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22
show the immense distribution of putrefactive
dampness which belongs to this vicious system.
There is implied in it that the entire excrementation
of the metropolis (with exception of such as, not
less poisonously, lies pent beneath houses) shall
sooner or later be mingled in the stream of the
river, there to be rolled backward and forward
amid the population; that, at low water, for many
hours, this material shall be trickling over broad
belts of spongy bank which then dry their contaminated
mud in the sunshine, exhaling fœtor and
poison; that at high water, for many hours, it
shall be retained* or driven back within all lowlevel
sewers and house-drains, soaking far and wide
into the soil, or leaving putrescent deposit along
miles of underground brickwork, as on a deeper
pavement. Sewers which, under better circumstances,
should be benefactions and appliances for
health in their several districts, are thus rendered
inevitable sources of evil. During a large proportion
of their time, they are occupied in retaining or
re-distributing that which it is their office to remove.
They furnish chambers for an immense faecal
evaporation; at every breeze which strikes against
their open mouths, at every tide which encroaches
on their inward space, their gases are breathed into
* I am informed that in large districts on the south side of
the river, this retention of sewage is prolonged for two-thirds
of every tide—sixteen hours out of every twenty-four.