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36
On behalf of the Water Company it was urged that if
powers were given to them with regard to fittings similar
to those conferred upon a number of Corporations in the
country it would be possible very materially to reduce in
the future the waste which ordinarily takes place within
their district.
Incidentally we would here refer to the advantage to the
consumer of having a small storage of water in every
house. It was shown that, throughout this scarcity, persons
occupying houses provided with cisterns suffered no
inconvenience. No doubt ill-designed and badly placed
house cisterns are open to objection from a health point of
view, and nothing could be further from our intention than
to advocate any return to the old defective cisterns with
their movable wooden covers, but we do advocate the
provision of properly designed cisterns. By a properly
designed cistern we mean a cistern which shall be so constructed
as to exclude alike the possibility of the entrance
of dirt from the atmosphere, and the accumulation of any
deposit from the water itself, whilst at the same time the
water iu the cistern is under the same pressure as the
water in the main itself; in other words, the cistern that
would satisfy us is merely a local enlargement of the water
main. Such a cistern is, in our opinion, subject to none of
the objections commonly urged against the use of cisterns.
Under the best arrangements there must be times when
short periods of interruption of a constant service will
occur, and at such times the want of water for domestic
purposes, for flushing water-closets, sealing water traps,
&c., is calculated to lead to conditions injurious to health,
which should not be allowed to exist, and which a proper
use of really efficient cisterns would guard against.
With respect to the contention advanced on behalf of the
Vestries, that the real remedy for the defects in the Water
Company's arrangements which resulted in the scarcity
of the water supply in East London during July and