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24
V.—WATER SUPPLY.
The disastrous epidemic of typhoid fever at Maidstone,
and the lesser ones at other places during the year, have
vividly impressed the public mind, and have caused more
attention to be given to the circumstances and surroundings of
local water supplies than has been the case for years past.
No annual health report would be quite complete this year
without special reference to this matter, and I think therefore
that a general review of the water supplies in this District
would be desirable in this report.
With the exception of certain houses in the villages of
Coulsdon and Woodmansterne, which are supplied with rain
water only, but most of which, owing to the action of the
Council, will shortly have access to a public supply, and
other houses, here and there, which possess private wells,
this district is entirely supplied by three public Companies—
a quite exceptional position for a rural district.
The Lambeth Water Company, deriving water from the
Thames, supplies Mitcham and Merton, having a population
of 16,000. Any questions of deficiency or danger in respect
to this supply are necessarily bound up with the huge problem
of the water supply of the Metropolis, and a Royal Commission
is at present again considering whether some solution cannot
be found. The water supplied by the Metropolitan Companies
is, too, under the constant observation of an examiner appointed
by Government.
The other Companies supplying the district are the Sutton
Company and the East Surrey Company, both of which obtain
their water from wells in the chalk formation. They supply
together about 15,000 persons in this district, the source of
the former being situated at Sutton, and the principal one of
the latter at Kenley, in the Parish of Coulsdon.