And the Medical Officer of Health for Camberwell wrote:—
“… Of all the abominations which disgrace and pollute the dwellings of the poor, the imperfect, rarely emptied, and overflowing cesspools are by far the worst … they not merely poison the atmosphere without, but pour their emanations constantly, silently, deadly, into the interior of the houses themselves.”
Upon the quality and supply of the water which was essential for the life of the people, and upon which their health, and cleanliness, and sanitation absolutely depended, the information supplied by the Medical Officers of Health as to their respective districts brings home, far more than any general descriptions do, the full import and actualities of the great evils endured by the people, and the disastrous consequences entailed upon them.
As to the water from the surface and tidal wells, which large numbers of them used and consumed, the opinion, though expressed in various terms, was unanimous.
From Shoreditch (1860), the Medical Officer of Health wrote: “I have hardly ever exposed a sample of town spring water to the heat of a summer day for some hours without observing it to become putrid.”
In St. Giles’ (1858–9), “the water of the wells was not deemed good enough (on analysis) for watering the roads.” In St. Marylebone “44 public wells supplied water which was for the most part offensive to taste and smell.” In Kensington (1860) “all the well waters of the parish were foul.” In Rotherhithe (1857), “The water from the tidal well smelt as if it had recently been dipped from a sewer.”
The Medical Officer of Health for Lambeth declared (1856) that “the shallow well waters of London combined the worst features—they represent the drainage of a great manure bed.”
The people were driven to the use of the water from these wells owing to the deficient and intermittent supply of water by the various Water Companies—water supplied for less than an hour a day by one single stand-pipe in a court containing hundreds of people—water supplied only every second and third day, and none on Sundays, the day of all others on which it was most wanted; and the house-owners had provided no cisterns or reservoirs of proper capacity, and the Vestries had not compelled the house-owners to do so.
In some parishes hundreds of houses had no supply at all. In some houses which had a supply the tenants were deliberately deprived thereof by the Water Companies, because the house-owner had not paid the water-rate.