Fig. 24. Rustic Arch.Fig. 24.—Rustic Arch.
Fig. 24.—Rustic Arch.
Fig. 25. Use of Arch for getting Waste Water clear of House.Fig. 25.—Use of Arch for getting Waste Water clear of House.
Fig. 25.—Use of Arch for getting Waste Water clear of House.
When pipes are provided with a rapid fall there is little tendency for water to freeze in them, but in severe climates it might be necessary to pack the pipes.
The waste pipes of kitchen and pantry sinks are, in London, almost always below ground level, it being the custom to place the kitchen and offices in an underground basement; and I have known London architects who have provided country houses with similar abominations, so that the sewage of a basement has to be lifted before it can be properly treated. If this evil is to be avoided, it is essential that the waste pipes of kitchen and pantry sinks terminate at least two feet above ground level. This is a minimum, and if a greater fall can be obtained, so much the better. Kitchen and pantry waste is full of dissolved andsuspended matter, and a careless cook will throw down the sink enough food to keep a pig or a dozen fowls. This waste is very prone to become offensive, and it is advisable that it be thoroughly strained before flowing away. Not only should the waste pipe have a fixed and immovable strainer below the plug, but a sink basket should be used,and the waste should be still further strained in a manner to be presently described.
2. No stagnation must anywhere be permitted along the line of slop-drainage.
2. No stagnation must anywhere be permitted along the line of slop-drainage.
Experimenting upon this point, I have found that stagnant slops become, as a rule, offensive within 24 hours, even when exposed to the air. Thus I tried the experiment of filtering bedroom slops through a trough filled with stones and provided in the middle of its length with a diaphragm reaching from the top to within an inch of the bottom, and having the outlet only an inch or so below the level of the inlet. This caused stagnation and great foulness, which disappeared immediately the outlet was placed at the lowest level, and stagnation became impossible. Soapy water mixed with urine soon becomes foul if allowed to stagnate in traps, but it has never in my experience been foul if poured upon the earth and allowed to soak away. With a good fall and with the outlets of pipes freely exposed to the air, traps are not necessary, and as all forms of traps are but miniature cesspools, this is a great gain. A trap is never possible in an outside metal pipe because of the fear of frost. The abolition of traps is not only necessary, but a very great gain indeed.
3. Slop-water should run in open gutters, and when it has reached a certain distance from the house it should be allowed to soak away as it runs, and take the line of natural drainage of the locality.
3. Slop-water should run in open gutters, and when it has reached a certain distance from the house it should be allowed to soak away as it runs, and take the line of natural drainage of the locality.
This may be effected by means of
The gutters which I have used, and which have been found to answer in a manner which has far exceeded my expectations, are constructed as follows:—
A trench 2 feet deep and 18 inches wide, and of a length varying with the circumstances, is dug, and filled up with porous material, such as builders' rubbish, old crockery, and tins, stones, &c., &c., to within a few inches of the surface, and upon this rubbish, previously rammed, walls of concrete or honeycomb brickwork are formed, provided with a ledge sufficiently wide to support a perforated tile, the perforations being big enough to admit a large sized knitting-needle, say ⅛ in. in diameter. The porous rubbish reaches to within an inch of the under surface of the tile, and the sides are planted. The gutter may, if necessary, be protected by a grating.
Fig. 26. Filtration Gutter.Fig. 26.—Filtration Gutter.
Fig. 26.—Filtration Gutter.
Or the gutter may with great advantage be placed upon a bank with gradually sloping sides.
In both cases the sides of the gutter should be planted with quick-growing shrubs, and it will soon become ornamental. Such a slop-gutter on a raised and planted bank would form a most excellent boundary fence. These gutters are shown infigs.26and27. The perforated tile which forms the floor of this gutter is a most important part of it, because it allows the gutter to be cleared of dead leaves and other rubbish, which inevitably fall into it, and it protects the porous material from getting clogged. It breaks the force of the water and prevents the downpour from the pipes from ploughing up the rubble, which is a most important matter. I have used various things for forming the floors of these gutters, and have found nothing better than the perforated tiles which are used for formingthe floors of malt kilns. I have no doubt that the gutter could be made perfectly well in galvanised iron. What lengths of such gutters should be provided? To answer this question I can only give my own experiences.
Two years ago I constructed such a gutter for a girls' school where there are between 30 and 40 day scholars and boarders. I dug out my trench leading into a natural rivulet, and I formed a gutter 40 feet long. I do not think the slops in this case have ever travelled as much as six feet, and there is no evidence that a drop of slop-water has ever touched the rivulet. The privets have grown, but the gutter has never been foul, and when the tiles have been taken up the porous rubbish beneath has been found perfectly sweet, and there has been no sloppiness at the sides.
Fig. 27. Filtration Gutter on Bank.Fig. 27.—Filtration Gutter on Bank.
Fig. 27.—Filtration Gutter on Bank.
A similar gutter on a bank was provided for a six-roomed house, and the slop-water has never travelled tothe end, or anywhere near it, notwithstanding a considerable fall.
The water of a fixed bath has run for nine years into a gutter 20 feet long, and at times as much as 120 gallons a day has flowed into it, but the water is never visible two minutes after the waste has ceased to flow; there has been no foulness of any kind, and the only effect has been to make the shrubs grow.
The bedroom slops of a country mansion with twenty-three inhabitants were taken, eighteen months ago, into a plantation, and the only result has been that the limes have thrown up suckers, but there has been neither sloppiness nor foulness.
The bedroom slops of a cottage with five inhabitants have run for five or six years along a gutter 12 feet long, at the foot of a privet hedge, and there has been neither sloppiness nor foulness, except when, as stated above, I produced stagnation.
4. When it is feasible, it is advisable to allow different varieties of slops to flow in separate gutters.
4. When it is feasible, it is advisable to allow different varieties of slops to flow in separate gutters.
The waste of fixed baths is almost clean, containing nothing but a little soap at most; bedroom waste contains soap and urine, but no solid particles of any size to give trouble, except a stray bit of paper, or an old match, or a few hairs, and some fluff from towels, which will all be caught upon the perforated tiles, and can be swept up occasionally.
Fig. 28.—Kitchen Sink with Duplicated Outside Filter.Fig. 28.—Kitchen Sink with Duplicated Outside Filter.
Fig. 28.—Kitchen Sink with Duplicated Outside Filter.
The waste from kitchen and pantry sinks needs careful straining and filtering before it is allowed to flow into an open gutter. I have mentioned the necessity of providing strainers and a sink-basket, and I now proceed to describe the slop-filter which is advisable for the kitchen sink (fig.28).The waste-pipe of the sink must terminate 2 feet or 2 feet 6 inches above the ground level, and be provided with a reversible nozzle delivering over a filtering vessel made of concrete or iron. This filter is in duplicate, and is provided with a diaphragm reaching to within an inch of the bottom. Each half of the vessel measures 1 foot by 1 foot 6 inches, and is 2 feet 6 inches deep, and has a capacity of 3·75 cubic feet. The outflow is immediately beneath the diaphragm, and empties into the open gutter. Each half of the filter is filled with stones varying in size from a hazel-nut to a walnut, and the waste is allowed to flow through one half of the filter, and then, when that half gets foul, the nozzle is reversed, and the second half is brought into use, and the half first used can be cleaned out. The filter must be provided with a fine copper strainer, and if the slops be carefully strained the filter will not get foul for months; but if lumps of fat and slabs ofcabbage-leaves be allowed to get into the filter, it soon gets foul, as does the abomination known as a fat-trap.
The method of purifying sewage by 'intermittent downward filtration' is well understood, and the methods advocated here are merely modifications of what has been done in this country, and also by the Massachusetts Board of Health.
What is meant by 'intermittent downward filtration'? How frequent are the intermissions?
The intermissions usually recommended are 'sewage for six hours and rest for twenty-four hours,' but my belief is that the purifying action of the filter-bed ceases directly the filter is filled and water-logged. The intermissions must be perpetual. The supply of slop-water in a private house is essentially intermittent, and this perpetual intermission is the secret of the success of the methods I have indicated. Between nine at night and seven in the morning—ten hours out of every twenty-four—the flow of slop-water is usually nil. Between 8A.M.and 11A.M.is the time of the bulkiest flow, but even this intermits. A housemaid's pail with its three or four gallons will come once in ten or fifteen minutes, so that the filter is always being emptied, and as the water drains off the fresh air follows it. The water of a fixed bath is practically clean, and gives the filtration gutter a vigorous stir, which does nothing but good. The domestic intermissions are invaluable. When sewage is collected in a tank and is then allowed to flowwithout intermissionfor six hours at a stretch, it is doubtful if the greatest purifying power is obtained from the filter.
Another point of great importance is the bestowal of rain-water. The usual method is to conduct the rain-water from the eaves by means of pipes which open directly into an underground sewer or empty over a gully whichruns into an underground sewer. This underground sewer conducts the rain-water either to a main sewer or cesspool, and the important fact to be borne in mind is that the length of underground pipes, whose main function is to conduct rain-water, are nothing but prolongations of sewers or cesspools which conduct the gases of putrefaction to many points round the dwelling, either at the ground level or the roof level.
There can be no reason why rain-water pipes should not end in a 'shoe,' and discharge over open gutters which might flow to a gully, if absolutely necessary, at adistancefrom the house. The practice of taking rain-water direct into underground drains is a great cause of damp walls. A year or so ago the rain-water pipes of a country house well known to the author, which ran direct apparently into the underground drain, were examined. In every case the underground drain was broken and leaky, and in some places completely choked by the roots of plants and trees, while the rain-water got away as it could, and kept the foundations of the walls perpetually soaked.
In the London house, with its cave-dwelling basement and narrow area, it is inevitable that the rain-water must flow to an underground sewer more or less directly, but there is no reason why this Cockney necessity should be adopted in the country. It is obviously advisable to conduct rain-water clear of the walls and foundations. The mediæval gargoyle was useful in this way, and I think I am right in stating that the 'flying buttress' was occasionally made to serve the purpose of a water-gutter with the same object.
It has been said that classification is the basis of all science, and it most certainly is the basis of the scientific disposal of refuse. Refuse matter is most varied in itsnature, and the items of which it is composed—excrement, rags, bones, paper, straw, sawdust, and other packing materials, cinders and ashes, old crockery, broken glass, old metal, &c.—all demand a different method of treatment.
When I see the grimy gentlemen in fan-tailed hats engaged in the marvellous operation of climbing over spiked railings with the object of filling a huge lumbering cart with amixtureof some or all of the things mentioned above, I feel that they are occupied in a bit of wilful mischief, and are merely increasing the dangers and difficulties of that sorting which is inevitable. In cities house refuse should be collected every day, and the sorting should be done at once by the collector, with the intelligent co-operation of the householder. Things dissimilar in nature should never be mixed. The first division is into putrescible and non-putrescible, and the former should be sent forthwith to the farmer to be dug into the ground. The non-putrescible refuse—glass, crockery, cinder, ash, metal—if sorted and temporarily stored in bins, would probably pay the cost of its collection and removal, and might perhaps yield a slight return. A great deal of the non-putrescible refuse might be of use to the sanitary authority on the spot for making foundations for paths and roads, or for scattering on the streets in slippery or frosty weather. Ash (not cinder) beneath the gravel on a garden path gives in time a firmness and stability which are remarkable. Whether it would work in with the macadam in road-making, and cause a similar improvement in the road, I do not know. It is difficult to understand why it should not do so. Non-putrescible refuse is not a danger to health, and it is certain that a great deal of it might be used for various purposes by the sanitary authority.
This immediate sorting is only possible when such materials are collected every day and the bulk is small.
It seems to me that much of our municipal scavenging is too magnificent, and that it is often inefficient in proportion to its magnificence. The nimble boys who collect the street droppings and store them in bins which contain nothing but the valuable and marketable manure are the type of what is good. The showy Clydesdale slowly dragging the most lumbering cart conceivable filled with an unmarketable mixture is the type of what is bad.
Farmers are shy of taking London sweepings, because, as one told me, 'they send such stuff.' All organic refuse is good for the land, but the farmer wants it in a form which does not hinder tillage. Pieces of oil-cloth, hamper lids, dead dogs and cats, and old tin canisters, are a nuisance to the farmer, and a very slight admixture of such things spoils the practical value (a different thing to theoretical value) of the manure which is mixed with them.
The sanitarian who loses sight of classification, and who, in his eagerness for a big scheme, is neglectful of details, has not mastered the elements of his trade.
The only rational treatment for excremental matters is immediate superficial burial, with a view to the production of crops, as detailed in 'Rural Hygiene.' It is to be hoped that, with this object in view, some municipality will purchase a tract of land and endeavour to give the poor an object-lesson on the right use of refuse. If convenient access to such a farm by means of canal, river, or railway siding could be obtained, it would make little difference whether it was two or twenty miles from the town, but the nearer the land is to the houses the better. Such a farm must be hand-tilled, and, if skilfully hand-tilled, would certainly produce as much food as a market-garden. It would employ an enormous amount of labour, and would at least pay its labour bill. I am not advocating that sucha farm should be used as a playground for the semi-criminal, semi-imbecile, and generally incompetent class who go to form the 'unemployed'; for the trade of agriculture, to be successful, demands both skill and energy. The 'unemployed' should be set to stone-breaking, street sweeping, dung-collecting, road picking and ramming, and scavenging generally, under the eye of foremen in town, and then, if found worthy, they might be exported to the farm.
Fig. 30.—Arrangement for Small Tenements.Fig. 29.—Arrangement for Small Tenements.
Fig. 29.—Arrangement for Small Tenements.
Fig. 30.—Section A-A.Fig. 30.—Section A-A.
Fig. 30.—Section A-A.
Figs.29and30are intended to show the plan and sectionof a group of the smallest town tenements, with a scavenger's alley between them and the three gutters, two closed at both ends, to be filled with absorbent material to collect the urine, and one to be filled with non-absorbent material to filter and aërate the slop-water, which should always flow in open channels when practicable. The 'scavenger's alley' should be protected by gates. It is thought that the excrement would be primarily collected in comparatively small vessels, like garden water-tanks upon wheels. The excrement having been allowed to drain before collection, and being in a semi-dry, sticky condition, would have no tendency to slop about during a journey, and in a covered vessel such as I have described might be sent any distance without danger or offence. Arrived at the farm the tank would be transferred to a second pair of wheels, and by being tilted would easily deposit its contents in a furrow previously made in the ground with a spade. The tank should be dried and lime-whitened and returned to the town, and three days after the deposit of the excrement in the ground, plants of the cabbage order should bedibbled in. Cabbages and their allies are the only plants which really flourish in the fresh material; but after the cabbage crop has been harvested any garden crop may be grown, and it will be found that the fertility of ground treated as I have suggested is very great and very persistent.
The best method of treating kitchen waste and putrescible refuse, such as cabbage leaves and the trimmings of vegetables, &c., is to throw all together into a heap enclosed by a circle of wire netting. In the course of a few months complete humification will take place.
I have been at some pains to demonstrate the dangers and inconveniences which are inseparable from houses built, as are the majority of town houses, upon an area which is wholly insufficient when considered in relation to their cubic contents.
Feeling, as I do, that the question of space round the dwelling is of the greatest importance—so important that every other sanitary regulation sinks into insignificance when compared with it—I have endeavoured to show how detached houses may, to their great advantage, be independent of the public sewers, and equally independent, if their owner choose, of public water supplies; and this I have done in the hope that in country places, and places which are developing, the precious boon of living in a detached house may be recognised.
While I am not slow to admit that water under pressure is a great advantage if it be wisely used, I have pointed out persistently for some years that our present system of water-carried sewage gives a 'fatal facility' to the overcrowding of houses, and has made life, of a sort, physically possible under conditions of overcrowding which have never been equalled in the history of the world.
In China and the East generally, be it remembered, the large population lives upon one plane. It has been left toEurope and America to try the experiment of piling the city populations in heaps, of housing them in many-storeyed buildings, some of which (in America) are fifty times the height of a man.
The facilities for overcrowding which are afforded by big schemes of water-supply and sewerage are now well understood, and have caused the formation of 'Building Societies' throughout the country. A large number of these societies during the past few years have been proved to have been dishonestly managed, and have involved widespread financial disaster amongst the poor and thrifty.
The mode of proceeding of these societies is to buy up, on the outskirts of towns having a system of sewers and a common water-supply, plots of land abutting on roads which have been sewered at the expense of the ratepayers.
These plots are then sold to purchasers who pay 10 per cent. deposit for possession, and pay the rest of the purchase money in monthly or quarterly instalments for a term of years, 10 or 15, as the case may be, with 5 per cent. interest. Thus the artisan, having paid a most exorbitant price for a plot of ground, starts in life with a mortgage round his neck, and probably finds, should anything interfere with the regular payment of instalments, that he has a hard-faced usurer to deal with, who merely concealed his identity behind the title of 'Company, Limited.'
The accompanying diagram (fig.31) gives a good idea of the development of a district subsequent to sewering. It has been copied from the prospectus of a Building Society.A A Ais an old road having houses on the north side only;B B Bis an old road with houses on the south side only,i.e., seven dwelling houses in a course of more than half a mile.
The space betweenA A AandB B Bwas, until a few monthsago, a market garden full of fruit trees, and about nine acres in extent.
A few years agoA A AandB B Bwere sewered at the expense of the ratepayers, and very soon afterwards this market garden was bought by a 'Building Society' and converted into a 'building estate.'
Fig. 31.Fig. 31.
Fig. 31.
It is obviously a very 'eligible' estate, for there is a Railway (R.), with a Station (S.), a Post and Telegraph Office (P.O.), a Church (Ch.), and two Public Houses (P.H.). None of the elements of modern civilisation are wanting. After the sewering of roadsA A AandB B B, the DistrictCouncil, in a fit of zealous extravagance, destroyed the gravel paths at the side of B, and put a 12 by 6 inch kerb, and laid half a mile of granolithic pavement for the benefit of the aforesaid seven houses.
When the Building Society issued its prospectus the plots abutting on the old roadsA A AandB B Bwere sold at once, and the reason is obvious, viz., that the roads are ready made and sewered; and a note with regard to roadB B Bsays, 'This road is a highway maintainable by the local authorities, who will provide a proper footway in front of the plots in due course.' The ratepayers as a whole are to provide pavements for the speculative builder in this particular instance, and it is evident that the owners of the plot and the Local Council had come to an agreement in the matter. The houses abutting on the new roads,Z Z Z, will, in addition to the purchase money for the land, be charged 3s.per foot frontage for sewers, and 'also such a proportion as their surveyor shall assess of the expense of repairing and maintaining the road or roads, until the same shall be handed over to the local authorities.' On an adjoining property the cost of 'making up' a private road was estimated at 12s.per foot run, so that the cost would amount to between 10l.and 11l.for a plot having a frontage of 18 feet, and might form a ruinous charge on some of the corner plots.
The ground will accommodate 177 plots, and the plots facing the old roads fetched 3l.a foot. Of these there is room for fifty-nine, having a frontage of 20 feet each, so that the price paid for these at 60l.per plot would be over 3,500l.; and if the remaining 118 plots fetched 40l.each (4,720l.), the total price realised for this 9 acres would be over 8,000l., in addition to the charge for sewerage and road-making.
When, moreover, it is remembered that the society may possibly hold a mortgage on every plot and every house, forwhich they get 5 per cent. and excellent security, it will be admitted that running a 'Building Society' is a tolerably profitable business.
If all these plots are sold there will be a population of over 1,200 persons on 9 acres of ground, and the ratepayers will be at the charge not only of educating the children, but of providing hospitals for the segregation of infectious diseases, allotments, free libraries, open spaces, and additions to the sewerage works for dealing with the sewage of 1,200 persons.
When a 'progressive' municipality sets to work to 'develop' its district (a speculative and hazardous process, which it should leave to private enterprise), the ratepayer soon begins to see that a great diversity of interests has to be served.
The little shopkeeper (and it is of this class that Boards and Councils are largely composed) wants the greatest number of people on the smallest space; and he sees that in proportion as the dwelling has an insufficient curtilage, so are its inhabitants wholly and entirely dependent on the shop.
The person with a fixed income who settles in a district wishes the district to remain picturesque, rural, and quiet, and, above all, he desires that the 'rates' may be kept down. He naturally objects to be taxed for the sewering of country roads in order that the fields may be covered with courts and alleys of jerry-built houses, and equally he objects to be taxed in order that every railway station in the country may display a large invitation to trippers to invade his solitude and make his life a burden.
All sanitarians are agreed that mortality and density of populations are directly proportional. The following figures, taken from Table R (p.xlvii.) of the decennial supplement of the Registrar-General (1895), show this veryclearly, as does also the diagram of the mortality figures for London (p.144).
Persons to a square mileDeath-rate (corrected)13812·7018714·4830716·4766218·551,80320·433,29922·304,29524·5119,58433·00
The corrected death-rate for 'Urban England,' as given by the same authority, is 22·32, as against 16·95 for 'Rural England.'
To form a just estimate of the comparative healthiness or unhealthiness of a great city like London is no easy matter. The composition of the population is, especially in the central parts, so abnormal in regard to age and sex that unless corrections be made for this abnormality any comparison of London with other places is futile. Such corrections are now made by the Registrar-General.
It is probable that in no city are the annual variations of population greater than in London. The population of June (the height of the season) and the population of September (when 'everybody is out of town') must be very different. In September the rich go to the country, the shopkeepers go to the seaside, and the poorest of the poor go hop-picking. The School Board attendances for the first week of September show a deficit of 80,700 children, or 11·1 per cent., figures which clearly demonstrate that the autumn exodus is not limited to the wealthy classes.
It is at this season that we see paragraphs in the paper to the effect that the death-rate of some London parish for the Michaelmas quarter reached an incredibly low figure, and we are asked to infer that the population, thanks to the wise policy pursued by the vestry, is fast making forimmortality. Of course such statements are not worth the paper they are written on, because there are no data as to population, and the period chosen is so short as to be valueless.
In estimating the death-rates of different sanitary areas of London it has been customary for the last six years to distribute the deaths occurring in institutions to the districts to which the deceased 'belonged,' and to exclude entirely the deaths of persons belonging to districts outside registration London; in this way about 1·5 per cent. of the deaths occurring in registration London may be excluded. This manœuvre helps to diminish the London death-rate, but, as no account is taken of sick people who leave London to die elsewhere, it is manifestly an unjustifiable thing to do.
If the strangers who die in London institutions are to be excluded, it is a question whether all strangers merely sojourning in London ought not to be excluded from the estimate of population. Again, a man comes from the country and is knocked down by a vehicle in the street and dies in a London hospital; or during a sojourn in London he gets caught in a London fog and dies of bronchitis; or he 'catches' influenza, or pneumonia, or diphtheria in London and dies. Surely the deaths of these three ought to be credited to London in all fairness. It is a very dangerous thing to 'cook' statistics, and we do not get much nearer the truth by doing so.
The best indication, probably, as to whether the conditions of life in any locality are healthy or the reverse is the infant mortality; in this way we exclude the fallacies due to abnormal age distribution, because we compare identical age periods; and the proportion of the sexes among children is practically the same everywhere. We exclude also the influences of occupation. By studying the mortality of children under five we are studying the influence of the home and home surroundings on the incidence of disease, which is particularly what we wish to do.
In the decennial supplement of the Registrar-General published in 1896, Dr. Tatham gives a table (TableII.p.lxxxii.et seq.) of the 'annual death-rate per million living among children under five years of age, from all causes and from several causes, 1881-90.' This valuable table ought to be most widely studied. Being based upon statistics of ten years intervening between the censuses of 1881 and 1891, the estimates of population have a maximum of reliability, because we are relieved of the errors inseparable from statistics referring only to short periods of time.
It is constantly stated that London is the healthiest city in the world, a statement which, if true, must make us very sorry for the other cities. In Dr. Tatham's table, alluded to above, he first deals with counties.
We find that the death-rate of children under five from all causes in England was 56,825 per million; that the highest death-rate among children was in Lancashire (72,795), and the next highest was in the county of London (68,164). The lowest death-rate was in the county of Dorset (35,651).
Table Legend:A = SmallpoxB = MeaslesC = Scarlet feverD = DiphtheriaE = Whooping coughF = FeverG = DiarrhœaH = Tuberculosis DiseaseI = Respiratory Disease
All CausesABCDEFGHILancashire72,795375,0532,4547063,8052856,4615,36417,037London68,1642404,7431,7801,3715,3421655,4446,58116,021Hampshire42,222102,0055059392,5082802,7833,2999,011Dorsetshire35,65141,7484884931,815621,3052,4019,390
I have also thrown in Hampshire, because not only is it my own county, but it is a mixed county, largely rural, but also containing the big towns of Southampton and Portsmouth.
Looking at these four in tabular form, we see that in Lancashire the mortality from measles, scarlet fever, fever, diarrhœa, and respiratory disease was greater than in London; and in London the mortality from small-pox, diphtheria, whooping cough, and tuberculous disease was greater than in Lancashire.
In Hampshire and Dorsetshire the mortality was very much less from every cause than in either Lancashire or London.
It is important to point out that the deaths of children from tuberculous disease are greater in London than in any other county, and that the deaths from tuberculous and respiratory diseases combined are greater in London than in Lancashire.
We have seen that the mortality of children under five averaged for the whole of London 68,164 in the decennium 1881-90, while that for England and Wales was 56,825, or, omitting the last three figures, let us say they were 68 and 57.
Examining the various registration districts more closely, we find that the child mortality was less than the average for England and Wales in four London districts only, viz., Lewisham (44), Hampstead (48), Woolwich (51), and Wandsworth (56), districts which are all on the outskirts of the place we call London. Certain other districts had a child mortality less than the average of London as a whole, viz., Camberwell (59), Hackney (60), Islington (61), Paddington and Kensington (63), Greenwich (63),St.Pancras (66), Fulham, Poplar, and Lambeth (67).
All the other districts had a child mortality greater than the average of London, viz., Mile End (69),St.George's, Hanover Square (71), Westminster (72), Chelsea andSt.Olave's (73), Marylebone (75), Bethnal Green (76), Shoreditch (78),St.Saviour's (79),St.Giles's (80), Holborn (82),Whitechapel (85),St.George's in the East (87), the City (90), Stepney (99) and the Strand (109).
With the exception of the City, Stepney, and the Strand, there are only two registration districts in the whole country which have a child mortality over 90, viz., Manchester (93) and Liverpool (114). To Liverpool therefore belongs the distinction of being the most unwholesome place for little children in the whole country, and the 'Strand,' which constitutes the very centre of London, comes next.
Let us examine these figures more closely, and let us throw the child mortality of Liverpool and the Strand into tabular form, and contrast them with the registration district of Andover, in Hampshire, a district which I select for reasons which will appear later.
Table Legend:A = SmallpoxB = MeaslesC = Scarlet feverD = DiphtheriaE = Whooping coughF = FeverG = DiarrhœaH = Tuberculosis DiseaseI = Respiratory Disease
All CausesABCDEFGHILiverpool114,253299,4922,9668525,8944839,8187,13826,080Strand109,596386,6261,8284,7606,359767,69211,88130,122Andover32,26001,2273072252,5051531,0742,0967,209
From this table it appears that the mortality from measles, scarlet-fever, and diarrhœa was greater in Liverpool than in the Strand; but that the other diseases scheduled were more fatal in the Strand than in Liverpool.
We have previously pointed out that the deaths of children from tuberculous and respiratory diseases are greater in London than in any other county, and now we find that the death-rate of children from these two classes of diseases amounted in the 'Strand' to 42,003, far and away the highest figure in the country, Liverpool coming second with 33,218. The death-rate of children from the same causesin Andover was only 9,305, considerably less than a quarter of the Strand death-rate.
Thanks to vaccination and the purity of the water-supply the mortality in the Strand from small-pox and fever is very small, but the mortality of children from the acute air-borne contagia (measles, whooping cough, scarlet-fever, and diphtheria), and still more from the chronic air-borne contagia, is fearful to contemplate.
The big mortality from tuberculous disease forces upon us the reflection that a large number of children who become tuberculous in the 'Strand' do not die within the age limits with which we are concerned, but drop off later in life after years of invalidism and suffering. We have seen that children under five are decimated yearly in the Strand. How many more are crippled for life?
The deaths of children under one year of age per 1,000 births is a safe criterion of the health conditions of a locality. This figure for the ten years 1881-90 was, for the whole of England and Wales, 142. In London, we find that in five districts (Hampstead 117, Lewisham 121, Woolwich 124, Hackney 137, and Wandsworth 141) this mortality was below the average of the whole country, while in the remaining twenty-five districts it was above the average.
In Paddington, Islington, Camberwell, Lambeth, Greenwich, Mile End, Poplar, and Marylebone, it was above 142 and under 150. InSt.Pancras, Kensington,St.George's (Hanover Square),St.Giles's, Bethnal Green, andSt.Olave's, it was above 150 and under 160; in Chelsea, Fulham, Westminster, Holborn, Shoreditch, andSt.Saviour's, it was over 160 and under 170. The City was 171, Whitechapel 173,St.George's-in-the-East 182, Stepney 196, the Strand 226.
To show what this figure of 226—the infant mortality of the Strand—means, I will give the infant mortality of some of the worst towns in Lancashire: in Liverpool 219,Wigan 161, Bolton 163, Salford 183, Manchester 193, Ashton-under-Lyne 173, Oldham 169, Rochdale 145, Burnley 184, Blackburn 178, Preston 203. On the other hand, one may say that the infant mortality of Andover, which has just adopted a great part of the London Building Act, with the approval of the Local Government Board, was (for the ten years 1881-90) 91, or 23 per cent. less than the best of the London districts, and nearly 60 per cent. better than the Strand.
Glancing at the other Hampshire districts, one may note that in the New Forest the infant mortality was as low as 80, and that it was only in Portsea Island (139), Alverstoke (123), and Southampton (135) that even the lowest of the metropolitan figures were approached. It is interesting to note that even the worst districts in Hampshire are below the average of the whole kingdom in the matter of infant mortality.
I have previously alluded to the high mortality of the Strand registration district, and my remarks on one occasion were contemptuously dismissed, with the criticism that it was unfair to judge of the state of London by the health of the slums.
It becomes necessary therefore to say that the Strand registration district includes the Temple,St.Clement Danes, the Precinct of the Savoy,St.Mary-le-Strand,St.Paul, Covent Garden, andSt.Martin's in the Fields.
Its southern boundary extends from the Temple Stairs to Whitehall Court, along the Thames Embankment. From Whitehall Court, the western boundary runs through the 'Horse Guards' and through the middle of Buckingham Palace to the top of Constitution Hill. It includes thewhole of the Green Park, but none of the houses abutting on it, with the exception, I believe, of Stafford House. From Stafford House the northern boundary runs south of Pall Mall, and includes Clarence House,St.James's Palace, the War Office, Marlborough House, and Carlton House Terrace. Thence the boundary runs up the Haymarket, along the north side of Leicester Square and Long Acre to Drury Lane and by Sardinia Street and the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields to Chancery Lane, the south end of which constitutes its eastern boundary.
This district includes parts of four royal palaces and also Somerset House, Horse Guards, Admiralty, War Office, National Gallery, and National Portrait Gallery. In it are to be found five churches (Temple,St.Clement,St.Mary,St.Martin,St.Paul, Covent Garden), Exeter Hall, and more than twenty of the largest and best known theatres and music-halls. The Constitutional and National Liberal Clubs are within its boundaries, and its numerous huge hotels are famous throughout the world.
The worst parts of the district are in the north-east, but one must mention that it doesnotinclude the Seven Dials or the north half of Drury Lane. Clare Market, the south end of Drury Lane, Drury Court and Bedfordbury, are the slums of the Strand registration district. It is not a poor district. The percentage of persons 'in poverty' in London as a whole is given by Mr. Charles Booth as 30·7, while that for the Strand is only 23·9.
Many of the labourers employed in Covent Garden Market and in the theatres earn very good wages, but Mr. Booth specially mentions the fact that in some of the lowest districts house rent is very dear. Wages is a relative term, and the potential prosperity of a person is only to be determined by subtracting from the earnings the cost of the necessaries of life, inclusive of house rent.
It is obvious, however, that the prime necessary of life (fresh air) is not to be had in the Strand at any price.
It may be well to add that the Strandsanitary areais not co-terminous with the Strandregistration district, which we have been considering. The chief difference is that the former includesSt.Anne's, Soho, and excludesSt.Martin's in the Fields.
This district of the 'Strand,' which I have chosen because it is the most unhealthy district in London, and in some respects the worst in the whole country, is, so to say, the pulpit from which the British have preached sanitation to the whole world. In it we find the offices of the Registrar-General and the London County Council; the Temple, where Sanitary Bills are drafted, and the Law Courts, where the sanitary law is administered; the Royal College of Physicians; the Examination Hall where candidates for diplomas of Public Health and Medicine are examined, and also the offices of the 'Lancet' and the 'British Medical Journal.' The Royal College of Surgeons, the Local Government Board and Imperial Parliament, if not within, are only just outside its limits.
It is doubtful if any district in London or any other city is better provided with open spaces than the Strand.St.James's Park and the Green Park are both partly within its limits. It has the Embankment and the Thames to the south, the Temple Gardens to the east, Lincoln's Inn Fields to the north-east, and Trafalgar Square in the centre. It is wonderfully provided with what are miscalled 'lungs,' but it is evident that lungs are of little good if the blood only circulates in them occasionally on a Sunday. It is well to bear this fact in mind, because our municipal governors sometimes talk as if the provision of 'open spaces' at exorbitant and extravagant cost could compensate for overcrowding in the dwelling, with a lack of light and air therein.
It is in the Strand, more than in any other district, that houses have been built of great height and enormous cubic capacity without any curtilage whatever. I have attended 'banquets' at more than one hostelry in this district where 150 or 200 persons have been fed in a room having no outside windows of any kind, and where, late in the evening, the guests have been provided with a little fresh (!) air by opening glass partitions communicating with a huge 'coffee-room' or table d'hôte room. These rooms are made by enclosing what ought to be open courts in the centre of these huge hotels, and their utilisation is only possible because of the perfection to which the science of artificial illumination has been brought. There can be no health without daylight, and sunlight, and fresh air, but the electric light is good enough to make money by.
To a greater or less extent, throughout London the height of the houses has been gradually raised, and the available curtilage has been built upon. This is seen in the dwellings of the rich, and there is no doubt that the conditions which lead to overcrowding are all intensified in the poorer quarters.
Part V. of the London Building Act, 1894, provides for open spaces about buildings and height of building.
It provides, in the case of new houses in new streets, for an open space in the rear, exclusively belonging to such building, of at least 150 square feet, free from erections exceptW.C.and ashpit. Where the ground storey is not inhabited, this open space may be provided at a height of 16 feet above the level of the pavement. The open space must extend the entire width of the building and have a depth of 10 feet at least.
A diagonal line drawn from the rear of the open spaceon the pavement level, and inclining towards the building at an angle of 63°·5, shall clear the top of such building save chimneys, dormers, gables, &c. This means that the house may be at all levels twice as high as the space is deep.
When a house abuts at the rear on a street or permanent 'open space,' then no private open space or curtilage need be provided.
'Nothing in this section shall apply to houses abutting in the rear on the river Thames, or on a public park, or on an 'open space' of not less than 80 feet in depth which is dedicated to the public, or the maintenance of which as an open space is secured permanently or to the satisfaction of the Council by covenant or otherwise.'
In new streets less than 50 feet wide no house may be erected having a height greater than the width of the street.
No house may be more than 80 feet high without the special permission of the Council.
These regulations, from the point of view of health, are as bad as can be, because they put a premium, so to say, on buildings of enormous cubic capacity. We have seen that the provisions as to private curtilage are limited to a back yard 10 feet deep, but in the case of houses abutting on two streets, front and back, or abutting on a street and 'open space' 80 feet deep, these restrictions are dispensed with.
If an open space, acquired and maintained at enormous cost, is to be an excuse for surrounding it with huge blocks of 'flats' 80 feet high, it is not difficult to see that their effect on the public health will be mischievous rather than beneficial. There is no advantage in looking out on an open space through a closed window, and the great problem in London is how to manage that young children under school age are to breathe the external air which is essential to theirproper development. In the country the perambulator is pushed into the garden, and through the open door the mother at her work can have an eye upon her children. But for a family occupying a set of rooms in a 'model dwelling,' when the father is gone to work, the elder children at school, and the mother busy, there is nothing for it but to allow the children to breathe the air of the living-rooms, fouled from many sources. These children seldom breathe external air, and never breathe really fresh air. When they are a little older, they fluctuate between crowded two-storeyed schools, a fetid home, and an 'open space' (perhaps 80 feet wide and surrounded by houses 80 feet high!). Is it to be wondered at that the even tenor of their way is interrupted by diphtheria and scarlet fever, or that 22 per cent. die without ever keeping a birthday, and that children under five are more than decimated annually?
One must rejoice to think that in new houses (mostly) on the outskirts the little child will have a back yard to play in, having an area of at least 150 square feet (with deductions for the permitted erections).
The little child in the 'Strand' will enjoy no such luxury, and how it is to get any fresh air before it is old enough to play in the fearfully crowded and dangerous streets is a mystery.