Conduit in Westcheap.
The service-pipes to each house are more perfect mechanical contrivances; but they could not have been rendered so perfect without engines, which force the water above the level of the source from which it is taken. When the inhabitants fetched their water from the springs and conduits there was a great deal of human labour employed; and as in every large community there are always people ready to perform labour for money, many persons obtained a living by carrying water. When the New River had been dug, and the pipes had been laid down, and the engines had been set up, it is perfectly clear that there would have been no further need for these water-carriers. When the people of London could obtain two hundred gallons of water for twopence, they would not employ a man to fetch a single bucket from the river or fountain at the same price. They would not, for the mere love of employing human labour directly, continue to buy an article very dear, which, by mechanical aid, they could buy very cheap. If they had resolved, from any mistaken notions about machinery, to continue to employ the water-carriers, they must have been contented with one gallon of water a day instead of two hundred gallons. Or if they had consumed a larger quantity, and continued to pay the price of bringing it to them by hand, they must have denied themselves other necessaries and comforts. They must have gone without a certain portion of food, or clothing, or fuel, which they are now enabled to obtain by the saving in the article of water. To have had for each house two hundred gallons of water, and, in having this two hundred gallons of water, to have had the cleanliness and health which result from its use, would have been utterly impossible. The supply of one gallon, instead of two hundred gallons to each house, would at present amount to 310,000 gallons daily; which at a penny a gallon would cost 1291l. per day; or 9037l. per week; or 469,724l., or very nearly half a million, per year. Upon the assumption that one man, without any mechanical arrangement besides his can, could carry twenty gallons a day, thus earning ten shillings a week, this would employ no fewer than 18,074 persons—a very army of water-carriers. To supply ten gallons a day to each house would cost nearly five millions a year, and would employ 180,740 persons. To supply two hundred gallons a day would require 3,614,800 persons—a number exceeding the total population of London. The whole number of persons engaged in the waterworks' service of all Great Britain is under 1000.
Old water-carrier of London.
There is now, certainly, no labour to be performed by water-carriers. But suppose that five hundred years ago, when there were a small number of persons who gained their living by such drudgery, they had determined to prevent the bringing of water by pipes into London. Suppose also that they had succeeded; and that up to the present day we had no pipes or other mechanical aids for supplying the water. It is quite evident that if this misfortune had happened—if the welfare of the many had been retarded (for it never could have been finally stopped) by the ignorance of the few—London, as we have already shown, would not have had a twentieth part of its present population; and the population of every other town, depending as population does upon the increase of profitable labour, could never have gone forward. How then would the case have stood as to the amount of labour engaged in the supply of water? A few hundred, at the utmost a few thousand, carriers of water would have been employed throughout the kingdom; while the smelters and founders of iron of which water-pipes are made, the labourers who lay down these pipes, the founders of lead who make the service-pipes, and the plumbers who apply them; the carriers, whether by water or land, who are engaged in bringing them to the towns, the manufacturers of the engines which raise the water, the builders of the houses in which the engines stand—these, and many other labourers and mechanics who directly and indirectly contribute to the same public advantage, could never have been called into employment. To have continued to use the power of the water-carriers would have rendered the commodity two hundred times dearer than it is supplied by mechanical power. The present cheapness of production, by mechanical power, supplies employment to an infinitely greater number of persons than could have been required by a perseverance in the rude and wasteful system which belonged to former ages of ignorance and wretchedness.
When a severe frost chokes up the small water-pipes that conduct the useful stream into each house, what anxiety and trouble is there in every thoroughfare! The main pipes are not frozen; and the supply is to be got in pails and pitchers from a plug in the pavement, where a temporary cock is inserted. How gladly is this device resorted to! But imagine it to be the labour of every day, and what an amount of profitable time would be deducted from domestic employ!