Noise, smell and other nuisances : Valletta c.1880s – c.1930

Abstract

During the last thirty years or so, some historians have turned their attention to the human senses other than sight. This paper discusses briefly the noises and smells pervading Valletta during the final years of the 19th and the opening decades of the 20th century. In doing so, it stresses the importance of those who caused such nuisances and those who complained against them. It results that the growing sense of intolerance towards such nuisances was class-bound. The final part proposes to envision these nuisances as an element of what Ranajit Guha calls ‘the politics of the people’.