WORK AND WATER.
It is so easy for most of us to get a drink of water when we feel thirsty, that we are not apt to even think of the vast amount of thought and labor and money that is necessary in many parts of every country in the world in order to give people a glass or a cup of water when they want it.
And yet water is often a very costly thing, so much so indeed that there are lands where people, and civilized people too, cannot afford a drink of it every time they feel thirsty.
If we live in the country we go to our well, or our spring, or our pump from the cistern, and we get all the water we want. If we live in the city we have our hydrants, and perhaps have the water carried to every floor of the house. This is because we are Americans, and, as a nation, we believe that we cannot spend too much money in making ourselves comfortable, and having thing’s convenient around us.
We build great reservoirs and conduct into them the pure water from the streams, often far distant from our cities, and we have pipes running through every street, and into every house, so that even the poorest people can always have plenty of water, no matter what else they may have to go without.
But in many countries that were civilized and enlightened long before America was ever thought of, there are to-day no such conveniences for obtaining a drink of water.
In some places in Europe water is carried about from house to house, as the milk-man brings us milk, and some of the plans of carrying it are very curious.
In parts of Holland where the canals serve as roads, there are water-boats, that go up and down the canals serving water to everyone who wishes to buy it, and has money to pay for it. And sometimes it is pretty stale water when the last families get their supply. But people who are not used to Croton water, or Schuylkill, or Cochituate water do not seem to care much for this. They are glad enough to get water at all.
WATER CARRIERS.