there had been sewer folk before the great stink , of course , living in the elizabethan sewers , or the restoration sewers , or the regency sewers , as more and more of london 's waterways were forced into pipes and covered passages , as the expanding population produced more filth , more rubbish , more effluent ; but after the great stink , after the great plan of victorian sewer-building , that was when the sewer folk came into their own .