Part 111

A somewhat similar system will be adopted on the south side of the Thames, where it is proposed to form one main intercepting sewer; but, owing to the physical configuration of this part of the town, none of the water will flow away entirely by gravitation. There will be a pumping station on the banks of the Ravensbourne, to raise the water about 25 feet; and a second pumping station to raise the water from the continued sewer in the reservoir, in Woolwich Marsh, which is to receive it during the intervals of the tides. The waters are to be discharged into the river at the last-named point. The main sewer on the south side will be of nearly equally colossal proportions; for its total length is proposed to be about 13 miles 3 furlongs, including the main trunk drain of about 2 miles long, and the respective branches. The area to be relieved is about proportionate to the length of the drain; but the steam power employed will be proportionally greater upon the southern than upon the northern side.

There are divers opinions, of course, as to the practicability and ultimate good working of this plan; speculations into which it is not necessary for me to enter. Mr. Forster has, moreover, resigned his office, adding another to the many changes among the engineers, surveyors, and other employés under the Metropolitan Commission; a fact little creditable to the management of the Commissioners, who, with one exception, may be looked upon as irresponsible.

OF THE MANAGEMENT OF THE SEWERS AND THE LATE COMMISSIONS.

The Corporation of the City of London may be regarded as the first Commission of Sewers in the exercise of authority over such places as regards the removal of the filth of towns. In time, but at what time there is no account, the business was consigned to the management of a committee, as are now the markets of the City (Markets Committee), and even what may be called the management of the Thames (Navigation Committee). It is not at all necessary that the members of these committees should understand anything about the matters upon which they have to determine. A staff of officers, clerks, secretaries, solicitors, and surveyors, save the members the trouble of thought or inquiry; they have merely to vote and determine. It was stated in evidence before a Select Committee of the House of Commons on the subject of the Thames steamers, that at that period the Chairman of the _Navigation_ Committee was a bread and biscuit baker, but “a very-firm-minded man.” In time, but again I can find no note of the precise date, the _Committee_ became a _Court_ of Sewers, and so it remains to the present time. Commissions of sewers have been issued by the Crown since the 25th year of the reign of Henry VIII., except during the era of the Commonwealth, when there seems to have been no attention paid to the matter.

As the metropolis increased rapidly in size since the close of the last century, the public sewers of course increased in proportion, and so did Commissions of Sewers in the newly-built districts. Up to 1847 these Commissions or Court of Sewers were _eight_ in number, the metropolis being divided into that number of districts.

The districts were as follows:--

1. The City. 2. The Tower Hamlets. 3. St. Katherine. 4. Poplar and Blackwall. 5. Holborn and Finsbury. 6. Westminster and part of Middlesex. 7. Surrey and Kent. 8. Greenwich.

Each of these eight Commissions had its own Act of Parliament; its own distinct, often irregular and generally uncontrolled plan of management; each had its own officers; and each had its own patronage. Each district court--with almost unlimited powers of taxation--pursued its own plans of sewerage, little regardful of the plans of its neighbour Commission. This wretched system--the great recommendation of which, to its promoters and supporters, seems to have been patronage--has given us a sewerage unconnected and varying to the present day in almost every district; varying in the dimensions, form, and inclination of the structures.

The eight commission districts, I may observe, had each their sub-districts, though the general control was in the hands of the

## particular Court or Board of Commissioners for the entire locality.

These subdivisions were chiefly for the facilities of rate-collecting, and were usually “western,” “eastern,” and “central.”

The consequence of this immethodical system has been that, until the surveys and works now in progress are completed, the precise character, and even the precise length, of the sewers must be unknown, though a sufficient approximation may be deduced in the interim.

To show the conflicting character of the sewerage, I may here observe that in some of the old sewers have been found walls and arches crumbling to pieces. Some old sewers were found to be not only of ample proportions, but to contain subterranean chambers, not to say halls, filled with filth, into which no man could venture. While in a sewer in the newly-built district of St. John’s-wood, Mr. Morton, the Clerk of Works, could only advance stooping half double, could not turn round when he had completed his examination, but had most painfully--for a long time feeling the effects--to back out along the sewer, stooping, or doubled up, as he entered it. Why the sewer was constructed in this manner is not stated, but the work appears, inferentially, to have been _scamped_, which, had there been a proper supervision, could hardly have been done with a modern public sewer, down a thoroughfare of some length (the Woronzow-road).

But the conflicting and disjointed system of sewerage was not the sole evil of the various Commissions. The mismanagement and jobbery, not to say peculation, of the public moneys, appear to have been enormous. For instance, in the “Accountant’s Report” (February, 1848), prepared by Mr. W. H. Grey, 48, Lincoln’s-inn-fields, I find the following statements relative to the _Book-keeping_ of the several Commissions:--

“The _Westminster_ plan is full of unnecessary repetition. It is deficient in those real general accounts which concentrate the information most needed by the Commissioners, and it contains _fictions_ which are very inconsistent with any sound system of book-keeping.

“The ledger of the Westminster Commission does not give a true account of the actual receipt and expenditure of each district.

“The _Holborn and Finsbury_ books are still more defective than those of the Westminster Commission.... There are the same kind of _fictions_.... But the extraordinary defect in these books consists in the utter want of system throughout them, by keeping one-sided accounts only in the ledger, with respect to the different sewers in each district, showing only the amount _expended_ on each.

“The _Tower Hamlets_ books have been kept on a regular system, though by no means one conveying much general information.”

“With respect to the _Surrey and Kent_ accounts,” says Mr. Grey, “the books produced are the most incomplete and unsatisfactory that ever came under my observation. The ledger is always thought to be a _sine quâ non_ in book-keeping; but here it has been dispensed with altogether, for that which is so marked is no ledger at all.”

Under these circumstances, the Report continues, “It cannot be wondered at that debts should have been incurred, or that they should have swollen to the amount of 54,000_l._, carrying a yearly interest of 2360_l._, besides annuities granted to the amount of 1125_l._ a year.

“The _Poplar and Greenwich_ accounts (I quote the official Report), confined as they are to mere cash books, offer no subjects for remark....

“No books of account have been produced with respect to the _St. Katherine’s_ Commission.”

On the 16th December, 1847, the new Commissioners ordered all the books to be sent to the office in Greek-street; but it was not until the 21st February, 1848, that all the minute-books were produced. There were no indexes for many years even to the proceedings of the Courts; and the account-books of one of the local Courts, if they might be so called, were in such a state that the book called “ledger” had for several years been cast up in pencil only.

This refers to what may be characterised, with more or less propriety, as _mismanagement_ or _neglect_; though in such mismanagement it is hardly possible to escape _one_ inference. I now come to what are direct imputations of _Jobbery_, and where _that_ is flourishing or easy, no system can be other than vicious.

In a paper “printed for use of Commissioners” (Sept. 7, 1848), entitled “Draft Report on the Surrey Accounts,” emanating from a “General Purposes’ Committee,” I find the following, concerning the parliamentary expenses of obtaining an Act which it was “found necessary to repeal.” The cost was, altogether, upwards of 1800_l._, which of course had to be defrayed out of the taxes.

“This Act,” says the Report, “authorized an almost unlimited borrowing of money; and _immediately upon its passing_, in July, 1847, notices were issued for works estimated to amount to 100,000_l._; and others, we understand, were projected for early execution to the amount of 300,000_l._... Considering the general character of the works executed, and from them judging of those projected, it may confidently be averred that the _whole sum_ of 300,000_l._, the progressive expenditure of which was stayed by the ‘supersedeas’ of the old Commission, would have been _expended in waste_.” [The _Italics_ are not those of the Reports.]

The Report continues, “It is to be observed that each of the district surveyors would have participated in the sum of 15,000_l._ percentage on the expenditure for the extension of the Surrey works. Thus the surveyors, with their percentages on the works executed, and the clerk, by the fees on contracts, &c., had _a direct interest in a large expenditure_.”

Instances of the same dishonest kind might be multiplied to almost any extent.

After the above evidences of the incompetency and dishonesty of the several district Commissions--and the Reports from which they are copied contain many more examples of a similar and even worse description--it is not to be wondered at that in the year 1847 the district courts were, with the exception of the City, superseded by the authority of the Crown, and formed into one body, the present Metropolitan Commission of Sewers, of the constitution and powers of which I shall now proceed to speak.

OF THE POWERS AND AUTHORITY OF THE PRESENT COMMISSIONS OF SEWERS.

In 1847 the eight separate Commissions of Sewers were abolished, and the whole condensed, by the Government, into _one_ Commission, with the exception of the City, which seems to supply an exception in most public matters.

The Act does not fix the number of the Commissioners. To the Metropolitan Commissioners, five City Commissioners are added (the Lord Mayor for the year being one _ex officio_); these have a right to act as members of the Metropolitan Board, but their powers in this capacity are loosely defined by the Act, and they rarely attend, or perhaps never attend, unless the business in some way or other affects their distinct jurisdiction.

The Commissioners (of whom twelve form a quorum) are unpaid, with the exception of the chairman, Mr. E. Lawes, a barrister, who has 1000_l._ a year. They are appointed for the term of two years, revocable at pleasure.

The authority of the City Commission, as distinct from the Metropolitan, for there are two separate Acts, seems to be more strongly defined than that of the others, but the principle is the same throughout. The Metropolitan Act bears date September 4, 1848; and the City Act, September 5, 1848.

The Metropolitan Commissioners have the control over “the sewers, drains, watercourses, weirs, dams, banks, defences, gratings, pipes, conduits, culverts, sinks, vaults, cesspools, rivers, reservoirs, engines, sluices, penstocks, and other works and apparatus for the collection and discharge of rain-water, surplus land or spring-water, waste water, or filth, or fluid, or semi-fluid refuse of all descriptions, and for the protection of land from floods or inundation within the limits of the Commission.” Ample as these powers seem to be, the Commissioners’ authority does not extend over the Thames, which is in the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor and Corporation of the City of London; and it appears childish to give men control over “rivers,” and to empower them to take measures “for the protection of land from floods or inundation,” while over the great metropolitan stream itself, from Yantlet Creek, below Gravesend, to Oxford, they have no power whatever.

The Commissioners (City as well as Metropolitan) are empowered to enforce proper house-drainage wherever needed; to regulate the building of new houses, in respect of water-closets, cesspools, &c.; to order any street, staircase, or passage not effectually cleansed to be effectually cleansed; to remedy all nuisances having insanitary tendencies; to erect _public_ water-closets and urinals, free from any charge to the public; to order houses and rooms to be whitewashed; to erect places for depositing the bodies of poor persons deceased until interment; and to regulate the cleanliness, ventilation, and even accommodation of low lodging-houses.

The jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers extends over “all such places or parts in the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, Essex, and Kent, or any of them _not more than twelve miles distant in a straight line from St. Paul’s Cathedral, in the City of London_, but not being within the City of London or the liberties thereof.”

This, it must be confessed, is an exceedingly broad definition of the extent of the jurisdiction of the _Metropolitan_ Commission, giving the Commissioners an extraordinary amount of _latitude_.

In our days there are many Londons. There is the London (or the metropolitan apportionment of the capital) as defined by the Registrar-General. This, as we have seen, has an area of 115 square miles, and therefore may be said to comprise as nearly as possible all those places which are rather more than _five miles_ distant from the Post Office.

There is the _Metropolis_ as defined by the Post-Office functionaries, or the limits assigned to what is termed the “_London_ District Post.” This London District Post seems, however, to have three different metropolises:--First, there is the Central Metropolis, throughout which there is an hourly delivery of letters after mid-day, and which deliveries are said to be confined to “_London._” Then there is the six-delivery _Metropolis_, or that throughout which the letters are despatched and received six times per day; this is said to extend to such of the “environs” as are included within a circle of _three miles_ from the General Post Office. Then there is the _six-mile Metropolis_ with special privileges. And lastly, the _twelve-mile Metropolis_, which, being the extreme range of the _London_ District Post, may be said to constitute the metropolis of the General Post Office.

There is, again, the metropolis of the Metropolitan Commissioners of Police, before the region of rural police and country and parish constables is attained; a jurisdiction which covers 96 square miles, as I have shown at pp. 163-166 of the present volume, and reaches--generally speaking--to such places as are included within a circle of _five miles and a half_ from the General Post Office.

There is, moreover, the metropolis, as defined by the Hackney-Carriage Act, which comprises all such places as are within _five miles_ of the General Post Office.

And further, there is the Metropolis of the London City Mission, which extends to _eight miles_ from the Post Office, and the Metropolis, again, of the London Ragged Schools, which reaches to about _three miles_ from the Post Office.

This, however, is not all, for there are divers districts for the registration and exercise of votes, parliamentary, or municipal; there are ecclesiastical and educational districts; there is a thorough complication of parochial, extra-parochial, and chartered districts; there is a world of subdivisions and of sub-subdivisions, so ramified here and so closely blended there, and often with such preposterous and arbitrary distinctions, that to describe them would occupy more than a whole Number.

My present business, however, is the extent of the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, or rather to ascertain the boundaries of that _metropolis_ over which the Metropolitan Commissioners are allowed to have sway.

The many discrepancies and differences I have explained make it difficult to _define_ any district for the London sewerage; and in the Reports, &c., which are presented to Parliament, or prepared by public bodies, little or no care seems to be taken to observe any distinctiveness in this respect.

For instance: The jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers, which is said to extend to all such places as are not more than 12 miles distant in a straight line from St. Paul’s Cathedral, in the City of London, comprises an area of 452 square miles; the metropolis, that of the Registrar-General, presenting a radius of 6 miles (with a fractional addition), contains 115 square miles; yet in official documents 58 square miles, or a circle of about 4-1/2 miles radius, are given as the extent of the _metropolis_ sewered by the Metropolitan Commission. By what calculations this 58 miles are arrived at, whether it has been the _arbitrium_ of the authorities to consider the sewers, &c., as occupying _the half_ of the area of the Registrar-General’s metropolis, or what other reason has induced the computation, I am unable to say.

The boundaries of the several metropolises may be indicated as follows:--

The _Three-Mile Circle_ includes Camberwell; skirts Peckham; seems to divide Deptford (irregularly); touches the West India Dock; includes portions of Limehouse, Stepney, Bromley, Stratford-le-Bow, and about the half of Victoria-park, Hackney. It likewise comprises a part of Lower Clapton, Dalston, and a portion of Stoke Newington; and closely touching upon or containing small portions of Lower Holloway, and Kentish-town, sweeps through the Regent’s and Hyde parks, includes a moiety of Chelsea, and crossing the river at the Red-house, Battersea, completes the circle. This is the six-delivery district of the General Post Office.

In this three-mile district are chiefly condensed the population, commerce, and wealth of the greatest and richest city in the world.

The _Six-Mile Circle_ runs from Streatham (on the south); just excludes Sydenham; contains within its exterior line Lewisham, Greenwich, and a part of Woolwich; also, wholly or partially, East Ham, Laytonstone, Walthamstow, Tottenham, Hornsey, Highgate, Hampstead, Kensall-green, Hammersmith, Fulham, Wandsworth, and Upper Tooting. The portion without the three-mile circle, and within the six, is the _suburban_ portion or the immediate environs of the metropolis, and still presents rural and woodland beauties in different localities. This may be termed the metropolis of the Registrar-General and Commissioners of Metropolitan Police.

The _Twelve-Mile Circle_, or the extent of the jurisdiction of the _Metropolitan_ Commissioners of Sewers, as well as the “_London_ District Post,” includes Croydon, Wickham, Paul’s Cray, Foot’s Cray, North Cray, and Bexley; crosses the river at the Erith-reach; proceeds across the Rainham-marshes; comprises Dagenham; skirts Romford; includes Henhault-forest and the greater portion of Epping-forest; touches Waltham-abbey and Cheshunt; comprehends Enfield and Chipping-Barnet; runs through Elstre and Stanmore; comprehends Harrow-on-the-Hill, Norwood, and Hounslow; embraces Twickenham and Teddington; seems to divide somewhat equally the domains of Bushey-park and of Hampton-court Palace; then, crossing the river about midway between Thames Ditton and Kingston, the boundary line passes between Cheam and Ewell, and completes the circuit.

Over this large district, then, the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers is said to extend, and one of the outlets of the _London_ sewers has already been spoken of as being situate at Hampton. The district yielding the amount of sewage which is assumed as being the gross wet house-refuse of the metropolis is, as we have seen, taken at 58 square miles, and is comprised within a circle of about 4-1/2 miles radius; this reaches only to Brixton, Dulwich, Greenwich, East India Docks, Layton, Highgate, Hampstead, Bayswater, Kensington, Brompton, and Battersea. The actual jurisdiction of the Commissioners is, then, nearly eight times larger than the portion to which the estimated amount of the sewage of the metropolis refers.

The metropolitan district is still distinguished by the old divisions of the Tower Hamlets, Poplar and Blackwall, Holborn and Finsbury, Westminster, &c.; but many of these divisions are now incorporated into one district; of which there would appear to be but four at present; or five, inclusive of the City.

These are as follows:--

1. Fulham and Hammersmith, Counter’s Creek and Ranelagh districts.

2. Westminster (Eastern and Western), Regent-street, and Holborn.

3. Finsbury, Tower Hamlets, Poplar, and Blackwall.

4. Districts south of the Thames, Eastern and Western.

5. City.

The practical part or working of the Commission of Sewers is much less complicated at present than it was in the times of the independent districts and independent commissions.

The orders for all work to be done emanate from the court in Greek-street, but the several surveyors, &c. (whose salaries, numbers, &c., are given below), can and do order on their responsibility any repair of a temporary character which is evidently pressing, and report it at the next court day. The Court meets weekly and monthly, and what may be styled the heavier portion of the business, as regards expenditure on great works, is more usually transacted at the monthly meetings, when the attendance is generally fuller; but the Court can, and sometimes does, meet much more frequently, and sometimes has adjourned from day to day.

Any private individual or any public body may make a communication or suggestion to the Court of Sewers, which, if it be in accordance with their functions, is taken into consideration at the next accruing court day, or as soon after as convenient. The Court in these cases either comes to a decision of adoption or rejection of any proposition, or refers it to one of their engineers or surveyors for a report, or to a committee of the Commissioners, appointed by the Court; if the proposition be professional, as to defects, or alleged and recommended improvements in the local sewers, &c., it is referred to a professional gentleman for his opinion; if it be more general, as to the extension of sewerage to some new undertaking or meditated undertaking in the way of building new markets, streets, or any places, large and public; or in applications for the use and appropriation by enterprising men of sewage manure, it is referred to a committee.

On receiving such reports the Court makes an order according to its discretion. If the work to be done be extensive, it is entrusted to the chief engineer, and perhaps to a principal surveyor acting in accordance with him; if the work be more local, it is consigned to a surveyor. One or other of these officers provides, or causes to be prepared, a plan and a description of the work to be done, and instructs the clerk of the works to procure estimates of the cost at which a contractor will undertake to execute this work, or, as it is often called by the labouring class, to “complete the _job_” (a word at one time singularly applicable). The estimates are sent by the competing builders, architects, general speculators, or by any one wishing to contract, to the court house (without the intervention of any person, officially or otherwise) and they are submitted to the Board by their clerk. The lowest contract, as the sum total of the work, is most generally adopted, and when a contract has been accepted, the matter seems settled and done with, as regards the management of the Commissioners; for the contractor at once becomes responsible for the fulfilment of his contract, and may and does employ whom he pleases _and at what rates he pleases_, without fear of any control or interference from the Court. The work, however, is superintended by the surveyors, to ensure its execution according to the provisions of the agreement. The contractor is paid by direct order of the Court.