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13
of life; at the period I allude to there was no scarcity of
water. Only a sense of duty has induced me to call
your attention to a legal power possessed by the Company
which may be again exercised in a way traught with
danger to the whole community and great hardship to the
immediate sufferers. But, I trust, the same dangerous
experiments will not be persisted in in future; of course,
the rates of the Company must be paid, but it is rather
too much to expedite their payment at the risk of human
life, or by compelling the Vestry to become, practically,
the public prosecutors or debt collectors to the Company
in en forcing their defaulting customers to reinstate the
Water supply which has been cut off.
Regents Canal.
Numerous complaints have been made respecting
offensive smells arising from this canal. I procured
samples of the water, and the Company supplied me with
others taken from the different locks along the course of
the canal down to the Thames ; these samples, with the
results of the tests I applied, I presented to the Sanitary
Committee. As might be expected, the water was much
impregnated with decomposed organic matter, but the
principal cause of its becoming at times offensive was the
system adopted, in times of scarcity of water, in
repeatedly re-utilizing the water by pumping it back
from one pound to another.
I had an interview at the Vestry, with the Engineer
to the Company, and he explained that most effectual
means were constantly taken to keep the canal clean,
and that the system of pumping back and re-using the
water would be abolished.