clxiv MEMOIR 



On the evening of 2nd January 1878, or, to be more correct, the 

 morning of the 3rd, two old school-fellows of his at the Edinburgh 

 Academy walked home with him from an annual dinner of their 

 ' Class.' All the way in glowing ]anguage he expounded his Views 

 of house inspection, and the protection of health, asking for sympathy. 

 It was most readily given, and they parted from him with pleasant 

 words of banter regarding this vision of his of grafting 'cleanliness' 

 upon another quality said to be a growth, in some sort, of this 

 northern land of ours. 



But they reckoned hardly sufficiently on the fact that when 

 Jenkin took a thing of this kind in hand it must be ; if it lay within 

 the scope of a clear head and boundless energy. 



Having secured a nucleus of well-wishers, the next step was to 

 enlist the sympathies of the general public. It was sought to effect 

 this by a series of public lectures. The first of these (one of two) 

 was given on 2 2nd January under the auspices of the Edinburgh 

 Philosophical Institution. It was apparent to the shrewd lecturer 

 that in bringing before the people a scheme like this, where there was 

 much that was novel, it was necessary first of all that his audience 

 should be aware of the evils to which they were exposed in their own 

 houses, before unfolding a plan for a remedy. The correspondence 

 already referred to as having been carried on in the summer of the 

 previous year had shown how crude were the ideas of many persons 

 well informed, or considered to be so, on this subject. For example, 

 there are few now-a-days who are not aware that a drain, to be safe, 

 must have at intervals along its course openings to the upper air, or 

 that it must be ' ventilated 7 as the phrase goes. But at the time 

 spoken of there were some who went so far as to question this prin- 

 ciple ; even to argue against it ; calling forth this forcible reply 

 ' Here is a pretty farce. You pour out a poison and send it oft' on its 

 way to the sea, and forget that on its way there its very essence will 

 take wings and fly back into your house up the very pipes it but re- 

 cently ran down.' A properly ' trapped ' and ventilated drain was 

 the cure for this. 



And the lecturer proceeded to show that in Edinburgh, where 

 for the most part house construction is good and solid, but, as in 

 other towns, the bulk of the houses were built when the arrangements 

 for internal sewerage and water supply were very little understood, 

 many serious errors were made. ' But,' the lecturer went on to 

 say, ' Sanitary Science was now established on a fairly sound basis, 

 and the germ theory, or theory of septic ferments, had explained 



