Troublesome as these nuisances are, there is such an inaptitude to new
plans, that they might go on for ever, if an interference should not
come in from some external quarter. It matters little whence the
interference comes, so that the end be effected. We cannot, however,
view the proceedings of a Board of Health in ordering cleanly
arrangements, or those of a municipal council putting down factory
smoke, without great interest, for we think we there see part, and an
important one too, of the great battle of Civilisation against
Barbarism. And this interest is deepened when we observe the benefits
which Barbarism usually derives from its own defeats. The
factory-owner, for instance, will find that, in applying an apparatus
by which smoke may be prevented, he will not merely be sparing his
neighbours a great annoyance, but economising fuel to an extent which
must more than repay the outlay. By repressing nuisance, he will be in
the same measure repressing waste.[2] Were there, in like manner, a
general measure for enforcing the removal of refuse from the
neighbourhood of human habitations, the rate-payers would in due time
see blessed effects from the compulsion to which they had been
subjected. Their groans would be succeeded by gladness, and they would
thank the legislators who had slighted their remonstrances. When the
cholera approached in 1849, our British Board of Health ordered a
general cleaning out of stables, and a daily persistence in the
practice. It was complained of as a great hardship; but the Board
ascertained that owners of valuable race-horses cause their stables to
be thoroughly cleaned daily, as a practice necessary for the health of
the animals; the Board, therefore, very properly insisted on forcing
this benefit upon the proprietors of horses generally. Can we doubt
that a similar policy might be followed with the like good
consequences at all times, and with regard to the habitations of men
as well as horses?