View report page

27
penalty, to provide and maintain such fittings; and the Companies
will have power, if they see fit, after notice, to enter houses and provide
or repair the fittings; or they may cut off the water if the
fittings are contrary to the regulations; and a house reported by
them to the Sanitary Authorities as being without water will be
deemed a nuisance, under certain sections of the Nuisance Removal
Act, and unfit for human habitation. Heavy penalties will be imposed
for waste, misuse, or fouling of the water. Guarded by such
provisions there can be no doubt that the Companies may safely and,
indeed, with great economy, afford a constant supply : without some
such precautions they could not do so. It is not improbable, however
that many persons will be inclined to think the long coveted
boon somewhat dearly purchased at the price of such extensive rearrangement
of the apparatus of supply !*
On the subject of quality a less favourable report must perforce
be given—so far, at least, as regards the Chelsea and the Grand
Junction Companies. The West Middlesex Company upon all
occasions supplied well.filtered water: a circumstance due to
their ample storage, subsidence reservoirs and filtering beds,
which, at the worst seasons of the year, viz., when the Thames was
in flood, enabled them to send o.ut wholesome and clear water.
Dr. Frankland, of the Government College of Chemistry, who
analyses the London Waters every month for the Registrar General,
and whose reports, going out under such high sanction, naturally
have great weight, gives au unfavourable account of the water supplied
by the Chelsea and the Grand Junction Companies. He states
that the Chelsea Company abstract their water from the Thames after
it has received the polluted Mole, and the sewage of 600,000 people,
including the filthy discharges from Oxford, Reading and Windsor.
The West Middlesex and Grand Junction Companies take their
water from the Thames before it joins the Mole, but below the
sewer outfalls of Oxford, Reading and Windsor. The sewage of
these Towns is not submitted to any process of purification before it
is discharged into the River, and the organic matters which it contains
in solution reach the intake of the Water Companies in almost
undiminished quantity, and with qualities scarcely appreciably
changed. With such water the spring and well water supplied by
the Kent Company is contrasted ; this very pure naturally filtered
water, being obtained from deep wells sunk in the chalk ; the only
objection to which it is open being its hardness. The " hardness "
of water is an important element. Perfectly pure {i.e., distilled)
water is insipid, not to say nauseous : but water abounding in saline
constituents, though clear and sparkling, and pleasant to the taste,
* While this Report was passing through the press the Board of Trade deputed Lord
Methuen, Captain Tyler, and Mr. Itawlinson, C.B., to hold an enquiry on the "Regulations
made by the "Water Companies, and the amended regulations proposed by the Metropolitan
Board of Works for the consideration of the Board of Trade." The result is not yet known,
but I trust it will be to modify the Companies' regulations, which appear to me to be needlessly
oppressive, not to say vexatious, and which would impose a heavy burden of expense
upon nearly every householder in the Metropolis.