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"supplied by the West Middlesex and Southwark
"Companies contained the greatest average amount of
"organic impurity." A Table in the same report shews
that the water of the Southwark Company (which
supplies the greatest part of this District) contained
absolutely the maximum amount of organic matter,
and that next to the water of the above two
companies that of the Lambeth Company contained
the highest amount of organic impurity. The use
of impure water has been so often and conclusively
proved to be a source of danger to health, that
the purity of our supply cannot be too strongly
insisted on. Second only in importance to its purity is
the quantity of the supply. The latter during the past
year was greatly diminished by both the Southwark and
the Lambeth Companies. The amount of reduction by
the former company was 33 gallons per house, per day,
and that of the latter 30 gallons per house per day,
making a total reduction, at the lowest estimate, of not
less than 2,000,000 gallons a day. Drainage.—As the
efficiency of house drainage and general sewerage is
dependent on a sufficient supply of water, any reduction
in the amount of the latter (hitherto insufficient for
that purpose), becomes highly objectionable and mischievous
; for the immediate result of an insufficient
supply is the greater development of gases of decomposition
in the sewers, and the consequently greater
presence of them in the streets and in houses. That
such is the case and that the amount of water entering the
sewers from houses is insufficient as a vehicle for their
contents, is manifest from the circumstance that the
emanation of sewer gas from the "ventilators" is
greatest and most noxious at night, when the smallest
amount of water is passing into the sewers. Sewer
gas.—As the development of Typhoid Eever, and of