separated only by a few feet from a cesspool or a midden. And in the less prosperous parts of the borough the state of affairs was even worse. Duddeston and Nechells had a surveyor of their own. They paid him £-^0 a year. He described himself as a " universal genius, "though, as he said, " he never had no instruction," and " never could see that there was any art in laying down sewers." He did not know how to use a spirit-level, and took his levels with three sticks. Even in the centre of the town the streets were mean and sordid, badly paved, and badly lighted. Two gas companies supplied the town, but on such terms that prices were not lowered by competition. Further out, row upon row of grimy dwarf houses extended in all directions; and behind the streets lay two thousand close courts, each approached by a narrow passage and doorway—for the most part without pavement or drainage, as indecent within as they were unwholesome. The burial grounds attached to the churches and chapels of the town were full to overflowing. Wells contaminated by the filth that was left to soak into the soil supplied two-thirds of the population. A water company supplied the remaining third on two days in the week. Disease was rife, and the death-rate high. Whole districts in the heart of the town were abandoned to vice and to crime. That is a dark picture, is it not? Dark, but not overcoloured; every line in it is confirmed by bluebooks, reports and records; if you will examine the evidence for yourselves, you will agree that I have exaggerated nothing. Birmingham in those days was nothing better than an overgrown and ill-governed village.
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