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responsible; that the distress and inconvenience primarily
due to the effects of frost were aggravated by wilful or
preventible waste of water and by the suppression or
insufficient provision of house cisterns; that there was
wide spread failure of pressures in the district of the Southwark
and Vauxhall Water Company; that this question
could not be dealt with under the Inquiry, but that in some
way and at some time or other it should be brought under
consideration.
With regard to the Lambeth Water Company,
General Scott expressed the opinion that the information
given in the statement of the Company seemed to
bring that Company within the scope of some of the
general conclusions which had been drawn in his
report with respect to the Grand Junction, the Kent,
and the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Companies;
that the statement of the Company did not disclose the
depths at which the mains throughout the district
generally had been laid, but that it appeared that the
Company, in common with the others involved in
the inquiry, had laid a proportion of their mains at
depths insufficient to afford adequate protection from
the effects of frost, and that a proportion of the communication
pipes of the consumers had been connected
by the Company to the mains at depths similarly
insufficient; that a large number of the communication
pipes laid by landlords were insufficiently protected ;
also that the directors seemed to admit that subsequently
to the frost the pressure in the mains was
defective, which they ascribed to the enormous number
of leakages from the burst communication pipes of the
consumers; that some effect of this kind must also have
been produced by the burst mains of the Company;
that the allegation to the effect that the destruction of
the mains was due to the fact that they had decayed
by lapse of time and were unfit for use was unfounded;
and that on the general facts stated by the Company