Streets of Quebec

This is a recent photo of a main street in Quebec. Today, cars, buses and trucks travel this narrow lane. . and in early morning and late at night a horse and carriage. The clop, clop, clop of the horses' iron shoes on the pavement makes one think about the distant past of Quebec city. Long ago, this road might have been a dirt path and then a cobblestone street. It not only served as a transportation artery through the neighborhood but also a convenient site for the residents of the houses to dump their household garbage and even their chamber pots! In the wintertime each snow covered the streets, burying the growing mess. During the Spring thaw the rains and melting snow flushed the street clean. . . .polluting streams and eventually the St Lawrence river. In the Summer and Fall, the streets and the river had to be dismal. During warm weather, water borne diseases took many lives because of the poor sanitation here and in every other city in North America and Europe.