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effect that which no amount of reasoning or warning
appears, at present, capable of bringing about.
The Medical Officers of Health are amongst those who,
whilst deprecating sensational phraseology in describing
the impurities, &c., of the present supplies of water, are
still of opinion that the public will suffer much by the
manifest incompleteness of the arrangements in respect to
a constant service and efficient filtration. That the water
supplied to this District is occasionally very impure, from
the presence of living organisms, is a fact verified by all
unprejudiced observers. That such water oftentimes contains
the germs of disease, in a very concentrated form, is
equally certain; but it is not so certain that there is
amongst our legislators and the public a sufficient appreciation
of the discoveries of our scientific men, to induce
them to take any but the most ordinary interest in securing
the passing of really effective measures for the protection
of the public health. The difference of authoritative
opinion on most sanitary subjects is another and very
serious drawback to wise legislation on these matters. In
respect to the all important question of water supply, for
instance, the public were not long ago told that the
Rivers Pollution Commission, consisting for the most
part of scientific men of great repute, had recommended
the speedy adoption of a remedy for the sewage contamination
of the Thames and Lea, from which rivers, they
were of opinion, that it would be dangerous to continue
to draw the supplies of water for the Metropolis in their
then impure condition: and very shortly after it was intimated
to the same public that a Committee of the House
of Commons, under the presidency of Mr. Ayrton, had
reported that so well satisfied were they with both the
quantity and quality of the water drawn from the sources
above referred to, as to render it, in their opinion, unadvisable
to disturb existing arrangements under the Act of
18.65! In view of such conflicting and contradictory declarations,
who shall predict the ultimatum of any measure