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also compelling constant supply to be received on all new estates and
buildings, under the Metropolis Water Acts and Regulations, including
the South Kensington and Earl's Court Estates; and when "all-new"
services are laid down constant supply is made compulsory by the
Company. The Chelsea Company are giving a constant supply to a
portion of their district—mostly outside Kensington; but the Grand
Junction Company have not yet moved in the matter. Should the
Public Authority (Metropolitan Board of Works) see fit to exercise
their right to demand constant supply it will of course be given, that is
if the conditions by which the system is limited are complied with.
But it appears that in some districts where the Companies have been
earnest in their endeavours to enfore constant supply, they have had to
put pressure on landlords, &c., to induce them to make the requisite alterations
in the fittings. It would be well if the water Companies
could be induced to exercise the powers they possess under Regulation
14, which reads as follows:—
"No overflow or waste pipe other than a 'warning-pipe' shall be
attached to any cistern supplied with water by the Company, and every
such overflow or waste pipe existing at the time when these regulations
come into operation shall be removed, or at the option of the consumer,
shall be converted into an efficient 'warning-pipe' within two calendar
months next after the Company shall have given to the occupier of, or
left at the premises in which such cistern is situate, a notice in writing
requiring such alteration to be made."
The Companies, however, are too busy in looking after their trade
interests to concern themselves much about the health of the people,
which would be materially benefitted by the substitution of "warning
or overflow pipes," made to discharge innocuously in the open, for
waste pipes—connected, as these often are, with the house drain—the
effect being pollution of the water by absorption of poisonous effluvia
from the sewers, &c., to the danger of the health of the consumers. Could
we abolish the waste pipe and ensure due attention to cleansing of
properly constructed and properly placed cisterns, and have the water
softened by Clark's process, there would be perhaps little practical
objection to the present sources of supply. In practice, however, cisterns
are often bad in construction, inconveniently placed if not inaccessible,
and, from sheer neglect and want of covering, are allowed to fall into a
condition of dirtiness little suspected, but which cannot fail to be a