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255
cisterns with drains, as they had been urged to do; and thus
at no further expense to their shareholders, and at little cost to
individual householders, effect an important sanitary reform.
It would have been to their interest; for many of the complaints
respecting the quality of the water arise from deterioration
of the supply due to the connections of waste-pipes with drains,
and if this source of contamination were abolished the
Companies' water would be held in greater repute.
We are told that waste-pipes will be abolished when
constant supply is given; but for this, large portions, in fact
the bulk, of the parish will still have long to wait. Sir F.
Bolton continued to reiterate in his monthly reports, to the
very last, sound advice which might have dune good if only it
could have been impressed on every individual householder ;
pointing out, as he did, that if the conditions contained in
Regulation 14 were observed by consumers and by local (i.e.,
nuisance or sanitary) authorities, as well as by the Companies,
many of the evils complained of would be prevented. Compliance
with the regulation, doubtless, should be enforced upon
consumers, but the Local Authorities have not the power with
which, by implication, Sir F. Bolton credited 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. I fear that nothing short of an
epidemic of cholera will suffice to bring about compliance with
the advice of the late Water Examiner—viz., by the exercise of
the power possessed by the Water Companies under Regulation
14.
Gas.
The subjoined Tables, based on the quarterly reports of
the Chief Gas Examiner, summarize the principal results