The Act, however, being a voluntary or adoptive Act, was not likely to be adopted and put into force by those by whom a certain amount of financial liability might be incurred as the result. As a matter of fact it never was put in force by any vestry, and it remained a dead letter.
It was memorable, however, as embodying for the first time in legislation the idea that the housing of the people was a public matter with which a public authority might properly concern itself, even to the extent of competing with private enterprise, and pledging the rates as security.
The supply of water to London, both as regarded quality and quantity, had, since the epidemic of 1848–9, been engaging the attention of Committees of Parliament, the belief that the epidemic of cholera had been increased and propagated by the filthy and impure water having given an impetus to the demand for ameliorative measures. In 1852 an Act[49] was passed by which the companies taking their water from the Thames were required to remove their intakes to some place above Teddington Lock, where the tide would not affect it, and the sewage of London would not be intermixed with it. This was a considerable step in the right direction, for though the river above Teddington Lock received the sewage of many large towns and villages, it was at least free from contamination by the sewage and filth of the metropolis.
Other improvements were also enacted. Reservoirs within a certain distance of St. Paul’s Cathedral were to be covered in, and all water intended for domestic use was to be filtered before being supplied to the consumer; and provision was also made for a constant supply of water by every company within five years after the passing of the Act.
But the companies were given five years within which to effect the removal of the intake from the foulest parts of the river to above tidal reach—and thus for a wholly unnecessary term the cause which had wrought such havoc among the people was permitted to continue its disastrous effects.
V
The epidemic of cholera in 1849 had failed to produce any lasting effect upon the local authorities or the public opinion of London, and the nemesis of renewed neglect and indifference was once again to fall upon the metropolis.
Cholera had kept hovering about. In 1852 a number of suspicious cases occurred in various districts. In 1853 suspicion passed into certainty, and the disease assumed the form of an epidemic—as many as 102 deaths from it occurring in the first week in November. Then it died down.