London’s pilgrimage to urbanization witnessed some sectors progressing more slowly than others. Even up until the mid-nineteenth century, human excrement was still deposited in “dry closets” (essentially buckets) that were emptied beneath the floorboards of houses. “Wet closets” improved sanitation, but their pipes concluded in cesspools instead of sewers. With the Nuisance Removal and Contagious Diseases Act in 1848 and additional legislation, Londoners were encouraged to rid their houses of “nuisance.” As a result, the River Thames—once blue and brimming with salmon—became an open sewer. During Spurgeon’s first year in London, a cholera outbreak killed 10,000 people. The pandemic, originally thought to be the result of airborne disease, actually spread through contaminated water and devastated Spurgeon’s congregation. He recounted:

All day, and sometimes all night long, I went about from house to house, and saw men and women dying, and, oh, how glad they were to see my face. When many were afraid to enter their houses lest they should catch the deadly disease, we who had no fear about such things found ourselves most gladly listened to when we spoke of Christ and of things Divine.