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62
WATER-SUPPLY.
In this slovenly method of conveyance and distribution
there is a neglect of common precaution for
the purity and healthfulness of the supply, which
I must report to you as highly objectionable: and
this—the method of supply to our great metropolis,
strikes one the more with astonishment and disgust,
as one reflects on the long experience and admirable
models which past centuries in foreign countries
have supplied; and especially, as one remembers
those colossal works which, more than two thousand
years ago, were constructed under the Roman
government, for the cool and cleanly conduction of
water.
The present imperfections of knowledge forbid
me to cite, as definite causes of disease, the contaminations
to which I have adverted: I cannot say
to you—pointing to our classified list of sickness and
mortality, this depends on drinking the diluted
drainage of Hertford, that on the contributions of
Ware. Indeed I know that, under the influence of
the river and the atmosphere, very considerable
changes occur in the materials thus furnished,
tending eventually to render them inert; and if injury
to life occur from their ingestion, it is probably
only under peculiar and exceptional conditions, increasing
their quantity, or delaying their oxidation.
In protesting against their continued distribution
as articles of diet, I therefore insist less on inferences
deducible from medicine, and shall probably
have the concurrence of your Honourable Court