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5
be properly cleansed with so small a flush as two gallons.
There are also special forms of closets, which, for purposes
of health under particular circumstances, are necessary to
put into old buildings, where the closet is in an unfortunate
position and cannot be removed elsewhere ; these absolutely
prohibit a limit of the amount of flushing water. The
writer is therefore strongly of opinion that any limit to the
use of water for cleansing purposes is wrong in principle,
and in practice liable to produce a nuisance.
Next, as to the provision of sufficient storage accommodation
to each house in the way of cisterns. A special
inspection of types of houses throughout the district.has
shown that but a small percentage of the houses in St.
Marylebone possess such an amount of cistern accommodation
as the regulation, if it had been approved, would have
required. It may be roughly estimated that at least £20 per
house would have had to be expended in order to conform
to the regulation. Supposing any decided hygienic advantage
would result, however hard on individual owners,
leaseholders and so forth, it yet might have been defended
and even supported. If the matter is carefully examined, the
only reason for the innovation suggested, is the temporary
inconvenience to householders when service pipes and
mains are under repair—a contingency which may always
be met by the Company providing a sufficient number of
stand pipes in convenient positions. As the writer was
ready to point out in evidence, it is of great importance to
keep water moving in the mains to allow of no stagnation.
There are streets in the Borough composed of large houses
tenanted by single families; these houses would have had to
provide cisterns not in proportion to the population but to
the size of the houses. During summer months, when the
residents of such streets are out of town, the cistern water
would be so little drawn upon that the water in the mains
and service pipes would become stagnant and impure. In
any case it should be left to the owner, so long as there is a
constant supply, to provide as little or as great an amount
of local storage as he thinks advisable.
Finally, it would have been more prudent for the Companies
to have provided against negligent waste, by adopting the