By the summer of 1858, three million Londoners were flushing their sewage into the Thames through an aging system that emptied directly into the river. Temperatures hit 48 °C (118 °F) in the sun. The water level dropped. Raw effluent sat on the banks. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert tried a pleasure cruise and turned back within minutes. The press called it the Great Stink.
The City Press observed: "Gentility of speech is at an end — it stinks, and whoso once inhales the stink can never forget it and can count himself lucky if he lives to remember it." Parliament soaked its curtains in lime chloride. Members still couldn't work. Disraeli fled a committee room "with a mass of papers in one hand, and with his pocket handkerchief applied to his nose."
When he introduced a bill to fix the problem, he called the Thames "a Stygian pool, reeking with ineffable and intolerable horrors." The bill passed in five weeks — lightning speed for Victorian legislation. Engineer Joseph Bazalgette then built 1,100 miles of sewers using 318 million bricks.
His system still operates today, serving a city of nine million.
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