Reports Relating to the Sanitary Condition of the City of London

by John Simon

No similar gaugings have, I believe, been made within the City; so I am unable to tell you with accuracy what are the proportions of waste and consumption. In an interview with your Committee on Health, when they were collecting information on the subject, Mr. Mylne, the engineer of the New River Company, stated (as a reason against fulfilling some object desired by the Committee) that within the City of London, in connexion with its distributing apparatus, there existed for the escape and waste of water, during the period of supply, ‘at least 10,000 open cocks.’

Assuming the accuracy of this statement, I doubt whether the average available supply of water for domestic purposes within the City can possibly exceed a quarter of its alleged quantity; and I am persuaded that there must be large numbers of persons to whom the enjoyment even of that reduced average is utterly unknown. Your Hon. Court, observing the incalculable waste, and knowing that the cost of water-supply (as of all other commodities) must of necessity vary according to the quantity supplied, can appreciate the consequences of so much fruitless expenditure.

I would beg likewise to observe to you that this unapplied flood of water is in itself not unobjectionable. It would be of questionable advantage if the drainage of the City were so perfect as to carry all away without inundation of the soil; while under opposite circumstances, in every quarter where drainage is absent or faulty, evil must arise from the extensive and habitual infiltration of moisture.

On the extreme inconvenience which attends the storage of water in the poorer habitations of the City, I have already reported to you, and will now only add that increased experience has given much confirmation to my view. Their receptacles are generally such as contribute to the contamination of water, and are constantly so arranged as to invite an admixture of the most varied impurities.

In the large proportion of them, which are open casks, one sees habitually a film of soot floating on the surface; one sees (if indeed one can see so deeply into water which is often turbid and opaque) that filth and rubbish lie at the bottom; one sees the interior of the cask itself dirty and mouldering.

I now merely glance at this part of the subject, because you have already on other occasions allowed me to state my knowledge at greater length. But there is one evil in particular to which I would beg leave to advert. Those works of drainage which are established under your orders depend for their efficiency on a proper supply of water; and in every case where you enforce the construction of house-drains, you order that those drains shall be served efficiently with water. Your wishes on this subject are nominally complied with by those on whom your orders are served, but are often virtually evaded by a filthy and ineffectual contrivance. The butt or cistern of the house—that on which the inmates depend for their supply of fresh and pure drinking-water, is placed in immediate contiguity to the privy, so as to reduce the requisite length of connecting pipe to the fewest possible number of inches; the application of water is not made discretionary on the users of the privy, nor are any of the cheap and common self-acting contrivances introduced; but the waste-pipe of the butt or cistern is conducted into the discharge-pipe of the privy, so that, periodically, with a frequency varying according to the arrangements of the water-company, the arrears of excrement are removed, so far as the overflow of the water-receptacle may have power to dislodge and propel them. Frequent evidence has been before me of the insufficiency of this arrangement: and, in addition to its actual failure (on the reasons of which your Surveyor can speak more competently than I) there is strong reason to object to its prevalence on other grounds. Water, as you probably know, is a very active absorbent of many gaseous materials; and the open butts, which are thus placed in immediate contact and communication with privies, must rapidly become infected by their foulness. I need not explain to you how injurious an addition this is to the other objectionable incidents of water-storage, or how unattractive as a beverage to the poor inhabitants of the City must be this vapid, privy-flavoured stuff.

For this arrangement I can suggest to your Hon. Court no easy alternative or remedy, so long as the distribution of water continues to be on its present intermittent plan: but it is matter for extreme regret that, by circumstances over which you have no control, the success of your sanitary measures should be seriously diminished. By the enforcement or execution of house-drainage, your Hon. Court has conferred great advantages on many districts of the City; but it is my duty to tell you that, in my judgment, the present condition of the water-trade contributes to neutralise those advantages, and constitutes a restriction on your power of doing good.

As respects the evils to which I have just adverted, unquestionably they admit of abatement by devoting separate water-receptacles to the very different uses of diet and drainage. But the expense of additional cisterns in tenements so poor cannot be considered trifling; and I believe that your Hon. Court would hesitate, even if you have the power, to enforce this double burthen on the owners of house-property, at a time when one may reasonably hope that the necessity for cisterns will be superseded.

There can be no doubt on the extreme degree in which it is desirable for the poor of the City of London, that water should be delivered to their houses on the principle of constant supply, and that they should thus be relieved from the expensive and unwholesome necessity of storing it in small quantities and in improper receptacles. That it is desirable is a certainty within my official knowledge and on which therefore I can give an opinion of my own. That it is practicable is not within my official knowledge; for in this part of the question are involved various considerations of hydraulic engineering, on which I am incompetent to offer an opinion. But I cannot ignore the fact, that in many parts of England and Scotland the practicability of a constant supply has been evinced by the very conclusive evidence of its success. To some such instances I alluded in my last [Report], and from the present year I can quote you a striking additional one. At Wolverhampton, in 1849, the system of supply, which had previously been intermittent, was made continuous. Instead of waste ensuing on the change, its immediate effect was a reduction of 22 per cent. on the quantity consumed. So great had been the unpopularity of the intermittent system of supply, that at the time of the change the company had not more than 600 customers. Immediately on the adoption of the new system, their customers increased, and within ten months had risen to 1400. This increase was continuing up to the date of the Report (May 4th, 1850), at which time they were adding to the number of their customers at the rate of 50 each week. The above facts (as is well observed by the resident engineer, Mr. Marten) may be taken as a fair test that the system of continuous supply is one of superior adaptation to the domestic wants of the public.

This case is but an inconsiderable fraction of the evidence which lies before the public on the subject of continuous supply. With such evidence before me, in contrast to what I observe of the distribution of water within the City of London, I cannot refrain from repeating to your Hon. Court my confirmed and deliberate opinion that our method of supply is essentially bad, and that it withholds from the poorer population of the City a large proportion of those sanitary advantages which it is the object of water to confer. No doubt it will occur to you that against evils of this nature—evils arising in the conflictive interests of water-buyer and water-seller, the first principles of commerce imply a resource; and that in this matter, as in others of the sort, a customer holds in his own hands the remedy for his dissatisfaction. But although the supply of water, in the hands of the powerful companies who vend it, is in many respects a common transaction of trade, and as such is in theory open to competition, yet I would beg to point out to your Hon. Court that, in regard of the City under your jurisdiction, no such check and no such stimulus as competition can virtually be said to exist. In every practical sense the sale of water is a monopoly. The individual customer, dwelling in Cripplegate or in Farringdon, who is dissatisfied with his bargain in water, can go to no other market; and however legitimate may be his claim to be supplied with this prime necessary of life at its cheapest rate, in the most efficient manner, and of the best possible quality, your Hon. Court, hitherto, possesses no power to enforce it.