Dwellings of the people—Oberlin—The Highlander's candlesticks—Supply of water—London waterworks—Street-lights—Sewers.

It is satisfactory to observe that the increase of houses has kept pace with the increase of population. In 1801, in Great Britain, there was a population of ten million five hundred thousand persons, and one million eight hundred thousand inhabited houses. In 1851 there were twenty million eight hundred thousand persons, and three million eight hundred thousand inhabited houses. The numbers, in each case, had, as nearly as may be, doubled.

But it is not equally satisfactory to know that the improvement in the quality of the houses in which the great body of those who labour for wages abide is not commensurate with the increase in their quantity. It is not fitting, that, whilst the general progress of science is raising, as unquestionably it is raising, the average condition of the people—and that whilst education is going forward, slowly indeed, but still advancing—the bulk of those so progressing should be below their proper standard of physical comfort, from the too common want of decent houses to surround them with the sanctities of home.

In the great business of the improvement of their dwellings the working-men require leaders—not demagogues, whose business is to subvert, and not to build up—but leaders like the noble pastor, Oberlin, who converted a barren district into a fruitful, by the example of his unremitting energy. This district was cut off from the rest of the world by the want of roads. Close at hand was Strasburg, full of all the conveniences of social life. There was no money to make roads—but there was abundant power of labour. There were rocks to be blasted, embankments to be raised, bridges to be built. The undaunted clergyman took a pickaxe, and went to work himself. He worked alone, till the people were ashamed of seeing him so work. They came at last to perceive that the thing was to be done, and that it was worth the doing. In three years the road was made. If there were an Oberlin to lead the inhabitants of every filthy street, and the families of every wretched house, to their own proper work of improvement, a terrible evil would be soon removed, which is as great an impediment to the productive powers of a country, and therefore to the happiness of its people, as the want of ready communication, or any other appliance of civilization. The enormity of the evil would be appalling, if the capability of its removal in some degree were not equally certain.

Whatever a government may attempt—whatever municipalities or benevolent associations—there can be nothing so effectual in the upholding to a proper mark the domestic comfort of the working-men of this country, as their firm resolve to uphold themselves.

Still, unhappily, it is an undoubted fact that the most industrious men in large cities are too often unable to procure a fit dwelling, however able to pay for it and desirous to procure it. The houses have been built with no reference to such increasing wants. The idle and the diligent, the profligate and the prudent, the criminal and the honest, the diseased and the healthful, are therefore thrust into close neighbourhood. There is no escape. Is this terrible evil incapable of remedy? To discover that remedy, and apply it, is truly a national concern; for assuredly there is no capital of a country so worth preserving in the highest state of efficiency as the capital it possesses in an industrious population. There is a noble moral in a passage of Scott's romance, 'The Legend of Montrose.' A Highland chief had betted with a more luxurious English baronet whom he had visited, that he had better candlesticks at home than the six silver ones which the richer man had put upon his dinner-table. The Englishman went to the chief's castle in the hills, where the owner was miserable about the issue of his bragging bet. But his brother had a device which saved the honour of the clan. The attendant announced that the dinner was ready, and the candles lighted. Behind each chair for the guests stood a gigantic Highlander with his drawn sword in his right hand, and a blazing torch in his left, made of the bog-pine; and the brother exclaimed to the startled company—'Would you dare to compare to them in value the richest ore that ever was dug out of the mine?'

We may naturally pass from these considerations to a most important branch of the great subject of the expenditure of capital for public objects.

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The people who live in small villages, or in scattered habitations in the country, have certainly not so many direct benefits from machinery as the inhabitants of towns. They have the articles at a cheap rate which machines produce, but there are not so many machines at work for them as for dense populations. From want of knowledge they may be unable to perceive the connexion between a cheap coat, or a cheap tool, and the machines which make them plentiful, and therefore cheap. But even they, when the saving of labour by a machine is a saving which immediately affects them, are not slow to acknowledge the benefits they derive from that best of economy. The Scriptures allude to the painful condition of the "hewers of wood" and the "drawers of water;" and certainly—in a state of society where there are no machines at all, or very rude machines—to cut down a tree and cleave it into logs, and to raise a bucket from a well, are very laborious occupations, the existence of which, to any extent, amongst a people, would mark them as remaining in a wretched condition. Immediately that the people have the simplest mechanical contrivance, such as the loaded lever, to raise water from a well, which is found represented in Egyptian sculpture, and also in our own Anglo-Saxon drawings, they are advancing to the condition of raising water by machinery. The oriental shadoof is a machine. In our own country, at the present day, there are not many houses, in situations where water is at hand, that have not the windlass, or, what is better, the pump, to raise this great necessary of life from the well. Some cottagers, however, have no such machines, and bitterly do they lament the want of them. We once met an old woman in a country district tottering under the weight of a bucket, which she was labouring to carry up a hill. We asked her how she and her family were off in the world. She replied, that she could do pretty well with them, for they could all work, if it were not for one thing—it was one person's labour to fetch water from the spring; but, said she, if we had a pump handy, we should not have much to complain of. This old woman very wisely had no love of labour for its own sake; she saw no advantage in the labour of one of her family being given for the attainment of a good which she knew might be attained by a very common invention. She wanted a machine to save that labour. Such a machine would have set at liberty a certain quantity of labour which was previously employed unprofitably; in other words, it would have left her or her children more time for more profitable work, and then the family earnings would have been increased.

But there is another point of view in which this machine would have benefited the good woman and her family. Water is not only necessary to drink and to prepare food with, but it is necessary for cleanliness, and cleanliness is necessary for health. If there is a scarcity of water, or if it requires a great deal of labour to obtain it, (which comes to the same thing as a scarcity,) the uses of water for cleanliness will be wholly or in part neglected. If the neglect becomes a habit, which it is sure to do, disease, and that of the worst sort, cannot be prevented.

When men gather together in large bodies, and inhabit towns or cities, a plentiful supply of water is the first thing to which they direct their attention. If towns are built in situations where pure water cannot be readily obtained, the inhabitants, and especially the poorer sort, suffer even more misery than results from the want of bread or clothes. In some cities of Spain, for instance, where the people understand very little about machinery, water, at particular periods of the year, is as dear as wine; and the labouring classes are consequently in a most miserable condition. In London, on the contrary, water is so plentiful, that, as it appears from a return of the various water companies, the daily average of water-supply is sixty-two million gallons, being an average of about two hundred and two gallons to each house and other buildings, which amount to three hundred and ten thousand. This seems an enormous supply; but there are reasons for thinking that the quantity ought to be increased, and the arrangements made so perfect, that there should be a perpetual stream of water through the pipes of each house, like that through the arteries from the heart. The condition upon which the present water companies are allowed to continue their functions is, that they shall, before the expiration of another year, provide a larger and a purer supply. Yet, incomplete as these arrangements are, they are wondrous when compared with the water-supply of other times; and it is satisfactory to know that there are very few of our great towns which are not supplied as well as, and many much better than, London. There are very few large places in Great Britain where, by machinery, water is not only delivered to the kitchens and washhouses on the ground-floors, where it is most wanted, but is sent up to the very tops of the houses, to save even the comparatively little labour of fetching it from the bottom. The cost of this greatly varies in particular localities; and in most places the supply is afforded more cheaply than in the metropolis. There are natural difficulties in London, as in other vast cities, which have been chiefly created through the unexampled increase of the people. The sanitary arrangements of our great towns—the supply of water, the drainage—have followed the growth of the population and not preceded it. As the necessity has arisen for such a ministration to the absolute wants of a community, it has inevitably become a system of expedients. We are wiser now when we build upon new ground. We first construct our lines of street, with sewers, and water-pipes, and gas-pipes, and then we build our houses. What a different affair is it to manage these matters effectually when the houses have been previously built with very slight reference to such conditions of social existence!

As long ago as the year 1236, when a great want of water was felt in London, the little springs being blocked up and covered over by buildings, the ruling men of the city caused water to be brought from Tyburn, which was then a distant village, by means of pipes; and they laid a tax upon particular branches of trade to pay the expense of this great blessing to all. In succeeding times more pipes and conduits, that is, more machinery, were established for the same good purpose; and two centuries afterwards, King Henry the Sixth gave his aid to the same sort of works, in granting particular advantages in obtaining lead for making pipes. The reason for this aid to such works was, as the royal decree set forth, that they were "for the common utility and decency of all the city, and for the universal advantage," and a very true reason this was. As this great town more and more increased, more waterworks were found necessary; till at last, in the reign of James the First, which was nearly two hundred years after that of Henry the Sixth, a most ingenious and enterprising man, and a great benefactor to his country, Hugh Myddleton, undertook to bring a river of pure water above thirty-eight miles out of its natural course, for the supply of London. He persevered in this immense undertaking, in spite of every difficulty, till he at last accomplished that great good which he had proposed, of bringing wholesome water to every man's door. At the present time, the New River, which was the work of Hugh Myddleton, supplies more than seventeen millions of gallons of water every day; and though the original projector was ruined, by the undertaking, in consequence of the difficulty which he had in procuring proper support, such is now the general conviction of the advantage which he procured for his fellow-citizens, and so desirous are the people to possess that advantage, that a share in the New River Company, which was at first sold at one hundred pounds, is now worth three thousand pounds.

Before the people of London had water brought to their own doors, and even into their very houses, and into every room of their houses where it is desirable to bring it, they were obliged to send for this great article of life—first, to the few springs which were found in the city and its neighbourhood, and, secondly, to the conduits and fountains, which were imperfect mechanical contrivances for bringing it.

The service-pipes to each house are more perfect mechanical contrivances; but they could not have been rendered so perfect without engines, which force the water above the level of the source from which it is taken. When the inhabitants fetched their water from the springs and conduits there was a great deal of human labour employed; and as in every large community there are always people ready to perform labour for money, many persons obtained a living by carrying water. When the New River had been dug, and the pipes had been laid down, and the engines had been set up, it is perfectly clear that there would have been no further need for these water-carriers. When the people of London could obtain two hundred gallons of water for twopence, they would not employ a man to fetch a single bucket from the river or fountain at the same price. They would not, for the mere love of employing human labour directly, continue to buy an article very dear, which, by mechanical aid, they could buy very cheap. If they had resolved, from any mistaken notions about machinery, to continue to employ the water-carriers, they must have been contented with one gallon of water a day instead of two hundred gallons. Or if they had consumed a larger quantity, and continued to pay the price of bringing it to them by hand, they must have denied themselves other necessaries and comforts. They must have gone without a certain portion of food, or clothing, or fuel, which they are now enabled to obtain by the saving in the article of water. To have had for each house two hundred gallons of water, and, in having this two hundred gallons of water, to have had the cleanliness and health which result from its use, would have been utterly impossible. The supply of one gallon, instead of two hundred gallons to each house, would at present amount to 310,000 gallons daily; which at a penny a gallon would cost 1291l. per day; or 9037l. per week; or 469,724l., or very nearly half a million, per year. Upon the assumption that one man, without any mechanical arrangement besides his can, could carry twenty gallons a day, thus earning ten shillings a week, this would employ no fewer than 18,074 persons—a very army of water-carriers. To supply ten gallons a day to each house would cost nearly five millions a year, and would employ 180,740 persons. To supply two hundred gallons a day would require 3,614,800 persons—a number exceeding the total population of London. The whole number of persons engaged in the waterworks' service of all Great Britain is under 1000.

There is now, certainly, no labour to be performed by water-carriers. But suppose that five hundred years ago, when there were a small number of persons who gained their living by such drudgery, they had determined to prevent the bringing of water by pipes into London. Suppose also that they had succeeded; and that up to the present day we had no pipes or other mechanical aids for supplying the water. It is quite evident that if this misfortune had happened—if the welfare of the many had been retarded (for it never could have been finally stopped) by the ignorance of the few—London, as we have already shown, would not have had a twentieth part of its present population; and the population of every other town, depending as population does upon the increase of profitable labour, could never have gone forward. How then would the case have stood as to the amount of labour engaged in the supply of water? A few hundred, at the utmost a few thousand, carriers of water would have been employed throughout the kingdom; while the smelters and founders of iron of which water-pipes are made, the labourers who lay down these pipes, the founders of lead who make the service-pipes, and the plumbers who apply them; the carriers, whether by water or land, who are engaged in bringing them to the towns, the manufacturers of the engines which raise the water, the builders of the houses in which the engines stand—these, and many other labourers and mechanics who directly and indirectly contribute to the same public advantage, could never have been called into employment. To have continued to use the power of the water-carriers would have rendered the commodity two hundred times dearer than it is supplied by mechanical power. The present cheapness of production, by mechanical power, supplies employment to an infinitely greater number of persons than could have been required by a perseverance in the rude and wasteful system which belonged to former ages of ignorance and wretchedness.

When a severe frost chokes up the small water-pipes that conduct the useful stream into each house, what anxiety and trouble is there in every thoroughfare! The main pipes are not frozen; and the supply is to be got in pails and pitchers from a plug in the pavement, where a temporary cock is inserted. How gladly is this device resorted to! But imagine it to be the labour of every day, and what an amount of profitable time would be deducted from domestic employ!

When society is more perfectly organized than it is at present, and when the great body of the people understand the value of co-operation for procuring advantages that individuals cannot attain, public baths will be established in every town, and in every district of a town. The great Roman people had public baths for all ranks; and remains of their baths still exist in this country. The great British people have only thought within these few years that public baths were a necessity. The establishment of public washhouses, in connexion with baths, having every advantage of machinery and economical arrangements, are real blessings to the few who now use them.

It is little more than thirty years since London was lighted with gas. Pall Mall was thus lighted in 1807, by a chartered company, to whose claims for support the majority of householders were utterly opposed. They had their old oil-lamps, which were thought absolute perfection. The main pipes which convey gas to the London houses are now fifteen hundred miles in length. There are, we believe, nearly a thousand proprietory gas-works in Great Britain. The noblest prospect in the world is London from Hampstead Heath on a bright winter's evening. The stars are shining in heaven, but there are thousands of earthly stars glittering in the city there spread before us: and as we look into any small space of that wondrous illumination, we can trace long lines of light losing themselves in the general splendor of the distance, and we can see dim shapes of mighty buildings afar off, showing their dark masses amidst the glowing atmosphere that hangs over the capital for miles, with the edges of flickering clouds gilded as if they were touched by the first sunlight. This is a spectacle that men look not upon, because it is common; and so we walk amidst the nightly splendours of the Strand, and forget what it was in the middle of the last century—the days of "darkness visible," under the combined efforts of the twinkling lamp, the watchman's lantern, and the vagabond's link.

The last, but in many respects one of the most useful of public works in Great Britain, to which a large amount of capital has been devoted, is the construction of sewers in our cities and towns. Popular intelligence and official power have been very slowly awakened to the performance of this duty. And yet the consequences of neglect have been felt for centuries. In 1290 the monks of White Friars and of Black Friars complained to the king that the exhalations from the Fleet River overcame the pleasant odour of the frankincense which burned on their altars, and occasioned the deaths of the brethren. This was the polluted stream that in time came to be known as Fleet Ditch, which Pope described as

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Fleet Ditch became such a nuisance that it was partly filled up by act of parliament soon after these lines were written. The Londoners had then their reservoirs of filth, called laystalls, in various parts near the river; and the pestilent accumulations spread disease all over the city. The system of sewers was begun in 1756, and from that time to the present several hundreds of miles of sewers have been constructed. But, alas, the Thames itself is now "the king of dykes," and the metropolis, healthy as it is, will never attain the sanitary state of which it is capable till the whole system of the outfall of the sewers is changed. The necessary work would involve the expenditure of millions. But the millions must be spent. In the mean time it is satisfactory to know that in towns of smaller population, where the evil is far less vast, and the natural difficulties of removal greatly less, the work of purification is going on rapidly. Public opinion has gone so strongly in the direction of a thorough reformation, that the duty can no longer be neglected. Every thousand pounds of public capital so expended is an addition to one of the best accumulations of national wealth.

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