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The sources from which the supply of water of this parish is derived
are so dissimilar as to require special notice.
Thames IVater.—This has been so often analyzed and condemned that
it would receive no notice at my hands, only that it still continues to be
largely drank by the inhabitants of the waterside aud its immediate
vicinity. They collect it at high water, and store it ill vessels to settle
and get clear. Last autumn I unexpectedly entered the house of a
family living at the waterside, in which I knew diarrhoea to have been
of frequent occurrence, and enquiring for some of their drinking water,
obtained a sample from a large earthen vessel which formed the family
store. This sample, a pint in quantity, contained upwards of three
grains of fœcal matter evident to the senses. There was no necessity
for proceeding farther with the investigation. The fact of human beings
using a daily article of food which is impregnated with the excrementitious
matter of their own bodies, without reference to the great loss of
life which it lias been so conclusively proved to occasion, is too revolting
to require further comment than that it urgently requires immediate
interference.
Surface Wells.—These furnish the principal supply to the parish.
The samples were taken from different parts of the parish, as far apart
as possible. They are seen to be, without exception, excessively
polluted. This is scarcely to be wondered at, when we consider the
conditions affecting these falsely-named spring waters.
The great majority of these wells are simply holes in the ground, made
for intercepting the surface water in its passage through the soil towards
its complete filtration at a much lower level. If no other circumstances
were in operation such water would simply be imperfectly filtered surface
water; but when we reflect that the soil through which it percolates is of
a loose gravelly nature, riddled all over with cesspools, and liable to every
impregnation which can affect its surface, derived unceasingly from town
life; and that the nature of water is to absorb any soluble substance with
which it comes in contact, we can realize some of the enormity of the
pollution to which such water is subject. It would be as reasonable to
expect to derive wholesome water from the filtering beds of one of the
water companies between the strata of which was interposed a layer of
town ordure, as from these wells. The conditions, differing only in degree,
are parallel in both cases.
The River Wandle.—The supply next in extent is derived from this
river. A reference to the table is scarcely required to shew its great
impurity by any one who has seen it or smelt it, or who reflects upon the
large amount of sewage which enters it in all directions, from Croydon to
its confluence with the Thames. Several examinations of it were made
at different times, the figures in the table being the mean of their results,
from which it is seen that while the saline constituents varied ouly ¾ths of
a grain, there was a great variation in the amount of organic matter. To
obtain a water corresponding with what is drank, the samples were dipped
beneath the surface with the care which housewives may be observed to
exercise in obtaining their supplies in order to avoid fœcal and other fi.th
floating on the surface. It is necessary to mention this, because without
such precaution it would be found to contain a very much larger amount
of organic matter.
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