View report page

86
at present in a position to satisfactorily investigate the complaint made
by the Council, and suggested that the Council should avail themselves
of the opportunities afforded by the Metropolis Water Act, 1897, by
laying complaints before the Railway and Canal Commission.
The Council replied that they considered it would be a waste of
public money on their part to lay a complaint before the Railway and
Canal Commissioners as suggested, as the late Vestry of Battersea made
a complaint to the Railway and Canal Commissioners with respect to
the water supplied to that district by the Southwark and Vauxhall
Company, and Mr. Justice Wright, who presided, said that the only
powers the Commissioners had was to tell the Company to make
arrangements to prevent a bad supply being given in the future, and as
the Company was building new storage reservoirs which would probably
prevent such bad water being again delivered, nothing could be gained
by making a complaint to the Railway and Canal Commissioners. Each
side had to bear its own costs.
Curiously no bad effects seems to have resulted from the use of this
impure and imperfectly filtered water, and the only explanation I can
offer is that frequent floods at the end of the previous year and beginning
of the next had so scoured the river bed and the sources from which
contamination might reach it that typhoid and allied organisms had
been swept away.
Applications were received for 48 certificates that the water supply
of new buildings was sufficient, and were granted in each instance.
300 notices of the withdrawal of water supply were received from
the Water Companies, and in 191 instances it was reinstated; 24 houses
have been pulled down and 85 are still empty. In 504 instances
cisterns were required to be cleansed. 444 cisterns were required to be
provided with proper covers, and 282 new cisterns were fixed, 86 being
in place of defective cisterns.
F. General.