On this day ...
21 October 1769
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
Transcript of Cook's Journal
Joseph Banks's Journal
Sydney Parkinson's Journal
Description of Poverty Bay
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In this decent article of civil oeconomy they were beforehand with one of the most considerable nations of Europe, for I am credibly informed, that, till the year 1760, there was no such thing as a privy in Madrid, the metropolis of Spain, though it is plentifully supplied with water. Before that time it was the universal practice to throw the ordure out of the windows, during the night, into the street, where numbers of men were employed to remove it, with shovels, from the upper parts of the city to the lower, where it lay till it was dry, and was then carried away in carts, and deposited without the gates. His present Catholic Majesty, having determined to free his capital from so gross a nuisance, ordered, by proclamation, that the proprietor of every house should build a privy, and that sinks, drains, and common-sewers should be made at the public expence. The Spaniards, though long accustomed to an arbitrary government, resented this proclamation with great spirit, as an infringement of the common rights of mankind, and made a vigorous struggle against its being carried into execution. Every class devised some objection against it, but the physicians bid the fairest to interest the king in the preservation of the ancient privileges of his people; for they remonstrated that if the filth was not, as usual, thrown into the streets, a fatal sickness would probably ensue, because the putrescent particles of the air, which such filth attracted, would then be imbibed by the human body. But this expedient, with every other that could be thought of, proved unsuccessful, and the popular discontent then ran so high that it was very near producing an insurrection; his majesty, however, at length prevailed, and Madrid is now as clear as most of the considerable cities in Europe. But many of the citizens, probably upon the principles advanced by their physicians, that heaps of filth prevent deleterious particles of air from fixing upon neighbouring substances, have, to keep their food wholesome, constructed their privies by the kitchen fire.
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© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 314 - 315, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/313.html