Part 45

“In every well-regulated State, therefore, an effective and rapid means for carrying off the ordure of the people to a locality where it may be fruitful instead of destructive, becomes a most important consideration. Both the health and the wealth of the nation depend upon it. If to make two blades of wheat grow where one grew before is to confer a benefit on the world, surely to remove that which will enable us at once to do this, and to purify the very air which we breathe, as well as the water which we drink, must be a still greater boon to society. It is, in fact, to give the community not only a double amount of food, but a double amount of health to enjoy it. We are now beginning to understand this. Up to the present time we have only thought of removing our refuse--the idea of using it never entered our minds. It was not until science taught us the dependence of one order of creation upon another, that we began to see that what appeared worse than worthless to us was Nature’s capital--_wealth set aside for future production_.”

In connection with this part of the subject, viz., the use of human refuse, I would here draw attention to those erroneous notions, as to the multiplication of the people, which teach us to look upon the increase of the population beyond certain limits as the greatest possible evil that can befall a community. Population, it is said, multiplies itself in a geometrical ratio, whereas the produce of the land is increased only in arithmetical proportion; that is to say, while the people are augmented after the rate of--

2 4 8 16 32 64

the quantity of food for them can be extended only in the following degrees:--

2 4 6 8 10 12

The cause of this is said to be that, after a certain stage in the cultivation of the soil, the increase of the produce from land is not in proportion to the increase of labour devoted to it; that is to say, doubling the labour does not double the crop; and hence it is asserted that the human race increasing at a quicker rate than the food, insufficient sustenance must be the necessary lot of a portion of the people in every densely-populated community.

That men of intelligence and education should have been persuaded by so plausible a doctrine at the time of its first promulgation may be readily conceived, for then the notions concerning organic chemistry were vague in the extreme, and the great universal law of Waste and Supply remained to be fully developed; but that men pretending to the least scientific knowledge should in these days be found advocating the Population Theory is only another of the many proofs of the indisposition of even the strongest minds to abandon their pet prejudices. Assuredly Malthus and Liebig are incompatible. If the new notions as to the chemistry of vegetation be true, then must the old notions as to population be utterly unfounded. If what we excrete plants secrete--if what we exhale they inspire--if our refuse is their food--then it follows that to increase the population is to increase the quantity of manure, while to increase the manure is to augment the food of plants, and consequently the plants themselves. If the plants nourish us, we at least nourish them. It seems never to have occurred to the economists that plants themselves required sustenance, and consequently they never troubled themselves to inquire whence they derived the elements of their growth. Had they done this they would never have even expected that a double quantity of mere labour upon the soil should have doubled the produce; but they would rather have seen that it was utterly impossible for the produce to be doubled without the food in the soil being doubled likewise; that is to say, they would have perceived that plants could not, whatever the labour exerted upon their cultivation, extract the elements of their organization from the earth and air, unless those elements previously existed in the land and atmosphere in which they grew, and that such elements, moreover, could not exist there without some organic being to egest them.

This doctrine of the universal Compensation extending throughout the material world, and more especially through the animal and vegetable kingdom, is, perhaps, one of the grandest and most consoling that science has yet revealed to us, making each mutually dependent on the other, and so contributing each to the other’s support. Moreover it is the more comforting, as enabling us almost to demonstrate the falsity of a creed which is opposed to every generous impulse of our nature, and which is utterly irreconcilable with the attributes of the Creator.

“Thanks to organic chemistry,” I said two years ago in the _Morning Chronicle_, “we are beginning to wake up. Science has taught us that the removal of the ordure of towns to the fields is a question that concerns not only our health, but, what is a far more important consideration with us, our breeches pockets. What we, in our ignorance, had mistaken for refuse of the vilest kind, we have now learned to regard as being, with reference to its fertilizing virtues, ‘a precious ore, running in rich veins beneath the surface of our streets.’ Whereas, if allowed to reek and seethe in cesspools within scent of our very hearths, or to pollute the water that we use to quench our thirst and cook our food, it becomes, like all wealth badly applied, converted into ‘poison:’ as Romeo says of gold to the apothecary--

‘Doing more murders in this loathsome world Than those poor compounds which thou mayst not sell.’

“Formerly, in our eagerness to get rid of the pollution, we had literally not looked beyond our noses: hence our only care was to carry off the nuisance from the immediate vicinity of our own residences. It was no matter to us what became of it, so long as it did not taint the atmosphere around us. This the very instincts of our nature had made objectionable to us; so we laid down just as many drains and sewers as would carry our night-soil to the nearest stream; and thus, instead of poisoning the air that we breathed, we poisoned the water that we drank. Then, as the town extended--for cities, like mosaic work, are put together piecemeal--street being dovetailed to street, like county to county in our children’s geographical puzzles--each new row of houses tailed on its drains to those of its neighbours, without any inquiry being made as to whether they were on the same level or not. The consequence of this is, that the sewers in many parts of our metropolis are subject to an ebb and flood like their central stream, so that the pollution which they remove at low-water, they regularly bring back at high-water to the very doors of the houses whence they carried it.

“According to the average of the returns, from 1841 to 1846, we are paying two millions every year for guano, bone-dust, and other foreign fertilizers of our soil. In 1845, we employed no fewer than 683 ships to bring home 220,000 tons of animal manure from Ichaboe alone; and yet we are every day emptying into the Thames 115,000 tons of a substance which has been proved to be possessed of even greater fertilizing powers. With 200 tons of the sewage that we are wont to regard as refuse, applied to the irrigation of one acre of meadow land, seven crops, we are told, have been produced in the year, each of them worth from 6_l._ to 7_l._; so that, considering the produce to have been doubled by these means, we have an increase of upwards of 20_l._ per acre per annum effected by the application of that refuse to the surface of our fields. This return is at the rate of 10_l._ for every 100 tons of sewage; and, since the total amount of refuse discharged into the Thames from the sewers of the metropolis is, in round numbers, 40,000,000 tons per annum, it follows that, according to such estimate, we are positively wasting 4,000,000_l._ of money every year; or, rather, _it costs us that amount to poison the waters about us_. Or, granting that the fertilizing power of the metropolitan refuse is--as it is said to be--as great for arable as for pasture-lands, then for every 200 tons of manure that we now cast away, we might have an increase of at least 20 bushels of corn per acre. Consequently the entire 40,000,000 tons of sewage, if applied to fatten the land instead of to poison the water, would, at such a rate of increase, swell our produce to the extent of 4,000,000 bushels of wheat per annum. Calculating then that each of these bushels would yield 16 quartern loaves, it would follow that we fling into the Thames no less than 246,000,000 lbs. of bread every year; or, still worse, by pouring into the river that which, if spread upon our fields, would enable thousands to live, we convert the elements of life and health into the germs of disease and death, changing into slow but certain poisons that which, in the subtle transmutation of organic nature, would become acres of life-sustaining grain.” I shall have more to say subsequently on this waste and its consequences.

These considerations show how vastly important it is that in the best of all possible ways we should _collect_, _remove_, and _use_ the scavengery and excrementitious matter of our streets and houses.

Now the removal of the refuse of London is no slight task, consisting, as it does, of the cleansing of 1750 miles of streets and roads; of collecting the dust from 300,000 dust-bins; of emptying (according to the returns of the Board of Health) the same number of cesspools, and sweeping near upon 3,000,000 chimneys.

A task so vast it might naturally be imagined would give employment to a number of hands, and yet, if we trusted the returns of the Occupation Abstract of 1841, the whole of these stupendous operations are performed by a limited number of individuals.

RETURN OF THE NUMBER OF SWEEPS, DUSTMEN, AND NIGHTMEN IN THE METROPOLIS, ACCORDING TO THE CENSUS OF 1841.

------------------------+------+----------------------+---------------------- | | Males. | Females. | +------------+---------+------------+--------- |Total.|20 years and| |20 years and| | | upwards. |Under 20.| upwards. |Under 20. ------------------------+------+------------+---------+------------+--------- Chimney Sweepers | 1033 | 619 | 370 | 44 | Scavengers and Nightmen | 254 | 227 | 10 | 17 | ------------------------+------+------------+---------+------------+---------

I am informed by persons in the trade that the “females” here mentioned as chimney-sweepers, and scavengers, and nightmen, must be such widows or daughters of sweeps and nightmen as have succeeded to their businesses, for that no women _work_ at such trades; excepting, perhaps, in the management and care of the soot, in assisting to empty and fill the bags. Many females, however, are employed in sifting dust, but the calling of the dustman and dustwoman is not so much as noticed in the population returns.

According to the occupation abstract of the previous decennial period, the number of males of 20 years and upwards (for none others were mentioned) pursuing the same callings in the metropolis in 1831, were as follows:--

Soot and chimney-sweepers 421 Nightmen and scavengers 130

Hence the increase in the adult male operatives belonging to these trades, between 1831 and 1841, was, for Chimney-sweeps, 198; and Scavengers and Nightmen, 97.

But these returns are preposterously incorrect. In the first place it was not until 1842 that the parliamentary enactment prohibiting the further employment of climbing-boys for the purpose of sweeping chimneys came into operation. At that time the number of inhabited houses in the metropolis was in round numbers 250,000, and calculating these to have contained only eight rooms each, there would have been at the least 2,000,000 chimneys to sweep. Now, according to the government returns above cited--the London climbing-boys (for the masters did not and could not climb) in 1841 numbered only 370; at which rate there would have been but one boy to no less than 5400 chimneys! Pursuing the same mode of testing the validity of the “official” statements, we find, as the nightmen generally work in gangs of four, that each of the 63, or say 64, gangs comprised in the census returns, would have had 4000 cesspools to empty of their contents; while, working both as scavengers and nightmen (for, according to the census, they were the _only_ individuals following those occupations in London), they would after their nocturnal labours have had about 27 miles of streets and roads to cleanse--a feat which would certainly have thrown the scavengering prowess of Hercules into the shade.

Under the respective heads of the dustmen, nightmen, sweeps, and scavengers, I shall give an account of the numbers, &c., employed, and a resumé of the whole. It will be sufficient here to mention that my investigations lead to the conclusion that, of men working as dustmen (a portion of whom are employed as nightmen and scavengers) there are at present about 1800 in the metropolis. The census of 1841, as I have pointed out, mentions no dustman whatever!

But I have so often had instances of the defects of this national numbering of the people that I have long since ceased to place much faith in its returns connected with the humbler grades of labour. The costermongers, for example, I estimate at about 10,000, whereas the government reports, as has been before mentioned, ignore the very existence of such a class of people, and make the entire hawkers, hucksters, and pedlars of the metropolis to amount to no more than 2045. Again, the London “coal labourers, heavers, and porters” are said, in the census of 1841, to be only 1700 in number; I find, however, that there are no less than 1800 “registered” coal-whippers, and as many coal porters; so that I am in no way inclined to give great credence to the “official enumerations.” The difficulties which beset the perfection of such a document are almost insuperable, and I have already heard of returns for the forthcoming document, made by ignorant people as to their occupations, which already go far to nullify the facts in connection with the employment of the ignorant and profligate classes of the metropolis.

Before quitting this part of the subject, viz., the extent of surface, the length of streets, and the number of houses throughout the metropolis requiring to be continually cleansed of their refuse, as well as the number of people as continually engaged in so cleansing them, let me here append the last returns of the Registrar General, copied from the census of 1851, as to the dimensions and contents of the metropolis according to that functionary, so that they may be compared with those of the metropolitan police before given.

In Weale’s “_London Exhibited_,” which is by far the most comprehensive description of the metropolis that I have seen, it is stated that it is “only possible to adopt a general idea of the giant city,” as its precise boundaries and extent cannot be defined. On the north of the Thames, we are told, London extends to Edmonton and Finchley; on the west it stretches to Acton and Hammersmith; on the east it reaches Leyton and Ham; while on the south of the Thames the metropolis is said to embrace Wandsworth, Streatham, Lewisham, Woolwich, and Plumstead. “To each of these points,” says Mr. Weale, but upon what authority he does not inform us, “continuous streets of houses reach; but the solid mass of houses lies within narrow bounds--with these several long arms extending from it. The greatest length of street, from east to west,” he adds, “is about fourteen miles, and from north to south about thirteen miles. The solid mass is about seven miles by four miles, so that the ground covered with houses is not less than 20 square miles.”

Mr. McCulloch, in his “_London in 1850-51_,” has a passage to the same effect. He says, “The continued and rapid increase of buildings renders it difficult to ascertain the extent of the metropolis at any

## particular period. If we include in it those parts only that present

a solid mass of houses, its length from east to west may be taken at six miles, and its breadth from north to south at about three miles and a half. There is, however, a nearly continuous line of houses from Blackwall to Chelsea, a distance of about seven miles, and from Walworth to Holloway, of four and a half miles. The extent of surface covered by buildings is estimated at about sixteen square miles, or above 10,000 acres, so that M. Say, the celebrated French economist, did not really indulge in hyperbole when he said, ‘_Londres n’est plus une ville: c’est une province couverte de maisons!_’ (London is no longer a town: it is a province covered with houses).”

The Government authorities, however, appear to have very different notions from either of the above gentlemen as to the extent of the metropolis.

The limits of London, as at present laid down by the Registrar General, include 176 parishes, besides several precincts, liberties, and extra-parochial places, comprising altogether about 115 square miles. According to the old bills of mortality, London formerly included only 148 parishes, which were located as follows:--

Parishes within the walls of the city 97 Parishes without the walls 17 Parishes in the city and liberties of Westminster 10 Out parishes in Middlesex and Surrey 24 --- 148

The parishes which have been annexed to the above at different periods since the commencement of the present century are:--

Parishes added by the late Mr. Rickman (see Pop. Abstracts, 1801-31) (including Chelsea, Kensington, Paddington, St. Marylebone, and St. Pancras) 5

Parishes added by the Registrar General, 1838 (including Hammersmith, Fulham, Stoke Newington, Stratford-le-Bow, Bromley, Camberwell, Deptford, Greenwich, and Woolwich) 10

Parishes added by the Registrar General in 1844 (including Clapham, Battersea, Wandsworth, Putney, Lower Tooting, and Streatham) 6

Parishes added by the Registrar General in 1846 (comprising Hampstead, Charlton, Plumstead, Eltham, Lee, Kidbroke, and Lewisham) 7 --- Total number of parishes in the metropolis, as defined by the Registrar General 176

The extent of London, according to the limits assigned to it at the several periods above mentioned, was--

Stat. Acres. Sq. miles. London within the old bills of mortality, from 1726 21,080 32

London, within the limits adopted by the late Mr. Rickman, 1801-31 29,850 46

London, within the limits adopted by the Registrar General, 1838-43 44,850 70

London, within the limits adopted by the Registrar General, 1844-46 55,650 87

London, within the limits adopted by the Registrar General in 1847-51 74,070 115

“London,” observes Mr. Weale, “has now swallowed up many cities, towns, villages, and separate jurisdictions. The four commonwealths, or kingdoms, of the Middle Saxons, East Saxons, the South Rick, and the Kentwaras, once ruled over its surface. It now embraces the episcopal cities of London and Westminster, the towns of Woolwich, Deptford, and Wandsworth, the watering places of Hampstead, Highgate, Islington, Acton, and Kilburn, the fishing town of Barking, the once secluded and ancient villages of Ham, Hornsey, Sydenham, Lee, Kensington, Fulham, Lambeth, Clapham, Paddington, Hackney, Chelsea, Stoke Newington, Newington Butts, Plumstead, and many others.”

The 176 parishes now included by the Registrar General within the boundaries of the metropolis, are arranged by him into five districts, of which the areas, population, and number of inhabited houses were on the 31st of March, 1851, as undermentioned:--

TABLE SHOWING THE AREA, NUMBER OF INHABITED HOUSES, AND POPULATION OF THE DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE METROPOLIS, 1841-51.

------------------------------+--------+-----------------------+------------------- | | Population. | Inhabited Houses. DIVISIONS OF METROPOLIS. |Statute +-----------+-----------+---------+--------- | Acres. | 1841. | 1851. | 1841. | 1851. ------------------------------+--------+-----------+-----------+---------+--------- WEST DISTRICTS. | | | | | Kensington | 7,860 | 74,898 | 119,990 | 10,962 | 17,292 Chelsea | 780 | 40,243 | 56,543 | 5,648 | 7,629 St. George’s, Hanover-square | 1,090 | 66,657 | 73,207 | 7,630 | 8,795 Westminster | 840 | 56,802 | 65,609 | 6,439 | 6,647 St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields | 260 | 25,132 | 24,557 | 2,439 | 2,323 St. James’s, Westminster | 165 | 37,457 | 36,426 | 3,590 | 3,460 | | | | | NORTH DISTRICTS. | | | | | Marylebone | 1,490 | 138,383 | 157,679 | 14,169 | 15,955 Hampstead (added 1846) | 2,070 | 10,109 | 11,986 | 1,411 | 1,719 Pancras | 2,600 | 129,969 | 167,198 | 14,766 | 18,731 Islington | 3,050 | 55,779 | 95,154 | 8,508 | 13,558 Hackney | 3,950 | 42,328 | 58,424 | 7,192 | 9,861 | | | | | CENTRAL DISTRICTS. | | | | | St Giles’s | 250 | 54,378 | 54,062 | 4,959 | 4,778 Strand | 163 | 43,667 | 44,446 | 4,327 | 3,938 Holborn | 188 | 44,532 | 46,571 | 4,603 | 4,517 Clerkenwell | 320 | 56,799 | 64,705 | 6,946 | 7,259 St. Luke’s | 240 | 49,908 | 54,058 | 6,385 | 6,421 East London |}[9]230 | 39,718 | 44,407 | 4,796 | 4,785 West London |} | 29,188 | 28,829 | 3,010 | 2,745 London, City of |[10]370 | 56,009 | 55,908 | 7,921 | 7,329 | | | | | EAST DISTRICTS. | | | | | Shoreditch | 620 | 83,564 | 109,209 | 12,642 | 15,433 Bethnal Green | 760 | 74,206 | 90,170 | 11,782 | 13,370 Whitechapel | 316 | 71,879 | 79,756 | 8,834 | 8,832 St George’s in the East | 230 | 41,416 | 48,375 | 5,985 | 6,151 Stepney | 2,518 | 90,831 | 110,669 | 14,364 | 16,346 Poplar | 1,250 | 31,171 | 47,157 | 5,066 | 6,882 | | | | | SOUTH DISTRICTS. | | | | | St. Saviour’s, Southwark | [11]| 33,027 | 35,729 | 4,659 | 4,613 St. Olave’s, Southwark | [11]| 19,869 | 19,367 | 2,523 | 2,365 Bermondsey | 620 | 35,002 | 48,128 | 5,674 | 7,095 St. George’s, Southwark |[11]590 | 46,718 | 51,825 | 6,663 | 7,005 Newington | 630 | 54,693 | 64,805 | 9,370 | 10,468 Lambeth | 3,640 | 116,072 | 139,240 | 17,791 | 20,520 Wandsworth (added 1843) | 10,800 | 39,918 | 50,770 | 6,459 | 8,290 Camberwell | 4,570 | 39,931 | 54,668 | 6,843 | 9,417 Rotherhithe | 690 | 13,940 | 17,778 | 2,420 | 2,834 Greenwich | 4,570 | 81,125 | 99,404 | 11,995 | 14,423 Lewisham (added 1846) | 16,350 | 23,051 | 34,831 | 3,966 | 5,936 ------------------------------+--------+-----------+-----------+---------+--------- Total London Division | 74,070 | 1,948,369 | 2,361,640 | 262,737 | 307,722 ------------------------------+--------+-----------+-----------+---------+---------

In order to be able to compare the average density of the population in the various parts of London, I have made a calculation as to the number of persons and houses to the acre, as well as the number of inhabitants to each house. I have also computed the annual rate of increase of the population from 1841-51, in the several localities here mentioned, and append the result. It will be seen that, while what are popularly known as the suburbs have increased, both in houses and population, at a considerable rate, some of the more central parts of London, on the contrary, have decreased not only in the number of people, but in the number of dwellings as well. This has been the case in St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, St. James’s, Westminster, St. Giles’s, and the City of London.

TABLE SHOWING THE INCREASE OF THE POPULATION AND INHABITED HOUSES, AS WELL AS THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE AND HOUSES TO EACH ACRE, AND THE NUMBER OF PERSONS TO EACH HOUSE IN THE DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE METROPOLIS IN 1841-51.