View report page

50
By this rule let us put to the test the "explosion" theory. The world
has been told that the Old Ford water of distribution was poisoned from two
uncovered reservoirs of unfiltered water, on two occasions, at the end of
June and beginning of July, 1866, to the extent of 300,000 gallons each
time, or the 30th part of each day's consumption, or thereabouts. But
300,000 or only 300 gallons, no matter, if the water was poisoned, it comes
to the same thing. Men's minds were mostly set wondering at the time
thereat—at least such as were sufficiently at ease under the alarm, to think
at all about it—how it was that the effects of this water once poisoned, nay
twice, did not promptly subside. But this, it apj>ears, was the difficulty ;
the water once contaminated so as to bring about the " explosion," the evil
influence is long in settliug down, and hangs on, and on, and longer still ere
it wholly dies away. The Registrar-General, in his Supplementary Report,
No. 37, illustrated this by an Algebrnic problenr, and showed clearly enough,
as far as figures could prove, how long about was Cholera water (poisoned)
in losing its potency, and with what unreadiness it parted with its malign
influence on the people. This problem, beautiful as it was, may be simplified,
by supposing an old lady in the enjoyment of a large circle at the teatable,
who, as fast as one cup is poured out, fills up the teapot with fresh
water, and so on in this way, cup after cup, to a thorough Johnsonian saturation.
And there can be no doubt by this management, that the flavour of
the tea, like the poison in the water, would be very considerably protracted
beyond the ordinary mode of procedure in the mysteries of tea-making.
Once the poison is in the water, one can readily understand, with the mains
at all times tolerably full, what a work of labour and of time it would be, to
get rid wholly of the contamination, and displacing it by fresh water. I am
informed on high engineering authority, that promptly to effect this change
is "a practical impossibility." The difliculty, therefore, in the elimination,
conveyed through the problem, is not less beautiful than correct.
On the 18th of August, 1866, in the Supplementary Report, No. 33, page
36, the Registrar General says:—"The persistence of the epidemic in the
East London districts is no proof that the supply of the Company is now
wcrse than that of other Companies, as its effects on the place, and on the
population, only subside slowly." Again in No. 37, page 546,—"how
slowly any zymotic poison once introduced is eliminated from the water."