carried sewage is in vogue the natural watercourses must get fouled, and the fouling will be in proportion to population. The sewage may be deprived of its coarser ingredients by mechanical or chemical means, but it is not possible to believe that any of the methods of treating sewage at present in use render the effluent wholesome enough to drink without danger. The increase of population in the valley of the Thames is therefore a distinct danger to London. The following table gives the population for 1871 and 1881 of some registration districts situated in the Thames valley:--

1871. 1881.
Kingston 55,929 77,057
Richmond 26,145 33,633
Reading 33,340 43,494
Windsor 26,725 31,992
Staines 20,199 23,774
Uxbridge 25,538 27,550
Brentford 71,933 101,706
Eton 24,928 27,721
Wycombe 38,366 40,278
Henley 18,916 19,992
Oxford } 21,016 21,902
Headington } 22,756 28,723
--------- ---------
385,791 477,822

I am well aware that some of the districts in the above list are below the intake of the water companies, but the figures serve to show how rapid is the increase of population in the valley of the Thames, which is one of the most popular districts in the whole country. This concentration of people along the banks of the river must have the effect of lessening the purity of the water which we drink.

Thus it is evident that what I have called the loose end of our sanitation is a growing expense and a growing danger. Hygiene, to be a permanent benefit, should move along natural lines, and organic refuse ought to be committed to the soil as quickly as possible, when it would cease to be a danger, and would prove a source of profit. If the evil effects of free trade are to be counteracted, it will be by returning the refuse of our towns free of cost to the impoverished agriculturist. If we in England go on as we are going, and if our brethren in the Colonies follow our example, as they are doing, I believe our race must become extinct, and it will be a Chinaman rather than a New Zealander who will sit in contemplation on the ruins of London Bridge.