I couldn\u2019t find many images of Victorian London sewers, so I\u2019m using this eerie image “The Silent Highway Man” from Punch <\/em>in 1858. It depicts Death rowing on the polluted Thames River. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Excerpt from Underground London Part III:<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On applying to the proper\nauthorities, I was obligingly told that they had not the slightest objection to\ngratify what they evidently thought a very singular taste. I was even asked to\nname my sewer. They could favour me with\nan extensive choice. I might choose\nfrom about one hundred and seventy miles of legally constituted\n“main” sewers, running through some hundred and eighty outlets into\nthe Thames; or, if I liked to trespass upon “district” and\n“private” sewers, they could put me through\nabout sixteen hundred miles of such underground tunnels. They had\nblood-sewers\u2014a delicate article\u2014running\nunderneath meat markets, like Newport-market, where you could wade in the vital\nfluid of sheep and oxen; they had boiling sewers, fed by sugar-bakeries, where\nthe steam forced its way through the gratings in the roadway like the vapour from the hot springs in Iceland, and where the sewer-cleansers get Turkish baths\nat the expense of the rate pavers. They\nhad sewers of various orders of construction\u2014egg-shaped, barrel-shaped, arched,\nand almost square; and they had sewers of\ndifferent degrees of rcpulsiveness, such as those where\nmanufacturing chemists and soap and candlemakers most do congregate. They had\nopen rural sewers that were fruitful in watercresses; and closed town sewers whose roofs are\nthickly clustered with what our scientific friends call “edible\nfungi.” The choice was so varied that it was a long time before I could\nmake up my mind, and I decided, at last, upon exploring the King’s Scholars’ Pond\nSewer, which commences in the Finchley New Road,\nand ends in the Thames a little above Vauxhall-bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the literary executors\nof the late Mr. Leigh Hunt had not cut the ground from under me in the title of\na book just published, I might possibly have called this chapter A saunter through\nthe West-End. We have all our different ways of looking at London. The late Mr.\nCrofton Croker had his way, as he has shown in his Walk from London to Fulham<\/em>; and I have mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sewer-cleansers are a\nclass of workmen who seldom come prominently before the public. They have never\nmade any particular noise in the world, although they receive in London every\nyear about five and twenty thousand pounds sterling of public money. Their\nwages, individually, may average a pound a week. They have never distinguished\nthemselves by producing any remarkable “self-made men;\u201d any Lord\nChancellors, or even Lord Mayors; and have never attempted, as a class, to\nraise themselves in the social scale.” They are good, honest, hard-working\nunderground labourers, who often meet\nextreme danger in the shape of foul gases, and sometimes die at their posts\u2014as\nwe saw the other day in the Fleet-lane sewer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some half-dozen of these\nmen, with a foreman of flushers, attended me on the day I selected for my\nunderground survey. They were not lean yellow men, with backs bent by much\nstooping, and hollow coughs produced by breathing much foul air. Their\nappearance was robust; and, as I measured bulk with one or two of them, I had\nno reason to be proud of any superior training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There seems to be only\none costume for underground or underwater work, and the armour necessary for\nsewer-inspecting will do for lobster catching on the coast, or for descending\nin a sea diving-bell. The thick worsted stockings coming up to the waist, the\nheavy long greased boots of the seven league character, the loose blue shirt,\nand the fan-tailed hat, may be very hot and stifling to wear, but no sewer inspector\nis considered properly fortified without them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a fatal\nfascination about sewers; and, whenever a trap-door side entrance is opened, a\ncrowd is sure to gather about the spot. The entrance to the King’s Scholars’\nPond Main Sewer, that I decided to go down by, is close to the cab-stand at St.\nJohn’s-wood Chapel, and twenty cabmen were so much interested in seeing me\ndescend with my guides, that the offer of a fare would have been resented as an\nannoying interruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Rather him than me;\neh, Bill ?” said one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “That beats\ncab-drivin’,” said another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The side entrance is a\nsquare brick-built shaft, having a few iron rings driven into two of its sides.\nThese rings form the steps by which you ascend and descend, putting your foot on\none as you seize another. I felt like a bear in the pit at the Zoological\nGardens, as I descended in this fashion; and I dare say many respectable\nmembers of parochial-sewer-eommittees have gone through the same labour, and\nhave experienced the same feeling. Before the iron trap-door over us was closed\nby the two men left to follow our course above ground, I caught a glimpse of a\nbutcher’s boy looking down the shaft, with his mouth wide open. When the\ndaylight was shut out, a closed lantern was put in my hand. I was led stooping\nalong a short yellow-bricked passage, and down a few steps, as if going into a\nwine-cellar, until I found myself standing knee-deep in the flowing sewer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tunnel here is about\nfour feet high, and six feet broad; being smaller higher up towards the Finchley\nNew Road,and growing gradually larger as it descends in a winding course\ntowards the Thames. All main sewers may be described roughly, as funnel-shaped;\nthe narrow end being at the source in the hills; the broad end being in the\nvalley, where it discharges into the river. The velocity of their currents\nvaries from one to three miles an hour. The most important of them discharge,\nat periods of the day, in dry weather, from one thousand to two thousand cubic\nfeet of sewage per minute, the greatest height being generally maintained\nduring the hours between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon. At\nother periods of the day the same sewers rarely discharge more than one-fourth\nof this quantity. The sizes of these underground tunnels, at different points\nof their course, are constructed so that they may convey the waters flowing\nthrough them with no prospect of floods and consequent bursting, and yet with\nno unnecessary waste of tunnelling. Here it is that the science of hydraulic\nengineering is required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turning our face towards\nthe Thames, we waded for some time, in a stooping posture, through the sewer;\nthree of my guides going on first with lanterns, and two following me. We\npassed through an iron tube, which conveys the sewage over the Regent’s Canal;\nand it was not until we got into some lower levels, towards Baker-street, that\nthe sewer became sufficiently large to allow us to stand upright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before we arrived at this\npoint, I had experienced a new sensation. I had had an opportunity of\ninspecting the earthenware pipe drain\u2014I am bound to say, the very defective\npipe drainage\u2014of a house that once owned me as a landlord. I felt as if the\npower had been granted me of opening a trap-door in my chest, to look upon the\nlong-hidden machinery of my mysterious body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we got into a\nloftier and broader part of the tunnel, my chief guide offered me his arm: an\nassistance I was glad to accept, because the downward flood pressed rather\nheavily against the back of my legs, and the bottom was ragged and uncertain. I\ncould not deny myself the pleasure of calling this chief guide, Agrippa,\nbecause Agrippa is a Roman name, and the Romans have earned an immortality in\nconnexion with sewers. Whatever doubts the sceptical school of historians may\nthrow upon the legends of Roman history, they cannot shake the foundations of\nthe Roman sewers. Roman London means a small town, bounded on the East by\nWalbrook, and on the West by the Fleet. You cannot touch upon sewers without\ncoming upon traces of the Romans; you cannot touch upon the Romans without\nmeeting with traces of sewers. The most devoted disciple of Niebuhr must be\ndumb before such facts as these, and must admit that these ancient people were\ngreat scavengers, as well as great heroes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Agrippa took a real\npleasure in pointing out to me the different drains, private sewers, and\ndistrict sewers, which at intervals of a few yards opened into our channel\nthrough the walls on either side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We’ve nothin’ to do\nwith the gover’ment of any of these,” he said; “they are looked\nafter, or had ought to be looked after, by the paroch’al boards.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “You look after\nbranches?” I replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Only when they’re\nbranches of prop’ly construed main sewers. We,” he continued, and he spoke\nlike a chairman, “are the Metropolitan Board of Works, and we should have\nenough to do if we looked after every drain-pipe in London.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “What’s the length\nof those drain-pipes all over London,” I asked, “leaving out the\nsewers?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n “No one knows,”\nhe said. “They do tell me somewhere about four thousand miles, and I\nshould say they were <\/em>all that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n We went tottering on a\nlittle further, with the carriages rumbling on the roadway over our heads. The\nsplashing of the water before and behind us, as it was washed from side to side\nby the heavy boots of all our party, added to the noise; and when our above\naround followers let the trap-door of some side entrance fall, a loud booming\nsound went through the tunnel, as if a cannon had been fired. The yellow lights\nof the lanterns danced before us, and when we caught a glimpse of the water we\nwere wading in above our knees, we saw that it was as black as ink. The smell\nwas not at all offensive, and Agrippa told me that no man, during his\nexperience in the London sewers, had ever complained of feeling faint while he\nmoved about or worked in the flood; the danger was found to consist in standing\nstill. For all this assurance of perfect comfort and safety, however, my guides\nkept pretty close to me; and I found out afterwards that they were thus\nnumerous and attentive because the “amateur” sewer inspector was\nconsidered likely to drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere,” said\nAgrippa, pointing to a hole at the side, down which a quantity of road sand had\nbeen washed, \u201c that’s a gully-trap. People get a notion that heavy rains pour\ndown the gutters and flush the sewers; for my part, I think they bring quite as\nmuch rubbish as they clear away.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n At different parts of our\ncourse we passed through the blue rays of light, like moonlight, that came down\nfrom the ventilator gratings in the highway above. While under one of these we\nheard a boy whistling in the road, and I felt like Baron Trenck escaping from\nprison. Some of these gratings over our heads were stopped up with road\nrubbish; and Agrippa, who carried a steel gauging-rod, like a sword, in his\nhand, pierced the earth above us, and let in the outer light and air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “They’re nice\nthings,” he said, alluding to the ventilating gratings, generally set in\nthe top of a shaft-hole cut in the crown of the arch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I remember the time\nwhen we’d none of those improvements; no side entrances, no nothing When we\nwanted to get down to cleanse or look at a sewer, we had to dig a hole in the\nroadway, and sometimes the men used to get down and up the gully-holes to save\ntrouble.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “You must have had\nmany accidents in those days?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Hundreds, sir, were\nsuffocated or killed by the gas; but since Mr. Roe* (*The late Mr. Rose, for\nmany years surveyor to the Holborn and Finsbury Commissioners of Sewers.)\nbrought about these improvements, and made the sewers curve instead of running\nzigzag, we’ve been pretty safe.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The “gas”\nalluded to by Agrippa includes carburetted hydrogen, sulphuretted hydrogen, and\ncarbonic acid gas. The first is highly inflammable, easily explodes, and has\nfrequently caused serious accidents. The second is the gaseous product of\nputrid decomposition; it is slightly inflammable, and its inhalation, when it\nis strong, will cause sudden death. The third is the choke damp of mines and\nsewers, and its inhalation will cause a man to drop as if shot dead. These are\nthe unseen enemies which Agrippa and his fellows have constantly to contend\nagainst, more or less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we staggered further\ndown the stream, it was evident that Agrippa had his favourites among the\ndistrict sewers. Some he considered to be “pretty” sewers; others he\nlooked upon as choked winding channels, not fit to send a rat up to cleanse,\nmuch less a Christian man. Looking up some of these narrow openings with their\nabrupt turns, low roofs, and pitch-black darkness, it certainly did seem as if\nsewer-cleansing must be a fearful trade. The sewer rats, much talked of\naboveground, were not to be seen; and their existence in most of the main\nsewers is a tradition handed down from the last century. Since the improved\nsupply of water, which is said to give to every dweller in London, man, woman,\nand child, a daily allowance of forty gallons per head, the rats have been\nwashed away by the increased flood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although underground, we\npassed over the metropolitan railway in the New-road, and then along the line\nof Baker-street, under Oxford-street, and through Berkeley-square. This\naristocratic neighbourhood was loudly announced to us by our aboveground\nfollowers, down an open “man-hole ;” but there was nothing in the\nconstruction of our main sewer, or in the quality of our black flood, to tell\nus that we were so near the abodes of the blest. Looking up the “man-hole,”\nan opening in the road, not unlike the inside of a tile-kiln chimney, down\nwhich some workmen had brought a flushing-gate, I saw another butcher’s boy\ngazing down upon his mouth wide open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The flushing-gate was an\niron structure, the exact width of the sewer, and about half its height. These\ngates are fixed on hinges at at the sides of the all the main sewers at certain\ndistances from each other; and when they are closed by machinery, they dam up\nthe stream, producing an artificial fall of water, and so scouring the bed of\nthe sewer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we got lower down our\ngreat underground channel, the roof became higher and higher, and the sides\nbroader and broader; but the flooring, I am sorry to say, became more jagged\nand uneven. The lower bricks had been washed out, leaving great holes, down\nwhich one or other of my legs kept slipping at the hazard of my balance and my\nbones. We peeped up an old red-bricked long-disused branch sewer, under some\npart of Mayfair, that was almost blocked up to the roof with mountains of black\ndry earthy deposit. Not even here did we see any traces of rats, although the\nsewer was above the level of the water in our main channel. The King’s\nScholars’ Pond (so Agrippa told me) has had five feet of water in it, at this\npoint, during storms; but this was not its condition then, or we should hardly\nhave been found wading there. The bricks in this old Mayfair sewer were as\nrotten as gingerbread; you could have scooped them out with a teaspoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Piccadilly wo went up\nthe side entrance, to get a mouthful of fresh air and a glimpse of the Green\nPark, and then went down again to finish our journey. I scarcely expect to be\nbelieved, but I must remark that another butcher’s boy was waiting with open\nmouth, watching every movement we made, with intense interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had not proceeded much\nfurther in our downward course, when Agrippa and the rest of the guides\nsuddenly stopped short, and asked me where I supposed I was now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I give it up,” I replied. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Well, under\nBuckingham Palace,” was the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course my loyalty was\nat once excited, and taking off my fan-tailed cap, I led the way with the\nNational Anthem, insisting that my guides should join in chorus. Who knows but\nwhat, through some untrapped drain, that rude underground melody found its way\ninto some inner wainscoting of the palace, disturbing some dozing maid of\nhonour with its mysterious sounds, and making her dream of Guy Fawkes and many\nother subterranean villains?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before I leave this\ndeeply-interesting part of the King’s Scholars’ Pond Sewer, I may as well say\nthat I am fully alive to its importance as the theatre of a thrilling romance.\nThat no writer of fiction may poach, upon preserves which I have made my own, I\nwill state exactly what kind of story I intend to write, as soon as I have got\nrid of a row of statistics that are beckoning to me in the distance. My hero\nwill run away with one of the Royal Princesses, down this sewer, having first\nhewn a passage up into the palace through its walls. The German Prince, who is\nalways going to marry the Royal Princess, whether she likes him or not, will be\nmurdered in mistake by a jealous sewer-flusher, the villain of the story; and\nthe hero having married the Princess at some bankside church, will live happily\nwith her ever afterwards, as a superintendent of one of the outfall sewers. If\nthis story should meet with the success I anticipate, I promise to raise some\nmemorial tablet in the sewer under the palace, to mark my gratitude and the\nroyalty of the channel. If any reader think the mechanical part of this story\nimpossible, let me tell him that two friends of mine once got into the vaults\nof the House of Commons through the sewers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon after we left this\nspot, we came upon a punt that had been poled thus far up the stream to meet\nus, and carry us down to the Thames. I took my seat with Agrippa, while the\nother guides pushed at the sides and stern of the boat, and I thought this was\na good time to put a few<\/p>\n\n\n\n questions to the men\nabout the treasures usually found in the sewers. The journey was wanting in\nthat calmness, light, and freshness, which generally characterise boat voyages;\nand while there was a good deal of Styx and Charon about it in imagination,\nthere was a close unpleasant steam about it in reality. Still, for all this, it\nfurnished an opportunity not to be thrown away, and I at once addressed\nAgrippa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Well,” he\nsaid, “the most awful things we ever find in the sewers is dead children.\nWe’ve found at least four of ’em at different times; one, somewhere under\nNotting-hill; another, somewhere under Mary’bone; another, at Paddington; and\nanother at the Broadway, Westminster.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We once found a\ndead seal,” struck in one of the men pushing the boat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Ah,” continued\nAgrippa, “so we did. That was in one of the Westminster sewers\u2014the\nHorseferry-road outlet, I think, and they said it had been shot at Barnes or\nMortlake, and had drifted down with the tide. We find mushrooms in great\nquantities on the roof, and icicles as well growing amongst ’em.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Icicles!”\nIsaid; “why, the sewers are warm in winter. How do you account for\nthat?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I don’t mean\nwhat you <\/em>call icicles,” he replied. “I mean those\nwhite greasy-looking things, like spikes of tallow.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Oh, stalactites,”\nI said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Yes,” he\nanswered, “that’s the word. We sometimes find live cats and dogs that have\ngot down untrapped drains after house-rats; but these animals, when we pick ’em\nup, are more often dead ones.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “They once found a\nlive hedgehog in Westminster,” said another of the men. “I’ve heard\ntell on it, but I didn’t see it myself.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Of course,”\ncontinued Agrippa, confidentially, “a good deal may be found that we never\nhear of, but there’s lots of little things picked up, and taken to the office. We’ve\nfound lots of German silver and metal spoons; iron tobacco-boxes; nails, and\npins; bones of various animals; bits of lead; boys’ marbles, buttons, bits of\nsilk, scrubbing-brushes, empty-purses; penny-pieces, and bad half-crowns, very\nlikely thrown down the gullies on purpose.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We’ve found false\nteeth\u2014whole sets at a time,” said one of the men, “‘specially in some of the West-end shores.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Ah,” continued\nAgrippa, ” and corks; how about corks? I never see such a flood of corks,\nof all kinds and sizes, as sometimes pours out of this sewer into the Thames.\nOf course we find bits of soap,\ncandle-ends, rags, seeds, dead rats and mice, and a lot of other rubbish. We\nenter these things in our books, now and then, but we’re never asked to bring’ em\nafore the Board.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Do any thieves, or\nwanderers, get into the sewers,” 1 asked, “and try to deprive yon of these treasures?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Very few, now-a-days,” he replied. “Some of ’em\ncreep down the side entrances where the\ndoors are unlocked, or get up some of the sewers on this side when the tide is\nlow, under the idea that they’re going to pick up no end of silver spoons. They\nsoon find out their mistake; and then\nthey take to stealing the iron traps off the drains.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n By this time our bark had\nfloated out of the broad archway of the sewer\u2014an arch as wide as any\nbridge-arch on the Regent’s Canal, and we were anchored in that\npea-soup-looking open creek that runs for some distance along the side of the\nEquitable Gas Works at Pimlico. The end of this creek, where it enters the\nThames, is closed with tidal gates which are\nwatched by a kind of sewer lock-keeper who lives in a cottage immediately over\nthe sewer. He cultivates flowers and vegetables at the side of the channel, and\nhis little dwelling is a model of cleanliness and tasteful arrangement. His\nhealth is good, and he seems satisfied with his peculiar position; for, instead\nof reading pamphlets on sewers and sewage-poison in the intervals of business,\nhe cultivates game-cocks, and stuffs dead\nanimals in a very creditable manner:<\/p>\n\n\n\n He dwells amongst the untrodden ways<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beside the spring of Dove\u2014 <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A spring that very few can praise,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And not a soul can love! <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us hope that the sewer-doctors and their theories will never reach him, or they might painfully disturb his mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Excerpted from Underground London Part IV: <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Still I asked for more. I wished to see one of\nlie oldest working hands on the sewer establishment; a hoary mudlark who had\nbeen seasoned by nearly half a century’s training, and who might fairly be\nregarded as a hermit of the sewers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With some little difficulty, an old workman was\nfound, who was not, surprised to hear that I had been down various sewers, and\ntook a deep interest in them. Nothing appeared to him more natural than that\npeople should like to go down sewers, and to talk about them for hours\ntogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My companion, encouraged from time to time by\nmy questions, began to unfold his fifty years’ experiences. He was a stout,\nhealthy-looking old man, with a face not unlike a large red potato. He was\ngood-tempered, and proud of his special knowledge; but not presuming. In this\nbe differed from one or two other workmen whom I had met, who seemed to wish me\nto understand that they, and they alone, knew all about the London sewerage\nsystem. His language was frequently rather misty; but a very little grammar\nwill go a long way in the sewers, and working men have something else to think\nof beyond aspirating the letter H.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “They was like warrens,” he said,\nalluding to the old south-side sewers ; ” you never see such shores\n(sewers). Some on ’em was open; some was shut; an’ some was covered over with\nwooden platforms, so’s to make the gardings all the larger. Some o’ the shores\nwas made o’ wood, spesh’ly about Roderide; an’ at S’uth’ark the people used to\ndip their pails in ’em for water. They made boles in ’em, so’s to get at the\nwater when the tide was up, an’ I’ve\nseen ’em dippin’ often nigh Backley and Puckins’s.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Did you ever meet with any accident,”\nI asked, “during the long time you have worked in the sewers?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Oh yes,” he said; “I’ve bin\nknocked down a dozen times by the gas; spesh’ly nigh the dead ends o’ shores,\nan’ I’ve bin burnt over an’ over agen. When your light goes out, you may know\nsummat is wrong, but the less you stirs about the muck the better. I’ve carried\na man as ‘as bin knocked down, nigh a mile on my lines [loins] in the old days\nafore we could get to the man-hole. It’s pretty stuff, too, the gas, if you can\nonly lay on your back when it goes ‘whish,’ an’ see it runnin’ all a-fire along\nthe crown o’ the arch.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I dare say,” I said; “but\nsewers are quite bad enough to walk in, without such illuminations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Shores is all right,” lie returned,\nrather pettishly ; “it’s the people as uses ’em that don’t know how to\ntreat ’em. There’s the naptchamakers, an’ those picklin’ yards where they soaks\niron in some stuff to make it tough; they’re nice places, they ar, an’ nice\nmesses they makes the shores in, at t imes. Then there’s can’le an’ soap-manyfact’rers,\nwhich sends out a licker, that strong, that it will even decay i’on an’\nbrickwork, Then there’s gas-tar-manyl’act’rers agen. We’re ‘bliged to go to all\no’ these people afore we goes down the shore, an’ ask ’em to ‘old ‘ard. If we\ndidn’t do that, there’d be more on us killed than is.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I suppose,” I said\u2014of course with a\nview of getting information\u2014” the sewers you go up are often very\nsmall?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Some is two foot shores,” he\nreplied, “an’ they’re tighteners; others is three foot barrels; an’ others\nis larger.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Did you ever hear of any murder being\ncommitted in the sewers?” I asked, not being willing to give up the chance\nof a romantic story without a struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “There was one open shore,” he said,\n“that some o’ the foremen used to call ‘old Grinacre,’ in the S’uth’ark\ndistrick, but that’s bin covered over many years.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “What about that ?” I asked, eagerly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Well,” he said, “it used to\nbother us a good deal. One mornin’, when the tide was all right, we goes down\nto work, an’ picks up a leg !”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “A human leg?” I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Yes,” he said, “all that,\nan’not a wooden one neither. Another night, when the tide was all right agen,\nwe goes down, an’ we finds another leg!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Another human leg?” I asked, in\nastonishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Ev’ry inch on it,” he returned,\n“an’ that ain’t all. Another time we goes into the same shore, an’ we\nfinds a arm, an’ another time we goes down, an’ we finds another arm.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n It seemed very annoying to me that my companion\nwas compelled to sneeze and cough at this point of his story for about five\nminutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “What did you do?” I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Oh,” he said, “the foreman put\n‘cm down in his book, an’ they went afore the Board, an’ it was a long time\nafore the Board could make anythin’ of ’em. They\nsent a hinspector down, an’ we found a few more legs,\u2014ah, an’ even ‘eads, to\nshow ‘im.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “What was <\/em>the solution of\nthe mystery?” I said, getting impatient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Well,” he replied, “the cat\ncame out o’ the bag, at last. It was body-snatchers an’ med’cal studen’s. When\nthe gen’elmcn at the hospital ‘ad clone cutting up the bodies, they gets rid o’\nthe limbs by pitchin’ ’em into the open shore.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Excerpt from <\/strong>London Labour and the London Poor:<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In my inquiries among that curious body of men, the \u201cSewer Hunters,” I found them make light of any danger, their principal fear being from the attacks of rats in case they became isolated from the gang with whom they searched in common, while they represented the The following account is derived chiefly from official sources.\nI may premise that where the deposit is found the greatest, the sewer is in the\nworst state. This deposit, I find it repeatedly stated, is of a most\nmiscellaneous character. Some of the sewers, indeed, are represented as the\ndust-bins and dung-hills of the immediate neighbourhood. The deposit has been\nfound to comprise all the ingredients from the breweries, the gas-works, and\nthe several chemical and mineral manufactories; dead dogs, cats, kittens, and\nrats; offal from slaughter-houses, sometimes even including the entrails of the\nanimals; street-pavement dirt of every variety; vegetable refuse; stable-dung;\nthe refuse of pig-styes; night-soil; ashes; tin kettles and pans (pansherds);\nbroken stoneware, as jars, pitchers, flower-pots, &c.; bricks; pieces of\nwood; rotten mortar and rubbish of different kinds; and even rags. Our criminal\nannals of the previous century show that often enough the bodies of murdered\nmen were thrown into the Fleet and other ditches, then the open sewers of the\nmetropolis, and if found washed into the Thames, they were so stained and\ndisfigured by the foulness of the contents of these ditches, that recognition was\noften impossible, so that there could be but one verdict returned\u2014” <\/em>Found\ndrowned.” Clothes stripped from a murdered person have been, it was\nauthenticated on several occasions in Old Bailey evidence, thrown into the open\nsewer ditches, when torn and defaced, so that they might not supply evidence of\nidentity. So close is the connection between physical filthiness in public\nmatters and moral wickedness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The following particulars show the characteristics of the\nunderground London of the sewers. The subterranean surveys were made after the\ncommissions were consolidated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “An old sewer, running\nbetween Great Smithstreet and St. Ann-street (Westminster), is a curiosity\namong sewers, although it is probably only one instance out of many similar\nconstructions that will be discovered in the course of the subterranean survey.\nThe bottom is formed of planks laid upon transverse timbers, 6 inches by 6\ninches, about 3 feet apart. The size of the sewer varies in width from 2 to 6\nfeet, and from 4 to 5 feet in height. The inclination to the bottom is very\nirregular: there are jumps up at two or three places, and it contains a deposit\nof filth averaging 9 inches in depth, the sickening smell from which escapes\ninto the houses and yards that drain into it. In many places the side walls\nhave given way for lengths of 10 and 15 feet. Across this sewer timbers have\nbeen laid, upon which the external wall of a workshop has been built; the\ntimbers are in a decaying state, and should they give way, the wall will fall\ninto the sewer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Susanna’s note: <\/strong>You can find out more about sewer thieves in this Smithsonian article<\/a> including additional excerpts from Mayhew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My last post was all sappy messages of love with pictures of pretty flowers and adorable children and adorable children holding pretty flowers. So, in the words of Monty Python, \u201cAnd now for something completely different.\u201d This time I\u2019m taking a journey into the dark, smelly, watery underbelly of Victorian London: the sewer. I\u2019m excerpting … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/susannaives.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/The_silent_highwayman.jpg?resize=525%2C401\")
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