Facts and Fallacies of the Sewerage System of London, and Other Large Towns (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 edition. Excerpt: ...food the penny or twopence for the luxury. But how many hundreds of thousands are there who cannot afford a single farthing? And even if they could at times, they have become so steeped in filth and its physical consequences, that they have no power to lift themselves out of it--at least will hesitate to do so if they have to pay for the effort. It is for this class I Would plead--a class upon whom we all more or less depend; without whom we could not have our thousand different wants supplied; who are as necessary to the well-being of society as the very highest in the land; and yet who are so imbued by nature and by circumstances with the sin of filth--which we, above them, see and know, and still permit--that the whole class is infected, it may be said, with a modern leprosy, more or less spreading its contagion around. And while such a state of things exists, can it be possible to hope for anything but further degradation? In very truth it cannot. Out of filth comes filth alone; and to improve the condition of the class I speak of, without first giving them means to be clean, and to respect decency in each other, Would be as impossible as to make the starving receive with profit to themselves, or others, the lessons of the pampered teacher, who tries to feed the mind before he feeds the body. Throughout the country parts of the kingdom, there are to be found, distributed by the bounty of Providence, the means for cleanliness, in every running stream; for decency, in the privacy of each locality. In cities, where mankind build up for themselves their habitations one almost upon another, and will barely spare sufficient space to pass between them, they have totally forgotten--at least, in London--to let a single stream of pure water be...