Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State For the Home Department, from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an Inquiry Into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain; With AppendicesChadwick, Edwin
History
Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State For the Home Department, from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an Inquiry Into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain; With Appendices
Chadwick, Edwin
Housing -- Great Britain; Public health -- Great Britain
furniture is often covered with dust even more than once in the day, so
that writing on it with the finger becomes legible, and the lungs and
air-tubes of the inhabitants, with a moist lining to detain the dust,
are constantly pumping the same atmosphere. The passengers by a
stage-coach in dry weather, when the wind is moving with them so as to
keep them enveloped in the cloud of dust raised by the horses’ feet and
the wheels of the coach, have their clothes soon saturated to whiteness
with the dust, and their lungs of course are charged in a corresponding
degree. A gentleman who rode only 20 miles in this way, had afterwards
to cough and expectorate for 10 days to clear his chest again.” The
imperfection of road cleansing in paved streets at the same time
deteriorates the salubrity of the towns, the value of the refuse for
production, and the streets themselves. The farmers find that the refuse
of the streets, of which horse-dung and other excrementitious substances
form so important a part, is valuable in proportion as it is “fresh.” On
a proposition to sweep the streets of a town district oftener, it was
stated by some farmers that they would, in that case, give more for the
refuse. It is with this description of refuse, as stated with respect to
the night-soil, in proportion as it is allowed to remain in the streets
to dry, it loses the gas which gives it value; and the gas which is lost
frequently gives to streets the offensive smell perceptible to strangers
who have not been familiarised to it, and makes a deleterious addition
to the compounds by which the health of the town population is injured.
The complete and rapid cleansing of the roads has also its effects on
the draught. It is proved experimentally that, “calling the draught on a
broken-stone road 5, that on the same road covered with dust is 8, and
that on the same road wet and muddy is 10.”[8] A road should be cleansed
“from time to time, so as never to have half an inch of mud upon it.
This is particularly necessary to be attended to where the materials are
weak, for if the surface is not kept clean, so as to admit of its
becoming dry in the intervals between showers of rain, it will be
rapidly worn away.” With the even surface obtainable from the use of
wood as a pavement, it is stated that the streets which are now kept wet
and dirty whilst the process of cleansing is slowly carried on by the
hand, may be rapidly and cheaply swept by sweeping-machines drawn by
horses. With the advantage of such a system of sewerage as that
described by Mr. Roe, the surface refuse, which continues exposed during
a whole week, may be removed every morning before the hours of traffic
from all the principal thoroughfares. In the main streets of the towns
of considerable traffic, a smooth and firm surface for the carriage-way
would ensure the advantages of a railroad, in addition to those to the
public health from cleanliness. The experience on several portions of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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