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9
Professor Frankland on his analyses of the water supplied
to the District by the Southwark Company, and to a small
portion of the District by the Chelsea Company, which the
Health Officers refer to in their special report, the recently
published report of the Royal Commissioners appointed in
1866, to consider the water supply of the Metropolis,
abundantly confirms them in the views they have ventured
to express, and they rejoice greatly to find there is some
prospect of an important alteration being effected both in
the mode of delivery and in the quality of the supply, by
the transfer of the interests of the present Companies to
public control by municipal bodies.
The Commissioners express the following strong opinion
upon the bad quality of some of the waters supplied to the
Metropolis. " We are of opinion that perfect filtration is
"highly essential to the good quality of the water; that
"this process is at present, in many cases, very imperfectly
"performed; and that more efficient means of enforcing
"the provisions of the law are required."*
Withregard to some recent legislative measures, including
the Act for the regulation of the hours of labour of women
and children in factories and workshops, and that referring
to the adulteration and sale of food, it is agreed on all hands
that these are most deficient in compulsory clauses, and
require many amendments before they can be effectually put
in force. The want of a public prosecutor is also felt to be a
great drawback to the proper fulfilment of the duties and
responsibilities thrown upon the authorities by both these
measures, as well as by that relating to Vaccination ; indeed
the last named Act, it is very generally believed, cannot
possibly be made a compulsory one in the sense intended
by the legislature without the employment of such an
Officer in every large community.
Although magisterial interference is always recommended
and resorted to with extreme reluctance, and indeed never
*Professor Frankland, in Lis last report to the Registrar General, (26th June, 1869,)
still continues his strictures upon the turbid condition of the water supplied by the
Southwark Company. He says "with the exception of the Southwark and Grand
"Junction Companies samples, which were turbid, all the waters were perfectly clear
" and transparent. The turbid waters contained numerous living organisms."