View report page

6
consequence of the foul condition of the water in them; they had not been
cleaned out for years; in one of them the water was actually putrid.
There can be no doubt that the impurity, warmth, and want of freshness in
the water supplied to the poor in London, tends very much to promote the
excessive use of alcoholic drinks, which is one of the most fertile sources of
disease, and originates every kind of social evil (the generally uncomfortable
state of the dwellings of the poor operates in the same way). Even where the
water-receptacle is well made and well placed, it remains so long without being
cleared out, that it becomes very foul. Very commonly, even in the middle
class of houses, the cistern for drinking water is directly connected with the
water-closet, and sometimes, if proper precautions have not been taken, the
effluvia from the closet pass back into the cistern, and render the water most
impure. Most of the evils above-mentioned are inseparable from an intermittent
mode of supply, and would be remedied almost entirely by a constant supply of
water laid on at a pressure, just as gas. "Water might then be always at hand,
it would be cooler and purer. The actual quantity of water required would
probably not be increased, but it would always be present when wanted. The
advantages of such a supply in cases of fire would be very great, because plugs
might be so attached to the mains, that a jet would be within reach of every
house, and would be more effectual than any fire engine. These jets would also
be of great service for the purpose of street cleansing. The value of water in
quenching a fire diminishes in a very rapidly increasing ratio with the time
which elapses before water arrives.*
A constant supply of the kind mentioned has been obtained in New York,
Nottingham, Newcastle, "Wolverhampton, and other places, and has been found
to answer well. It would no doubt be much easier to make arrangements for
such a supply in a place where there had previously been no other mode adopted,
than to adopt the old apparatus of an intermittent supply to the constant
method, but the difficulties in the latter case are not insurmountable, and would
in my opinion be amply repaid by the advantages following the change. The
Metropolis "Water Act of 1852 contains a clause (sect. 15) to which I wish to
call your attention:—"After the expiration of five years from the passing of
this Act, every Company shall, subject to the provisions of the special Act
relating to such Company, provide and keep, in tho district mains already laid
down, or hereafter to be laid by them, a constant supply of pure and wholesome
water, sufficient for the domestic use of the inhabitants of all houses supplied by
such Company, at such pressure as will make the water reach the top story of
the highest of such houses, but not exceeding the level prescribed by the special
Act of such Company. Provided that no Company shall be bound to provide
a constant supply of water to any district main until four-fifths of the owners
or occupiers of the houses on such main shall, by writing under their hands,
have required such Company to provide such supply, nor even upon such
requisition, in case it can be shown by any Company objecting to the same,
that more than one-fifth of the houses on such main are not supplied with pipes,
cocks, cisterns, machinery, and arrangements of all kinds, for the reception and
distribution of water, constructed according to the regulations prescribed by the
special Act, or by this Act, or which any Company, with the approval of the
Board of Trade, may from time to time make in that behalf; and after any
such requisition as aforesaid shall have been delivered to the Company,
it shall be lawful for the surveyor, or any other person acting under the
authority of the Company, between the hours of 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., to enter into
any house or houses on such district main, in order to ascertain whether the
pipes, cocks, cisterns, and machinery of such house and houses are so constructed
as aforesaid; and provided also that any Company may, with the consent of the
Board of Trade, suspend the giving of such constant supply, or give the same in
succession to the several districts of such Company, or to any parts of such
districts as may be found to be convenient; and provided that it shall be lawful
for the Company after due notice to abstain from supplying or to cut off the
* These points are well brought out in a report to the General Board of Health on the supply
of water to the metropolis, published in 1850.