Until the beginning of the seventeenth century, the streets of Berlin were never swept.

There was a law that every countryman, who came to market with a cart, should carry back a load of dirt! Paving was followed by attempts, often of an imperfect kind, at the construction of drains and sewers.

It had become obvious to all reflecting men that these were necessary to the preservation of health, not only in towns, but in isolated houses.

Then followed the lighting of the public thoroughfares.

At first houses facing the streets were compelled to have candles or lamps in their windows; next the system that had been followed with so much advantage in Cordova and Granada--of having public lamps--was tried, but this was not brought to perfection until the present century, when lighting by gas was invented.
Contemporaneously with public lamps were improved organizations for night-watchmen and police.
By the sixteenth century, mechanical inventions and manufacturing improvements were exercising a conspicuous influence on domestic and social life.