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15
Green, at a higher elevation, and all but complete omission of Stamford Hill.
The whole of London is deeply indebted to the Registrar General for arousing
public attention to the state of the water. It is impossible to read the
Report of Mr. Knight, the surveyor of Mile End, on the pollution of the water
wo drink, without starting, and who has certainly exhibited a masterly hand
in discriptive powers in his exploring voyage down the Lea. But all the rivers
are more or less in the same state about London and throughout England ; and
it is somewhat surprising the towns escape so well. By a happy provision
of nature, however, water has a wonderful property of purification in itself,
so that when charged with filth at no great distance, it is well to know how
little organic matter can be detected, on a chemical analysis, by the time it
reaches the source of supply. Then those bushels of bi-valves thrown up in
cleansing the mains occasionly, or in the event of a fire, and the eels establishing
a blockade to the tank and butt, are unmistakeable evidence of the necessity
for a thorough filtration. The supply again should be constant; its
deficiency has long been a crying evil; the complaint should not arise from
the short time it is let on: it ought never to be turned off. By this mode of
supply I believe there would be no waste, no more water consumed. The
conclusion I arrived at from the whole report, is involved in the following
propositions:—
1. That all rivers, docks, canals, and other deposits of water, should
be kept as rigidly free as possible from pollution; and all factories, yards, and
works of every description engaged in operations on animal matter, or giving
rise to offensive effluvia, should be at once abolished, as standing perils in
certain atmospheric conditions, to the health of the localities.
2. That the Building Act calls for revision, under which there is a
demand for a clause by which no new house should be held as habitable
unless certified by a Sanitary Authority.
3. Wholly demolish certain streets, courts, and alleys as incapable ot
sanitary repair, and unfit for habitation.
4. In houses of another class, but with defective structure, already
pointed but. make it imperative on the owner to place a layer of concrete
under the floor (a perfectly practicable thing) or other impermeable composition,
to secure the inmates from pestilential and other dangerous exhalations
of the earth.