Of the House-Drainage of the Metropolis as connected with the Sewers.

Every house built or rebuilt since the passing of the Metropolitan Sewers Act in 1848, must be drained, with an exception, which I shall specify, into a sewer. The law, indeed, divested of its technicalities is this: the owner of a newly-erected house must drain it to a sewer, without the intervention of a cesspool, if there be a sewer within 100 feet of the site of the house; and, if necessary, in places but partially built over, such owner must continue the sewer along the premises, and make the necessary drain into it; all being done under the approval of the proper officer under the Commissioners. If there be, however, an established sewer, along the side, front, or back of any house, a covered drain must be made into that at the cost of the owner of the premises to be drained. “Where a sewer,” says the 46th section of the Act, “shall already be made, and a drain only shall be required, the party is to pay a contribution towards the original expense of the sewer, if it shall have been made within thirty-five years before the 4th of September, 1848, the contribution to be paid to the builder of the sewer.”... “In cases where there shall be no sewer into which a drain could be made, the party must make a covered drain to lead into a cesspool or other place (not under a house) as the Commissioners may direct. If the parties infringe this rule, the Commissioners may do the work and throw the cost on them in the nature of an improvement rate, or as charges for default, and levy the amount by distress.”

I mention these circumstances more particularly to show the extent, and the far-continued ramification, of the subterranean metropolis. I am assured by one of the largest builders in the western district of the capital that the new regulations (as to the dispensing with cesspools) are readily complied with, as it is a recommendation which a house agent, or any one letting new premises, is never slow to advance (“and when it’s the truth,” he said, “they do it with a better grace”), that there will be in the course of occupancy no annoyance and no expense incurred in the clearing away of cesspoolage.

I shall at present describe only the house-drainage, which is connected with the public sewerage. The old mode of draining a house separately into the cesspool of the premises will, of course, be described under the head of cesspoolage, and that old system is still very prevalent.

At the times of passing both general and local Acts concerning buildings, town improvements and extensions, the erection of new streets and the removal of old, much has been said and written concerning better systems of ventilating, warming, and draining dwelling-houses; but until after the first outbreak of cholera in England, in 1832, little public attention was given to the great drainage of all the sewers. However, on the passing of the Building and Sanitary Acts generally, the authorities made many experiments, not so much to improve the system of sewerage as of house-drainage, so as to make the dwelling-houses more wholesome and sweet.

To effect this, the great object was the abolition of the cesspool system, under which filth must accumulate, and where, from scamped buildings or other causes, evaporation took place, the effects of the system were found to be vile and offensive, and have been pronounced miasmatic. Having just alluded to these matters, I proceed to describe the modernly-adopted connection of house-drainage and street-sewerage.

Experiments, as I have said, were set on foot under the auspices of public bodies, and the opinions of eminent engineers, architects, and surveyors were also taken. Their opinions seem really to be concentrated in the advocacy of one remedy—improved house-drainage; and they appear to have agreed that the system which is at present adopted is, under the circumstances, the best that can be adopted.

I was told also by an eminent practical builder, perfectly unconnected with any official or public body, and, indeed, often at issue with surveyors, &c., that the new system was unquestionably a great improvement in every respect, and that some years before its adoption as at present he had abetted such a system, and had carried it into effect when he could properly do so.

I will first show the mode and then the cost of the new system.

I find it designated “back,” “front,” “tubular,” and “pipe” house-drainage, and all with the object of carrying off all fæces, soil water, cesspool matter, &c., before it has had time to accumulate. It is not by brick or other drains of masonry that the system is carried out or is recommended to be carried out, but by means of tubular earthenware pipes; and for any efficient carrying out of the projected improvement a system of constant, and not as at present intermittent, supply of water from the several companies would be best. These pipes communicate with the nearest sewer. The pipes in the tubular drainage are of red earthenware or stoneware (pot).

The use of earthenware, clay, or pot pipes for the conveyance of liquids is very ancient. Mr. Stirrat, a bleacher in Paisley, in a statement to the Board of Health, mentioned that clay pipes were used in ancient times. King Hezekiah (2nd Book of Kings, chap. 20, and 2nd Book of Chronicles, chap. 32) brought in water from Jerusalem. “His pool and conduit,” said Mr. Stirrat, “are still to be seen. The conduit is three feet square inside, built of freestone, strongly cemented; the stone, fifteen inches thick, evidently intended to sustain a considerable pressure; and I have seen pipes of clay, taken by a friend from a house in the ruins of the ancient city, of one inch bore, and about seven inches in diameter, proving evidently, to my mind, that ancient Jerusalem was supplied with water on the principle of gravitation. The pools or reservoirs are also at this day in tolerably good order, one of them still filled with water; the other broken down in the centre, no doubt by some besieging enemy, to cut off the supply to the city.”

The new system to supply the place of the cesspools is a combined, while the old is principally a separate, system of house-drainage; but the new system is equally available for such separate drainage.

As regards the success of this system the reports say experiments have been tried in so large a number of houses, under such varied and, in many cases, disadvantageous circumstances, that no doubts whatsoever can remain in the minds of competent and disinterested persons as to the efficient self-cleansing action of well-adjusted tubular drains and sewers, even without any additional supplies of water.

Mr. Lovick said:—

“A great number of small 4-inch tubular drains have been laid down in the several districts, some for considerable periods. They have been found to keep themselves clear by the ordinary soil and drainage waters of the houses. I have no doubt that pipes of this kind will keep themselves clear by the ordinary discharge of house-drainage; assuming, of course, a supply of water, pipes of good form, and materials properly laid, and with fair usage.”

“One of the earliest illustrations of the tubular system,” it is stated in a Report of the Board of Health, “was given in the improved drainage of a block of houses in the cloisters of Westminster, which had been the seat of a severe epidemic fever. The cesspools and the old drains were filled up, and an entire system of tubular drainage and sewerage substituted for the service of that block of houses.

“The Dean of Westminster, in a letter on the state of this drainage, says, ‘I beg to report to the Commissioners that the success of the entire new pipe-drainage laid down in St. Peter’s College during the last twelve months has been complete. I consider this experiment on drainage and sewage of about fifteen houses to afford a triumphant proof of the efficacy of draining by pipes, and of the facility of dispensing entirely with cesspools and brick sewers.’ Up to this time they have acted, and continue to act, perfectly.

“Mr. Morris, a surveyor attached to the Metropolitan Sewers Commission, gives the following account of the action of trial works of improved house-drainage:—

“‘I have introduced the new 4-inch tubular house-drains into some houses for the trustees of the parish of Poplar, with water-closets, and have received no just cause of complaint. In every instance where I have applied it, I found the system answer extremely well, if a sufficient quantity of water has been used.

“‘The answer of the householders as to the effect of the new drainage has invariably been that they and their families have been better in health; that they were formerly annoyed with smells and effluvia, from which they are now quite free.

“‘Since the new drainage has been laid down there has been only occasion to go on the ground to examine it once for the whole year, and that was from the inefficiency of the water service. It was found that rags had been thrown down and had got into the pipe; and further, that very little water had been used, so that the stoppage was the fault of the tenant, not of the system.’”

Mr. Gotto, the engineer, having stated that in a plan for the improvement of Goulston-street, Whitechapel, not only was the removal of all cesspools contemplated, but also the substitution of water-closet apparatus, gave the following estimate of the cost, provided the pipes were made and the work done by contract under the Commissioners of Sewers:—

Water-closet Apparatus, &c.

The front tubular drainage of a similar house (with fifteen yards of carriage-way to be paved) would cost 6l. 2s. 7½d.; or the drainage would cost, according to the old system, 11l. 13s. 11d.

“The engineering witnesses who have given their special attention to the subject,” state the Board of Health, in commenting on the information I have just cited, “affirm that upon the improved system of combined works the expense of the apparatus in substitution of cesspools would not greatly exceed one-half the expense of cleaning the cesspools.”

The engineers have calculated—stating the difficulty of coming to a nice calculation—that the present system of cesspools entailed an average expenditure, for cleansing and repairs, of 4d. a week on each householder; and that by the new system it would be but 1¾d. The Board of Health’s calculations, however, are, I regret to say, always dubious.

The subjoined scale of the difference in cost was prepared at the instance of the Board.

Mr. Grant took four blocks of houses for examination, and the results are given as a guide to what would be the general expenditure if the change took place:—

I have mentioned the diversity of opinion as to the best form, and even material, for a sewer; and there is the same diversity as to the material, &c., for house and gully or street-drainage, more especially in the pipes of the larger volume. The pipe-drainage of any description is far less in favour than it was. One reason is that it does not promote subsoil drainage; another is the difficulty of repairs if the joints or fittings of pipes require mending; and then the combination of the noxious gases is most offensive in its exhalations, and difficult to overcome.

I was informed by a nightman, used to the cleansing of drains and to night-work generally, that when there was any escape from one of the tubular pipes the stench was more intense than any he had ever before experienced from any drains on the old system.

Of the London Street-Drains.

We have as yet dealt only with the means of removing the liquid refuse from the houses of the metropolis. This, as was pointed out at the commencement of the present subject, consists principally of the 19,000,000,000 gallons of water that are annually supplied to the London residences by mechanical means. But there still remain the 5,000,000,000 gallons of surface or rain-water to be carried off from the 1760 miles of streets, and the roofs and yards of the 300,000 houses which now form the British metropolis. If this immense volume of liquid were not immediately removed from our thoroughfares as fast as it fell, many of our streets would not only be transformed into canals at certain periods of the year, but perhaps at all times (except during drought) they would be, if not impassable, at least unpleasant and unhealthy, from the puddles or small pools of stagnant water that would be continually rotting them. Were such the case, the roads and streets that we now pride ourselves so highly upon would have their foundations soddened. “If the surface of a road be not kept clean so as to admit of its becoming dry between showers of rain,” said Lord Congleton, the great road authority, “it will be rapidly worn away.” Indeed the immediate removal of rain-water, so as to prevent its percolating through the surface of the road, and thereby impairing the foundation, appears to be one of the main essentials of road-making.

The means of removing this surface water, especially from the streets of a city where the rain falls at least every other day throughout the year, and reaches an aggregate depth of 24 feet in the course of the twelvemonth, is a matter of considerable moment. In Paris, and indeed almost all of the French towns, a channel is formed in the middle of each thoroughfare, and down this the water from the streets and houses is continually coursing, to the imminent peril of all pedestrians, for the wheels of every vehicle distribute, as it goes, a muddy shower on either side of the way.

We, however, have not only removed the channels from the middle to the sides of our streets, but instituted a distinct system of drainage for the conveyance of the wet refuse of our houses to the sewers—so that there are no longer (excepting in a very small portion of the suburbs) open sewers, meandering through our highways; the consequence is, the surface-water being carried off from our thoroughfares almost as fast as it falls, our streets are generally dry and clean. That there are exceptions to this rule, which are a glaring disgrace to us, it must be candidly admitted; but we must at the same time allow, when we think of the vast extent of the roadways of the metropolis (1760 miles!—nearly one-half the radius of the earth itself), the deluge of water that annually descends upon every inch of the ground which we call London (38,000,000,000 gallons!—a quantity which is almost sufficient for the formation of an American lake), and the vast amount of traffic, over the greater part of the capital—the 13,000 vehicles that daily cross London Bridge, the 11,000 conveyances that traverse Cheapside in the course of twelve hours, the 7700 that go through Temple Bar, and the 6900 that ascend and descend Holborn Hill between nine in the morning and nine at night, the 1500 omnibuses and the 3000 cabriolets that are continually hurrying from one part of the town to another, and the 10,000 private carriage, job, and cart horses that incessantly perviate the metropolis—when we reflect, I say, on this vast amount of traffic—this deluge of rain—and the wilderness of streets, it cannot but be allowed that the cleansing and draining of the London thoroughfares is most admirably conducted.

The mode of street drainage is by means of what is called a gully-hole and a gully-drain.

The Gully-hole[63] is the opening from the surface of the street (and is seen generally on each side of the way), into which all the fluid refuse of the public thoroughfares runs on its course to the sewer.

The Gully-drain is a drain generally of earthenware piping, curving from the side of the street to an opening in the top or side of the sewer, and is the means of communication between the sewer and the gully-hole.

The gully-hole is indicated by an iron grate being fitted into the surface of the side of a footpath, where the road slopes gradually from its centre to the edge of the footpath, and down this grate the water runs into the channel contrived for it in the construction of the streets. These gully-grates, the observant pedestrian—if there be a man in this hive of London who, without professional attraction to the matter, regards for a few minutes the peculiarities of the street (apart from the houses) which he is traversing—an observant pedestrian, I say, would be struck at the constantly-recurring grates in a given space in some streets, and their paucity in others. In Drury-lane there is no gully-grate, as you walk down from Holborn to where Drury-lane becomes Wych-street; whilst in some streets, not a tenth of the length of Drury-lane, there may be three, four, five, or six grates. The reason is this:—There is no sewer running down Drury-lane; a contiguous sewer, however, runs down Great Wyld-street, draining, where there are drains, the hundred courts and nooks of the poor, between Drury-lane and Lincoln’s-inn-fields, as well as the more open places leading down towards the proximity of Temple Bar. This Great Wyld-street sewer, moreover, in its course to Fleet Bridge, is made available for the drainage (very grievously deficient, according to some of the reports of the Board of Health) of Clare-market. Grates would of course be required in such a place as Drury-lane, only the street is thought to be sufficiently on the descent to convey the surface-water to the grate in Wych-street.

The parts in which the gully-grates will be found the most numerous are where the main streets are most intersected by other main streets, or by smaller off-streets, and indeed wherever the streets, of whatever size, continually intersect each other, as they do off nearly all the great street-thoroughfares in the City. Although the sewers may not be according to the plan of the streets, the gully-grates must nevertheless be found at the street intersections, whether the nearest point to the sewer or not, or else the water would not be quickly carried off, and would form a nuisance.

I am informed, on good authority, both as regards the City and Metropolitan Commissions, that the average distance of the gully-grates is thirty yards one from another, including both sides of the way. Their number does not depend upon population, but simply on the local characteristics of the highways; for of course the rain falls into all the streets in proportion to their size, whether populous or half-empty localities. As, however, the more distant roads have not such an approximation of grates, and the law which requires their formation is by no means—and perhaps, without unnecessary interference, cannot be—very definite, I am informed that it may fairly be represented, that, of the 1760 miles of London public ways, more than two-thirds, “or” remarked one informant, “say 1200 miles, are grated on each side of the street or road, at distances of sixty yards.” This would give 59 gully-holes in every one of the 1200 miles of street said to be so supplied. Hence the total number throughout the metropolis will be 70,800.

The gully-drain, which is the street-drain, always presents now a sloping curve, describing, more or less, part of a circle. This drain starts, so to speak, from the side of the street, while its course to the sewer, in order to economize space, is made by any most appropriate curve, to include the reception of as great a quantity of wet street-refuse as possible; for if the gully-drains were formed in a direct, or even a not-very-indirect line, from the street sides to the sewers, they would not only be more costly, more numerous, but would, in fact, as I was told, “choke the under-ground” of London, for now the subterranean capital is so complicated with gas, water, and drain-pipes, that such a system as will allow room for each is indispensable. The new system is, moreover, more economical. In the City the gully-drains are nearly all of nine-inch diameter in tubular pipeage. In the metropolitan jurisdiction they are the same, but not to the same extent, some being only six inches.

Fifty, or even thirty years ago, the old street channels for gully drainage were costly constructions, for they were made so as to suit sewers which were cleansed by the street being taken “up,” and the offensive deposit, thick and even indurated as it often was in those days, drawn to the surface. Some few were three and even four feet square; some two feet six inches wide, and three or four feet high; all of brick. I am assured that of the extent or cost of these old contrivances no accounts have been preserved, but that they were more than twice as costly as the present method.

In all the reports I have seen, metropolitan or city—the statements of the flushermen being to the same purport—there are complaints as to the uses to which the gully-holes are put in many parts, every kind of refuse admissible through the bars of the grate being stealthily emptied down them. The paviours, if they have an opportunity, sweep their surplus grout into the gullies, and so do the scavagers with their refuse occasionally, though this is generally done in the less-frequented parts, to get rid of the “slop,” which is valueless.

In a report, published in 1851, Mr. Haywood points out the prevalence of the practice of using the gully-gratings as dustbins! A sewer under Billingsgate accumulated in a few months many cart-loads, composed almost wholly of fish-shells; and 114 cart-loads of fish-shells, cinders, and rubbish were removed from the sewers in the vicinity of Middlesex-street (Petticoat-lane); these had accumulated in about twelve months. “Reconstructing the gullies,” he says, “so as to intercept improper substances (which has been recently done at Billingsgate), might prevent this material reaching the sewers, but it would still have to be removed from the gullies, and would thus still cause perpetual expense. Indeed, I feel convinced that nothing but making public example by convicting and punishing some offenders, under clause 69 of ‘The City of London Sewers’ Act,’ will stop the practice, so universal in the poorer localities, of using the gullies as dustbins.”

The Gully-holes are now trapped—with very few exceptions, one report states, while another report intimates that gully-trapping has no exception at all. The trap is resorted to so that the effluvium from a gully-drain may not infect the air of the public ways; but among engineers and medical sanitary inquirers, there is much difference of opinion as to whether the system of trapping is desirable or not. The general opinion seems to be, however, that all gullies should be trapped.

Of the City gully-traps, Mr. Haywood, in a report for the year 1851, says, as regards the period of their introduction:—

“About seventeen years ago your then surveyor (Mr. Kelsey) applied the first traps to sewer gullies, and from that date to the present the trapping of gullies has been adopted as a principle, and the city of London is still, I believe, the only metropolitan area in which the gullies are all trapped. The traps first constructed have since been (as all first inventions or adaptations ever have or will be) improved upon, and are rapidly being displaced by those of more improved construction.

“Now, of the incompatible conditions required of gully-traps, of the difficulty of obtaining such mechanical appliances so effective and perfect as can theoretically be devised, but yet of the extreme desirability of obtaining them as perfect as modern science could produce, your honourable court has, at least, for as long as I have had the honour of holding office under you, been fully alive to; no prejudice has opposed impediment to the introduction of novelties; your court has been always open to inventors, and, at the present time, there are sixteen different traps or modes of trapping gullies under trial within your jurisdiction.

“Nor has the provision of the means of excluding effluvium from the atmosphere been your only care; but the cleanliness of the sewers, and the prevention of accumulation of decomposing refuse, both by regulated cleansings, and by constructing the sewage upon the most improved principles, have also been your aim and that of your officers; and I do not hesitate to assert, that the offensiveness of the escape from the gullies has been of late years much diminished by the care bestowed upon the condition of the sewers.

“374 gullies have been retrapped in the City upon improved principles during the last year.”

The gully-traps are on the principle of self-acting valves, but it is stated in several reports, that these valves often remain permanently open, partly from the street refuse (especially if mixed with the débris from new or removed buildings) not being sufficiently liquified to pass through them, and partly from the hinges getting rusted, and so becoming fixed.

Of the Length of the London Sewers and Drains.

There is no official account precisely defining the length of the London sewerage; but the information acquired on the subject leaves no doubt as to the accuracy of the following facts.

About 900 miles of sewers of the metropolis may be said to have been surveyed; and it is known that from 100 to 150 miles more constitute a portion of the metropolitan sewerage; this, too, independently of that of the City, which is 50 miles. Altogether I am assured that the sewers of the urban part of London, included within the 58 square miles before mentioned, measure 1100 miles.

The classes of sewers comprised in this long extent are pretty equally apportioned, each a third, or 366 miles, of the first, second, and third classes respectively. Of this extent about 200 miles are still, in the year 1852, open sewers!—to say nothing of the great open sewer, the Thames. The open sewers are found principally in the Surrey districts, in Brixton, Lewisham, Tooting, and places at the like distance from the more central parts of the Commissioners’ jurisdiction. These open sewers, however, are disappearing, and it is intended that in time no such places shall exist; as it is, some miles of them are inclosed yearly. The open sewers in what may be considered more of the heart of the metropolis are a portion of the Fleet-ditch in Clerkenwell, and places in Lambeth and Bermondsey, or about 20 miles in the interior to 180 miles in the exterior portion of the capital. These are national disgraces.

The 1100 miles above-mentioned, however, include only the sewers, comprising neither the house nor gully-drains. According to the present laws, all newly-built houses must be drained into the sewers; and in 1850 there were 5000 applications from the western districts alone to the Commissioners, for the promotion of the drainage of that number of old and new houses into the sewers, the old houses having been previously drained into cesspools.

I am assured, on good authority, that fully one-half of the houses in the metropolis are at the present time drained into the sewers. In one street, about a century old, containing in the portion surveyed for an official purpose, on the two sides of the way, 76 houses, the number was found to be equally divided—half the drainage being into sewers and half into cesspools. The number of houses in the metropolis proper, of 115 square miles area, is 307,722. The majority, as far as is officially known, are now drained into the public sewers, or into private or branch sewers communicating with the larger public receptacles, so that—allowing 200,000 houses to be included in the 58 square miles of the urban sewerage, and admitting that some wretched dwelling-places are not drained at all—it is reasonable to assume that at least 100,000 houses within this area are drained into the sewers.

The average length of the house-drains is, I learn from the best sources, 50 feet per house. The builder of a new house is now required by law to drain it, at the proprietor’s cost, 100 feet, if necessary, to a sewer. In some instances, in detached houses, where the owners object to the cesspool system, a house drain has been carried 230 feet to a sewer, and sometimes even farther; but in narrow or moderately wide streets, from 18 to 26 feet across, and in alleys and narrow places (in case there is sewerage) the house drains may be but from 12 to 20 feet. Both these lengths of drainage are exceptions, and there is no question that the average length may be put at 50 feet. In some squares, for example, the sewer runs along the centre, so that the house-drains here are in excess of the 50 feet average.

The length of the house-drainage of the more central part of London, assuming 100,000 houses to be drained into the sewers, and each of such drains to be on the average 50 feet long, is, then, 5,000,000 feet, or about 2840 miles.

But there are still the street or gully-drains for the surface-water to be estimated. In the Holborn and Finsbury division alone, the length of the “main covered sewers” is said to be 83 miles; the length of “smaller sewers” to carry off the surface-water from the streets 16 miles; the length of drains leading from houses to the main sewers, 264.

Now, if there be 16 miles of gully-drains to 83 miles of main covered sewers, and the same proportion hold good throughout the 58 square miles over which the sewers extend, it follows that there would be about 200 miles of gully-drains to the gross 1100 miles of sewers.

But this is only an approximate result. The length and character of the gully-drains I find to vary very considerably. If the streets where the gully-grates are found have no sewer in a line with the thoroughfare, still the water must be drained off and conveyed to the nearest sewer, of any class, large or small, and consequently at much greater length than if there were a sewer running down the street. Neither is the number of the gully-holes any sure criterion of the measurement of the gully-drains, for where the intersections are, and consequently the gully-holes frequent, a number, sometimes amounting to ten, are made to empty their contents into the same gully-drain. Neither do the returns of yearly expenditure, presented to Parliament by the Metropolitan Court of Sewers, supply information. But even if the exact length, and the exact price paid for the formation of that length, were given, it would supply but the year’s outlay as regards the additions or repairs that had been made to the gully-drains, and certainly not furnish us with the original cost of the whole.

One experienced informant told me—but let me premise that I heard from all the gentlemen whom I consulted, a statement that they could only compute by analogy with other facts bearing upon the subject—was confident, that taking only 1200 miles of public way as gully-drained, that extent might be considered as the length of the gully-drains themselves. Even calculating such drains to run from each side of the public way, which is generally the case, I am told that, considering the economy of underground space which is now necessary, the length of 1200 miles is as fair an estimate for gully-drainage (apart from other drainage) as for the length of the streets so gullied.

Hence we have, for the gross extent of the whole sewers and drains of the metropolis, the following result,—

The island of Great Britain, I may observe, is, at its extreme points, 550 miles from north to south, and 290 from east to west. It would, therefore, appear that the main sewers of the capital are just double the length of the whole island, from the English Channel to John-o’-Groats, and nearly three times longer than the greatest width of the country. But this is the extent of the sewerage alone. The drainage of London is about equal in length to the diameter of the earth itself!

Of the Cost of Constructing the Sewers and Drains of the Metropolis.

The money actually expended in constructing the 1100 miles of sewers and 4000 miles of drains, even if we were only to date from Jan. 1, 1800, is not and never can be known. They have been built at intervals, as the metropolis, so to speak, grew. They were built also in many sizes and forms, and at many variations of price, according to the depth from the surface, the good or bad management, or the greater or lesser extent of jobbery or “patronage” in the several independent commissions. Accounts were either not presented in “the good old times,” or not preserved.

Had the 1100 miles of sewers to be constructed anew, they would be, according to the present prices paid by the Commissioners—not including digging or such extraneous labour, but the cost of the sewer only—as follows:—

As this is a lower charge than was paid for the construction of more than three-fourths of the sewers, we may fairly assume that their cost amounted to from three millions and a half to four millions of pounds sterling.

The majority of the house-drains running into the sewers are brick, and seldom less than 9 inches square; sometimes, in the old brick drains, they are some inches larger, and in the very old drains, and in some 100 years old, wooden planks were often used instead of a brick or stone construction, for the sake of reducing cost, and replaced when rotted. The wood, in many cases, soon decayed, and since 1847 no wooden sewers have been allowed to be formed, nor any old ones to be repaired with new wood; the work must be of stone or brick, if not pipeage. About two-thirds of the drains running from the houses to the sewers are brick; the remaining third tubular, or earthenware pipes. The cost, if now to be formed, would be somewhat as follows:—

The cost of the street or gully drains have still to be estimated.

The present cost of the 9-inch gully-pipe drains is about 3s. 6d. a foot; of the 6-inch, 2s. 6d. Of the proportionate lengths of these two classes of street-drains I have not been able to gain any account, for, I believe, it has never been ascertained in any way approaching to a total return. Taking 1200 miles, however, as quite within the full length of the gully-drains, and calculating at the low average of 3s. the foot for the whole, the total cost of the street-drains of the metropolis would be 950,400l., or, I am assured, one might say a million sterling, and this, even if all were done at the present low prices; the original cost would, of course, have been much greater.

Hence, according to the above calculations, we have the following

Gross Estimate of the Cost of the Sewers and Drains of the Metropolis.

Of the Uses of Sewers as a Means of Subsoil Drainage.

There is one other purpose toward which a sewer is available—a purpose, too, which I do not remember to have seen specified in the Metropolitan Reports.

“The first, and perhaps most important purpose of sewers, as respects health,” says the Report of Messrs. Walker, Cubitt, and Brunel (1848), “is, as under-drains to the surrounding earth. They answer this purpose so effectually and quietly, and have done it so long, that their importance in this respect is overlooked. In the Sanitary Commissioners’ Reports we do not find it once noticed, and the recommendation of the substitution of stone or earthenware pipes for the larger brick sewers, seems to show, that any provision for the under-drainage was thought unnecessary, although such a provision is in our opinion most important.

“Under the artificial ground, the collection of ages, which in the City of London, as in most ancient towns, forms the upper surface, is a considerable thickness of clean gravel, and under the gravel is the London clay. The present houses are founded chiefly on the artificial or ‘made ground,’ while the sewers are made through the gravel; and it is known practically, that however charged with water the gravel of a district may be, the springs for a considerable distance round are drawn down by making a sewer, and the wells that had water within a few feet of the surface have again to be sunk below the bottom of the sewer to reach the water. Every interstice between the stones of the gravel acts as an under-drain to conduct the water to the sewer, through the sides of which it finds its way, even if mortar be used in the construction.

“Hence the salubrity of a gravel foundation, if the water be drawn out of it by sewers or other means, as is the case with the City and with Westminster. A proof of this principle was afforded by the result of a reference to physicians and engineers in 1838, to inquire into the state of drainage and smells in and near Buckingham Palace, as to which there had been complaints, though none so heavy as Mr. Phillips now makes, when he says, ‘that the drainage of Buckingham Palace is extremely defective, and that its precincts are reeking with filth and pestilential odours from the absence of proper sewerage!’”

The Report then shows the pains that were taken to ensure dryness in the Palace. Pits were dug in the garden 14 feet below the surface, and 3½ feet below high-water mark in the river, and they were found dry to the bottom. The kitchens and yard of the palace are, however, only 18 inches above Trinity high-water mark in the Thames, and therefore 18 inches below a very high tide. The physician, Sir James Clarke, and the engineers, Messrs. Simpson and Walker, in a separate Report, spoke in terms of commendation of the drainage of the Palace in 1838, as promotive of dryness. Since that time a connecting chain has been made from the Palace drains into the canal in St. James’s-park, to prevent the wet from rising as formerly during heavy rains. “The Palace,” it is stated in the Report of the three engineers, “should not be classed with the low part of Pimlico, where the drainage is, we believe, very defective, and to which, for anything we know to the contrary, the character given by Mr. Phillips may be applicable.”

Unfortunately, however, for this array of opinions of high authority, and despite the advantages of a gravel bed for the substratum of the palatial sewerage, the drainage and sewerage about Buckingham Palace is more frequently than that of any other public place under repair, and is always requiring attention. It was only a few days ago, before the court left Windsor Castle for London, that men were employed night and day, on the drains and cesspoolage channels, to make, as one of them described it to me—and such working-men’s descriptions are often forcible—“the place decent. I was hardly ever,” he added, “in such a set of stinks as I’ve been in the sewers and underground parts of the palace.”

Of the City Sewerage.

As yet I have spoken only of the sewers of London[64] “without the City;” but the sewers within the City, though connected, for the general public drainage and sewerage of the capital, with the works under the control of the Metropolitan Commissioners, are in a distinct and strictly defined jurisdiction, superintended by City Commissioners, and managed by City officers, and consequently demand a special notice.

The account of the City sewers, however, may be given with a comparative brevity, for the modes of their construction, as well as their general management, do not differ from what I have described as pertaining to the extra-civic metropolis. There are, nevertheless, a few distinctions which it is proper to point out.

The City sewers are the oldest in the capital, for the very plain reason that the City itself, in its site, if not now in its public and private buildings, is the oldest part of London, as regards the abode of a congregated body of people.

The ages (so to speak) of these sewers, vary, for the most part, according to the dates of the City’s rebuilding after the Great Fire, and according to the dates of the many alterations, improvements, removal or rebuilding of new streets, markets, &c., which have been effected since that period. Before the Great Fire of 1666, all drainage seems, with a few exceptions, to have been fortuitous, unconnected, and superficial.

The first public sewer built after this important epoch in the history of London was in Ludgate-street and hill. This was the laudable work of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, and was constructed at the instance, it is said, and after the plans, of Sir Christopher Wren. There is, perhaps, no official or documentary proof of this, for the proclamations from the King in council, the Acts of Parliament, and the resolutions of the Corporation of the City of London at that important period, are so vague and so contradictory, and were so frequently altered or abrogated, and so frequently disregarded, that it is more impossible than difficult to get at the truth. Of the fact which I have just mentioned, however, there need be no doubt; nor that the second public City sewer was in Fleet-street, commenced in 1668, the second year after the fire.

There are, nevertheless, older sewers than this, but the dates of their construction are not known; we have proof merely that they existed in old London, or as it was described by an anonymous writer (quoted, if I remember rightly, in Maitland’s “History of London”), London “ante ignem”—London before the fire. These sewers, or rather portions of sewers, are severally near Newgate, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital sewer, and that of the Irongate by the Tower.

The sewer, however, which may be pointed out as the most remarkable is that of Little Moorgate, London-wall. It is formed of red tiles; and from such being its materials, and from the circumstance of some Roman coins having been found near it, it is supposed by some to be of Roman construction, and of course coeval with that people’s possession of the country. This sewer has a flat bottom, upright sides, and a circular arch at its top; it is about 5 feet by 3 feet. The other older sewers present much about the same form; and an Act in the reign of Charles II. directs that sewers shall be so built, but that the bottom shall have a circular curve.

I am informed by a City gentleman—one taking an interest in such matters—that this sewer has troubled the repose of a few civic antiquaries, some thinking that it was a Roman sewer, while others scouted such a notion, arguing that the Romans were not in the habit of doing their work by halves; and that if they had sewered London, great and enduring remains would have been discovered, for their main sewer would have been a solid construction, and directed to the Thames, as was and is the Cloaca Maxima, in the Eternal City, to the Tiber. Others have said that the sewer in question was merely built of Roman materials, perhaps first discovered about the time, having originally formed a reservoir, tank, or even a bath, and were keenly appropriated by some economical or scheming builder or City official.

“That the Britons,” says Tacitus in his “Life of Agricola,” “who led a roaming life, and were easily incited to war, might contract a love for peace, by being accustomed to a pleasanter mode of life, Agricola assisted them to build houses, temples, and market-places. By praising the diligent and upbraiding the idle, he excited such emulation among the Britons, that, after they had erected all those necessary buildings in their towns, they built others for pleasure and ornament, as porticoes, galleries, baths, and banqueting-houses.”

The sewers of the city of London are, then, a comparatively modern work. Indeed, three-fourths of them may be called modern. The earlier sewers were—as I have described under the general head—ditches, which in time were arched over, but only gradually and partially, as suited the convenience or the profit of the owners of property alongside those open channels, some of which thus presented the appearance of a series of small uncouth-looking bridges. When these bridges had to be connected so as to form the summit of a continuous sewer, they presented every variety of arch, both at their outer and under sides; those too near the surface had to be lowered. Some of these sewers, however, were in the first instances connected, despite difference of size and irregularity of form. The result may be judged from the account I have given of the strange construction of some of the Westminster sewers, under the head of “subterranean survey.”

How modern the City sewers are may best be estimated from the following table of what may be called the dates of their construction. The periods are given decennially as to the progress of the formation of new sewers:—