In a speech to the Metropolitan Sanitary Association 10 months before the launch of Bleak House, Charles Dickens declared his great mission as a reforming novelist: “I can honestly declare tonight, that all the use I have … made of my eyes – or nose [laughter] that all the information I have since been able to acquire through any of my senses, has strengthened me in the conviction that searching sanitary reform must precede all other social remedies [cheers] and that even Education and Religion can do nothing where they are most needed, until the way is paved for their ministrations by Cleanliness and Decency.”
Hear, hear.
I agree absolutely, too – but in the 19th century, my great grandfather campaigned in Chertsey, outer London, for the retention of cess-pits, thinking it was unhealthy to have all that stuff moving around underground.
Many thanks for connecting on Facebook
All best wishes from Australia
Peter