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addressed to the Board, to the Vestries and District Boards, and
to the local Waterworks Companies. Tlie Board was informed
that your Vestry was sensible of the value of the advice given,
and fully concurred with the Water Examiner, that if Regulation
14 were " carried out in its integrity," it would " prevent contamination
of the water from the gases generated by sewage."
Request, therefore, was made that the Board should take steps to
secure the severance of all connections of waste-pipes with drains,
by urging the Companies to put Regulation 14 into immediate and
general operation, viz., by serving the required notice on consumers.
Should the Companies refuse or neglect, the Board was asked to
consider as to the desirability of bringing in a Bill to confer on
Sanitary Authorities the necessary power to enforce the regulation.
The Sanitary Authorities were requested to support your
Vestry's action in the matter by addressing a similar communication
to the Board and by recommending the several Water
Companies to put the regulation in force, and thereby bring about
a much needed and important sanitary improvement. Many of
them did as requested.
The Water Companies were reminded that the most effectual
plan for giving effect to the advice of the Board was by their
serving notice on the consumers to cut off waste-pipes, in conformity
with the provisions of Regulation 14. And "having
regard to the danger of a polluted water supply, especially at a
time when the introduction of Cholera was possible, and to the
probability that should Cholera ever spread in the Metropolis it
would be, as on a former occasion, through the water supply, " the
great importance of taking steps without loss of time to carry the
said regulation into effect," was pressed upon the attention of the
several Companies.
[I may here mention, by way of parenthesis, that I endeavoured,
some years ago, to stimulate the local Companies to exercise their
power to abolish waste-pipes. I was given to understand that the
Chelsea Company—at a time when they were short of water, prior
to the construction of their new works at Molesey—had taken steps
to abolish waste-pipes, with a view to economise consumption, but