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37
Metropolis, for domestic use, before the same shall pass into the
pipes for distribution.
Section 35 and 36 of the amending Act, 1871, enacts that this
provision shall be carried into effect by empowering the Board of
Trade to appoint an examiner, and by prescribing the duties of
the examiner.
Little doubt, if any, need be entertained of the Water Companies
using the best practical means at command for the improvement
of their supply. That the supply has improved, having regard to
the organic matters in suspension and solution, is evident from a
consideration of Professor Frankland's Reports, issued during the
last ten years. The organic matter discovered on analysis in the
samples of 1890 averaged 45 per cent. less than in 1880, and the
intervening years show a steady decline. On many occasions of
testing during 1880 and the early years of the decade the organic
matter in suspension was sufficiently apparent in the turbidity of
the water. But in the later years of the decade, culminating in
1890, it had entirely disappeared from the samples.
Admitting that filtration is as efficient as the circumstances of
the case admit, yet the fact remains that the water supplied to the
Parish of Iambeth for domestic purposes is of an indifferent
character, and may be the means even when in its normal condition
of conveying disease to those who employ it as a beverage.
The cause however must be sought elsewhere than at the filter
beds of the Water Companies. The cause of the polluted supply,
is the polluted source. The river Thames above the Company's
receiving pipes is contaminated with sewage gathered from a population
estimated approximately at 600,000 persons. It is true
that this volume of polluting matter is not discharged
into the river in its crude state, but undergoes some process
of settlement and deodorization before it reaches the stream.
At flood time this sewage matter is augmented in volume