In 1372 another Royal Proclamation was issued against the defilement of the bank. This kind of proclamation always proved futile, because no one could enforce it. In 1379 another order of the Common Council was made about keeping the streets clean. This time the Corporation seems to have recognised the absurdity of prohibiting what they could not prevent. They no longer forbid the citizens the throwing of “ordure, filth, rubbish and shavings” into the kennels, but they say that they must not throw those things into the kennels except in the time of rain so that they will be washed away, and they give the Officers of the Wards power to use loam, sand, and gravel carts for the purpose of carrying off the refuse and cleaning the kennels. The result of many centuries’ conversion of the streets into sewers was of course the saturation of the soil with poisonous matter, which powerfully assisted the spread of plague. These are the principal regulations as to the cleaning of the streets during a hundred years, all of the same tenor, thirteen proclamations and orders—that is to say, one in every eight years—and no effect produced. I have made one or two notes from Riley’s _Memorials_ on other points connected with the government of the City. Thus, in 1288 it was ordered that the course of Walbrook was to be kept clean. In 1374 a lease was granted of the Moor to a certain person coupled with the duty of keeping the Walbrook reasonably clean. Along the Walbrook every house had its latrine built out over the bed of the stream, and for each, at one time, a rent of 12d. was paid yearly. The now greatly narrowed bed of the stream was constantly becoming choked with the accumulation of filth of all kinds thrown into it: the slender stream was not strong enough as of old, before the wall was built, to carry things down to its mouth. There were public latrines along the river bank—sometimes built out on quays, sometimes on piers, roofed. The Master of the Temple was bound to keep up one on the “Temple bridge,” _i.e._ the Temple pier, to which access was the right of the public. We hear also of a public latrine without the postern where now Moor Lane begins. It was condemned as a nuisance, A.D. 1415, and was removed. Another public latrine was at Bishopsgate just without the gate, probably built over the ditch. The City gates continued, down to the time of their removal, to have lay-stalls and heaps of filth and rubbish lying piled without them. Probably there was a public latrine outside every gate. That of Bishopsgate was also condemned, and another constructed just within the walls over the much-enduring bed of the Walbrook. In other places, the cesspool added its contamination to whatever part of the soil escaped the contamination of the street. The first construction of the cesspool was in the reign of Henry III. We shall find, presently, certain wise laws as to its isolation.