Stephen Smith
speaker
1,482 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 23 Jul
Stephen Smith’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And now every horse that passes stirs it up, every vehicle leaves a cloud of it behind, it is lifted into the air with
And what a pulvis compositum is it to breathe into the lungs, as we pass by, and the wheel of the wheel
Mouths become full of it, we draw it in with our breath.
It is swallowed into the stomach, it penetrates our dress, and clings until it has covered our perspiring skin.
Surely no dumping-ground, no sewer, no vault, contains more filth or in greater variety than did the air in certain parts of our city during the long season of drought the past summer, and wherever the
Wind blows, the foul corruption is carried by a process as sure and universal as the diffusion of gases, is it conveyed throughout the city?
Such often is the air drawn into the lungs with every respiration of the poor sufferer stifled with consumption or burning with fever.
No barrier can shut it out, no social distinction can save us from it, no domestic cleanliness, no private sanitary measures can substitute a pure atmosphere for a foul one.
But I need not multiply these quotations.
It will suffice to state that during the week ending august fifth, a special inspection of all the streets was made, and they were found to be reeking and indeed almost impassable with filth, and today they are in, if possible, a still worse condition than ever before.
Closely allied to the streets are courts and alleys.
These cul de sacs leading to and adjoining the close and unventilated homes of the poor, are almost universally in a more filthy condition than the adjacent street.
They are the receptacles of much of the waste of the house and are rarely cleaned.
The air of these places during the summer is often the most stifling.
filling and irrespirable, and yet as it descends, it enters the closely packed tenant house and furnishes to the inmates the elements of disease and death.
Says the inspector of the fourth ward, slops from rear buildings of such premises are usually emptied into a shallow gutter cut in the flagging, and extending from the yard or space between front and rear buildings to the street.
This is often clogged up by semifluid filth so that the alley and those parts of the yard through which it runs are
Are not infrequently overflown and submerged to the depth of several inches.
There are more than four hundred families in this district whose homes can only be reached by wading through a disgusting deposit of filthy refuse.
In such instances, a staging of plank elevated a few inches above the surface is constructed through the alleys.
Showing 401–420 of 1,482 · page 21 of 75
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