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Parish of St. Gcorgs the Martyr Southwark.
39

The condition of the water used by this district will bo scon by the ninth table. Discussion
as to the best source of supply for this necessary article still goes on; and mainly is condacted
in a very angry spirit. Some of our chief chemists and engineers told us not to fear
about the use of water, into which "immense quantities of sewage " had been poured; for
that a few miles flow would so purify it, as to make it most pure and safe for consumption.
Our instincts rebelled against such teaching, and obedience to instinct is generally safe.
Anyhow, it proves to bo so in this case; for the consoling assertion does not stand the tost
of experiment. In a report just presented to Parliament, concerning the rivers of the
Mersey and Ribble basins, it is stated, that if you were to mix one part of sewage with
twenty parts of water, that so far from the whole being oxidized or done away with in a ten
or twelve miles flow, not two thirds of it would bo so destroyed. "Thus," it is stated in
the report, "whether we examine the organic pollution of a river at different points of its
How, or the rate of the disappearance of the organic matter of sewage, when the latter is
mixed with fresh water, and violently agitated in contact with air, or finally, the rate at
which dissolved oxygen disappears in water polluted with five per cent. of sewage, we are
led in each case to the inevitable conclusion that the oxidation of organic matter in sewage
proceeds with extreme slowness, even when the sewage is mixed with a large volume of
unpolluted and that it is impossible to say how far such water must flow before the
matter becomes theroughly oxidised." The writers infer, that there is not a river in
United Kingdom long enough to destroy the sewage. Now the Royal Commission,
appuinted to make enquiries concerning the uses and condition of the water of our
fevers declared that water contaminated by sewage was a "wholesome boverage."The
danger which results from drinking water thus contaminated does not arise from the salts
it contains, and which have been aptly described by Dr. Frankland as the " inorganic
skeleton of sewage," but from germs which are supposed to bo hold in Misponsion. Every
of sewage in water might be destroyed, yet these germs remain in full activity,
They are small as to evade the test of the chemist and the search of the microscopist.
They may bo thrown upon the land with sewage; and as the fluid part evaporates, they
may be limned up into the air, and there perish; or they may fall upon some suitable