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15
supplied exclusively from Old Ford. He was of opinion that the water of
the East London Company had nothing whatever to do with the appearance
or spread of Cholera, but the district in which the Main Drainage had not
been completed. There was no difficulty in discovering pollutions in well
water, by the amount of the organic matter—by the odour of the water when
heated, and by the presence of ammonia. He had sought for similar indications
all through the epidemic without finding them. The proportion of
ammonia in that water had been quite insignificant."
Dr. Corner, Medical Officer of Mile End, considered that the increase of
Cholera in his district was due rather to deficiency of supply than to any
defect in the quality of the East London Company's water. He had seen
and carefully investigated 100 fatal cases with special reference to the theory
that the East London Company's water had been a cause of Cholera, but
had “never seen a single reliable fact to support that theory." He had
always been able to trace the exciting cause to accumulation of refuse and
decomposition of organic matter, and he believed the want of better drainage
in the district had a considerable effect in localising the disease. He
admitted the Cholera was worse in the East London Company's district than
those supplied by otber Companies.
My own evidence, as far as I cared to give it, went to the effect
already shewn, with the addition—"supposing the water ever so bad, still it
was not the cause of the Cholera (explosion.)"
I have a slight complaint to make of the mode of taking down my
evidence. Captain Tyler says, speaking of myself, “He found at 14, Love
Lane, Iiatcliff, 3 of a family, who were not drinkers of water, died, while 5
children (who might be presumed to be water-drinkers) escaped even from
Diarrhoea." In my Special Report on the epidemic, page 4, placed in the
Commissioners' hands, I said, on the authority of the mother, repeated on two
several occasions, that while the moderate beer-drinkers perished, the five
children, who were "doing nothing but drinking water all day long,” to use
the mother's words, escaped from even Diarrhœa.'' The "presumption,"
therefore, of Captain Tyler was not a fair statement of the case, and placed
within a parenthesis made the matter worse. It was beyond a presumption;
it was an authoritative fact, and ought so to have been represented by one