In 1855 the famous scientist, Michael Faraday, best known for his work on electricity, wrote a letter to The Times. He complained about the unbearable stench emanating from the River Thames into which increasing amounts of raw sewage was being dumped.
He described the river as “an opaque brown fluid” whose “faeculence rolled up in clouds so dense that they were visible at the surface”. “Surely the river which flows for so many miles through London ought not to be allowed to become a fermenting sewer”, Farraday lamented. He warned that “if we neglect the subject we cannot expect to do so with impunity - nor ought we to be surprised if, ere many years are over, a hot season give us sad proof of the folly of our carelessness”.
Nobody listened to Faraday. London paid for that folly. The great cholera outbreak, a direct result of contamination of drinking water from the river with human excrement, killed over 30,000 people.
The government simply watched as the disgusting state of the river got worse and worse. Government MPs, who invested in water companies which drew water out of the contaminated river and sold it as drinking water, were reaping profits. To protect their own interests they objected and opposed any initiative to address the faeculent state of the river. They were happy watching people die of cholera while they and their friends prospered.
By 1858 the situation had become intolerable. The population of London had increased dramatically from just 1 million in 1800 to over 2.5 million by 1850. That dramatic rise in London’s population consisted mainly of lower class workers toiling in sub-human conditions for a pittance, generating huge profits for the ruling class. Many made their living as night soil-men, emptying cesspits full of human excrement during the night, carting it away and selling it to farmers as fertiliser. This significantly reduced the amount of excrement reaching the river.
But many lost their livelihood when William Gibbs, a well-connected businessman, was given a monopoly for importing guano, solid seabird excrement, from Peru. It was an effective fertiliser and after clever marketing by Gibbs it was in high demand. Gibbs became one of the richest men in Britain. But the state of the Thames deteriorated - and so did the lives of the workers. The hot dry summer of 1858 only aggravated the situation. The stench became overwhelming.
For Londoners, especially the poor, that stench became an acceptable part of city life. It was considered the inevitable price they had to pay to be part of the city.
And that is where Malta finds itself. Overwhelmed by the toxicity of Labour’s gross corruption, the majority accepts it, or even endorses it, as a necessary price to pay for Malta’s fake economic success. That perfidious stench seeps into every corner of every town and village. For some it is so ubiquitous they’ve long stopped smelling it.
The daily leak of fetid stories emanating from Labour’s cabinet is like the tidal Thames that washes the piles of faeces downstream only for it to return as the tide comes in - Chris Bonnett takes his family on a holiday to Sicily in his ministerial car; Joseph Portelli’s project gets the green light after hosting Robert Abela for dinner; Anton Refalo snatches a historical artefact and places it in his private garden; the Minister for Gozo is given responsibility for the wild birds regulation unit instead of the Environment minister; Joseph Muscat gets 120,000 euro and use of government offices in a secret deal struck with his former consultant Robert Abela; Ian Borg hands out 20 separate direct orders worth almost half a million euro to TEC Ltd which then provides him with tents for his election campaign; Robert Abela rents out his Zejtun dilapidated property to Russian prospective passport buyers after acquiring it at rock bottom price days after all illegalities on the property were sanctioned by the Planning Authority whose consultant he was; Silvio Schembri refuses to publish the lease agreement costing 31 million euro to lease out a bathroom showroom for the Malta business registry; Owen Bonnici fails to act against Sigmund Mifsud who allegedly covered up sexual harassment at the national orchestra; Clayton Bartolo deviously conceals his girlfriend’s employment by getting his friend Clint Camilleri to put her on the Gozo Ministry’s books; and Rosianne’s ….on and on it goes.
Only after thousands died of cholera did London finally smell the stench. The press, including the Illustrated London News, carried letters, articles and cartoons voicing the people’s rage over how the government turned the river into a stinking toxic source of death.
That year the Whigs were turfed out. They would never govern again.
The newly elected Disraeli acted swiftly to rid London of its disgusting disgrace. He commissioned Joseph Bazalgette, the Chief Engineer of the Metropolitan board of Works, to sort out London’s putrid mess.
Bazalgette swiftly built huge new sewers to intercept the waste - 82 miles of main sewers and 1,100 miles of street sewers and embankments to house them. Those sewers and the associated pumping stations were not just an engineering feat but also an artistic achievement, decorated with beautiful ironwork and tasteful architecture. Many of those sewers and some of those pumping stations are still in operation almost 200 years later, ensuring the stench that once fouled London will never return.
The cleansing of the Victorian metropolis came at huge costs. It cost billions of pounds, in today’s terms. It took great leadership, focused determination and brilliant technical expertise. But it was only possible because the public was galvanised into action. That cleansing project enjoyed the full support of a nation sick to its back teeth with its government’s abuse. The people finally realised that the great stink was killing them.
Malta desperately needs its own Bazalgette to drain the swamp it has become. But no Bazalgette or Disraeli can succeed with a nation comfortably adapted to Labour’s redolent fetor.