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53
WATER-SUPPLY.
with it, and (till those salts are exhausted by a
wasted proportion of soap, or by boiling or otherwise)
prevents the formation of a lather, and hinders
to that extent the several purposes for which soap
is employed. You are probably aware that soda is
extensively used in the laundry, as an antidote to
this objectionable quality of hard waters; and the
excess of its employment tends, by corrosion, very
observably to hasten the destruction of washing
articles of dress. In the same measure as water
possesses the property of decomposing soap, its utility
as an universal solvent is impaired; it extends
to various other substances which one seeks to dissolve
in it (especially to many vegetable matters)
the same disposition to waste them in the form of
insoluble precipitates. Its conveniences for the purposes
of cooking and manufacture are pari passu
diminished.
Of the actual extent to which these disadvantages
are sustained within the City of London, I
have no means of forming an accurate opinion; but
statements are before the public (from the general
correctness of which I have no reason to withhold
reliance and belief) rating the pecuniary loss to the
metropolis, in the two articles of soap and tea, at a
very high figure. You will see from Mr. Taylor's
observations the proportion in which waste occurs,
as regards one of these articles; namely that, for
the production of a lather in washing, the pipewater
of the City of London, used without boiling,
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