Читать книгу Aromatics and the Soul: A Study of Smells онлайн

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Moreover, the nineteenth century was well on its way before the last of the private cesspools disappeared from the dwelling-houses of London.

Edinburgh during the Middle Ages was, we are told, fresher and cleaner upon its wind-swept ridge than London, but with the erection of lofty houses in the High Street and Haymarket of the northern capital its atmosphere became much worse than that of London. The reason for this was that while the London houses remained low, and the population therefore, for a city, widely distributed, in those of Edinburgh, on the other hand, a large community of all classes of society was concentrated, from the noble lord and lady to the beggarly caddie and quean. And the whole stew was quite innocent of what we call drainage. Quite. Yet the waste-products of life, the lees and offscourings of humanity, all that housemaids call “slops,” had to be got rid of. Very simple problem this to our worthy Edinburgh forefathers. After dark the windows up in these “lands” were thrust open, and with a shrill cry of “Gardy-loo” (Gardez l’eau) the cascade of swipes and worse fell into the street below with a splash and an od—. “Ha! ha!” laughed Dr. Johnson to little Boswell; “I can smell you there in the dark!”