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corrosion, which, in turn, causes turbidity; while the shutting off
of the water from the service mains, and their depletion by the
gravitation of the water into basement cisterns, or by leakage,
tends to create a vacuum into which may be drawn either foul air
or foul water. These evils are avoided by the constant service;
but this necessitates the provision of well-constructed housefittings
in order to avoid the enormous waste from
leakage which would otherwise ensue Apprehension
of the sometimes considerable cost of the alterations required to
adapt existing houses to the requirements of constant service,
due to the generally inferior condition of the fittings, has in
some degree checked the extension of the system; but it is
generally admitted that when this difficulty has been overcome
the result has been found to be, on the whole,
satisfactory alike to the consumers and to the Water Companies.
Constant supply seems to conduce, on the whole, to economy in
the use of water. The control of the supply, however, is virtually
surrendered to the consumers, but when good house fittings are
insisted on and maintained, the privilege is not, as a rule,
abused."
The Act prescribes three modes by which a constant supply
of water may be obtained: (1) Any Company may propose to
give it; (2) The Metropolitan Authority (County Council) may
call upon a Company to provide it; (3) failing the above, and
under certain conditions, the Local Government Board may require
it. In general, the constant supply has been voluntarily given by
the Companies; neither the Metropolitan Authority in the past
(the Metropolitan Board of Works), nor the Local Government
Board, nor the Board of Trade, whose powers are now executed by
the Local Government Board, having called upon the Companies
to provide it. The ground alleged by the Metropolitan Board for
their failure to call upon the Companies to provide constant
supply, was, that the Companies had made the regulations so
stringent as to constitute a heavy and unnecessary tax on the
owners and occupiers of houses. It is nevertheless the fact, as