in the form of
a smoke rate, what unwearied agitation there would be against it. But
surely we ought not to view with less hostility, because of its silent
noxiousness, a thing which injures the health of our children, if not of
people of all ages, disfigures our public buildings, creates
uncleanliness and gives an excuse for it, affects in some degree the
spirits of all persons who live under it, renders manufacturing towns
less welcome places of residence for the higher classes (which is what
brings it in connexion with the subject of this Essay); and is, thereby,
peculiarly injurious to the labouring population. If these pages should
survive to any future age, it will excite a smile in some curious reader
to see how urgent I have endeavoured to be about a matter which will then
be so obvious--"What strange barbarous times they must have been," he
will say to himself: "wisdom of our ancestors, forsooth!" "Far-off
reader," if there be such an entity, "do not presume: thou hast thy smoke
too."

* * * * *

In connexion with the subject of "the town," it may be well to go a
little into the matter of sewerage, which almost, above all things,
demands the attention of those who care for the health of the labouring
population, indeed, for the health of rich or poor.

This subject is admirably treated in a section of the Sanitary Report of
1842, under the head of "Arrangements for public health, external to the
residences." It is now almost a trite thing to show how closely
connected imperfect sewerage is with disease. Scientific men will tell
you that you may track a fever along the windings of an open drain. The
Sanitary Report mentions that,

"In the evidence given before the Committee of the House of Commons,
which received evidence on the subject in 1834, one medical witness
stated, that of all cases of severe typhus that he had seen,
eight-tenths were either in houses of which the drains from the
sewers were untrapped, or which, being trapped, were situated
opposite gully-holes; and he mentioned instances where servants
sleeping in the lower rooms of houses were invariably attacked with
fever."

The above is a good instance to show how necessary it is to have some
general measures on these matters of building and drainage. The expense
of trapping a gully-drain is about 3 pounds; at least that is what, I
understand, the Commissioners of Sewers a