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51
Reading Boom, and I am glad to report that under
the presidency of Mr. Bonthron of Regent Street,
this Institution is likely to be a valuable agent in
the improvement of the bodily and mental condition
of journeymen bakers.
WATER SUPPLY.
It is now universally acknowledged that the
health and life of large and populous communities
is greatly affected by the nature of the water supply.
Where water has been deficient and impure there
disease has been rife and the bills of mortality high.
Many towns in this country owe the diminution
of their death rate from 28 or 30 in the thousand
to 20, entirely to a new supply of pure water.
Ten years ago the supply of Thames water to
London was anything but what it ought to be.
Through the watchfulness, however, of the Medical
Officers, and especially of the publication of
mortality reports by the late Dr. R. D. Thomson,
Medical Officer of Health of St. Marylebone, in
the Registrar General's weekly reports, the supply
of Thames water has been greatly improved, and a
supply is now afforded to London free from the
injurious influence of organic contamination. It is
to be regretted that this supply is still intermittent,
and is stored in leaden cisterns and wooden butts,
which when neglected to be cleansed, render the
water impure. It cannot be too well known that