State of the Local Executive Authorities for the Erection and Maintenance of Drains and other Works for the Protection of the Public Health.

Having shown the state of the existing local authority for reclaiming the execution of the law, for causing that to be done “which the common good requires,” and those things not to be done which tend “to the annoyance of all the king’s subjects,” I proceed to describe the general state of the executive authority, charged with the doing of so much of these things as is comprehended in town and road drainage; the sewerage for house and street drainage, and the provisions for the surface cleansing of streets.

The extent of the areas to be drained determines arbitrarily the extent of the operations of drainage, whether public or private, which shall combine efficiency and economy. If these areas are occupied by different parties, they cannot be cleared separately at an expense proportioned to the extent cleared. In general they are only to be won by agreement amongst the parties holding the property, to place the operations under the guidance of science; these labours will then be rewarded by production, whilst disease and pestilence, as well as sterility, are the effects of the ignorance and selfish rapacity which impede such union for the common advantage. The early history of the attempts of the separate owners of portions of the tract of country included in the Bedford Level to drain their property separately, is a history of expensive failures, of attempts to get rid of the surplus water only by flooding the lands of neighbours, and scenes of wretched animosities. These continued until the whole tract was put under one strong authority and scientific guidance, when productiveness and health arose as described in the account of the sanitary condition of the Isle of Ely. Had the natural district formed by the geological basin of that level been subdivided for drainage operations into districts co-extensive with districts for municipal, ecclesiastical, or parochial and civil administrative purposes; or had it been divided into districts according to property or occupation; had the commissions charged with the drainage of these subdivisions acted independently by ill-paid and ill-qualified officers, without any competent control, instead of acting on one comprehensive plan in subordination to an engineer of science adequate to its design and execution, vast sums of money might have been spent, and the land would still have remained a pestilential marsh occupied by a miserable population.

The amount of surface-water on those lands made the expediency of enlarged operations obvious, and their necessity pressing. Besides the towns and tracts of country oppressed with surface-water, as described in such evidence as that cited from the sanitary reports from populous districts, the extent of country which is unhealthy as well as comparatively unproductive, from the want of systematic under-drainage, appears to be extensive and immense beyond any conception that could be formed à priori, from the more conspicuous instances of enterprize, intelligence, and science manifest amongst the population. What the tract of country belonging to the Bedford Level, so subdivided and inefficiently and expensively managed once was, large urban and rural districts are now found to be in degree. The circumstances which govern what is called the private drainage will illustrate the nature of the administrative obstacles to efficient public drainage, and it is necessary to consider them in connexion, for they are inseparably connected by nature.

Although the larger share of the land-drainage redounds to the pecuniary profit of private individuals, yet it is proved so far to affect, the public health beneficially, and contribute to the productive employment of the labouring classes, and to other general public advantages, that such works fairly come within the description of publicum in privato, and as such entitled to collective and legislative care. Drainage appears to be the primary, and in many cases the principal, operation for the efficient construction and economical maintenance of roads. But an efficient system of sewerage, and general town and road-drainage, has an additional value as removing serious impediments to the general land drainage. The following portion of the evidence of Mr. Roe affords an exemplification of the extent to which the private land-drainage is commonly affected by such operations:

“Have you found the sewerage produce any effect in the drainage of the surrounding land?—Yes, we have found it lower the water in the wells, often at great distances. For instance, in forming a sewer in the City-road, we found that it lowered by four feet a well nearly a quarter of a mile distance. The only remedy we could advise to the parties was to lower the well: they did so. We afterwards had occasion to lower the same sewer three feet, when the well was lowered again in proportion; so that the construction of the sewer, in this instance, drained an area of 40 or 50 acres on that side, and perhaps further. The water is sometimes in such quantities, and so strong in the land-springs, as to require openings to be left in the side of the sewer for its passages.”

The first obstacles to the general land-drainage have already been adverted to in the small occupancies. To these must be added the want of capital. The legislature has recently given to the owners of life estates the power of charging the inheritance with the contributions to the cost of permanent improvements by drainage. This power does not meet the case of the smaller holdings; and drainage operations to be effectual must, in general, be on a scale too large to be within the habits of thought or action of small owners or occupiers, of varying interests, and wanting confidence in each other to combine, make, or manage immediate outlays for such purposes. But above all these is to be added the circumstance of the power which the possession of a small part of a district gives to one individual, to thwart those operations of the majority which are for the common advantage, and consequently the temptation which the possession of such power gives and almost ensures, of its use to exact unjust and exorbitant conditions. When expressing to a gentleman who has actively promoted improvements in agricultural production in Scotland, my surprise at the large extent of marshy district allowed to continue in a state of comparative sterility, sources of rheumatism, and fevers and other diseases, he directed my attention to the following among other exemplifications:—

About a mile and a half distant, from one of the towns in Scotland, there is a moss about seven miles long, with a small stream running through it, with a fall of about 25 feet. At the outlet of this stream there is an old corn-mill, which yields a rental of about 25l. per annum. By the water being dammed up to turn this mill, the whole run is impeded; and the consequent sluggishness of the stream occasions it to be choked up with weeds. Whenever a fall of rain takes place, the banks are overflowed, and not only is every improvement rendered impracticable, but on several harvests as much as 500l. worth of hay has been destroyed at a time when a heavy fall of rain has occurred and occasioned an overflow.

It so happens that the proprietor of the mill would himself clearly gain more than the value of the mill from the drainage that would be effected on his own lands by the removal of the dam. The other proprietors, however, offered to him for its removal the full rental that he now derives from the mill. The property is in the hands of a factor, who is ignorant and obstinate, and the offer was refused. Now the land which would be affected beneficially by the removal of the dam, is a tract of seven or eight miles long, with an average width of two miles and a half. The expense of an Act of Parliament, if it were resisted, as it most probably would be, renders an appeal to the legislature valueless. Thus one individual is enabled to exercise a despotic caprice against the health and prosperity of the surrounding population, to inflict an extensive loss of labour and wages on the working man, the loss of produce and profit to the occupiers, the loss of rent to the other owners, and at the same time to inflict on all who may live on the spot, or come within reach of the marsh, the ill health and hazards of disease from the miasma which it emits!

The like despotic powers are found in every district in the way of the public health, as well as of the private advantage.

The passenger who enters Birmingham from the London railway may perceive, just before the terminus, a black sluggish stream, which is the river Rea, made the receptacle of the sewers of the town. Mr. Hodgson, and the committee of physicians of that town, state, in their sanitary report, that—

“The stream is sluggish, and the quantity of water which it supplies is not sufficient to dilute and wash away the refuse which it receives in passing through the town, and that in hot weather it is consequently very offensive, and in some situations in these seasons is covered with a thick scum of decomposing matters; and this filthy condition of the river near the railway station is a subject of constant and merited animadversions, and that it requires especial attention lest it should become a source of disease,” &c.

The fatally dangerous sluggishness of this river is occasioned by the diversion and abstraction of its water to turn a mill, “a fact which will amply account for the deficiency and sluggishness of the current in the very places where the contrary condition is the most wanted.” Captain Vetch, who has been engaged in engineering operations in that part of the country which have led him to observe the spot, states that—

“The remedy is as easy as the evil is great; all obstruction being removed from the course of the brook, and the water restored to its original bed, the object would be effected; as to the value of the mill-power which would thus be subverted, it cannot be a matter of much amount, in a place where coals and steam-engines are so cheap, and where the constant and regular work of the mill must be an object of some importance.”

After describing the means of the removal, he states—

“In this manner, and by reserving the whole body of the water of the Rea for cleansing its own bed, I have no doubt that this main sewer of Birmingham would become as conspicuous for its wholesome and efficient action as it now is for the contrary.”

Birmingham presents an example such as indeed is common in most towns, of the stoppage of a main current of air by a private building carried across one end of a main street. The effects likely to result from the obstruction to the invisible current are not dissimilar to those which result from the obstruction to the stream of water, and the cost and difficulty of relief from them are perhaps much greater. Captain Vetch refers, as another example of the condition of many of the towns in respect to these chief streams, as described in the sanitary reports, to the case of Haddington.

“In the town of Haddington a mill-dam crosses the river Tyne in its passage through the place, and into the mill-pool the main sewer is discharged with a diminished and sluggish descent; and on occasion of floods in the river, the water passes up the sewers and occasionally lays the lowest part of the town under water. It would not be difficult to direct the main sewer into the bed of the river below the dam or weir, and by the additional declivity give some current to the water of the sewer, which, from the pending up of the river at its present outlet, has rendered it almost stagnant, so much so, that in hot weather, and where it is not covered over, the exhalations are very offensive; but was the sewer improved by the alteration mentioned, still the pooling up of the river for the mill keeps the lower part of the town damp, and even subjects it to partial inundations.

“One of the medical officers reports, that when ‘fever has been at any time prevalent in the town, it has been most so in a portion of it called the Nungate, lying close by the river, when during the summer and autumn it is occasionally almost stagnant, and where there is a considerable decomposition of vegetable matter.’

“Another medical gentleman, speaking of the main sewer, says, ‘this small burn is a receptacle of the privies and refuse of vegetable matters from the houses near which it passes; and in those parts where it is uncovered, it forms an excellent index of the weather; previous to rain the smell is intolerable.’

“The same gentleman proposes, as a remedy, that another small burn having a parallel course at a short distance, should be turned into the sewer to aid the sewerage. From my knowledge of the locality, the recommendation, I should say, is judicious; but in this manner, though the supply of water would be increased, the declivity or rather want of declivity of the sewer would remain the same, and could only be improved by removing the mill-dam, or directing the sewer into the bed of the river below it, as already mentioned. Unquestionably from the penning up of the river, the lower part of the town is at present very ill drained, and it is somewhat remarkable that it was the first site in Scotland visited by the Asiatic cholera.

“In reference to the two cases cited, and to others of a similar nature, it should be remarked, that the vicinities of the nuisances are chiefly inhabited by the poorer classes, and who, from want of influence in their own parts, are the more necessarily thrown under the protection of state regulations.”

It does not appear that any improvements have been suggested to the inhabitants, or any question raised in respect to the compensation to the owners of these obstructions. They are, however, enabled to refuse a liberal compensation for removing from their property, and discontinuing proceedings so injurious by the agency of invisible miasma, that if the miseries were brought about by direct manual or visible operations, it would be deemed the most horrible tyranny. In many, if not in most such cases, the use of the property, with such attendant consequences, would be found to be in contravention of the existing public rights; but the expense and delay and uncertainty of the legal procedure practically sustain such invasions on the surrounding property and on the public health.

The powers of continuing such evils amidst large masses of the population, and against specific representations of the attendant evils, are terrible when the extent of those evils are examined. For example, it is stated in the records of the proceedings before adverted to, with which Dr. Currie, of Liverpool, was connected, that,—

“In the beginning of the year 1802, the corporation of Liverpool, being about to apply to Parliament for powers to improve the streets and the police of the town, requested the physicians of the infirmary and dispensary to suggest to them ‘such alterations as might contribute to the health and comfort of the inhabitants,’ in order that, where necessary, they might include in the Bill about to be brought into Parliament the powers requisite to carry such alterations into effect. The physicians took this request into serious consideration, and presented a report of considerable extent, including a view of the causes of the uncommon sickliness of the two preceding years, and of the measures requisite to prevent its recurrence, and to remove the frequency of contagion in the habitations of the poor. To lessen as much as possible the contamination of the atmosphere, they recommended that lime should be prevented from being burnt within a certain distance of inhabited houses; that soaperies, tan-yards, and other offensive manufactories, should in future be prevented from being established in the town; and where now established, and authorized by usage, that they should, whenever practicable, be purchased by the body corporate, and the space they occupy be converted to other purposes. The same recommendation they extended to slaughter-houses, and to all other offensive trades or manufactories. They recommend, that in all cases where fire-engines, or steam-engines, are necessarily employed in the town or its vicinity, the burning of smoke should be enforced, as well as in all other practicable cases where large volumes of smoke are emitted.

“They pointed out the necessity of enforcing cleanliness in the streets, to which end an improvement of the pavement was represented to be essential; and they particularly advised a general review of the common sewers, and an improvement of their structure, on the principles of a report on this particular subject addressed by them to the mayor and magistrates in 1788. They further advised that effectual provision should be made for draining the grounds within the liberties, and particularly to the north of the town. ‘Repeated remonstrances (I quote the words of the report) have been made for the last twenty years on the collections of standing water, including filth of every kind, which are suffered to remain in the district which extends along the termination of the streets from St. Paul’s-square to Byrom-street, and to which the low fevers which, in the autumnal months especially, infest these streets, are principally to be imputed. These remonstrances have been passed over, on the ground, as we are informed, that the proprietors of the lands will not agree to the plan necessary for draining them.’”

Some of the most important improvements that might be accomplished in the poorer and most infected districts of the larger towns by pulling down the present tenements and erecting tenements of a superior order, would, there is little doubt, amply repay any large capitalist or single proprietor. In the course of our examination of the most wretched and overcrowded wynds of Glasgow and Edinburgh, we were informed by persons apparently of competent local information that, if they could be purchased at a fair price for the public to be pulled down, there would be a gain in the prevention of the charges of sickness and crime arising from them; and that if they were simply rebuilt on a good plan, the necessary outlay would be repaid by the improved rental from the superior order of tenements. Each flat or story, however, frequently belonged to a different owner, and the property in which the most afflicted classes lived appeared to be extensively subdivided amongst persons of different interests, of different degrees of permanency, and with no power of co-operation, and with little or no capital.

Now the class of persons whose feelings, state of intelligence, and modes of action are displayed in the evidence on the drainage redounding to private profit, are the class from amongst whom are necessarily taken the members of the local boards, to whose uncontrolled direction and choice of officer the structural works essential to the public health are confided.

The natural districts for public drainage are so capriciously subdivided and departed from, as frequently to render economical and efficient drainage impracticable.

The municipal authorities who obtained powers for drainage, only thought of the surface drainage of their own jurisdictions. Some towns are at the bottom of basins and others on elevations, and the operations for effectual drainage must often be commenced at a distance. It is stated by persons of competent skill in drainage, as an example, a town situate on one side of a hill will be drained dry by tapping or opening a spring on the other side. The manifest defect in the areas of operations for drainage is noticed in the report of the Committee of the House of Commons, which in the year 1834 inquired into the administration of the sewers’ rate in the metropolis, where perhaps the most money has been expended in imperfect sewerage and cleansing of any part of the kingdom. They reported that a primary defect of their constitution—

“Is the want of system or combination between the different trusts which have now, as before observed, each an independent action. The inconveniences in this are palpable, for where the line of communication with the Thames is not complete within each district, the very improvements in the one trust may prove injurious to the others. It appears by the evidence that a case of this kind occurred not long ago in the city of Loudon, through which a part of the Holborn and Finsbury sewerage is conducted to the river. The sewers of the Holborn and Finsbury division having been greatly improved and enlarged, the city sewers became inadequate to carry off their contents, and a number of houses in the vicinity of the river were inundated after each fall of rain, the contents of their own drains, in addition to the waters from the high lands of the neighbouring trust, being actually forced back into their houses from the volume of water which occupied the main sewer. This has now been remedied at a great expense to the city of London district, and by dint of much labour and time; but if anything like combination had existed previously, the improvements would have been carried on simultaneously, and the inconvenience would never have occurred.”

The surveyor of the City sewers under the management of the corporation, speaks in a tone of grievance and oppression, that the waters of the county would run into the municipal jurisdiction. Speaking of the formation of a particular sewer, he says,—

“The commissioners under the power of the Act of Parliament carried the sewer, in the first instance, along their own pavement and for their own drainage. It was thence continued up to Finsbury-place to Bunhill-fields, then called Tyndal’s burial-ground, and is so described in the Act; the county then communicated with it, and sent their surplus water, or an immense run of it, into that sewer. The city for its own drainage also built a sewer in Whitecross-street; the county somehow or other got possession of that, and the water that runs down Whitecross street is quite overpowering.”

He speaks of some other drains which were formed by the city, and the effects of the waters let in upon them from the county.

“The Commissioners find themselves very much annoyed by the quantity of water poured in from the county, which water communicates with the city in Bishopsgate-street, through Shoreditch. * * * The county then made another sewer, which takes water from the Tower Hamlets, and is continued up the Kingsland-road, so that a very large portion of that water has been thrown into that sewer, and annoyed this Irongate sewer (the only communication with the Thames) very sorely; and the Commissioners had been put to an enormous expense in rebuilding it, and that was increased by houses being built over it with very high stacks of chimneys. In consequence of the immense flood of water that pours down all those different sewers from the county, the inhabitants of the city, in the neighbourhood of Moorfields especially, have been most dreadfully annoyed, so much so that their cellars became useless.

“By the county, you mean the Holborn and Finsbury division?—Yes; everything out of the boundary of the city. In order to meet the difficulty for which there was no other cure, the commissioners have built a sewer for the New London Bridge, which is ten feet by eight feet at the mouth; they are continuing it up to the new street, eight feet six inches by seven feet, and it is intended to take it up the New Road to Moorfields, to continue the sewer along Princes-street and up that new street; and I confidently expect I shall get from eight to ten feet additional depth, and that then the whole of Moorfields will be effectually relieved.

“The necessity for this new sewer of this large dimension, arises from the large quantity of water which flows in upon you from the county?—Certainly.

“You conceive yourself on the other side to derive some benefit from these waters, because they cleanse and scour your sewers down?—Yes, as far as the direct run goes they do, but beyond that they do an injury that is incalculable; in this way the water runs right a-head, and an immense quantity is brought in, it fills it, and the collateral sewers cannot bear up against it, they are driven back and the sediment is deposited, and when it falls that is left behind.”

It need scarcely be pointed out that this municipal division had, until they chose to drain, operated as a barrier to all the water described, which was kept back to the injury of the county; to the injury indeed of the health of those merchants and traders, clerks and men of business, the population whose private residences are in the county, and beyond their residences to the injury of the city, in so far as their obstructions to drainage injured the pasturage and land cultivated for the supply of the city.

But a considerable portion of the city was itself imperfectly drained. The chairman was asked,—

“539. Do you conceive there is any large portion of the City left without deriving direct advantage from the sewerage,—meaning, by direct advantage, some underground communication with the sewers so as to carry off the soil of the house?—There is a large part of the City of London in that state.”

It was stated, as an example, that Cheapside had no sewer. This was accounted for from the circumstance, that the

“whole form of that part of the city is like a tortoise’s back. Cheapside and Leadenhall-street are the back-bone; and that accounts for Cheapside, being the highest ground, never having had occasion for a sewer for the surface drainage; the water all flows northward and southward, so that accounts for the apparent contradiction of Cheapside, a main street, having no sewer in it.

“As far as surface drainage is concerned?—Yes; the inhabitants of Cheapside, generally speaking, have got cesspools: they perforated the yellow clay or loam and got into the gravel, and whatever is thrown into the cesspool mixes with the water and the earth: that is for the benefit of the water-drinkers!”

Thirty old streets in Westminster had no sewers. Other considerable and ancient streets were also without sewers, although the inhabitants contributed to the rates.

Nor does there appear to be any conception as to the objects of the service; and illegal fees, that must operate as exclusions to the poorer inhabitants from the advantages which it is most desirable to confer, were allowed to be exacted by the officers. Thus the chairman of the City Commission was asked,—

“574. Your clerks at the office take no fees?—I cannot say that they take no fees; there is an ancient fee allowed, that any person who communicates with the sewer shall pay a guinea; that is divided among the clerks, the surveyor, and inspector, who see that the communication is properly made: they pay a guinea for that purpose.

“575. Are your clerks paid by those fees?—No, by fixed salary; the fees are very trifling, for till lately they did not amount to 100l. a-year.

“576. The aggregate of the fees?—Yes, nor to 50l. a-year: if a party applies to communicate with a sewer, and the Commissioners have no objection, they call upon him to pay the estimate of the surveyor, and the charges are made at the contract price, and in addition to that they pay one guinea as a fee.”

In another Commission the surveyor’s fee for the privilege is stated to be one guinea.

Before the Committee Mr. James Peake, the surveyor of the Commissioners for the Tower Hamlets, states (Committee on Health of Towns), “that in making a communication to the common sewers, the parties who have to make the drain, besides doing it at their own expense, have to pay 17s. 6d. for the first three feet of sewer. And they,” the Commissioners of Sewers, “do that for this reason:—if they were not to resort to that measure, the sewers would be destroyed. Every one would make a hole in the sewer,” i. e., every one would use the sewer.

Mr. Samuel Byles, another witness examined before the same Committee, was asked—

“193. You state that a great deal of disease is generated by the want of ventilation and sewerage; is there any power in the Sewer Commissioners to oblige the parties inhabiting the district to communicate with the sewer if they made one?—No; and there is unfortunately a paradox; there is a penalty on any person communicating from his house into the common sewer.

“194. If they are assessed to it that is not the case, is it?—Yes; it appears to be a complete paradox; if privies are known to empty themselves into the common sewer, the person is liable to a penalty.”

No arrangements are made to bring the effects of the absence of drainage to the knowledge of those bodies for their guidance in the performance of their duties, nor does it appear to enter into their conception that the protection of the public health forms any part of the objects of their service. Mr. James Peake, the surveyor of the Commissioners of the Tower Hamlets, was questioned on this point—

“2012. It is stated to the Committee, that ‘in a direct line from Virginia-row to Shoreditch, a mile in extent, all the lanes, courts, and alleys in the neighbourhood pour their contents into the centre of the main street, where they stagnate and putrefy;’ is that the case?—I perceive by an inspection of the plan that there is no sewer about Virginia-row; there is none nearer to it than Princes-street.

“2013. It is stated that in some or other of those houses fever is always prevalent; do you know the district so as to be aware whether that is the case?—I cannot speak as to the state of the inhabitants; I know it is very wretched. The whole of this land was excavated for brick-making, and has been reduced to an unnatural level, so that the sewers are hardly available. I believe many of those houses have ditches round their gardens, and flowers and roots and stems are thrown into the ditches, where they remain and stagnate; we are working up, and shall be able to get the sewer in some parts five feet lower than it was.

“2014. It is stated to the Commissioners that in Whitechapel parish, Essex-street and its numerous courts, as Martin’s-court, Moor’s-court, Essex-court, Elgar-square, George-yard, and New-court, Crown-court, Wentworth-street, and many parts of that street, there is no sewer passes up?—There is none.

“2015. Are the people very much in want of some mode of cleansing in consequence?—It is the filthiest place which can be imagined.

“2316. Is it thickly inhabited?—Yes, very densely populated.

“2028. Do you not think that the want of such provision is very injurious to the health of the inhabitants?—I do not think that sewers have the effect which is attributed to them.

“2029. You disagree with the medical men who think that the neglect of this underground drainage is prejudicial to the health of the community?—I cannot see how, if they have a good surface drainage, they can be improved by an underground drainage, in nine cases out of ten.

“2064. Do you consider it your duty to alter a sewer, or carry up a sewer, with reference to the health of the inhabitants?—Certainly not.

“2065. Any alteration in the form of the sewerage, or any change respecting it, is with reference to property, not with reference to the health of the inhabitants?- Certainly.”

Mr. Unwin, the clerk to the Commissioners of Sewers for the Tower Hamlets, was thus examined before the Committee:—

“1433. Do you know Hare-street-fields?—I do; that is not very densely populated: there are a number of houses, but very few persons living in them.

“1434. Do you know that in wet weather a large portion of that neighbourhood is completely inundated; that in all the houses forming the square, and in the neighbouring streets, fever is constantly breaking out, and that the character of the fever in the neighbourhood has lately been very malignant?—I never heard that before.

“1435. Then if that has occurred in the midst of your district, it is a matter you never heard of?—Just so.

“1436. Do you know Baker’s-Arms-alley?—That is in the parish of Hackney; that is in our district; but it is a very open place.

“1437. If it is the fact that there is a narrow court with a dead wall about two yards from the houses, as high as the houses; that the principal court is intersected by other courts extremely narrow, in which it is scarcely possible for air to penetrate close to the dead wall; that between the wall and the houses there is a gutter, in which is always present a quantity of stagnant fluid full of all sorts of putrefying matter, the effluvia from which are most offensive, and the sense of closeness extreme; that all the houses are dark, gloomy, and extremely filthy; that at the top of the innermost courts are the privies, which are open and uncovered, the soil of which is seldom removed, and the stench of which is abominable; you have not heard of that?—No, I have not heard of any of those circumstances; I have heard of very few complaints of fever in the Tower Hamlets.

“1440. Do you not recollect that there are most fearful accounts of fever prevailing in that district?—No, I had a report sent to me, which I understood came from Dr. Southwood Smith, and there was a communication I think from the Secretary of State upon it.”

At the very time that this witness had heard of few complaints of fever in the Tower Hamlets, the Board found themselves compelled, on account of the appalling prevalence of fever amongst the poor resident in that district, to direct the special inquiry by Dr. Arnott, Dr. Kay, and Dr. Southwood Smith, as to the causes of the fever which led to the present extended inquiry. The description given in the question of the narrow court, with the dead wall about two yards from the houses was taken from one of those reports. That self-same court was the Bakers’-Arms alley, named in the preceding question; but instead of being situate, as described by the witness, in the parish of Hackney, two or three miles from the office of the Commissioners of Sewers, it is in Rosemary-lane, distant from that office only the length of a street, and that not a very long one—Leman-street.

On the subject of the escapes of gas from the sewers there is no one point on which medical men are so clearly agreed, as on the connexion of exposure of persons to the miasma from sewers, and of fever as a consequence. It appears that the evils of these escapes, on which several medical men to whose testimony we have alluded gave evidence before the Committee of 1834, may be prevented, and one of them prepared a plan for this purpose. He states that the Commissioners having expressed their doubts as to whether they were justified in trying the experiment at the public expense, he said—

“Very well, gentlemen, I suppose you are quite right there; I will enter into an undertaking with you to do it at my own expense, to a limited extent, in any part that the surveyor of the sewers will say he thinks it will fail; at the worst part that he can point out I will try it; and moreover, in that undertaking I engaged to replace the things in statu quo if they failed. I entered into that understanding, and, as I was given to understand, the parish sent their bond, with a copy of the request, to the Commissioners. Some time elapsed and I heard nothing of it, and in fact I thought the thing was so simple, and as I heard nothing to the contrary, I began to make inquiries as to getting these traps cast, when one morning the parish surveyor brought me the model back, with a verbal message, which was, that ‘whether it would answer or not, it should not be tried;’ the Commissioners had made up their minds that the stink should not be kept down.”

The reply made to this before the Committee on behalf of the Commissioners, by one of the officers, was, “The sewers must have vent somewhere; if you stop the vent in the street, it will penetrate into the houses; also the danger from the gas-explosions are continually taking place, and our people are frequently sent to the hospital. Our surveyor can show a specimen of an entire new skin to his hand, and he had an entire new skin to his face, and laid up in a very dangerous state. This was from an explosion in the sewers. This is a danger the Commissioners must of necessity look to.” “The gas always ascends from its lightness. If the air-trap was put at the upper end of the gully-drain, that would be the place where the gas would lodge, and any candle brought near to this outlet into the upper part would occasion an explosion.”

Now it is precisely because “the gas always ascends from its lightness” that men of competent science declare, without reference to the particular plan proposed in this instance, that by means of a shaft or chimney properly placed, private houses as well as the workmen may be relieved from the dangers of the escapes of this gas, which is becoming more deleterious from the increasing drainage from private houses as well as from the escapes of gas from the gas-pipes, into the sewers of which very strong instances are stated in the evidence.

In the map of Leeds, where the cholera track is pourtrayed, it will be observed that it followed closely the fever track; and were such maps so far improved as to show at a view the condition of a district in respect to dwelling and drainage, the marks to denote sites where the drainage was imperfect would at the same time denote the seats of epidemic disease. This had been so far observed by medical men that there was, perhaps, no point on which they were more anxious and urgent than that increased sewerage and cleansing should be adopted as preventives of the cholera. Yet in one extensive densely populated district, the Commissioners, because they had observed no effects on their own men, who were accustomed to the sewers, took upon themselves to disregard all the precautions advised by persons of complete knowledge. “At the time of the cholera the arching over the sewers was very much applied for” in the Ravensbourne Commission; “but,” says the officer of the commission, “I do not think there was anything done on account of the cholera, because the court held a different feeling on that point. Out of all the men employed by the Commissioners of Sewers, and who were constantly in those sewers, there was not one of those attacked by the cholera.”

All this incompleteness as to the extent of the districts drained, and the imperfection in the mode of executing the works, appears from the complaints and evidence given before the Committee to be accompanied by disproportionate and oppressive assessments and extravagant expenditure.

The rates were complained of as levied on property which was undrained, and derived no benefit from them; and by equal assessments on houses which derive benefit by direct communications with the sewers, and on houses which have no communication with them, and only derive benefit from the surface drainage, and in some cases on houses which were unoccupied. These unequal charges, sometimes for long periods, and for large and permanent works, fell upon a fluctuating tenancy. “We should claim,” says one witness, “20 years’ rate from the incoming tenant (122), or we might have sold the premises” (129).

In respect to the existing expenditure, very strong statements of mismanagement were made in the majority of the town districts; but I prefer referring on this topic to the evidence taken before the Committee of the House of Commons. One marked character of the expenditure is the greater amount paid to the clerk of the Board, and for office expenses, than for any skill or science in the superintendence of the work. Thus in the district where the Commissioners, on the example of their own workmen, adjudged that the applications for arching over the sewers on the ground that they created a predisposition to the spread of the epidemic were unfounded, the payments to the clerk of the Board for his salary and office was 750l., assistant-clerk 100l., and three surveyors were paid each 50l. (besides commission on works executed, and a fee of a guinea for communicating with the drain.) In another subdivision the expenses of the clerks, messengers, &c., exclusive of collection, were 15,737l. for 20 years, while for the same period the expense of surveyors, inspectors, and clerks of the works was 14,928l. In another division the tavern expenses for 20 years were 7,935l. In one district the cost of the commission, compared with the beneficial outlay on the works, appeared to be 200 per cent. In regard to another level, it is stated that there was laid out on works the sum of 17,455l. 18s. 10d.; and—

The proportion of the cost of management to the expenditure on work appears to have been similar in others of these administrative bodies. The Committee stated as a principal defect of these bodies—“The want of publicity and responsibility systematically enforced.” There were several of the trusts in which the Courts have not been open to the public, the right of the ratepayers to inspect the accounts not admitted, and “where consequently a real responsibility in money matters can hardly be said to exist.”

Mr. W. Fowler, a Commissioner, says—

“If they are to go from year’s end to year’s end without being subject to any control, I feel the money will be expended as I believe it now is, and dribbled away, not expended fairly in carrying the ostensible works into execution.”

Another defect resulting from the capricious constitution of these trusts, on which the Committee reported, was the want of uniformity.

“There are no two districts in which the law does not vary, or where, if the law be the same, the commissioners do not interpret some parts of in a different manner.

“Thus, a man having property in Finsbury and in Westminster, or in the City and in the Tower Hamlets, may find himself placed under different systems, and may be led by his knowledge of the regulations of the one district to violate the regulations of the other.”

Such being the unfavourable constitution of these bodies as described in the Parliamentary Reports, and the evidence taken before the Committees, the accounts given of the qualifications of many of the officers of these trusts for the execution of any work of magnitude requiring scientific attainments are equally unfavourable. The following general account of them is given by an architect of eminence, who has conducted large works in the metropolis and in various parts of the country, and is corroborated by several other engineers of extensive practice.

“In the rural districts, the men appointed as surveyors by the local Commissioners are very little better than common labourers, men with no idea of construction or of management; that is the description of men I have met with in the country places: they are commonly a sort of foremen of the labourers who are called ‘ditch casters.’ In the towns the men appointed are frequently decayed builders, or tradesmen whose knowledge is limited to common artificers’ work, such as bricklayers’ and carpenters’ work. Some may be capable of drawing: only a few. They have neither education, nor salary, nor station, to place them above bribery, and the consequences are notoriously such as might be expected of public services performed by such an agency. In some instances there are very good exceptions; that is, where the remuneration is adequate to ensure the service of a respectable persons, and where, as occasionally happens, a person of respectability has the local influence to obtain the appointment. The district surveyors in the metropolis are in general respectable and well-qualified public officers. In local matters no thought is ever had of combining duties. The chief concern of the Commissioner of sewers, where he holds property of his own, is to drain his own property.”

Another description of the persons usually appointed as surveyors is given in the following terms by a gentleman who is himself a surveyor of extensive practice:—

“As regards the appointment of surveyors to the Commissioners of Sewers, I would observe that, in my opinion, very few of them are properly qualified by education or otherwise to perform the important duties entrusted to them in an effective and proper manner. A man to be a good surveyor of sewers should be a practical civil engineer, in which science is comprehended levelling in all its branches, and other matters requisite and necessary in the construction of drains and sewers: in proof of this, an instance recently occurred in one of the divisions (which I need not particularize) in the construction of a sewer, that after it had proceeded for a considerable distance, from an error in taking the levels, was found to be below the level of the outlet, and was in consequence obliged to be all destroyed, and another sewer constructed upon a proper level. This error was so clearly traced to the want of practical knowledge on the part of the surveyor, or the application of it, that he was amerced in the greater part of the cost.”

A builder of extensive experience in the wealthy districts of the metropolis states, that in making drains and executing works which communicate with the sewers on which large sums have been expended, he has not found one main sewer in three properly made; and the strongest statements of the extravagant nature of the expenditure was made by witnesses who had themselves acted as members of the bodies directing it.

The office business of two of the commissions appeared to me to be very respectably conducted. But in the structural arrangements, in only one commission do any of the works executed approach the existing state of science. In that one, the Holborn and Finsbury trust, they happened to obtain a surveyor, having science and practical experience as an engineer, whose advice was acted upon, and that officer effected the only considerable improvements of a scientific character that have been made in the sewerage of the metropolis. These improvements for preventing the accumulations of deposits in the sewers, and the generation of malaria, and at the same time reducing the expenses of cleansing more than one-half, must be considered improvements of a very high order. But though they are demonstrated, and in full and successful action, they appear to have been imitated only in one other adjacent district. In the others they go on constructing sewers which are the latent sources of pestilence and death. This officer was asked the following questions:—

“If the public, who may be ignorant of the science of sewerage and of what it may accomplish, make no complaints, and do not call for the adoption of any improved system, in how long a time do you think the improvements demonstrated in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions would reach the other ends of the metropolis by the force of imitation and voluntary adoption?—From the apathy shown and prejudice against anything new, however valuable it may be as an improvement, and the various interests affected, such as the contractors for cleansing, I do not expect that they would become general in the metropolis during my life-time. The public are passive, and the adverse interests are active.

“You know the description of persons engaged as surveyors of various descriptions in the rural districts and in the smaller towns?—Yes, I do.

“Unless care be taken, is it to be apprehended that any new expenditure will be made on imperfect and unwholesome drains with flat bottoms and on false principles at a disproportionate expense?—Undoubtedly, except they have to act on rule, it will certainly be so throughout the country. The drainage that I have seen in the country districts is worse than in the metropolis.”

The consideration of these circumstances, in respect to the past expenditure in this branch of local administration, appears to be necessary for meeting the objections and opposition to any future expenditure, and especially of any apparent increase required for the successful removal of the physical causes of bodily suffering, and the moral degradation of the labouring classes. In the towns and districts where the chief evils in question are admitted, but where anything wearing the appearance of a new expenditure for any purpose is unpopular, and will be thwarted or yielded unwillingly, the objections when examined are found to consist mainly of a rooted distrust of the money being equally levied, or carefully and efficiently expended for the attainment of the professed objects of public advantage. From such evidence as that already adduced from the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons, but presented in greater extent and strength in the course of the present inquiry—of instances of disease and death occasioned by miasma from badly made and sluggish or stagnant drains that pervade whole towns, it will be seen that it cannot fairly be said that the distrust is not well founded.

A due examination, however, of the experience even of voluntary and private expenditure on the wealthy districts where water is laid on, and the main drainage is complete for the removal of refuse, appears to establish the conclusion that only a part of the work is then attained, and that for the economical attainment of the general objects of protecting the least protected classes, that which is generally deemed the private and subordinate work, namely, the house drainage, must form part of the same general system, and be executed under the same general superintendence.

It appears to be partly a defect in legislation, and partly a defect in the constitution of the existing authorities for the direction of public drainage, that their agency is never thought of for the superintendence even of work which can seldom be cheaply and efficiently executed by private individuals, and that can only be so executed and kept in order by the systematic application of science and skill. An order, that the landlords of all houses which have no drains communicating with the main drains shall make them, is an order, when viewed in its operation in a street or district where there are 50 or 100 different owners, that those 50 or 100 persons shall separately get plans possibly from as many different builders, and enter into contracts with them, and procure capital which, to poor owners, will be a serious amount of several hundred pounds in the aggregate, to be applied as a permanent investment on property in which a large proportion of them will only have various transitory interests. Viewed in its aggregate operation on all places requiring amendment, the simple compulsory enactment for house drainage, and without any previous care as to the means, would be, in effect, an order for the expenditure of several millions of money in the manner described by Mr. Charles Oldfield, a practical witness of great experience, whose evidence (corroborated by the testimony of other witnesses of extensive experience) has already been referred to on this important topic:—

“Have you as a builder had much experience in the drainage of houses?—Very considerable experience, and I pay particular attention to it; there is no part of a building to which I pay more attention than to the drainage. I seldom allow the drains to be covered in without seeing to them myself.

“Do you think it desirable that legislative provision should be made for the drainage of the tenements of the labouring classes?—I think it most necessary; but merely ordering the drains to be made will not do. Drains made for the tenements of the working classes, if left to the parties, are almost sure to be badly constructed, and badly constructed drains might merely carry away the soil; they might not do that; and they would probably let in as great an evil, namely, the foul air from the sewer. In general, unless care be taken, what is called making drains will be opening conduits for the escape of foul air from the sewers into the houses. This is frequently so with the houses of the better classes of persons, where the drains are not made perfectly air-tight, and are not properly trapped at all the apertures. I am frequently called upon to examine houses where they say they are oppressed by unpleasant smells. Some time ago I was called upon to examine a house in one of the principal streets in London, belonging to a gentleman of distinction, who was about to abandon it in consequence of the unpleasant smells which were continually arising. He was particularly annoyed that this smell arose in the greatest strength whenever he had parties; the drains had been opened, and there was no lodgement of soil in them. People commonly imagine that when they get rid of the soil they have got rid of the stench; they do not see and do not conceive the effect of the foul air, which is so much lighter than atmospheric air that it escapes where the atmospheric air would not. On examining the drains at his house, I found that they were imperfect, and that the foul air filtered through them. Whenever he had a party there was a stronger fire in the kitchen, and stronger fires in other parts of the house, and the windows and the external doors being shut, and a greater draught created, larger quantities of the foul air from the sewers rose up. These stenches arise in the greatest strength in the private houses when the doors and windows are closed, the fire and column of light air in the chimney being at work. So it would be with drains made from the house to the sewer, or from the sewer to the house of the poor man, unless care were taken in the construction of the drains. When the door was shut, and he sat down to enjoy his fireside, he would have a stench. This would be the effect of merely ordering the drains to be made by the owners of such tenements, who would get the work done in the way they thought to be the least expensive. You would have them made in a row of tenements with every difference in faults,—different forms, different sizes, different falls, bad materials, without traps at the apertures, and not air-tight; therefore constantly conducting a stream of polluted air from the sewers into the houses; and there will be faults which an inspector will not easily remedy when work is done in this manner.

“In what way, then, would you recommend them to be done, for efficiency?—They should be done entirely by the persons in charge of the sewers, or under the control of officers of competent skill, who should have power to enter upon the premises, and see that the whole of the work was properly done. Neither should private persons have power to make any alteration without giving notice, and making the alteration according to well-tried and approved plans. I confine my observations, however, to tenements of certain size,—to those for the labouring man, who has no power to protect himself, and who stands in need of protection. It might be deemed objectionable to exercise any control over the higher class of tenements, and the wealthier people are able to protect themselves; but all those things that are out of sight are done in the worst manner in the smaller tenements.

“If such an authority were to contract for the drainage of a whole street, how much more cheaply do you conceive the work might be done under one contract than if the labour were to be done separately, by perhaps as many different occupiers or owners as there are houses, each employing his own bricklayer?—At the least, from 10 to 15 per cent. difference. Serving a notice in writing on a poor occupier, perhaps a shifting one, that he is to get a drain made, would be of no use. Proceeding by serving notices on the owners of such tenements, is a course beset with difficulties. Many of the small owners are not readily to be found; the ownership to some of the poorest plots are in dispute. Then, when the owners are found, every owner has to seek and bargain with a bricklayer for what he does unwillingly, and whom he tells to do the work in the cheapest way he can. The owner does not usually know what instructions to give; and in nine cases out of ten the work will be badly, and at the same time expensively done. It is with the greatest difficulty that I can get the drains to my own houses properly done. Frequent complaints are made of the state of the sewers by occupants in some districts, but when they are examined it is found, in many cases, that the cause of complaint arises from their own drain not being properly made. The poorer or reluctant owner would seek a cheap or needy bricklayer, and will get an expensive one. Everything ordered of this kind may be made a job of; the bricklayer may do more than is wanted, or may make larger drains than necessary, and thereby incur useless expense. If it be done by the public authorities, leaving to the private parties to do it if they please within a limited period, under the inspection of a proper officer, it can hardly fail to be much less expensively done for the private individual himself, and it is very sure to be better done for the poor owner. The certain obstacles to any mere general enactments to have the work done by a multitude of persons will be immense, and the work will certainly be badly done, whilst, if it is well done, it will be of the greatest public advantage.”

Mr. Roe, the engineer, was asked, with reference to house drainage—

“Have you found the system of cleansing the large drains by flushing with proper supplies of water equally applicable to small drains?—Yes, equally applicable. A gentleman has tried it on a private drain of 18–inch capacity, and 1200 feet length, and it answers equally well. It is cleansed by the collection of refuse water from 30 or 40 houses.

“Might not the drains from private houses be also cleansed in the same mode?—Yes, they might have a small and cheap apparatus for carrying away all ordinary refuse. If in the small drain a brick fell in, it could not be removed by the force of the small quantity of water which could be obtained in such a situation. In our large sewers the heads of water are in some cases strong enough to sweep away loose bricks.

“Would it not be of advantage to the occupier if the private drains were under the same general superintendence?—I conceive it would in management. They are frequently put to great expense by getting persons to attend to them who really do not understand them. They are often now obliged to have recourse to the contractor’s men. Private property is often drained through other private property, and when the drains are choked, if the parties are not on good terms, they will not allow each other facilities for cleansing. Under the Finsbury Local Act there is a power to enforce the cleansing of private drains, and by way of appeal that power is sometimes resorted to by private individuals.

“May we not presume that the same principles of hydraulics, as to the advantages of a flow over a semicircular bottom, are as applicable to small drains as to large ones?—More so from the flow of water being smaller; the greater necessity for keeping it in a body to enable it to carry away the common deposit.

“Then there is a proportionate loss in having the private drainage made with flat-bottomed bricks or boards?—Yes, there is proportionate loss from the extra cost of cleansing. Semicircular drains of tiles would be better, and cheaper than brick for private houses.”

Supposing that only one-third of the existing tenements require drainage, the saving of 15 per cent. on the expenditure by the execution of the work by contract under the superintendence of a responsible engineer would be more than 1,500,000l. sterling on the outlay, independently of the difference in efficiency.

The necessity has previously been suggested of spreading the immediate cost over a number of years to make the charge coincident with the benefit. Were it left to the option of individuals to repay the cost at intervals of 20 or 30 years, and charge their tenants, as described in a supposed form of notice to them, which I have appended to illustrate the practical working of such a provision, (allowing them either to defray the whole cost at once, or execute the work themselves, under proper superintendence; if they thought they could execute it cheaper,) the immediate advantages of such improvements would then have some chance of being fairly estimated as against the immediate cost and inconveniences of a change, and resistance from latent motives of hostility would be obviated.

But however the charge may be diffused, and to whatever extent opposition on the part of the smaller owners may be obviated by care, it cannot safely be overlooked that in the poorest districts where it is most important that the works should be well executed, the superior direction of such expenditure will, in the ordinary course, fall into the hands of the owners of the worst-conditioned tenements, who have the greatest dread of immediate expenses, and who are under the strongest influence of petty jealousies; for in such districts it is precisely the class of persons who cannot agree to profitable measures of private drainage, who are the owners of the worst tenements, who, having leisure during the intervals of their weekly collections, and from other causes, are most frequently found in honorary offices for the direction of local expenditure. One officer, when asked how it was that in a district where fever had been rife nothing had been done under the authority of the law, which authorized its being cleansed? replied, that the Board had made precisely the same objections that were made when the cholera appeared; when it was proposed to cleanse the district, the answer made at the Board was, that “they did not believe it would do any good:” and those of the officers who were landlords of the weekly tenements said, “Why should we disturb and drive away our tenants?” and those who were shopkeepers said, “Why should we frighten away our customers by representing the neighbourhood as unhealthy?” consequently nothing was done.

The legislature, in making demands for such honorary services, has usually proceeded on the theory which views all those who may be called upon to render them, as persons qualified to understand the whole subject intuitively, and having no other interest or views than to perform the services zealously for the common weal; whereas, in the locality they are viewed in a totally different light, not as public officers, but in their private capacities, as owners or tradesmen, competitors for advantages of various kinds. However unjust this impression may frequently be, it is the impression that commonly prevails; and since all of one class cannot have a share in the administration of such funds, others of the same class, whether owners or tradesmen, view the persons exercising the power as rivals, and distrust their administration accordingly. As an owner, one member of a local Board is strongly indisposed to any line of operations that will apparently improve the property of another; and as an owner, too, he is under the strongest jealousy if he proposes or does anything which may appear to benefit his own property at the public expense.

Neither is such distrust as to trustworthiness from skill and adverse private interests confined to the administration of the public works of sewerage and drainage; it is fortified by the example of the local administration of the works of road construction and repair, a branch of administration so inseparably connected with drainage operations, as to justify and require a joint consideration with them.

Witnesses of the most extensive practical experience lay the greatest stress on the necessity of lifting these important branches of administration out of the influence of petty and sinister interests, and of doing so by securing the appointment of officers of superior scientific attainments, who (subject to a proper local as well as general control) may be made responsible for directing any new expenditure on a scale of efficiency as well as of economy. A competent, scientific, and efficient management, let it be applied to what part of these works it may, can scarcely fail to be immediately as well as ultimately the most economical management. But it will be found on examination that the consolidation of all the structural arrangements, comprising under-drainage and surface-drainage, road structure and repair, under one service, is most required for the sake of efficiency. Division of labour in the arts derives its efficiency from combination, adaptation, and subordination to direction to one end; but that which appears to be a division of labour in local administration is, in fact, an insubordinate separation, weakening the means of procuring adequate skill and power, occasioning obstructions and defective execution, and enhancing expense. Were pins or machines made as sewers and roads are constructed; shafts of pins would be made without reference to heads,—in machines screws would be made without sockets, and, it may be confidently stated, there would not be a safe or perfect and well-working machine in the whole country.

Mr. Telford, in a report on the Holyhead road, makes the following observations:—

“Perfect management must be guided by rules and regulations, and these must be carried into effect by the unceasing attention of a judicious and faithful surveyor who has by actual experience and attention acquired a thorough knowledge of all that is required, and applicable to the general and local state of particular districts, as regards soil, materials, and climate; likewise the sort of wear to which the surface is liable. A person possessed of all these requisites, and otherwise properly qualified to level and set out new lines, &c., where necessary, must receive the remuneration such a character merits, and may always obtain, in this active and industrious country. But however convinced and well-disposed trustees maybe to give this remuneration, the tolls of five or six miles do not afford the means of giving it. The consequence is that the Shifnal Trust (four miles) has hitherto been under the management of a person so little acquainted with proper road business, that it becomes a serious consideration whether it will be prudent to suffer the extensive improvement at Priors Leigh to be entrusted to his care. Until the Parliamentary Commissioners interfered and showed a practical example, the Wellington Trust (seven miles) was managed almost wholly by the clerk; he had a sort of foreman, who appeared to be only partly employed on the road. And on the Shrewsbury Trust (seven miles), as has already been stated, the surveyor and contractor were united in the same person. All these managers proceeded, without regard to any rules and regulations whatever, receiving only occasional directions from some of the most active of the trustees, whose varying opinions served more to distract than benefit the practical operations of the workmen. I must beg leave to add that these observations are applicable to all trusts of similar extent, and are evidences of the propriety of establishing districts of a magnitude to justify a more perfect arrangement, and the employing of a properly qualified surveyor, whose sole occupation should be the road under his care, and who should also be enabled to keep constantly employed a set of workmen thoroughly conversant with road observations, and working chiefly by contract.”—First Annual Report on the Holyhead Road, May 4, 1824. p. 25.

It need scarcely be necessary to observe that in the sense of that great engineer, care of the road implied the greatest care in respect to the drainage. In consequence of the limited areas of management, although great expense is incurred, the appointments of the surveyors to superintend works which are never well executed by any other than an experienced engineer, are inferior even to the appointments of the paid officers to superintend the sewerage. Sir Henry Parnell in his work, “On the Formation and Management of the Public Roads,” thus compendiously describes the composition of the chief bodies by whom these officers are chosen and directed:—

“According to the provisions of every Turnpike Act, a great number of persons are named as trustees; the practice is to make almost every one a trustee, residing in the vicinity of a road, who is an opulent farmer or tradesman, as well as all the nobility and persons of large landed properly: so that a trust seldom consists of fewer than 100 persons, even it the length of the road to be maintained by them does not exceed a few miles. The result of this practice is, that in every set of trustees there are to be found persons who do not possess a single qualification for the office, persons who conceive they are raised by the title of a road trustee to a station of some importance, and who too often seek to show it by opposing their superiors in ability and integrity when valuable improvements are under consideration, taking care, too frequently, to turn their authority to account, by so directing the spending of the road money as may best promote the interests of themselves or their connexions.

“It sometimes happens that if one trustee, more intelligent and more public-spirited than the rest, attempts to take a lead, and proposes a measure in every way right and proper to be adopted, his ability to give advice is questioned, his presumption condemned, his motives suspected; and as every such measure will, almost always, have the effect of defeating some private object, it is commonly met either by direct rejection or some indirect contrivance for getting rid of it. In this way intelligent and public-spirited trustees become disgusted, and cease to attend meetings; for, besides frequently experiencing opposition and defeat at the hands of the least worthy of their associates, they are annoyed by the noise and language with which the discussions are carried on, and feel themselves placed in a situation in which they are exposed to insult and ill-usage.”

He observes, that “Although this turnpike system has led to the making of many new roads, and to the changing of many old ones into what may be called good roads in comparison with what they formerly were, this system has been carried into execution under such erroneous regulations, and the persons who have been entrusted with the administration of them have uniformly been either so negligent or so little acquainted with the business of making or repairing roads, that at this moment it may be stated with the utmost correctness that there is not a road in England, except those recently made by some eminent civil engineers, which is not extremely defective in the most essential qualities of a perfect road.” To the varying extent of these defects the public are forced to ascend unnecessary heights, travel unnecessary distances, employ more horse-labour than would be necessary in travelling over roads that are kept hard, dry, and level, instead of wet, soft, and rugged. From the Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the subject, it appears that for every 200 miles of turnpike road there are, on an average, ten surveyors: whereas, if the highways and turnpike trusts were consolidated, one properly qualified surveyor might perform much better the service with which the ten are charged. There are, it appears, 1,116 turnpike trusts, comprehending about 22,000 miles. The officers employed consist of 1,120 treasurers, 1,135 clerks, and 1,300 surveyors: total, 3,555. The annual cost of the repair of the turnpike roads is 51l. per mile: total expenditure of 1,122,000l. per annum. The debts amounted to upwards of 9,000,000l. and they appeared to be rapidly increasing. The average expense of the management of the highway and the turnpike roads is estimated at 10l. per mile per annum; but it is calculated that if the management of the turnpikes and highways were consolidated, they might be better managed at an expense of from 30s. to 2l. per mile per annum. On comparing the actual expense of the repairs of roads under a scientific management of the highways with the common cost, it appears probable that by management on an extended and appropriate scale, upwards of 500,000l. per annum may be saved on that branch of administration alone.