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urged to do, and thus effect an important sanitary reform. It would
have been to their interest to do this, as I believe many of the
complaints of bad water which arise from time to time are due to
the dangerous connections of waste-pipes with drains, and that if
these were abolished the Companies' water would be held in greater
repute.
Waste-pipes, we are told, will be abolished when constant
supply is given, but for this large portions, in fact, the bulk of
the parish, will still have to wait a long time, as the Companies
appear to be unwilling to move in the matter any faster than the
necessities of the constant system require. Meanwhile, Sir
Francis Bolton continues to reiterate, monthly, his sound advice to
householders, and there would be some prospect of it reaching
them if the promise made last year were carried out, viz., that an
abstract from Iris reports should be printed on the back of the
Companies "call papers." The collectors, it was also said, last
year, would be instructed by the Companies to "report immediately
any bad cases they might discover, (but how should they discover
any?), in order that the attention of the Sanitary Authorities might
be drawn thereto." No such case has been reported to me during
the twelve months, to date, since the above arrangements were stated
to have been made. Sir Francis Bolton points out that if the
conditions contained in the regulation were observed by consumers
and by local (i.e., nuisance or sanitary), authorities, as well
as by the Water Companies, many of the evils complained of
would be prevented. Compliance with the regulation, doubtless,
should be enforced upon consumers, but I have not been able to
ascertain that the nuisance authorities have the power, with which,
by implication, Sir Francis Bolton appears to credit them; and as
for the Companies, we are likely enough still to have occasion to
complain, as in former years, that, as a rule, they do not, and will
not, systematically enforce the regulation, excepting for their own
trading purposes. Nothing short of an epidemic of cholera will
suffice to bring about universal compliance with the advice of the
Water Examiner, viz., by the exercise of the powers possessed by
the Water Companies under Kegulation 14.