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17
I explained that the chief evil at present attending its use is
the necessity for storage—a necessity which brings with it all
the complicated apparatus of cisterns, water-butts, &c., in which,
especially among the poorer classes, the water is allowed to
become stagnant and to putrify, and to absorb every poisonous
gas, and to imbibe every noxious living thing. I look forward
hopefully to the day when there shall be a constant supply of
water to each house, and when the expensive and inefficient plan
of storage shall be discontinued. Those who have been, as I
have during the last year, accustomed to visit the lowly habitations
of the poor, will feel the force of what I say; and those
who have seen the water-butts, and substitutes for water-butts,
that are in daily use,—broken, rotting, and filthy things,—will
understand how desirable it is that the need for their use
should cease to exist. For, great as is the boon to our poorer
neighbours of having water laid on to the premises, a boon too
of which they are almost without exception fully sensible,
many of its advantages are neutralized by the system at present
in operation. I explained to you then, and I repeat it now,
that water containing organic impurities is a dangerous and a
poisonous beverage; and that on that account the water from
the superficial wells of the metropolis, liable, nay almost certain,
as it is to become impregnated with the leakage of cesspools
and sewers, and with all the other abominations that sink
into the soil, can rarely be a wholesome even though it be a
palateable drink. The danger that may follow the use of
sewage-contaminated water has been frequently illustrated by
the occurrence of dysentery, diarrhoea, and cholera, the origin
of which has been clearly traced to this cause. Indeed, the
influence of impure water over the production of cholera has
been proved, beyond all dispute, by the grand experiment,
which the inhabitants of the southern districts of London,
allowed unwittingly to be performed upon themselves during
the cholera epidemics of 1849 and 1854. During the outbreak
of 1849, the greater part of the districts south of the Thames
was supplied with water by the Lambeth, and the Southwark
and Vauxhall companies; the former drawing its supply from
the foot of Hungerford Bridge, the latter from the neighbourhood
of Battersea Fields. If there was any difference between
the waters supplied by the respective companies at that period,
that furnished by the Lambeth Company, and derived from
B