The New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 305, 2 May 1849, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

He just and fear not: Let alt the ends thon aitns't at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 184 9.

There is, probably; no subject for which communities affect to entertain a more anxious regard than for the preservation or amelioration of the health of the city in which their lot may be cast : — yet, strange and inconsistent as it may seem, there is no subject more habitually or more perilously neglected than that all important one. Growing nuisances, it is true, are discussed and denounced ;— citizens, individually, and in coteries, exclaim against evils which are still permitted to make headway :-— segments of the community talk, and public journalists, sometimes, write of the increasing danger to the general weal, consequent upon the construction and crowding of unsuitable tenements upon' undraineti, un ventilated, and notoriously unwholesome sites, but to what end, — so long as the denunciations of the interlocutors and the expositions of the journalist are alike inoperative of check or mitigation ? From the comparative apathy which everyj where greets its advocacy, Sanitary Reform' appears, as it were, less a measure of public safety to be desired, than a problem of political economy, for a few sanguine speculatists> to evolve. Men, in the aggregate, are clamorous for its adoption ; but, when its provisions are even attempted to be brought to operate against individual interests, or personal cupidity, those very men become fierce and fertile in their motives for obstruction. The eye which is clear as to the general utility of the measure, is not only utterly impercipient of the advantage, but impersuasible of the propriety of its particular enforcement. When people are in the full enjoyment of health, sickness, like death, is apt to be re* garded as a remote contingency ; one in which, to paraphrase the poet Young, mankind are but too prone ta consider

I All men sickly but themselves. They contemplate the ameliorations projected more as matters of philanthropy on their part to recommend, than as precautionary measures' for , their own im mediate preservation to adopt, and | are but too apt to quote a tissue of plausibly frivolous reasons why disease should refrain from knocking at their gates, or death step in to destroy all their vain calculations. Private* interest, personal aggrandizement municipal obstructions, and extraordinary public apathy, combined to frustrate the great Sanitary Reform, projected for the ..cities of Britain by the present Earl of Carlisle , hut, if his Lordship failed, for a time, in accomplishing the .full measure of his benevolence, he nevertheless achieved so much, by the startling disclosures elicited, as shall enable him and others, at no distant date, triumphantly to compel the purgation at present so fatuously denied. But what have we, the founders of new and distant empires, to do with Sanitary Reform"? We, who migrated from our "o'er cloyed country" that " our souls might have elbow room V* Can it be that our love of native habits is so strong that we must needs import our native abominations ? Can*we not, by timely caution, prevent the growth of those evils, which England, after much bitter experience, and the infliction of countless frightful penalties, is striving, at a prodigious cost, to cure ? It would seem not ! It would appear that without England's necessity, we must blindly follow England's errors. On the shores of almost untrodden lands we are founding future

cities ; and where, from its comparative worth - lessness, a wholesome area should be a matter of the first importance to the occupant, and of the least consideration to the proprietor of a tenement, we are driven, i>y the exorbitant prices extwted by the Colonial Office for Crown Waste Lands, to try with what -skill we can compete with Britain in the process of packing and wedging a given number of human beings within so many feet square ! We may be told that the money, so wrung from us, is to be applied for the purposes of emigration ? So much the worse say we, since every ship load must contribute to swell the population of the towns, and the ramming and cramming process will go on, until an endemic achieve a lodgment and periodical decimation ensue. It may be objected that were town lands to be sold cheap, speculators might purchase, and the cutting up process be carried on even in a more wholesale manner than now. Possibly so, were sales indiscriminate and unfettered with conditions. But we think a system could be perfected which, with a reasonable remuneration to the Government for survey, might combine every provision necessary to insure the underground and surface drainageof allotments, the constrnction of regular and well ventilated streets, the erection of houses commensurate with the magnitude and locality of the allotments, and possessing within themselves alFthe requisite and orderly private accommodations, and in strict conformity with a distinct and determinate plan — any departure from which might entail either a heavy penalty, or, if persisted in, a forfeiture of the land itself. We have the system which produced the uniform and handsome city of Hobart Town in our eye ; but we have also something beyond it. We would recommend no free grants, nor any allotments of the magnitude that there were recognized. Building sections might be of four classes ; the first containing half an acre, and the last an eighth of an acre. Upon these the most moderate prices should be affixed, and, in addition to the covenants binding their purchasers to build upon a sanitary and beneficial principle, not more than a limited number, say two or three, of those allotments should be alienable to one individual, until that individual had rendered them of corporate value by the erection of the requisite buildings. And, in the event of an after subdiviaon of such allotments, and the erection of future buildings thereupon, the subdivision should be so provided for in the original 'grant deed, that no unnatural crowding of the tenements, and no injurious obstruction to air and ventilation could ensue. • It must be a beggarly government that looks to the sale' of its town lands as a standard source of prosperity. If those lands be purchasable at a moderate price, goodly and healthful edifices will arise — sanitary conditions can be enforced — and the proceeds be applicable to the payment of the cost of survey and the maintenance of a City Surveyor. Some such scheme would, in our opinion, be beginning a ttfwn at the beginning. As for Auckland, it has evidently been commenced at the wrong end, and if it progresses as it at present promises, it will be to invite the domiciliation of danger and disease, which a wholesome conflagration alone will suffice to eradicate. Although we have already more than once urged the attention of our fellow-colonists to the rapidly increasing abominations of Auckland — although we have been again and again urged to point out and proclaim particular and intolerable nuisances — although the concurrent testimony of every physician has only confirmed our expositions, that a place naturally healthy will be speedily rendered artificially the reveries'—we should probably have left the subject now untouched, had we not been spurred to make another effort in the cause of social decency by the perusal of a very powerful lecture on Sanitary Reform, delivered at the Adelaide Theatre by the able and indefatigable Mr. John Stephens, editor and proprietor of the • " South Australian Register" and " Adelaide dbserver." Mr. Stephens divides his subject into nine several branches. Pure air and ventilation — The Admission of Light — Wholesome and < sufficient Food — Pure Water — Proper Shelter and Clothing— Surface and underground Drainage — Mortality from removable causes — The moral aspect of the question — and — The Necessity of prompt authoritative measures. To his characteristic acumen, Mr. Stephens has added the most pains-taking industry in elucidation of the noxious system he strives so manfully to overthrow. The faGts and figures by which he illustrates the prevalence of nui--sances destructive of human life, even in the infant city of Adelaide, are frightful incentives * to other colonial capitals to examine into their sanitary condition, and, if that be a doubtful or a dangerous one, the means, and the motives of purgation are clearly and convincingly pointed out. The arguments and the exposures of Mr. Stephens are, unhappily, not applicable to Adelaide alone. The Sydney Herald recognizes them as strikingly apposite to many existing impurities disgraceful to the character and dangerous to the health of their noble metropolitan city, which it counsels to prompt adoption of many of the easy ameliorations the lecturer suggests.

These ameliorations are no less requisite for Auckland. On the contrary, they are every way much more imperative, since the weeping skies and saturated soil of New Zealand, are far more likely to engender and to aggravate pestilence, than the cloudless firmament and arid plains of Australia. Possibly, we have not as yet attained to the pitch of filthy excellence which the following passage pourtrays, but, as we seem to be pushing the Wakefield principle of concentration into the narrowest practicable dimensions, we would recommend our contractors to ponder this delectable South Australian picture. There ii in the neighbourhood of East-terrance on the north lide of Peacock's tanyard, a row of eight habitation!, I cannot call them houses, divided into sixteen tenements, the upper of which ire accessible only by meant of open irairn, or rather step-ladders in the rear. Their dimension! are only ten feet by twelve feet each. These have one hundred persons occupying them, and all of whom are compelled to use the same convenience, which adjoins one of the ladders, and stand i within two feet of the hou&e. Many hate died in them of fever, and others are dangerously ill of it. On the west side of the same buildings, there are twelve houses belonging to the same landlord; all thickly inhabited, and haye but ona privy amongst them. Can Auckland show no lane or aljey for which this might serve as a representation ? ; There it a very narrow thoroughfare opposite Wake* ham's public-house, in Grenfell-striet, leading to Pine-street, where several tenement! are huddled together, in such a manner as to defy cleanliness and ventilation. Owing to the total absenqe of draining', the roadway in winter is a mass of mud, and a slaugh-ter-house and piggery extend one half the way,' while the abominations from a brewery poison the other. Combined, they occasion at all seasons, an intolerabl stencli. And that is not all, for in the same neighbourhood, there is a taunery and a chnndjery, which pour their feet id vapours on the luckless inhabitants whenever the wind blows from certain quarters. In this neighbourhood the wont cases of fever occurred last year. The next illustration, we are happy to think we cannot parallel ; but, with such a torrent of emigration pouring into Auckland, as that which at present overflows Adelaide, how long, and how much, should we be in arrear ? But perhaps the worst abomination of all isthe mass of buildings formerly known as the " Port Lincoln Hotel." lam told that this property was leased, when in a forlorn state, aad in lorloru times, for a terra of yenrs, at Bs. per week, and that the lessee now manages to make of it £2 10s, weekly. It is said that there is no privy or water-closet on the premises, but a sort of " slough of despond" nightly receives the excrcmental accumulations of its packed inhabitants. To mention another instance, I lately heard of one South Australian landlord, who, being about to build a fresh lot of tenements, sat down to " count the- cost;" and was reminded that the expence of privies hud not entered into his calculation ; at which he snappishly replied, that he did not intend to build any «uch thiugt : tho tenants might mnkc shift as he bimiclf did. And the landlord's admusion obliges me to state, that whilst in ahnoit erery part of Adelaide these outbuildings are "' common" to several houses inhabited by both sexes, there are numbers of houses without privien, or nny place of depositor their refuse ; and I am told that even those attachen to the SchooUhouses of Freeman-street Chapel are without roof, without se.it, without floors. It is recorded of the facetious monarch Charles 11. that when passing through the town of Bodmin, Cornwall (which even in his day contained, as it does now, a number of large houses, in a sorrowful condition) his Majesty said it was the most polite town he had crcr risited, for one half the houses were bowing and the other haif uncovered. I csn readily surmise that although the number of big homes in Adelaide would not have attracted any notice from the Merry King, he certiinly would have said to many little houses, *• Be ye seated; be ye covered." On the subject of surface and underground drainage, Mr. Stephen observes, In many respects the inhabitants of Great Britain miy justly boast their superiority over tho ancient! ; but <an they boast such a system of sewerage a* that possessed by ancient Rome? Or, rather, are not defective drainage or sewerage national characteristics in de*pite of the examples of antiquity, and in defiance of the stern lessons of experience ? The records of every town that has been examined furnish abundant confirm mntion of the opinion, long entertained, that the immediate and detect tautc of fever is apohon generated by the ((imposition of animal and vegetable matter, and which poison can only be removed bn efficient sewerage, cleanliness, and venti'ation ; and yet it is only within the last few years that the question hai vxcited any due ihare of public attentiou in England ; md even now the obstacles to an effective reform in this matter, arising from the cupidity of individuals, from class in* terents, and from legislative and official apathy have prevented any effectual movement in the tight direotion. Another consequence of imbibing such a" poisonous atmosphere is mental and bodily depmtion, and this again leads to the undue us* of stimulants. , In deprecating the frightful population com'r pression still increasing in the gorge and pur«lieus of Commercial Bay, we have known more than one person to shrug up his shoulders and say, that contagion once intro* duced, it would prove terribly fatal in that crowded locality. But would it be confined to that locality 1 Would it not spread to freer ranges and purer skies ? Mr. Stephens evidently thinks that it would , as well as we, for he says The naturally most healthy localities may be rendered the opposite by the neglect of sanitary measures, and groups of dwellings, even on elevated ground, and exposed to the most invigorating breezes, may become nests of disease and foci of pestilence. Mark his assertions with reference to London, in its wooden age, London, before the great fire of 1666, had few drains, and the consequence was a periodical pestilence occurring at intervals of about twelve years, each destroying on an average one fourth of the inhabitants. The difficulty is not what to quote, but what to abstain from quoting in a pamphlet so graphic and so instructive — a guide and a beacon to all young cities how to take warning from the old, and to eschew toleration, of

I a system; the offspring of suicidal cupidity, and which is inevitably fraught with suffering and sorrow. ' l Demonstrating the fatal effects arising from the want of adequate drains, Mr. Stephens remarks Mr, LidJle, a Union surgeon in a metropolitan •district, gives in evidence before the Health of Towns Commission, the case of a court in Bethnu] Green, in which he had attended forty-one casei of fever in seven montbi. This court was unpnved, undratned, and covered with stagnant water and refuse accumulations It wai cleansed, drained, paved, and supplied with water, and for three subsequent months there was not one cm of fever, nor has the mortality again risen above the average of the diitrict. In, taking the aues of deaths in the different streets in the parish of St. Margaret, Leicester, it was found that in those streets which were diained (and there was not • single street in the pines propeily drained) the Average age of death w.n twenty-three and a half ! years; that in the itrrcts which were partially drained it wai seventeen and a half years ; while in the streets that were entirely undraincd, it was only thirteen and a half years. : The lesion taught by all, without one single exception is, that nothing can contribute more effectually to the health of a city than a complete system of sewerage and surface drainage, aud that the liability to disease and death is in piecise proportion to the neglect of this all-important precaution ; for of what advantage to the inmates of the public *irceis are the ventilating winds of heaven, when they carry to cuch heurth the seeds of death, and along with them the exhalations from privies, drains, sewers, slaughter-houses, tanneries, piggeries, and other filthy localities ? . We have already greatly exceeded our limited space, but the subject is one of such vital importance to our piesent and future welfare that we cannot in justice conclude without one more quotation : one whose suggestion in behalf of Adelaide would be found quite as applicable and as beneficial of adoption by Auckland — for, are not the abominations of Adelaide as rife and as intolerable in Auckland? A vigilant police might detect the street depositors of dead animals, and stringent fines abate such infamous outrages upon health and decency. Instructions to that sanitary effect at least should issue. But as it may he finincially impossible to carry out an ample, system of sewerage in Adelaide for many years, the p question now is, " What can be done at once to lessen or obviate that manifest iosulubritj which is attributable to removable causes ?" We want, first, the immediate removal or abatement of ascertained nuisances, and this must be effected at whatever cost; and", secondly, a properly qualified stipendiary surveyor, in the absence of a Sanitary IJoard, with such stringent regulations ns may prevent the future accumulation of similar nuisances. Scavengers' carts might daily remove offensive filth, as was, and perhaps still is, the practice in the city of Brussels, where all dry refuse matter is placed in iront of the hou-e early in the morning, and simultaneously removed. The channels and gutters, which are still permitted to be obstiucteri, should also be kept clear. A system of surface drainage, the want of which here is so deplorably manifest during the wet months, with partial sewerage, is within our power» and th'n should be one of the first undertakings of a Municipal Corporation to be resuscitated ere long in Adelaide. Money should be immediately borrowed by that corporation upon debenture, as the requisite sum could not be collected at once, nor could anything permanently effective be done by private or public Bubicription, whilst the necessity is imperative and urgent. A corp.ration would not only consult local talent and domiciliary experience, but also employ the most efficient persons upon the most economical aod off. ctivc plan ; and, happily, now, more than ever, we have available experience of the most useful kind among our citizens. A body of scavangers, with their carts, must then be procured aud systematized, existing nuisances denounced, and their removal insisted on at the ex ponce of the owners or occupiers of the premises so denounced, under threat of indictment, where necessary, the Municipal Government affording reasonable aid in all cases. The streets must be periodically swept, the avenues cleansed) refuse and excremenlitious matter of every kind carried away before the atmosphere becomes tainted with disease and death ; aod decomposing impurities de:ected by the police instantly removed by means of perambulating carts. At present dead animnls and disinterred bones are suffered to remain in what we hope will, ere long, become streets, until putrefaction contaminates the surrounding atmosphere, and the removal of their dissolving par's becomes dangerous, if not impracticable. If the present police force be insufficient for the purpose, let a branch force of detectives be instituted, witb special orders to render themselves respectively acquainted with the different localities, the liabilities to nuisance, and such occurrences as are likely to produce them, if not immediately attended to ; as, for instance, the removal of the festering carcase of a dead animal. I quite |agree with teveral of the medical gentlemen that the slaughtering of the lesser animals ought either .to be interdicted in the city, or provided for in such a way as not to become nuisances in their respective neighbourhoods. Let it then be the ambition of every good citizen who now hears me, tor his own sake, for his family's sake, and for the public health, wealth, and prosperity, to do his owu part to make this, our rising city of Adelaide, is notably clean as it is at present proverbially dirty. No verbal description can convey any true conceptiou of the disgusting and poisonous condition of the towns and cities of our mother-country, nnd yet, hut tbat our population is less dense, we should be in a far worse sanitary plight. To do justice to Mr. Stephens, and to confer an essential benefit upon our own particular colony, we might safely transfer every page of his pamphlet to our columns. We trust our readers will ponder the extracts we have made, and if they perceive their applicability to ; Auckland, that they will agitate the question until Sanitary Reform shall assume a shape more beneficial than that of a mere occasional theme for public writings and lectures.