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242
THE WATER REGULATIONS.
The Water Regulations framed by the Companies,
under the Act of 1871, contain many useful provisions, and it
would be well were express power given to Sanitary
Authorities, enabling them to enforce such of them as have a
distinctly sanitary bearing. The twenty-first regulation deals
with the subject of Flushing-Tanks for the supply of water
closets, providing that the tank or service-box shall not be
capable of discharging more than two gallons at a flush, a
quantity which the so-called two-gallon flushing tank is
practically unable to deliver. The attention of the Sanitary
Authorities was called, in 1892, by the St. Giles's District
Board of Works, to the desirability of an amendment of the
regulation, so as to allow of the provision of a tank of threegallons
capacity, on the ground that a two-gallon receptacle
does not furnish a flush of water sufficient to secure the
effective action of a water-closet. The District Board desired the
support of the Sanitary Authorities to an application they had
made to the Local Government Board, to take steps " with a
view to the 21st Regulation being altered, so as to provide for
the use of cisterns or service-boxes which will permit a
discharge of not less than three gallons of water at each
flush." The proposal was supported by your Vestry, although
I had the satisfaction of stating that the local companies did
not raise objection to the fixing of tanks of three-gallons
capacity, which is all, I think, we could fairly ask of them.
The Local Government Board desired to be informed of the
view taken by the several Sanitary Authorities on the subject,
and the correspondence which passed between the Board and
those authorities was subsequently forwarded by the Board to
the County Council, with a request for the Council's observations
thereon. The matter was considered by the Public Health
and Housing Committee of the Council, who reported in favour
of a three-gallon flush, and recommended that Regulation 21
should be amended accordingly. The Committee did not think