16 SEPTEMBER 1854, Page 13

THE PLAGUES OF OIIR INTERNATIONAL CITY. 1 Adam Street, Adelphi,11th

September 1854. Sin—The reaper Death is busy with his sickle gathering in his harvest, not from the gardens and corn-fields, but from the foul dens of earth. He is the practical preacher appointed by Providence to indicate the wages of sin. Cleanliness is not next to godliness, but before it, for filth may not defile the altar. In hideous corners and foul receptacles is the banquet of Death pre- pared, and not till they who live in the high places shall be decimated for their sins of omission will the sins of commission amongst the poor and lowly be abated. It is not by abandoning the Metropolis that they can fly away and be at red. Only by hourly doing battle for the right, by facing

the pestilence in its strongholds, by breaking down the Cronstadts and Se- bastopols of this modern plague, can it be permanently extinguished, as were

the plagues of our Metropolitan forefathers by the Great Fire of London. As he would be held a coward who should fly before a Russian foe, leo are they cowards who fly away from a pestilence created by human negligence, and that needs but grappling with, to strangle and destroy it.

The habits of the Cholera are known. It flies from the hill and the heather, and crouches down in the marsh with the rush. It flies from the sea-cliff, and revels festering on the loathsome beaches of crowded sea-aide towns, crowded to overflowing, and with sand and shingle saturated with the refuse of the sewers and reeking with pestilential odours. It flies from the heights of the Metropolis, and nestles down by the purlieus of the pol- luted river. It decreases in amount with every foot rise of the surface, and increases with every foot it lowers, regulated to some extent by the question of clay or gravel or the defective state of the drainage. On the porous red

sandstone of lofty though dirty Birmingham it can find no abiding-place. On that wide marsh extending from Battersea to Blackheath—there, in low

swamps analogous to the keys and sandbanks of the Gulf of Mexico—there, below the level of the fetid river high-water—there, where never a human dwelling should have been suffered to exist—there are to be found dens for

cholera, only alleviated by the existence of gravel soil below ; and on the Essex shore, on the swamps of the Isle of Dogs, the hotbed and birthplace of gnats, still are rising by the thousand, close-packed brick hovels, that, like the Seven Islands of Rotherhithe or the city of New Orleans, would be under water if by accident the river were to burst its banks.

We seek to improve our farm-cattle, our cereals, and garden-plants. We train up a magnificent race of horses and of doge. We seek out fitting lo- calities for these things. Man alone seems left to utter neglect, to haphazard. We forget that men's bodies are productions of the earth ; that they are racy of the soil ; and that their growth by the side of the moist worthless rush can- not compare with that of the elastic heather. We forget that there are soils formed by nature for the best growth of vegetation, and others for the best growth of man ; and that it is an unwise thing to permit the growth of man in districts where the probabilities are that he will grow up, if he grow up at all, stunted, dwarfed, and diseased. We desecrate this city of the nations, this metropolis of the world—this race of men engrafted from the best blood of earth—this gathering of all who for progress in advance of their time

have from time to time been driven forth from other lands, the Galileos of civilization ; we desecrate this stronghold of progress in permitting the en- croachment of squatters with unclean customs and barbarian habits, .11kb a horde of Vandals, on all the low-lying garden-grounds of ourimburbs. Like Berwick-upon-Tweed, London is a town and province—a nation in itself;

and the national pride of its inhabitants should be aroused to put away from it the ignorance and squalor which degrade it, till they may be enabled proudly to say, that no pauperizing diseases, no squalid want or injurious ignorance, can be acclimated within its borders, while all external accretions shall be in constant process of amendment. The aggregation of buildings in unwholesome spots round the Metropolis has been caused by the absence of cheap and simple transit, precisely as very lofty houses, both above and below ground, bordering narrow lanes,

grow up on fortified and circumscribed sites, and as the river streets in the City of London still testify. Our modern railways, were advantage taken

of them, would prevent the necesaity for this. Instead of stopping short in the suburbs, they should penetrate into and pass through the whole ; and if they do not, the town will gradually aggregate around the railways, and the central portions decrease in value till the necessity be ultimately forced

on them. It was a great mistake that blocked up Farringdon Street, instead of leaving it open for the approach of a railway. It is a greater mistake that is now permitting tunnel railways amongst the sewers of London in- stead of upon the surface. Were the surface level left to roads and rail- ways and heavy traffic, and the passenger streets raised above them, people

would gradually acquire the perception that they had changed an unwhole- some for a wholesome atmosphere ; and, as in many cities on the Continent, the ground-floors would be left for warehouses, and the first floors and those above them only used for shops and dwellings. Using the appliances within our power, London might become a pure and wholesome garden-surrounded city, a city of palaces, with ornamental trees at intersecting angles. We use many still very imperfect appliances for warm- ing in cold weather : we have not yet turned our attention to the processes of cooling for warm weather, but many such exist and could be applied. Hitherto we have only turned our attention to specific articles of distinct sale ; but the processes used in mills and machinery are largely applicable to domestic purposes ; and when the internal comforts and external beauties of the Metropolis shall be pursued by Londoners in a philosophic spirit, Lon-

don will be in all things the purest city of the world. But first of all, the sewage question and the smoke question must be disposed of. To get rid of

the sewage from London and merely deposit it at a lower part of the river, is not sufficient—that would merely be creating a monster nuisance in another spot. And not merely for London is this a question. It is a question for all

those seaboard towns where Londoners resort, as they think, for pure air. It is a question to be dealt with chemically as well as mechanically, till the practice of neutralizing unwholesome gases shall become as common a do- teestic process as that of cooking food. The sudden extinction of smoke in the London atmosphere, which NM so confidently expected from the new law against factories and steam-boats,

has not yet come to pass. Some few steamers burn anthracite instead of bituminous coal, and some overpower the smoke by a rush of steam, at a considerable loss of power. Persons bordering the river and the bndges may consider this a relief, but its effect on the general atmosphere is nil. To

enforce the act as it at present stands is an impossibility. It is not proposed even that there shall be no smoke, but only no dense smoke. Now what is

dense smoke ? A mere matter of opinion. Six policemen may swear, as do firemen by chimnies, that there was dense smoke ; and sixty people in- terested in smoke will swear directly the reverse, as in a disputed horse cause. And supposing all the factories in London to find it more profitable to pay the fines than to stop their smoke, where is to be found the army of policemen to call them up for judgment ? And when the whole of the fac- tories are provided with pellucid chimnies, what is to provide for the kitchen- chimnies and domestic fires ? The large houses of the wealthy, with fires in every room, are as bad as factories ; and the houses of the poor contribute in their several proportions. Who is to mulct all these chimnies and bring up the evil-doers to judgment ?

We boast of our freedom—that "every Englishman's house is his castle." Be it so, but let it then be proved to be a veritable house : let not a pig- stye claim under this title. Let us define that a house shall be a fitting building for a human habitation ; that it contains not less than a given number of cubic feet of space for every individual inhabiting it ; that it has ample provision of wholesome water; and that the ventilation is complete ; that it is provided with drains effectually to carry away foul water, and modes of neutralizing foul odours ; that it is so built that it can be economi- cally warmed without the use of nuisance-creating fuel. Failing these things, let it not be regarded as a veritable house, but as an impudent forgery of a house, and liable to be dealt with by the public officers like other forgeries. The simplest and most universal enforcement of any rule is to make it the interest of everybody to obey it. A fine costs more to levy than it is worth

unless it can be made to accompany the breach of rule. This could be done in the question of fuel. If a duty were levied on all smoke-producing coal at its entrance into the town, and all smokeless fuel passed free of duty, the use of the smoky fuel would be abandoned till such time as the owners might convert it into a smokeless artificial fuel. And thus would the problem be solved of obtaining a clear atmosphere for London. But it is said that the City of London has mortgaged its coal-duties, and cannot remit the duty on smokeless coal without a breach of faith. We have, then, the choke of paying the City's debts, or of putting up with the smoke nuisance.