Taking into account all these considerations, together with others of a more technical description; and believing that water is eligible for human consumption in proportion as it is free from the admixture of any material foreign to its simple elementary constitution—exception being made only of so much dissolved air as will render it sparkling and palatable; I entertain no doubt that a water, devoid of considerable hardness, would (cæteris paribus) for the purposes of cooking and drinking, be far preferable to that which the companies now distribute through the City of London.
Hitherto, however, I have spoken of the waters supplied to the City, merely as regards that large impregnation of earthy material which they gather from their source; and I have criticised them only in respect of that admixture. Their essential chemical quality is one native to the soil from which they are derived; and whatever censure thus far belongs to them could only have been avoided by the selection of a different source. Chemistry, in the days of Morrys and Myddleton, was not sufficiently advanced to inform the water-merchants of a city on those different conditions which determine the fitness of a soil to serve as the natural or artificial gathering-ground of a supply; and by which (as they vary in different localities) hardness is imparted to the rain-fall of one district, while softness is preserved for that of another.
But there are other evils belonging to these waters, less appreciable indeed by chemistry, but open to universal observation, and meriting unqualified blame. They are conducted to the metropolis in open channels; they receive in large measure the surface-washing, the drainage, and even the sewage of the country through which they pass; they derive casual impurities from bathers and barges; they are liable to whatever pollutions mischievous or filthy persons may choose to inflict on them; and then on their arrival in the metropolis (after a short subsidence in reservoirs, which themselves are not unobjectionable) are distributed, without filtration, to the public. Whatever chemistry may say on this subject (and I need not remind you of very powerful causes of disease which lie beyond its cognisance), I cannot consider it matter of indifference, that we drink—with whatever dilution, or with whatever imperfect oxidation, the excremental and other impurities which mingle in these sources of our supply. Such admixtures, though in their quantity less, are in their quality identical with those which render Thames-water, as taken at London Bridge, inadmissible for domestic consumption, and which occasion it, when stored for sea-use, to undergo, before it becomes fit to drink, a succession of offensive changes strictly comparable to putrefaction.
In this slovenly method of conveyance and distribution there is a neglect of common precaution for the purity and healthfulness of the supply, which I must report to you as highly objectionable: and this—the method of supply to our great metropolis, strikes one the more with astonishment and disgust, as one reflects on the long experience and admirable models which past centuries in foreign countries have supplied; and especially, as one remembers those colossal works which, more than two thousand years ago, were constructed under the Roman government, for the cool and cleanly conduction of water.
The present imperfections of knowledge forbid me to cite, as definite causes of disease, the contaminations to which I have adverted: I cannot say to you—pointing to our classified list of sickness and mortality, this depends on drinking the diluted drainage of Hertford, that on the contributions of Ware. Indeed I know that, under the influence of the river and the atmosphere, very considerable changes occur in the materials thus furnished, tending eventually to render them inert; and if injury to life occur from their ingestion, it is probably only under peculiar and exceptional conditions, increasing their quantity, or delaying their oxidation. In protesting against their continued distribution as articles of diet, I therefore insist less on inferences deducible from medicine, and shall probably have the concurrence of your Hon. Court in grounding my appeal on the common principles of taste.
On the incidental contaminations to which the pipe-water consumed within the City becomes liable, by reason of its storage in receptacles both foul in themselves and surrounded by causes of foulness, I have already addressed you; and I have shown to you the dependence of this evil on the system of intermittent supply as adapted to the houses of the poor.
Of other sources of water-supply existing within the City of London, there are many of small extent in the form of superficial springs. These are eagerly sought after, sometimes from a distance, on account of their coolness and sparkling condition. In the Appendix[51] you will find an account of one of these waters—that in the vicinity of Bishopsgate church, which is very much drunk in that quarter of the City. Any praise given to it illustrates exceedingly the fallacy of popular judgment on such subjects, and shows how easily those qualities of coolness and freshness, which are absent from stored waters, impose on the palate, and induce a preference to be given to waters which are relatively most objectionable.
[51] See [page 170].
The chemical faults which belong to our London pipe-water are possessed in a far greater degree by this water of Bishopsgate pump, and the latter has moreover some vices which are absent from the former; but the vapidity and fustiness of water which has been stored in cisterns are so repugnant to the taste, that the water chemically preferable is not in practice preferred.
To the use of waters of this description, within a large city, there is always much objection. In addition to extreme hardness, which in London they universally possess, they are liable, in a dangerous degree, to become contaminated by the leakage of drains, and by other sources of impurity; as, for instance, where situated within the immediate vicinity of grave-yards they derive products of animal decomposition from the soil.[52] Very recently, a celebrated pump within the City of London, that adjoining St. Bride’s church-yard, has been abandoned on account of such impregnations. Or perhaps I should rather say (for the difference again illustrates the readiness with which the palate is deceived or corrupted) that it was not abandoned—for till almost the last moment the neighbours adhered to it with fondness; but the parochial authorities—alarmed by the proximity of cholera—caused its handle to be locked.