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48
overflow or waste pipe, other than a warning pipe' shall be
attached to any cistern supplied with water by the Company :
and every such overflow or waste pipe existing at the time when
these regulations come into operation shall be removed, or at the
option of the consumer shall be converted into an efficient
"warning pipe" within two calendar mouths next after the
Company shall have given to the occupier of, or left at the premises
in which such cistern is situate, a notice in writing requiring
such alteration to be made." This regulation is practically a
dead letter.* Nearly all cisterns still have ordinary waste-pipes,
and in very many cases these are in untrapped communication
with a drain or with the soil-pipe of a water-closet. If there is
no "waste" the Companies have no motive for interfering. But
the danger in a sanitary point of view is greatest when there is
no "waste," as the trapping of the waste-pipe is usually effected
by a S bend : so that when, as generally is the case, the mouth
of the waste-pipe is above the water level, the pipe is constantly
empty and dry, and no obstacle is offered to the passage of sewer
gas into the cistern. This constitutes an undoubted nuisance,
and in individual cases it may be abated by legal proceedings:—
such, at least, is the experience of some Medical Officers of
Health, though Police Court decisions are not uniform. But what
is wanted is a general plan of enforcing the regulation, and
abolishing the waste pipe wherever it is connected with a drain or
a soil-pipe of a water-closet, or so situated as to endanger the
pollution of the water. The Companies alone can enforce the
regulation. The West Middlesex Company, however, do not
enforce it excepting in special cases which come under their
notice, and for the prevention of waste : this Company, taking
the view that the 14th regulation must be read with the 33rd,
which enacts that " all existing fittings which shall be sound and
efficient, and are not required to be removed or altered under
these regulations shall be deemed to be prescribed fittings under
the " Metropolis Water Act, 1871." But surely the waste-pipe
is a fitting that is "required to be removed or altered," under
these regulations, viz., by the 14th! The Grand Junction
Company have not adopted the regulations, and having a very
abundant supply of water, are not under any anxiety respecting
the amount of waste. These Companies, moreover, have no regular
staff of inspectors whose sole duty it is to see that the regulations
in respect of fittings are carried out. The Chelsea Company, on
the other hand, employ three inspectors for this purpose, and
there can be no doubt that much advantage has accrued to the
district supplied by this Company from the systematic manner in
which the fittings have been overhauled, and when nccessary
"removed or altered." I have it on the authority of the Secretary
of the Company, that the waste pipe has been removed in
* Mr. Frank Bolton in his report for August, remarks that the 14th regulation
should be " strictly enforced," and he gives some very cogent reasons for this opinion;
but, as I have shown in the text, it is more easy to prove the necessity of such
observation of the bye-law than to enforce it.