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16
who was called upon to decide upon the balance of evidence, if he counted
upon others to respect his judgment.
In his comments in the Report, as he proceeds, Captain Tyler is in hot
haste to talk about "Cholera impurities," "rice-water" secretions, and the
"poison" of the Old Ford water, although nothing of the kind has come up
in evidence to prove that the suspected water has in any way been so contaminated
before distribution to the public, beyond the fact of the pollution
of the River Lea, like all the rest of the other sources of London water supply,
and with the leakage into the reservoirs.
All this is bad enough, no one can gainsay. But to come to tho
"poison" in the water, where is the proof of it? Dr. Letheby says there
never was evidence of any; taking the water supply during any portion of
the epidemic. Dr. Franklaud has failed to detect it, chemistry has been
useless in analysis, and the microscope a plaything in bringing about its discovery,
but still in the water—There it it. It is said to be so inscrutable
an agent of death as almost, if not quite, to possess an essence beyond tho
ordinary properties of matter, for that neither tiro nor water seems to affect
its destructibility. To attempt to drown it by water, as reported, is only
to effect its propagation; to boil it is only to keep the poison in abeyance for a
short season; while filtration through gravel, earth, sand, or animal charcoal,
is only to find it break through these impediments with all its pristine vigour,
and become as active as ever in the battle of death.
Thus stands the case. If it is not otherwise capablo of proof, in no way
can it be made so, except from experiment on the living body. This ought to
be evidence beyond dispute. Those who drank the water, according to the law
of all poisons, ought, as a rule, to have become affected or perished, while
those who did not drink the water should have been exempt. But the
swallowing of the water is indispensible to bring it to a proof, and settle the
question of—Poison or no poison ?
I have previously brought forward many facts, and in the repetition of
two or three, I will also adduce some others bearing on the question, prefacing
that I am now speaking of those who drank or drank not the water,