APPENDIX. 



THE CAUSES OF THE IMPROVEMENT IN THE HEALTH OF LONDON 

 TOWARD THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH AND BEGINNING OF 

 THE NINETEENTH CENTURIES. 



ALTHOUGH, as I have shown, there is ample proof of the great im- 

 provement in the sanitary condition of London during the latter part 

 of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries in 

 the great and exceptional decrease of the general death-rate, and 

 especially in the infant death-rate, as pointed out by the late Dr. 

 Farr, it will be well to give a brief sketch of the various changes, not 

 only in London itself, but in the habits and especially in the food of 

 the people, which combined to bring it about. 



In the early part of the eighteenth century London was in a condi- 

 tion of overcrowding and general filth which we can now hardly 

 realize. The houses were low and overhung the streets, and almost 

 all had cesspools close behind or underneath them. The streets were 

 narrow, the main thoroughfares only being paved with cobblestones, 

 which collected filth, and allowed it to soak into the ground beneath 

 till the soil and subsoil became saturated. Slops and refuse of all 

 kinds were thrown into the streets at night, and only the larger 

 streets were ever cleaned. The by-streets and the roads outside 

 London were so bad that vehicles could only go two or three miles 

 an hour; while even between London and Kensington coaches some- 

 times stuck in the mud or had to turn back and give up the journey. 

 The writers of the time describe the streets as dangerous and often 

 impassable, while only in the main thoroughfare were there any foot- 

 ways, which were separated from the narrow roadway by rows of 

 posts. Gay, in his "Trivia." speaks of the slops thrown from the 

 overhanging windows, and the frequent dangers of the night, 

 adding: 



" Thoneh expedition bid?, yet never stray 

 Where no rang'd posts defend the rugged way." 



And throughout this poem, dirt, mire, mud, slime, are continually 

 referred to as being the chief characteristics of the streets. They 

 mostly had a gutter on each side, and with few exceptions rain alone 



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