View report page

47
been far more probable from this mode of adulteration. The water in these
reservoirs had not been let off before for 7 years, so that it is impossible to
say how long this pollution from the Canal had been going on. If it had
not been discovered, it is clear enough that the disused reservoirs from thentwo
days' service, would have been credited, and wholly credited, with the
Cholera "explosion." But now things were altered, now the lesser source
of contamination gives place to the greater, and now the leakage in turn becomes
charged with all the evils of the "explosion" in the East.
It is possible, even probable, that this leakage had been in operation for
one, two, three, four, five, or even six years unknown to the Company. The
year 18G4 was terrible for drought, all nature felt the privation for months,
so that if it could now be shown to a demonstration that the leakage then
existed, only three years ugo, that fact of itself would go far in ending the
"explosion" hypothesis, and we should hear little more of the poisoning from
Old Ford. But the 44 explosion" did not take place in 18G4, when there was
no rain and a scarcity of water, but it occurred in 18CG, when there was no
continuous want of rain, and an abumlance of water.
The attempt to mix up the catastrophe in the family at Theydon Bois, in
Essex, from drinking well water notoriously contaminated with sewage, has
also, like the outbreaks in South Loudon in 1849 and 1854, nothing whatever
to do with the 44 explosion." In that case there was a cause obviously
adequate to the mortality ; in this there has been nothing shewn of an
analagous character commensurate, or at all bearing on the fatality of the
pestilence. On the contrary, the facts already adduced, and certified in
abundance, go far enough in themselves, as I take it, to wholly ignore the
hypothesis, and altogether negative the very shadow of a shade for the
assumption. The bringing up the fatal effects following the use of that perpetual
Broad Street Pump, in no way improves the theory; there was a
poison hardly needing proof, here is a poison that wholly wants it.
I am obliged to own that far more evidence is required to convince the reflecting
portion of the world, than Mr. Radcliffe and others have brought forward,
to shew the havoc of this Old Ford water in its travels and that as a rule it
poisoned wherever it was tapped. I shall dwell not on the ingenuity ot the
suggestion in pointing to the further and final poisoning of the water, from
the discharges of poor Hedges and his wife being thrown into the drain