From the interrogation of Mr. Frederick Powell, a barge worker from Barking, during the course of the 1870 “Report upon Inquiry as to the truth or otherwise of certain allegations contained in a memorial from a vicar and other inhabitants of Barking in the County of Essex calling attention to the pollution of the River Thames by the discharge of sewage through the northern outfall sewer of the Metropolitan Board of Works.”
Or,
how to really really wish your witness was saying what you wanted him to.
Mr. Lloyd [inquirer for the complainants]: Have you been talking to people about your coming up to give evidence for the Metropolitan Board?
Frederic Powell: It is such a matter of notoriety in Barking, it forms a means of passing the time in railway trains, et cetera, in fact sometimes at the station.
- It forms the general subject of conversation?
- Yes
- The conversation is always about how very agreeable it is, is it not?
- There is a question; if they all sided on one side of course there would not be any argument, you cannot find two of the same opinion.
- Is it not a general complaint at Barking?
- As far as domestic circles are to be spoken of, I have not heard of either man, woman or child speak of the ill effects of London sewage.
- Then whom have you heard speak of them?
- Those who go into railway carriages from Barking to London to attend to their business and have not got anything else to occupy their time.
[Mr Lloyd insists that it is a general complaint. Powell insists he's only heard it at the railway station from a certain class of people]
Mr. Lloyd - What is the class who complain?
Frederick Powell - Some of them who pass 10 hours out of 12 in London, and some who never see the outside of their door with the exception when they go out in the evening and have a glass of grog, and have a hand at whist, and so forth, they consider themselves the intelligent class of the community and they want to have a bit of a show off.
- Is the vicar of Barking one of those?
- I do not really know.
- Does he go out and take his glass?
- No, I do not say that.
[Mr. Lloyd again tries to insist that the sewage of the northern outfall sewer is a cause of common complaint. Mr. Powell is having none of it]
Frederick Powell - I really have not heard it spoken of, if I speak truthfully, within houses or homes; but I have heard it at the railway station.
Mr. Lloyd - You never heard it at Barking?
- Not in homes or houses of resort. I never heard persons who were sitting in the “Ship” parlour say, “How beastly the London sewage smells! Let us drink up and go.” I have heard them hold forth on other matters to any extent.
- Where?
- In Homes' parlour, et cetera; but I never heard of the smell of London sewage being so bad as to make them finish their drink and get off.
Mr. Lloyd - Now about the navigation of the creek…
Oh it made me chuckle. In the British Library Humanities 2 Reading Room, where there's not much chuckling. Coughing, spluttering, stomach-rumbling. But not chuckling.